Well friends, the WGA strike rages on. And on. And like the old Christmas song says: "It doesn't show signs of stopping." The Broadway strike briefly crippled New York City's economy, but it was over in nineteen days. The WGA Strike is on day #38. That's week #6. That's month #2. And there's no end in sight. We're reaching the point where people are going to start losing homes, if they haven't already.
Do you know the old joke about the aspiring actress who was so naive she slept with the screenwriter to get ahead? There's a lot of truth there. Screenwriters don't get near enough respect. That may be coming to light more now that the strike is on, but it's been going on for decades. It's gotten so bad that a lot of the huge blockbusters start filming without a completed script! Like, a lot of them.
Can you name me five screenwriters? OK, five screenwriters who don't also direct? In movie reviews, your average critic will gush about how great Brad Pitt's performance was for five paragraphs, then mention the screenplay in passing, if at all. Guess what? All those pretty words coming out of Mr. Pitt's pretty mouth originated somewhere. Directors and actors tend to get all the credit for a movie's success. Unless a movie sucks, then it's -- "Who wrote this garbage?" Where is the love?
If a movie is a salad, then the screenplay is the lettuce. You can throw all the bacon and cheese and croutons in a bowl that you want, but if you don't have a strong, solid base of high-quality lettuce? My friend, you don't have a salad. With me throwing out razor-sharp analogies like that, I think you can tell that you've come to the right place for writing advice.
Philip asks:
Sigh. Perhaps I missed it. What exactly are the writers asking for? I confess to not having seen or read what they want, in terms of numbers. You can safely assume the readers of Cinematical are smart enough to digest the numbers. In addition, I would like to hear why the studios resist or are hesitant to comply. However, I'm not hearing that here on Cinematical, a website devoted to the love of film. It saddens me to see a website that I truly enjoy pass on the numerous opportunities to enlighten those of us outside the business, whilst telling its readers to just support the writers without a basis in fact for said support. It may come as a newsflash to many in the Writers Guild, but lots of people are heading into the holidays wondering where the rent is coming from.
That's not a phenomenon exclusive to the film industry. And even though I work on year-to-year contract for my own company, I have just enough business acumen to realize the company invests much more of its capital and risk in staying profitable than I do in working for them. That gives them the edge whenever I ask for a raise, especially knowing that our business may or may not have had a profitable year in comparison to past performances. So I guess what I'm saying (and rather clumsily I do realize) is that I want to support the little guy. I just need information, specifics. Because what I see from the outside is the big guy taking 90% of the risk and the little guy saying he isn't getting enough of the pie. I'm sure I'm wrong. Just tell me exactly why.
Sigh. Cinematical has extensively covered every aspect of the WGA strike, actually. Here's a collection of just some of our pieces on the ordeal. As far as what the writers are asking for, this video is a perfect, concise explanation. The main issue is that the writers want a very small increase in residual income for sales of DVDs and for internet sales (iTunes, Amazon Unbox, etc). Writers currently make $.04 for each $20 DVD sold. The AMPTP wants to give us the DVD rate (.3% of the gross -- roughly half a cent for each $2 iTunes episode download) for the internet downloads, despite the huge amount of money (around $.50 per DVD) that they save on shipping, manufacturing, etc. (Basically, the WGA is asking for 2.5% of internet sales, the AMPTP is offering .3 - .36%. For a terrific, non-partisan breakdown of financial details of the strike, check out Jonathan Handel's posts at The Huffington Report.)
In addition, on the network websites you can watch entire episodes of television shows for free. The networks sell ads (that annoying commercial you have to watch before your show begins) and earn lotsa money from running the shows online (an estimated $4.6 billion over the next three years, to be exact). But writers receive NONE of that revenue. Not one cent. How can this be? The studios claim these downloads are "for promotional purposes only."
The WGA wanted the amount a writer earns from a DVD sale to go up from $.04 cents per sale to $.08 cents per sale. Pretty reasonable, no? The AMPTP offered considerably less, and the WGA took the doubling proposal off the table. The writers also want internet showings to pay the same amount as television showings. Again, makes sense, right? Especially in this internet-dominated world? But the AMPTP claims that the internet is still "too new" a medium to set a reasonable percentage. Do you know anyone who doesn't use the internet? Like, anyone? It's not going anywhere.
The writers are not doing this to further line overstuffed pockets, they genuinely need these residuals to support themselves and their families during frequent times of unemployment. And as for the complaint that the WGA is whiny and things are tough all over, the WGA is surely aware that they are not the only ones who don't know where next month's rent money will come from. It is not a writer-exclusive problem, and I strongly doubt they have lost sight of the giant unemployment crisis in this country. They're simply standing up for themselves, and they should. Movies and television make a butt load of money. Movies and television do not exist without writers. It's as simple as that.
As for me, if I want to keep getting paid for writing this column, I need some more questions and comments from you readers! I've got some great interviews coming up, including one with Justin Zackham, writer of the new Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman film The Bucket List. But this site was designed to help, and I've answered just about every question I've received. I'd love to refill the queue, so hit me up here or over at my personal site.! Happy holidays, everybody!
1. Salad analogies aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this column, Patrick. It's nice to see EXACTLY what the writers are asking for, and I'd agree that none of it seems outrageous with the exception of internet downloads/viewing. You don't get to pummel the poor viewer every 5.5 minutes with advertising, thus lowering the ROI per viewing via the internet method vs. TV. But I digress. I'm no negotiating expert. Browsing over the links to past articles on the strike I could not find the exact answers that you supplied here, Patrick. At the time I wrote the above post, we were getting a writer's strike update from Cinematical almost daily but I couldn't find anything news-worthy in them, aside from which celebrity handed out trail nut mix at the picket lines today. Today's post nailed what we're talking about.
To the point, you followed up my post with a "Sigh" of your own, but my assertion stood unassailed until you posted the exact numbers today. I read Cinematical daily. Indeed, I enjoy this website even more so than others in this vein, Variety included. I have not seen these exact numbers in any post since the strike began. My base argument was about exact numbers, not a lack of consistent coverage. Cinematical has been faithful to cover the strike, even when there was nothing new to report.
In closing, you've written a great piece here, Patrick, that gives me the reason I needed to root for the writers. Hey, I'm a small wheel in a big machine myself. I can relate. But I'm not brain-dead, either. Strikes are not sporting events where we root for one side or the other. Most likely both sides will have some valid reasons for their positions. All we need, as outsiders, are access to those reasons so we can make an informed decision about who is closer to right. As I've said in other posts, there is no doubt the studios have money to spare. And in regards to Brad Pitt needing those pretty words to look good onscreen, I reply with this: the best script in the world NEEDS an actor people want to see. People don't go to movies to see some B-lister wax poetic about the future of life in Darfur. It takes a combination of Mr. Pitt AND the script.
Happy holidays to all.
Philip
Posted at 1:09AM on Dec 13th 2007 by Philip