comment #1

Caustic712 says ...

I care, but I'm a wannabe for the industry. I don't think the masses will start to care until/if their favorite TV shows dry up. Hopefully the studios will come to their senses before things reach that level.

comment #2

Josh Massey says ...

Has there been a single piece defending the studios? I'd love to read that, only to learn if their stances have any basis in logic. The "poor, poor writers against the bad, greedy studios" angle dried up three weeks ago.

comment #3

sweet_billy says ...

i have a hard time feeling sorry for millionaire screenwriters (some of which are my friends)bitching about this and standing outside picketing. it feels wrong.

also, everyone needs to stop bitching about missing their favorite television shows etc.

read a book.

comment #4

shepherd12345 says ...

As a WGA writer and a fan of your site, certainly I've been checking in with Nikki's blog a lot more than I used to, and checking in with yours much less. If your overall clicks-per-day rate isn't dipping too much, though, you probably don't have much of a reason to worry. We'll be back after all this ends.

comment #5

Dravot says ...

Josh,

First of all, VERY few screenwriters are "millionaires."

Secondly, the hard work and creativity of screenwriters is at the beginning of a chain of events that ultimately generates TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars to the studios. Why shouldn't the people who generate all that material, material that sometimes has a lasting monetary value to those studios, share a tiny fraction of that wealth?

It's not about "feeling sorry" for us. It's about a fair share.

comment #6

christian says ...

Yes, we are definitely missing the whole "poor poor studios against the bad, greedy writers" angle.

Yet I imagine the right wing talk radio stations across So Cal might be your ticket for that.

Michael Eisner did chime in with a sobering summation too. I mean, he's clearly struggling.

comment #7

rocco says ...

"artists" striking...it just don't jive.

I have no interest. We all know this will get resolved and that there's no danger of the entertainment industry vanishing. It'll come down to a few tenths of a percent either way and in the end everyone wins.

I'm all for fair compensation, but it's not like these are blue-collar auto-workers eking out a living...for those writers who do struggle, my admiration for their risk-taking is balanced by the total self-indulgence of the decision.

comment #8

NicholasVanOrton says ...

I'm not a writer, but I work in the industry, and for me the striking writers represent MUCH more than just their group. To me they represent all of America's middle class and our anger at the corrupt government and the big inequality between the haves and have nots. When I honk my horn I'm giving a symbolic middle finger to corporate America, their lobbyists, and multi-million dollar golden parachutes. I fully support the writers. They are in the right (or in the write, if you will). When the studios and egomaniacal movie stars can't plug their films on Leno and Letterman during the awards season, that will hurt them almost as much as all the lost ad revenue. I sincerely hope everyone rallies behind the writers and realizes that this isn't just some insular thing, but in the long run affects us all.

comment #9

christian says ...

"but it's not like these are blue-collar auto-workers eking out a living"

But here we go again with the ol' "ditch diggers nobility" versus the self-indulgent greed of the people who toil for years without pay at all.

And blue collar auto workers make pretty damn good wages thanks to their unions:

"People are just jealous because folks are making $29 an hour without a college degree, and they think you shouldn't be able to do that anywhere in the world," Green says. "The UAW has held on to that, and to me, that's pretty big."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-10-28-uaw-middleclass_N.htm

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?"

"I … don't know. What … could he do? What would you tell him?"

"To shrug."

comment #10

Monument says ...

"I'm all for fair compensation, but it's not like these are blue-collar auto-workers eking out a living...for those writers who do struggle, my admiration for their risk-taking is balanced by the total self-indulgence of the decision."

This attitude is completely vile. It makes the assumption that artistic careers are not real jobs and they should just quit their whining and put on a toolbelt. Journalists write for a living and they don't even have to come up with the content, they creatively report the news. Is that more of a real job than a screenwriter?

The amount writers in Hollywood working two and three jobs to supplement their writing career far outnumber the millionaires. Some writers only get one job per year, if they're lucky. It's amazing to me that the writers can be both the most important and least respected part of the film industry. Without writers, there is no film industry, plain and simple.

