The Writers Guild of America Strike is driving me crazy. For the past few days it has really been the only topic running through my brain. Last night I started working on this piece in my head and when I woke up it was my first thought. WGA WGA WGA... I don't know why yet, maybe by the end of this piece I'll know, but it has consumed me.
This morning I found an open letter on the Variety WGA Strike Blog from "an anonymous crew member" that comes close to how I feel.
A TV show is not created solely by writers. There is no denying the importance of their creative process, as well as the impact of a truly great script. However, these scripts would never make it to air if crews of people were not dedicated to making it happen...people who put in 15-20 hour days on stage or on grueling locations. These are the people who miss out on time with their families to finish a picture. These are the people who are still devoted to these shows and trying to work right now. These are the people who get paid a small fraction of what the writers do and are going to be unemployed for months during the holidays and beyond in result of this conflict. They have not gotten to make a choice in this matter, yet are somehow being continuously punished.
the full letter
The author goes on to say that he/she is neither on the writers' side nor the studios' side. The author feels for the below the line crew.
That is pretty much how I feel.
Why do I feel that way? Well, you see, in another life I was the infamous Best Boy/Grip/sometimes camera assistant. I was one of the Below The Line Crew.
When one part of the giant circle of motion picture production breaks down, the whole thing falls apart. You NEED a Crew to get everything in place. You NEED a Director (with a vision) to tell the story. You NEED a Producer to find all those people and get them to work together. You NEED Actors to give life to the story. And you MUST HAVE Writers to give us a purpose for being stuck on a plane full of venomous snakes. Take out any of those essential people and the whole plane crashes.
I have NO argument with the WGA demanding residuals from internet distribution. When The Wife and I were living in England, that was the only way we could keep up-to-date on our favorite US shows. We subscribed to their respective series on iTunes Music Store. We didn't download "free" Bit-Torrent versions of the shows. We paid for them. The nice thing about paying those shows is that the iTMS downloads have no commercials. Which on broadcast TV is how those shows make money, and in return pay residuals to the creative members of the production. The new NBC Hulu site will air shows for free, but with advertisements. So, even though the consumer doesn't pay outright for entertaining TV, the studio is still making money off the writers and not kicking any back to the "Team".
A new form of distributing your work is created and you aren't getting revenue from that aspect, where's the equality in that? I for one hope the writers get what they are entitled to and this strike ends soon because even though the Below The Line Crew isn't technically on strike, they are by default or will be in the not so distant future.
This strike may only boil down to 4 cents on the dollar, but in the long run it is worth so much more to a considerable larger group of hard working people.
1 comment:
On the surface, the two might look nothing alike. However, the ongoing strike of the WGA sounds very familiar to the UAW strikes in my hometown (Detroit). It’s a difficult position to be put in, having to choose which side to support. While I technically feed my family with a white-collar job, it was the efforts of the blue-collar union that prompted most of my benefits.
When I was a wee young lad, my father (a white collar Ford Engineer at the time) explained it best to me. He mentioned that every time management settled a new contract with the union, the white collar work force would also see comparable changes. Management did not want to loose their engineering and other services to the unions, so they would do everything in their power to prevent organization. However, those were the days of 50 – 65% profit margin on all vehicles. Ever since the 1980’s, no US automaker has seen those kinds of results.
This shift in auto economics over the last few decades has caused both the white and blue collar work forces to take significant concessions in lee of keeping their jobs. Granted, it took the UAW a lot longer to realize this than the white collar work force, but the recent contracts agreed upon between the big 3 and UAW this past Summer (2007) are starting to turn the tide and make US based skilled labor competitive again… or so I hope.
Looking at the WGA strike, I almost wonder if the entire television industry is going through an economic shift as well. There is no doubt that the birth of YouTube and other online resources has shifted the trend in television viewing. The economics behind the machines of creation will surely need to be adjusted as well. So I have to wonder, is the WGA foreseeing these changes and trying to prepare for the future of the industry… or are they simply being stubborn and not willing to move forward with the direction that the industry has already taken them?
That, my friend, is the million dollar question!
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