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Writer’s Revolt
Previous in Rants: The Devolution of Windows | Next in Rants: Steam Broke My Game |
I see that Hollywood Writers – a term somewhat akin to Nebraskan Surfers – are apparently going on strike. Cue dramatic music. I hope they do, and I hope it lasts. I want to see if we can tell the difference. The folks who haven’t had an original idea in years are threatening to stop writing? How would we know? (Since they have elected to no longer write, it would be funny if they picketed with blank signs.)
Maybe this is just an excuse to get some time off so they can take part in NaNoWriMo. You can’t deny they need the practice.
A couple of years ago we rented Firefly through Netflix, and we saw how good writing is rewarded: The show gets shown out of order in a moving timeslot and canceled mid-season. We have more sitcoms about wacky, off-beat families than we have televisions in this country, and yet somehow nobody could find room to give Firefly more than thirteen episodes? I now carry a bitter grudge against the industry in general, with a special abhorrence for all the writers who think “sci-fi” means “moody, angst-ridden romance in space”.
I don’t expect the strike to last. The writers won’t have anything to do but sit at home and watch television, and they are sure to crack after a couple of days of that torture.
Previous in Rants: The Devolution of Windows | Next in Rants: Steam Broke My Game |
There are 75 comments here. I really hope you like reading.
I thing BSG is the target of the “angst in space” comment. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Also, my family watches almost zero live TV, except for the Food Network, perhaps. Everything else is either wait-until-it’s-all-over-and-watch-on-DVD-if-it’s-any-good, set-the-DVR-and-watch-a-few-episodes-at-the-end-of-the-month, or download-off-the-intarweb-yarrr.
Also, hyphens are fun.
Shamus wrote: “Wonderfalls and Firefly got canned. I’m still mad about that, which is why I have such a rotten attitude about this.”
Hang on…
(1) Writers produce shows you like to watch.
(2) Studio executives cancel them in favor of show you don’te like.
(3) You blame the writers for producing crappy shows.
I guess I’m not following the logic.
Septyn wrote: “Residuals are the sweetest scam in the world, right next to licensing and “maintenance” fees. Imaging being able to work *once* and get paid every time someone uses your work.”
This is assinine. If you want to argue that either (a) the current system of IP law is badly designed or (b) that IP law (the only effective and extant system for making sure that creative people are incentivized to create) is a bad idea in general, then do it.
But arguing that the actual Creator of a work should not be paid commensurate with the success of that work so that a Studio Bureaucrat can rake in the profits from that work without the impediment of paying them a reasonable percentage of their profits… well, that just comes across as assinine, IMO.
Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net
“I’d love to ditch the stupid network execs, but they’re just visionless knee-jerks responding to market pressure. Can we fire the audience please?”
“And if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Watch where you tread. Here there be monsters.
Off topic, but the BSG Razor movie that’s available for download is incredible.
Colbert and Stewart are members of the Writer’s Guild.
Stewart’s paying two weeks salary to all of the writers for both shows.
Stand up guy.
I figure I might as well stand with ‘em.
–plus, have you seen Arrested Development?
Looks like someone picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue..?.. There are a couple of well-written shows.. I thought of Scabbing for some.. but I don’t think the Boston Legal’s writers can be subbed for.. great writing.
I agree with you, Shamus that the history of TV is replete with bad writing. That’s why I don’t watch “TV” either and I gave it up for many of the same grudge-issues you mention — bad writing being foremost among them. But I do rent and buy TV dvds and I have to say that this has given a new perspective on the medium. There are indeed excellent shows on TV and frankly, I’ve come to enjoy watching a well-made TV series, with it’s sustained and in depth plots and arcs, more than watching feature-length films. I particularly enjoy Sci-Fi on TV — though I do not like the SciFi channel in general (issue for another rant). As mentioned earlier by Strangeite, Battlestar Galactica is outstanding, right up there with Firefly in my opinion (although I noticed in your post that you dislike of space operatics, so Battlestar may not be for you). My Name is Earl is damned funny and smart. Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome…they’re all superbly written…better and more satisfying than 99.9% of the films out there.
I suggest, Shamus, that you read over this site before making any definitive final judgments on the value of writers:
http://www.newsfromme.com/
Mark Evanier, the maintainer of this blog, has been working with comics, animation, and TV shows for several decades. He even has the sad claim of being one of the creators of Scrappy Doo. :)
Check out what he has to say about the WGA strike before you wish such bitter defeat upon them.
as·i·nine /ˈæsəˌnaɪn/ Pronunciation[as-uh-nahyn]
–adjective
1. foolish, unintelligent, or silly; stupid: It is surprising that supposedly intelligent people can make such asinine statements.
Sorry, “assinine” just REALLY bugs me.
OK, we can stop spamming Shamus’s blog with Mark E’s blog.
Please. Three links should suffice.
Frankly, I occasionally watch one or two shows on TV: Heroes and whatever my wife watches (although last season’s Beauty and the Geek was impressive). This will have exactly 0 effect on my lifestyle, therefore I have exactly 0 amount of concern for the writers and their grievances.
Had TV been a better medium (for any reason, from executive down to cameraman), I might care…
Oh noes!Less crappy stuff for me not to watch!Da horrorz!
Funny thing about television though is that it shows how precious books are.
“(Although, to be fair, I think Firefly should have been given a fair CHANCE to sink or swim. Cutting it, moving it, and showing it out of order was more or less murder. I don’t think any show could do well in those conditions.)”
