#Writer's Guild

[cbrownjc]

I hope this is true. Because it would just be so in line with deciding to be so cartoonishly evil in public right before SAG was set to go on strike as well. A union that really has the power to shut down the whole industry and make them lose astronomical amounts of money per day.

All that Deadline article probably did was make SAG more emboldened to get everything they're asking for and not extend the deadline again.

[blackfilmmakers]

Once again I ask that if you're going to be angry and disappointed that your favorite shows are getting canceled, direct that at the higher-ups of the film industry, not the writer's guild

[juanabaloo]

There's a connection between the studios pretending they can't properly pay show writers AND companies pretending they can't find anyone to hire AND empty storefronts pretending they can't find anyone to lease to. The studios can pay. The companies can hire. The places can lease. They are CHOOSING not to. I hope the WGA strike breaks the fuck out of the studios and the studio execs are crying in their gold plated cereal bowls. Respect the picket line and don't be a scab. WGA hasn't called for a boycott, so streaming whatever shows is fine, for now. (This blog is pro union and pro labor. The only union that's trash is any cop union, obvs.)

[gen-z-superheroes]

(via Brut) Support the Writer's and Actor's strike by making your voice heard.

Support WGA on their socials and learn more about Picketing

Donate to the Entertainment Community Fund if you have the means

[willfrominternet]

I keep trying to come up with something witty or rambling in response to this brazen evil coming from the studios, but every time I gravitate towards my silverware drawer and pull out my best fork and knife. Little does my subconscious know that if I were to eat the rich, I would use my bare hands.

[tcfkag]

This is a great read. The purpose of a guild or a union is not just to protect your personal self-interest; it is to use collective bargaining power to protect EVERYONE'S self-interest. Because eventually, their interests will be your interests if you let management win and only think about yourself. That's why holding the line is so important and why crossing the line, even as a customer (unless the union in question specifically asks you to) is the *worst* thing you can do. No amount of likes and blog posts can make up for crossing a picket line and betraying the workers in a union, especially the most vulnerable.

I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.

That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”

Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can – characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.

This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years – if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.

Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me – a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels – the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form – what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just…fucking suck.

The WGA is proposing two things to fix this – a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.

[dynared]

Strike is on. Actors will be joining the writers on the picket lines. This is the first strike in 60 years for SAG, and essentially shuts down the entire US film and television industry.

[cbrownjc]

I’m on the west coast, Pacific Time, so I’m basically staying up till 12 am to see what news drops about the impending SAG strike. Basically, everything is going to have to stop at midnight exactly if it happens. . .

IWTV fans and followers? That means in about . . . 15 minutes or so, if they are shooting today, they’re going to have to stop. 

[mistsofavalon13]

i just checked wikipedia and the 2007-2008 writer’s strike was only 99 days long. the strike that shows up in the wikipedia pages of every show from that era with a blurb on how it affected shooting and release schedules.

we’re on day 113 of the current strike, with no end in sight.

[janedrewfinally]

Wow, that is absolutely not a serious response by the industry to very reasonable union demands.

What we proposed. What they responded (or in many cases declined even to begin to respond to).

[deadsprout]

At first Netflix said, come write for us. We’ll save your cancelled shows and write about whatever niche story you want. Our algorithm says people will watch it!

Then a few years later they said, regardless of our promises or contract obligations we are cancelling shows after two seasons without telling anyone. Turns out no matter how loved a show is, we get less subscriptions after the second season.

How many subscriptions did we bring you? Netflix won’t say.

So writers started writing two season shows. Just give us two seasons, Netflix. Like you promised.

Then Netflix said, oops sorry! Turns out your show didn’t premiere at #1 and the views in the first day weren’t what we wanted so we’re cancelling your second season.

What were the numbers? How many people watched our show? Netflix doesn’t say.

Then, they did something extra special. They started taking shows and splitting their first season into two halves. Inside Job was not two seasons. It was one season split in half.

Oops! Sorry! The second half of your first season didn’t do as well as the first half, so now your show is cancelled!

Why? How many people? How much money? These companies are making cash hand over fist and they refuse to tell people the truth: people loved your show. Loved it. But some corpo exec wanted an infinite money making machine. Do you know how long shows are in production for before you watch them? Years. Like, 5+, even 10+ years. And Netflix gives it less than a week before they decide whether you’re getting cancelled.

Support #WGA Support #SAGAFTRA

[aquitainequeen]

Pay heed to Klaudia Amenábar's words! Don't let the executives weaponize fandoms. WGA Strong.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Hey y'all. With the Writer's Guild of America on strike, you might be hearing a lot more about something called "residuals," which are payments that the writers get for the studios continuing to air their work on reruns and such. Already I'm seeing people trying to frame the union trying to bargain for better residuals as greedy and unreasonable, so I just wanted to give you guys a peek into my dad's full, 100% real residual payments for writing some of the most watched episodes of American late night television.

Yeah lol. If u hear anyone trying to frame the conversation around residuals as writers being greedy, please do me a favor and punch them straight in the face ❤️🙃🙃

[kropotkindersurprise]

July 25, 2023 - Striking stuntman Mike Massa walks in the SAG-AFTRA picket line while on fire. [video]

[backstepping]

what black mirror episode are we in now