A Thread for the Writers Guild of America Strike
- Thread starter Cicada 5
- Start date
Man I don’t wanna fuck with Ron Perlman on a good day, and this shit it is gonna give him a bad day. So some motherfuckers gonna meet Mister Mayhem.
Snark Mode activiated:
"Well seems like this will be the first time in a long while the Hollywood service industry will see jobs in higher demand and far higher staffing levels than acting"
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On a more serious note for years people have wondered why I refused to pay for netflix when I knew they didn't pay royalties.
Yeh Squid Game was a big hit and opened a lot of doors for it's creator. Didn't get him much money though because he sold it to Netflix for a larger up front sum than others would pay but no residuals. It's like how Andrzej Sapkowski took an up front deal with CDPR rather than a royalty share. Only he had the fallback of the government allowing renegotiations if it was found the original deal was vastly worse than the alternative deal.
You can argue it was his fault for selling Squid Game short but for small studios and producers it's any port in a storm to keep the lights on sometimes and that money was a bigger sum than others on a show that had no guarantee of success and meant those lights stayed on.
I do think the writers guild are somewhat naïve or stupid in their demands.
I permanent position?
So what if the show they're on sinks the studio has to ship them elsewhere?
If it was say a 3 year contract minimum or a x number of series contract or X number of produced series (not necessarily of the same show) sure ok if it's in the same vein as director / actor contracts etc but the idea your show fails then the studio must ship you onto one of the non failing shows? Yeh seems a bit like it would create roving bands of bad writers moving from show to show tanking them.
Same with the one they pushed for (don't know if it was this strike or talk before) where they were on about being allowed to expand the writers rooms more like demanding productions hire 1-2 more extra writers per productions. That's mostly padding out the writers rooms with extra people who are just there to make quota rather than needed to write and produce. Hell can you imagine shows where it's 1-2 writers passion projects and suddenly studio mandates mean the shows can't carry on with those 1-2 writers visions but now it must be 4 writers diluting the vision.
To be clear residuals is not the same as Pay.
You are paid and residuals are royalties for the continued sales / profits generated from your work.
A residual for 1 episode?
The idea is you get a fair few under your belt then get some nice money coming in each year. Be the head writer on a series and that series does well and you can be on about the same wage as the Janitor just in residuals. But a 1 episode writer? yeh no $396isn't bad, you do 10 episodes in a year that's $3,960 bonus
"Well seems like this will be the first time in a long while the Hollywood service industry will see jobs in higher demand and far higher staffing levels than acting"
Snark Mote de-activated:
On a more serious note for years people have wondered why I refused to pay for netflix when I knew they didn't pay royalties.
Yeh Squid Game was a big hit and opened a lot of doors for it's creator. Didn't get him much money though because he sold it to Netflix for a larger up front sum than others would pay but no residuals. It's like how Andrzej Sapkowski took an up front deal with CDPR rather than a royalty share. Only he had the fallback of the government allowing renegotiations if it was found the original deal was vastly worse than the alternative deal.
You can argue it was his fault for selling Squid Game short but for small studios and producers it's any port in a storm to keep the lights on sometimes and that money was a bigger sum than others on a show that had no guarantee of success and meant those lights stayed on.
I do think the writers guild are somewhat naïve or stupid in their demands.
I permanent position?
So what if the show they're on sinks the studio has to ship them elsewhere?
If it was say a 3 year contract minimum or a x number of series contract or X number of produced series (not necessarily of the same show) sure ok if it's in the same vein as director / actor contracts etc but the idea your show fails then the studio must ship you onto one of the non failing shows? Yeh seems a bit like it would create roving bands of bad writers moving from show to show tanking them.
Same with the one they pushed for (don't know if it was this strike or talk before) where they were on about being allowed to expand the writers rooms more like demanding productions hire 1-2 more extra writers per productions. That's mostly padding out the writers rooms with extra people who are just there to make quota rather than needed to write and produce. Hell can you imagine shows where it's 1-2 writers passion projects and suddenly studio mandates mean the shows can't carry on with those 1-2 writers visions but now it must be 4 writers diluting the vision.
Hey I'll take $396 a year for 1 episodes worth of work man.
To be clear residuals is not the same as Pay.
You are paid and residuals are royalties for the continued sales / profits generated from your work.
Yes they should.