Do authors of books receive royalties? Yes. Do musicians and songwriters receive royalties? Yes. Should screenwriters be treated any differently? Hell no.

Studios are putting television and film content online right now, they are making money off of ad revenue and legal downloads right now. Are the writers being fairly compensated for it? No they are not.

It's incredible to me how many people claim to be fans of film or even hard core cinephiles but don't support the people that create the product.

comment #11

Unison says ...

I've seen Juno, and that Diablo Cody is no Tarantino, that's for damn sure!

comment #12

bluefugue says ...

I sure as hell care, since I am a script reader and without scripts to read, I am out of a job.

Anything you can post about the strike would be much appreciated, Jeff. I'm also on Nikki Finke's site like white on rice.

comment #13

MASON says ...

Josh,

Before and now during the strike, almost every article in Variety and the LA Times was anti-WGA. Only now is their coverage starting to at least approach objectivity -- probably because the more questions the Average Joe asks, the harder it is to defend the studios behavior in all this.

comment #14

mrmystery says ...

the striking writers represent...all of America's middle class and our anger at the corrupt government and the big inequality between the haves and have nots.

Right, bomber, it's all george bush's fault. are you already in line waiting for Lions for Lambs to open? Blows against the Empire!

comment #15

christian says ...

The strike does indeed represent another attack on workers by Bush's "Ownership Society" of corporations that regularly receive welfare from taxpayers. It's part of a growing, undeniable trend in our country. The middle-class is vanishing.

And when the autoworkers complain about lowered wages and outsourced jobs, I'm sure Josh and Delbomber and others will feel their pain.

comment #16

Monument says ...

The middle class is indeed disappearing and aside from the administration, much of the blame can be placed on the "baby-boomers." They were able to go to school, pay cheap tuition, get decent jobs, buy a house etc.

Meanwhile the cost of living in this country has skyrocketed. Our generation pays astronomical tuition for college, has difficulty finding work after college, and then can hardly afford to pay back our student loans let alone buy something as exorbitant as a house.

But the baby-boomers, who we work for, have enjoyed the fruits of economic growth, and a ridiculously balooned housing market, but refuse to pay us any more.

The disappearing middle class is a reality, and the gap between the poor and the rich is ever increasing. That "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality might have applied in previous generation, but it doesn't now. I work full time in what would be considered "good jobs" and we live paycheck to paycheck. Something is wrong here, and the answer isn't harder work, hard work just doesn't cut it anymore.

comment #17

corey3rd says ...

I want to know what Diablo Cody is wearing for sunglasses today. We need a daily update to her strike fashion.

Far as people relating to the striking writers - we live in an America where people really don't give a crap about Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran.

The average Teamster in the motion picture biz earns more money than the average screenwriter and they have better benefits.

The news media won't be giving this strike a fair shake since the reporters are all owned by the studios. Fox News kept repeating the $200K per screenwriter lie. They didn't care to fact check because they're the enemy.

comment #18

mrmystery says ...

Christian, your attempt to equate the writers' strike with Bush's ownership society is funnier than anything those same writers have banged out for Two and a Half Men. Monument, I got a B.A. in phisosophy which landed me a job moving furniture for a living. Took me ten years to pay back my student loans. Sack up, you;re embarrassing yourself.

comment #19

Craig Kennedy says ...

Indifference to Coppola. Indifference to the writer's strike.

Where's your soul, man? Would it help if it was directed by Ridley Scott or Michael Mann? Seems to be the only things you get excited about anymore.

comment #20

Dirty Harry says ...

The middle class is disappearing? You know why I don't miss being a liberal? Because retaining one's ideology in the face of actual facts was exhausting.

Last two quarters: GDP growth: +3.9%

Unemployemnt: 4.7% (aka: full employment)

6.8% - growth in total incomes - 9/06 - 9/07
7.1% - growth in total salaries + wages - 9/06 - 9/07

Compared to: 2.8% - total consumer inflation rate, 9/06 - 9/07 (this includes gas prices, etc...)

