On Jan 10, 10:50 am, "tigermorp...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <tigermorp...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> As for the Writers Strike.... is there anyone that wants to explain
> the details for me so I can have an opinion? Preferably a
> writer. ;-) Is it TV and Screen? Just TV? Isn't SWG encompassing
> of both?
>
> TBird <---- one and a half more weeks until school resumes
The strike covers both film and TV writers. You just notice the TV
side sooner because of the short turn-around times between script and
screen. Although I don't believe any features shut down filming
because of the strike, there are a number of features that are in
limbo because their scripts weren't ready for filming when the pencils
went down. (That Dan Brown book that wasn't DiVinci Code is one of
them. I believe the "Justice League" live action is also in that
category.) So you could start noticing a lull in the number of
features this time next year.
> What will it take to end the strike before we lose all our favorite
> shows?
4 cents. <g>
Back in 1988, the last writers' strike, the AMPTP (aka the moguls) had
a whole "oh, woe is us, pity us" song and dance about how the
entertainment industry was in trouble because of home video and how
could anyone possibly believe it will make money, it's going to be the
death of us all, how can anyone without a crystal ball be expected to
know what the future will bring. So, how about we pay the writers 4
cents a copy for now (on a product that probably sold for $20-$80 at
the time -- remember when there were films that were expected to be
released for the rental market only?), but once we figure out how to
make money from this new new market, we'll come back to the Guild with
a fair percentage of the proceeds.
The WGA ended the strike in 1988. And they've been waiting 20 years
for the moguls to come back with their fair deal. (In the pre-strike
round of negotiations in 2007, the WGA asked for 4 cents more -- a
total of 8 cents -- and the moguls walked out of the negotiations
until the WGA agreed to take that off the table.)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... Because now the moguls
are doing the exact same song and dance about the internet. No one
can possibly make money, we can't see the future, blah, blah, blah...
which is exactly the opposite of what they're telling their
stockholders meetings, where they gleefully re****t earnings of tens of
millions of dollars on internet sales and streaming.
So, here are the numbers:
Writer's residual for sale of a DVD: 4 cents
Writer's residual for a download sale of a movie or episode (think
iTunes): 4 cents (I think that's right. Or it could be some miniscule
percentage of the sales price, I forget, either way it's pennies.)
Writer's residual for streaming/online viewing of a movie or
episode: Zip. Nada. Nothing. Zero.
Here's my POV: Most TV freelance writers consider themselves lucky if
they can nab one script assignment a year. In the past, this meant
that in addition to the roughly $30,000 fee for writing a 1-hour drama
story and script (these are WGA rates for network primetime guild
signatory shows, the fee for guild signatory cable is about 1/3 less),
if the show didn't get canceled and their episode reran on primetime
network television, they would get a residual of the same amount
again. That's almost enough money to only need to have one roommate
to live in Los Angeles in a two-bedroom apartment <g> (You can find
these numbers here:
http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/writers_resources/contracts/min2004.pdf)
Now think of shows like 24. The new paradigm is that they don't rerun
on primetime TV anymore, they go directly to the Internet, where if a
viewer buys the episode outright from iTunes, the writer gets 4 cents
(or less). And if the viewer streams it from the FOX website, the
writer gets NOTHING. (But the viewer will have to sit through
COMMERCIALS that FOX has gotten paid for.) So basically we're looking
at a freelancer's annual income cut in half.
Here's a video that probably explain what's going on better than me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ55Ir2jCxk
In fact, there are a number of brilliant videos coming out from
frustrated writers and actors who have no other creative outlet at the
moment. You can find links to a number of them here:
http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/search/label/Video.
I highly
recommend "Murder Unscripted" and the "Speechless" series.
I'm not a WGA member. In fact, my career was (is?) an object lesson
in why the Guild is so im****tant. I've written scripts for "non-
signatory" production companies (ones that aren't covered by the Guild
agreement) for a fraction of what the going market rate for a script
should be. (My agent thought it would be good for my career -- he's
no longer my agent <g>) Therefore, I've never received residuals,
even for projects that had my name on the screen. I've been pressured
to write six or seven drafts of a project for free while the Guild
protects freelancers from being taken advantage of in this way by
requiring an extra fee beyond a certain number of rewrites. I never
had health insurance or a pension/401k when I was working in TV.
Ironically, to my knowledge I may be the only writer who made any
money from the DVD releases of HL: The Series -- only because I was
paid for my work on the special features! (Highlander was produced
under WGC (Writer's Guid of Canada) jurisdiction, not WGA.)
Sorry for the info dump, but you asked <g>
Donna
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