On Monday, the members of the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike.
This has thrown the entire industry into a wee bit of chaos. Late night talkshows have already started running repeats. Many sitcoms only have a few episodes before they’re out of fresh stuff. Most hour long shows will be able to last until December or January.
Between now and then, most of the viewing public won’t notice much different aside from the mention on the news every now and then.
But a lot of other people will be noticing.
With no new shows being produced, the people that make production happen are left with nothing to do. The people and businesses who support those production crew members–everything from prop shops to caterers–are losing money. If the strike goes on as long as some predict, getting productions back up and running may be a problem as related support businesses, already facing higher costs for everything (just like the rest of us), may not be around.
I’m frequently very critical of the quality of the shows I watch on TV and the movies I pay way too much to watch. I’ll even complain (frequently) about the writing on shows. Don’t let that fool you into thinking I don’t sympathize with the writers.
Having worked as a professional writer (in the news business, not the entertainment biz), I know how difficult it is to put out quality. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is when you have to satisfy numerous commercial interests (studios, advertisers, “hands on” producers who don’t quite get it, etc.) and deal with drama and egos (from actors, directors, producers, executives, and what have you). Perhaps most of all, I know that the general public doesn’t understand how much work it actually is to create something that even vaguely holds together after all the other fingers poke at it.
Joss Whedon just recently wrote:
Writing is largely not considered work. Art in general is not considered work. Work is a thing you physically labor at, or at the very least, hate. Art is fun. (And Hollywood writers are overpaid, scarf-wearing dainties.) It’s an easy argument to make. And a hard one to dispute.
My son is almost five. He is just beginning to understand what I do as a concept. If I drove a construction crane he’d have understood it at birth. And he’d probably think I was King of all the Lands in my fine yellow crane. But writing – especially writing a movie or show, where people other than the writer are all saying things that they’re clearly (to an unschooled mind) making up right then – is something to get your head around.
Whedon is one of the writers and creators out there that rarely produces anything I can seriously complain about (especially since even he admit just how bad his bad stuff *cough*Buffymovie*cough* is). He and others like him–others who have put down their pens and closed their work laptops–keep me entertained. That’s no small task and I’d like to see them paid fairly for it.
The problem is, in the modern media business world, fair pay doesn’t exist. The top of the food chain gobbles up as much as they can and everyone else just gets the crumbs. Granted, those crumbs are still a whole lot bigger than what I ever expect to see from a job, but in that eco-system they are crumbs. This is how it has been for a long time and, probably and sadly, how it will continue to be for some time to come.
At issue (but only one of the issues) is how writers get paid when their work begins to appear in new media formats like DVD and webcasts. Thing is, “new” media isn’t that new any more. The studios have had more than a decade to work toward figuring it out.
But just like the RIAA, they’re slow to adapt and learn.
Television networks fought tooth and nail to keep their shows off of the web. Now every major network has it’s own webcasts set up for its shows. There’s revenue generated there. Not what they get from putting it up during prime time, but revenue none the less. The overhead to show stuff online is lower (or should be) than to broadcast it in traditional ways. The advent of digital production and storage should have cut the cost of warehousing film and editing and a slew of other production steps.
Yet, the consumer still pays through the nose for so much of that entertainment. The profit margin for the big companies must still be there. Bu the people at the bottom of the ladder–the writers, the actors, sometimes the directors–most certainly haven’t seen a comparable increase in their bottom paychecks. Especially when what you’re comparing them to is the network or production company executive’s pay grade.
I want to see the strike end soon–hopefully before we all notice that there’s nothing new on TV except sports shows and game shows. (It may already be too late for that, apparently.) But I hope it ends with the writers getting what they deserve. I hope that they don’t end up fighting a war of attrition.
Most of all, I hope that this really gets everyone in the entertainment business thinking more about making effective use of that new media they’ve been tinkering with for the past five years.
So, to all the writers out there, I support you and wish you the best. But, honestly, for once I’m really glad I’m not one of you. A strike like this is a difficult thing for everyone.
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