And a few rough days on the stock market doen't change the fact that it's still hovering around a whopping 13,000.

More people own homes than ever before -- even in the face of a slumping housing market -- and this includes record minority home ownership -- and homelessness plummeted.

Better liberal than right!

comment #21

Monument says ...

"Sack up, you;re embarrassing yourself."

Really? I don't feel embarrassed. College degrees and hard work don't amount to the same thing that they did 30 years ago. Salaries have not kept pace with the cost of living, not even close; that's not complaining that's a fact. If I were sitting on my ass, collecting welfare, and complaining about cost of living, that might be embarrassing.

comment #22

christian says ...

And thanks to the incredible fiscal fantasies of DH and his free-market warriors, our debt just hit 9 trillion:

"Last month, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law an increase in the government's borrowing ceiling to $9.815 trillion. It was the fifth debt limit increase since Bush took office in January 2001. Those increases have totaled $3.865 trillion.

The administration contends the rising debt reflects such factors as slow economic growth during the 2001 recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the cost of fighting terrorism."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071107/national_debt.html?.v=1

And didn't Americans get your message about all this wonderfulness they're ignoring?

"One year before Election Day 2008, most Americans are dismayed by the country's direction, pessimistic about the Iraq war and anxious about the economy. Two of three disapprove of the job President Bush is doing. Nearly a year after Democrats took control of Congress, three of four Americans say it isn't achieving much, either.

In all, 72 percent of those surveyed in a USA Today/Gallup Poll taken Oct. 12-14 say they are dissatisfied with how things are going in the United States, while just 26 percent are satisfied. Not since April have even one-third of Americans been happy with the country's course, the longest national funk in 15 years."

And of course DH, more than half of America doesn't play the stock-market nor own much more than a share. Unlike your elites on Wall Street who rush to the government for handouts when they fuck up with their market gambling...

comment #23

bluefugue says ...

>College degrees and hard work don't amount to the same thing that they did 30 years ago. Salaries have not kept pace with the cost of living, not even close; that's not complaining that's a fact.

That is certainly my experience. My B.A. in its own right is good for about $10/hour because it means I can type. In L.A., that's barely a living wage. This is why I am belatedly looking into an advanced degree or some kind of vocational training. I realized recently that I am not, nor ever have been (since I joined the working world) what you could describe as "middle class." It came as something of a shock.

I've been able to make a bit more money as a script reader, but it is becoming an incredibly tenuous way to make a living. Even before the strike it was so, and now obviously it's anyone's guess how much longer I can keep paychecks coming in.

comment #24

Monument says ...

Anybody else see this interview with Warren Buffet? He offers a million dollars to anyone on the Forbes 400 who can prove that he/she pays a higher tax rate than their secretaries. He says that he doesn't use any accounting tricks or tax shelters, just pays what he owes, and his income tax rate is around 14%. It's refreshing to hear this kind of honesty.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/21553857

comment #25

StewartforPresident says ...

Dirty if you are going to try to refute the dissapearance of the middle class you should use some better stats.

GDP over 2 Quarters represents nothing, you need a longer trend line than that. Its likes me saying the Q107 GDP growth rate of .6% proves the economy is in trouble, or the sluggish 2.1% growth in Q407 or the dismal 1.1% growth in Q306.

Besides Bernake came out today stating he saw the economy slowing down until at least the second half of 2008, saying their was still a chance for a recession. Confirming Greespans warning.

Total wages has nothing to due with the Middle class. You need to look at Real Wages by income bracket and Wealth distribution, which since the Bush tax cuts have decreased for every quartile expect the wealthiest 25%, the only real winners have been the top 1%.

Oh and home ownership always increases, it called population growth.

Homelessness plummeted? Please provide what you are basing this on.

Oh and if you graduated from college and can't seem to make a living, you should have chosen a better major.

comment #26

Dirty Harry says ...

Low taxes are why the economy's moving along as well as it is.

You can cherry pick the bad news, but the leading indicators say we're doing very well -- especially the middle class.

