Tabula Rasa

You may have noticed over there ( –> ) that there’s a little badge I’ve put up. Good innit! Took me all fucking morning to make because I am that shit hot with graphics software. I digress.

The Writers Guild of America are on strike. You may have heard about this in the news. If you already have an interest in screenwriting then you will probably know more about it otherwise you may only know what you’ve heard or read from your other news sources, most of which say something along the lines of “The writers are on strike because they want more money”. Essentially, this is true - certainly in the case of residual payments (i.e. royalties) from DVD sales. Writers would like to get double their current payment for the sale of a single DVD unit which, for a $20 sale, would amount to 4 cents.

But that’s not the biggest issue on the table and, indeed, the WGA actually shelved that demand for a while (I don’t know if it’s back on the table again) so that they could negotiate on residual payments for material distributed via the internet. (E.g. The Battlestar Galactica webisodes that appeared before season 3, downloadable and streaming content such as will be available via Hulu -currently in beta - and other sites of its kind). The internet, as everyone keeps telling us, is the way forward. Companies are already starting to make revenue from it, thanks to the divine gift of advertising, and technology already allows us to watch programmes and films online on our computers and soon, no doubt, will deliver the same content direct to our televisions too.

At the moment, writers (and anybody else who works on movies/programmes distributed over the ‘net) get fuck all. They, pretty reasonably in my admittedly biased opinion, would like to get something rather than nothing. The AMPTP (i.e. the corporations) are pretty much trying to weasel their way out of paying them at all. Hence the strike.

This is a simplistic view from someone who is not even a member of the WGGB (not until I actually sell something anyway) who, s it happens, have quite good rates for both DVD and Internet distribution. If you want to learn more about it from people who you might have heard of and, if not, who have worked on stuff you definitely will have, follow the links below.

The WGA video on Youtube explaining the strike in simple and easy to understand terms for people like me and, probably, you.
Ronald Moore (Producer; Battlestar Galactica)
John August (Writer; Big Fish, The Nines)
Josh Friedmann (Writer; The Black Dahlia, War of the Worlds, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Jane Espenson (Writer; Buffy, Angel, BSG)
Joss Whedon (God. Creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly)
Bill Martell (A bloke who knows what he’s talking about.)
Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn (Podcast by two guys who have written for The West Wing and The Simpsons)

Finally, keep up to date with information and rumours) regarding the strike with the strike captains at the United Hollywood blog.

Also, if you’re in any way, shape or form interested in writing or hell, even watching TV or films, I urge you to take a copy of that badge (–> ) and stick it on your blog.

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