A residual for 1 episode?
The idea is you get a fair few under your belt then get some nice money coming in each year. Be the head writer on a series and that series does well and you can be on about the same wage as the Janitor just in residuals. But a 1 episode writer? yeh no $396isn't bad, you do 10 episodes in a year that's $3,960 bonus
Even if it's not yearly, for 1 episode of a show (even if that figure will likely fall as viewership / watchtime declines) it's pretty good looking round I'm seeing people say $50 a month for an actor (not a lead) in a fairly successful action film is common so 1 writing credit on 1 episode of a streaming only show which if it were a regular TV show there would be no residuals for initial broadcast, yeh it may not seem much but it's pretty good really.
This isn't Netflix who pay fuck all lol.
How well the original piece of media does, reruns, syndication, physical media sales, how many times it streams, etc. Lotta factors based on specific contracts.
Big point of contention currently is how, like, streaming sites will cancel/remove a show right before they have to start paying out any significant amount for them
Also, look up Hollywood Accounting to find plenty of stories about how many wildly successful movies and shows are actually deeply in the red and never made a penny
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If it were "pretty good really" we wouldn't be in this situation
The point is there're no "reruns, syndication or sales" in streaming, and how well a movie or a show does or how many views it gets is basically up to the streaming service's accounting department. There's no oversight and no way of verifying numbers like with theaters, and even those aren't perfectly accountable.
"Some people are paid extremely badly, so therefore those who're just pretty damn badly shouldn't complain".
ABC and other major networks pay $0 for the first round of showing for a series. So the first year or so. If it didn't get any traction and got buried you get nothing because it's not repeated for a long time if ever.
Again this is $396 on TOP of wages for 1 episode of a show.
ABC's residuals for first Broadcast $0
Netflix residuals ever $0
Other areas they have a stronger case but "The work I did last year and was paid for at the time the company then only paid me $396 this year for" is far less of a win than it seems. Many companies outside of entertainment have contract where if it's made on company time or premises then the company owns the rights to it. People working making highly complex pieces on intricate code don't have any rights to that code, they leave the company they get nothing.
Again this was 1 episode of a streaming show that seemingly didn't hit that big I'd happily take $50 pay this year (on top of wages) for my work this month last year let alone just under $400
All of this is still just describing how other people have it even worse. That's not an argument to avoid improving things.
"Even worse"
Dude most people outside of the creative industry don't get paid for re-use of their work.
Even in the creative industry many people don't get the kind of deal that would net you a $396 residual for 1 episodes let alone for a steaming only show.
It shows a real disconnect from reality for a writer to be complaining that basically his bonus pay that he keeps getting as a bonus for work he did before isn't some multi thousand just because he wrote a whole 1 episode. I have much more sympathy for one of the main writers of Babylon 5 when to include extra material featuring him his price was $100 and a copy of the Babylon 5 Blu Ray box set.
Dude is in the top % of the top % in terms of residual pay for non main writers if you take into account all jobs not just writers. He's still done pretty well in writer terms but it comes off as almost entitled and egotistical like "I wrote the episode where She Hulk shagged Daredevil. Why aren't I been paying $2,000 a year for writing a single episode once?"
Indeed, the product of a worker's labour is exploited without proper remuneration very frequently. Still not seeing why this means we shouldn't improve things.
"Disconnect from reality", ok.
So let's look at it this way. The show received a budget of tens of millions per episode. How do you believe this money should be spent, if you're so adamant that it shouldn't go to the creatives? All on set design and CGI, and screw the talent?
No it went on site rental, technicians, taxes (one would hope), levies and fees for location shooting, equipment, catering, post-production work, support services, safety certifications, stunt staff (where applicable) and any number of additional functions I may not be aware of.
Like these productions aren’t John Carpenter guerrilla filmmaking with two camera, a few abandoned industrial areas and film school friends. The budget on these shows went places. I agree proper remuneration is owed to everyone but don’t be fucking asinine about what it’s for. It’s beneath you.
I’m guessing there’s a reason most people who wrote for Captain Planet are embarrassed to say so because this IS the sort of petty bullshit they got up to.
I mean, they were shockingly spot on. I feel bad for thinking those villains were ridiculous
Yeah, and I feel bad for mocking people deciding that Nazis were a relevant source of bad guys in the 21st century a few years back.