And defecit shmefecit. When has the defecit ever hurt the economy? Defecits go back to FDR. They're a great indicator of out of control spending, but a canard when it comes to the health of the economy.

As a percentage of GDP -- a real measurement -- defecits are well within control and norms.

With high defecits this economy of ours has boomed since the Reagan tax cuts of 1981. We've had two shallow recessions in 26 years. All with defecits. Total canard.

comment #27

Josh Massey says ...

"Why shouldn't the people who generate all that material, material that sometimes has a lasting monetary value to those studios, share a tiny fraction of that wealth?"

Ok, first, they already are sharing that wealth by being paid in the first place.

I'm not on any side, though, only because I'm uneducated on the issue - which I admitted upfront. I was just wondering out loud what the flipside to this pro-writer drumbeat was, because I would like to learn about - gasp! - alternate viewpoints. Of course, just asking that question immediately means I'm anti-writer to some, which isn't the case at all.

I just won't blindly jump on the side of the "working man," especially when I see studios risking their own money with potential losses while writers still get paid whether it's Titanic or Gigli.

And Dravot, the "millionaires" line wasn't mine.

comment #28

Dirty Harry says ...

Sorry, forgot the homelessness link: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SP14A80&show_article=1&lst=1

And what Bernake "says" and what people "feel" in polls aren't the economy. The economy is the indicators I listed earlier: Inflation, unemployment, QUARTERLY growth, and income growth.

Look at any numbers you want to come to the conclusion you want, but those numbers are the economy. And the economy is doing very, very well.

comment #29

Sean says ...

Sorry to interrupt the petty in-fighting, but...
Josh - if you're genuinely interested in the studio's side, this is their main point:

- Nobody knows whether Internet distribution can be profitable. Therefore, people who would earn residuals from the content being distributed over the Internet do not deserve ANY royalties for the length of their entire next contract (which, I believe, is three years). This is the position which they have stated repeatedly during advertising.

Keep in mind, the companies sell advertisements with their Internet distribution, the cost of which is dependent on how many downloads other episodes of the show have had.

The studios have, for years, fought to reduce royalties as much as possible -- even beyond Hollywood accounting. First, they set a very very low rate for VHS, justifying it by saying that VHS cost a lot to make, and didn't sell very much anyway. Some writers balked, but they ultimately settled at a low, low rate -- the rate is roughly 4 cents per unit sold. When DVD came along, the studios said, "Oh, we don't know if this will be profitable at all, so settle for the same rate and we'll see how it does. It won't matter, nobody *buys* movies." And the WGA accepted this, even though many people pointed out that DVDs cost far less to manufacture and, thus, the studios were getting more profit than they have previously been entitled to. That was at the last contract signing, when DVD meant practically nothing.

But now everybody has seen the way that the DVD market exploded... but writers are still getting 4 cents per disc sold.

Writers were trying to negotiate for a fairer chunk of that pie, but were willing to put that aside in order to start negotiations on Internet distribution, which is more important because it is regarded by the industry as The Future of distribution. Both sides want to set a precedent based on that belief.

The studios side is that if they have to give the writers a cut of that, then they will have to give directors and actors a cut of it as well, and that giving up royalties means less pure profit for them. The strikers believe they are entitled to a reasonable royalty rate, especially considering that manufacturing costs have now been eliminated from the equation.

comment #30

Sean says ...

I have no idea why I wrote "advertising"; total brain fart. I meant their public statements in the build-up to the strike.

comment #31

Monument says ...

It seems pretty simple to me. Authors and musicians collect royalties on their compositions every time there is a purchase, hard copy or digital. Why should it be different for screenwriters.

The "Titanic or Gigli" argument doesn't hold up either, it completely disregards the quality of the execution.

One of the big issues at hand is the percentage that screenwriters will make from digital sales. The studios are posting content online, making money from legal downloads and ad revenue right now, but the writers aren't being compensated.

The studios claim that they don't know what the future holds, what kind of digital sales models will exist in the future. I say, tough shit, pay up.

Just to give an example of the kind of compensation we're talking about. Do you know how much the screenwriter makes from every DVD sale? FOUR CENTS! You can do the math on how much the studio keeps.

It is beyond me how anyone can be against the writers on this issue. They create the content and are not fairly compensated. For every Akiva Goldsman in the world, there are dozens of writers making much much less.

comment #32

Sean says ...

"I just won't blindly jump on the side of the "working man," especially when I see studios risking their own money with potential losses while writers still get paid whether it's Titanic or Gigli."

It's basically a question of intellectual property and copyrights of creative material. Very complicated stuff which I can't sum up adequately here, which you should look in to, if only to understand just how justified the writers are.

But, let me twist things around on you: if the studios eliminate royalty rates, then a screenwriter really will be paid the same whether he hands in 'Titanic' or 'Gigli'. On the other hand, royalties reward writers for writing successful movies, thus giving them a simple, obvious motivation to do their job better. [Assuming that their job -- by studio definition -- is to write popular movies, ignoring the question of quality.]

comment #33

Sean says ...

And, just in case you misunderstand me, the reason that they deserve "royalties" rather than just gross profit participation is two-fold:
- the writers are not ultimately in a position to control marketing, directing, or anything else which can have an adverse affect on the profit of the movie and, thus, should not have to risk based on those decisions
- Hollywood's creative accounting makes any money promised off of "gross points" a joke. (If "gross points" were based on an independent auditor, this issue might not have been a complete non-starter; even the studios only used it as a threat, something they could remove from the negotiating table once they were ready to actually negotiate.)

comment #34

ZayTonday says ...

Damn Wells, some of us in the industry DO come to this site.. This strike affects more than just the writers or even professionals in other parts of the industry and their families.. It affects the whole city.

comment #35

ZayTonday says ...

But then again Wells, your nemesis, Nikki Finke seems doing a pretty good job with the strike coverage.

comment #36

Sean says ...

By the way, if you still have the odd delusion that the press coverage has been pro-WGA, head over to the AMPTP site; there you'll see all of the New York Times anti-striker articles, along with a bunch of statements already proven to be blatant lies.

comment #37

Sean says ...

or, for that matter, *any* article which says that the strikers want "more money for Internet residuals" is betraying a bias. yes, it's technically true, but the statement "any money" would be more accurate and not play in to the production company's obvious attempts to paint the writers are greedy.

comment #38

AJW says ...

Dirty Harry, GDP is not "the economy". There is no one statistic that is "the economy". And if it's a question of a particular class's well-being, then you're a philosophy major if you think GDP is what you should examine.

Consider a (very) small open economy of 4 people, each making $25,000 annually from a joint business venture. GDP = $100,000. One person embezzles the others' shares and uses the money to start an exporting business that brings another $100K of personal income, while starving the other 3 citizens. GDP rose 100% to $200K. Is the economy better? Clearly an extreme example, but GDP is a flawed metric for something as diverse and nuanced as "the economy". In conjunction with other data if helps paint the picture, but alone it is woefully incomplete.

Another example of dumb statistics: the rhetoric of Bush's tax cuts. The average tax reduction will be $1,000!!! (or whatever it was) Who gives a shit? If you cut one guy's taxes $99,001 and ninety nine other people's taxes $1 each that's $100,000 in tax cuts spread over 100 people. Or $1,000 on average. Even Alan Greenspan, who LOVES tax cuts, admitted those had a negative impact on the economy.

Lies. Damn lies. Etc.

"Total wages has nothing to due with the Middle class. You need to look at Real Wages by income bracket and Wealth distribution..."--StewartforPresident

Why didn't you reference that point in your response, Callahan?

comment #39

Josh Massey says ...

Sean: I appreciate the effort. Thanks.

comment #40

Dirty Harry says ...

"Dirty Harry, GDP is not "the economy". There is no one statistic that is "the economy". And if it's a question of a particular class's well-being, then you're a philosophy major if you think GDP is what you should examine."

Do I really want to engage with someone incapable of quoting me correctly?

That would be a 'no.'

comment #41

rocco says ...

Nothing amuses me more than Joe Blows talking economics...ok, maybe Joe Blows talking about climate change...

Forgive me, I'm responding to several people here and I'm too lazy to go back to see who said what...

I never mentioned Bush, I think I'm being confused with another poster...

...and I never said writers shouldn't be well compensated or receive royalties...what I said was that it IS a totally self-indulgent profession. Writing for most people is a hobby or passion that, even for professional writers, can be supported by other means of income. I doubt there are many people who make a hobby out of standing in an assembly line. While neither profession is inherently noble, a writer chases a profession with a small chance of success. I admire the risk, but in the end, we shouldn't find ways to get struggling writers more work, struggling writers should find different work.

....I have no issue with artists leading extremely lucrative careers, however when money trumps the art, integrity is completely compromised. This is not a dilemma an auto-worker is faced with.

comment #42

christian says ...

Deciding you want to be an auto-worker is self-indulgent if you can't do it, and if everybody chose that field, there wouldn't be enough jobs. Art provides an unmeasurable social function and to say it's some kind of trivial self-indulgence is a strange argument. Isn't making any choice self-indulgent?

comment #43

rocco says ...

I'm not diminishing the importance of art in its many forms...

Writing requires a talent; if one is not able to procure a decent living by it, he or she can always fall back on a "regular" job. For the auto worker, what is there to fall back on?

Again, I admire anyone who take a chance...but I don't have much pity for the "struggling" writer who gets "one job per year if he's lucky" and who "works three other jobs". His worst-case scenario is reality for most people: a 9-5 job...they at least have an opportunity to pursue a dream and if it doesn't work out, shit, looks like they'll have to set their alarms for 7 AM. I know lots of writers in NY who hold steady jobs and write during their free time. For them writing is a passion and it doesn't need to be their sole source of income. The ultimate dream is a career as a writer, but it's something they enjoy doing regardless. Chasing a dream is admirable, but one needs to be practical in the pursuit.

comment #44

AJW says ...

"Do I really want to engage with someone incapable of quoting me correctly?

That would be a 'no.'"

Ok, you were arguing against the disappearance of the middle class by using gross statistics, including deficit/GDP and quarterly growth, along with unemployment. Do you understand why that makes no sense? The deficit ratio and quarterly growth make no differentiation between classes; if the wealthiest 10% steamroll along while the lower 90% lay stagnant or recede a bit, there can be growth in GDP coupled with growth in inequality. If unemployment is low it tells you jack about the types of jobs. It also doesn't account for discouraged workers. Or underemployment (e.g. a person holding a philosophy degree performing manual labor).

Also:
"As a percentage of GDP -- a real measurement..."

I assumed you meant that deficit/GDP is a legitimate measurement of the economy compared to the statistics StewartforPresident mentioned, not that deficit/GDP is adjusted for inflation. You shouldn't cherry pick the blunt tools of economic statistics and try to use them as scalpels. The point raised was about one aspect of the economy ("the disappearance of the middle class"). The statistics you chose have next to nothing to do with growing inequality and real wage stagnation.

comment #45

christian says ...

See, I love these Michael Medved type pronouncements from DH:

"Look at any numbers you want to come to the conclusion you want, but those numbers are the economy. And the economy is doing very, very well."

Then the next day reality appears:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, told Congress today that the economy is going to get worse before it gets better, a message that got a chilly reception from both Wall Street and politicians.

On a day when stock prices swung wildly, the dollar hit another new low against the euro and further signs emerged that consumers are growing more cautious about spending, Mr. Bernanke warned that the economy is about to “slow noticeably” as the housing market continues to spiral downward and financial institutions tighten up on lending.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/business/09fed-web.html?ei=5065&en=2d73b75dc3e556dd&ex=1195189200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

comment #46

DarthCorleone says ...

Man, that Diablo Cody is hot!

I'm sorry I contributed to the degeneration of that thread. I'm just too beguiled by the female form, I guess.

I'm willing to discuss the strike seriously. It does interest me as a cog in the industry. The lack of interest Jeff describes doesn't really apply to me, though, since I am in the industry.