Sure they could! Shows that are so generic it doesn’t matter if you cut them, move them around, or show them in a different order survive just fine–the TV equivalent to unflavored oatmeal, but without any of the nutritiousness.
In defense of Shamus, i don’t think you need to be a die-hard TV watcher to tell the whole thing is a joke. Unless it has gotten very much better recently, which is something i imagine people would have heard about.
What you have said is true, I have not seen much of Firefly(the name reminds me of FarScape, of which I have seen quite a bit), though I have read about it on Wikipedia.
Oh, and one question, as regards to Plot.What is the Academy thinking? that it can just give people random superpowers for free and escape unpunished?
I know there is a lot of crap on tv and in movies, but from everything I’ve read about the behind the scenes activities, it sounds like it is the producers and the production process that makes the most crap. The original Aliens 3 scripts were amazing, and instead they produced the one we all saw. If you watch Kevin Smith talk about his efforts in writing a script for the Superman movie and all the really stupid hoops he was forced to jump through, you will see how the writers are really beaten on by Hollywood.
From everything I’ve read about the issues in the strike, if the writers lose the producers win. And as bad as you might think the writers are have you ever heard of anyone praising the creativity and added value of the producers?
Oddly enough, there’s still not going to be any shortage of good writing to entertain us over the next many months. Just, instead of being on broadcast television, it’ll be in Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4, and others. I think Mass Effect already is longer than the entirety of Battlestar Galactica filmed to date…
Plus, less TV means more time for Rock Band.
I remain astounded and amused that those folks talking about “original writing” but the one example everyone keeps throwing up is Battlestar Galactica (created by Glen Larson and produced in 1978). Someone else mentioned Doctor Who – that was created back in 1963 by Sydney Newman. Now, I realize of course that the scripts are new, but the bulk of the idea work was done decades ago. Hardly good examples guys, you might want to drop them.
Pushing Daisies is a better example – though I’ve only watched the first episode, and to be honest while it was definitely original I didn’t at all care for it.
I’m australian, so we get shows stupidly late.
Back a few years, when we had Foxtel (cable) I watched Dead Like Me religiously.
2 seasons. Cliffhanger ending.
Recently, Torchwood was shown on channel Ten (free to air). They moved it from Wednesday night, 9:30 PM to Midnight Tuesday/Wednesday with no warning.
Another thing that annoys me is how long I have to wait before we get new episodes of Dr Who. I have no idea when we’ll get the christmas episode, let alone next season.
After reading a bunch of the posts on Mark Evanier’s site, it’s pretty apparent to me that he is very much not even handed about this strike. He consistently is ignoring the differences between work-for-hire and other creative work (I’m assuming that most writing for TV is under work-for-hire rules, otherwise they’d be talking about royalties and not residuals). That said, writers sure seem to get the short end of the stick.
Yes, I suppose I may have used the wrong term there. I didn’t mean to imply that he thought both sides had an equally valid argument. Clearly he is on the side of the writers. But his point of view (on this and other issues) tends to be well reasoned and rationally explained, and he doesn’t go out of his way to vilify the opposing side. This in contrast to the usual shrill, blinkered rantings one tends to find on the Internet (though not here either, I rush to point out). Anyway, not really the point here, just wanted to clarify what I’d said.
I know nothing of the differences between work-for-hire and creative work as they apply to the WGA. Have you asked him about it? I’d be interested to read his response.
Kayle, in this case, it probably is work for hire. A studio owns the rights to all the programmes they create (at least since 1995 they do, following a change in law by the government which is why Joss Whedon couldn’t take Firefly to another channel after Fox cancelled it) and a TV writer is hired in to write for them. It’s not like a musician or author who retains the rights to their work even after it’s published.
zing++
OK, so I’m lagging here, but I’m gonna drop the comment in anyway. I’d also like to point out that I am completely ambivalent about the writers’ strike either way — the producers need to be skinned and rolled into a salt pit, but that isn’t an option.
On to my pedantic points, which are more about risk and tradeoffs than about the writers in particular:
“Now imagine please that the way the hammer industry worked was that hammersmiths were hired to make *one* hammer, with no guarantees that they would ever be hired again to make another hammer.”
Um, I’m pretty sure that is exactly how hammersmiths work. Your guarantee of future work is based on A) the quality of your hammer, B) the “guarantee” that people will need more hammers, and C) the “guarantee” that there won’t be more people making better hammers or cheaper hammers than you. (Oh, and I’m skipping over the whole thing that nobody made their living just making hammers).
The industrial revolution ruined a lot of craftspeoples’ lives… Given how formulaic many sitcoms and reality TV shows are now, I can’t help but think we’re experiencing TV’s industrial revolution. Craftsmanship is still present, but it’s harder to find and it costs more (just like trying to find a good blacksmith nowadays).
All of which is irrelevant to this conversation, because making a hammer is fundamentally different from writing a story/poem/song/etc. If I make a hammer and sell it to you, you still can’t make another hammer like it unless you are (almost) as good as I am — in which case you didn’t need my hammer in the first place. If I write a poem and sell it to you, you can copy it for (nearly) zero cost and sell it to a huge number of people. This is the fundamental difference between “intellectual property / creative work” and manufacturing. (Which is also why we have copyright, DRM, fair use problems, etc)
As others pointed out above, within the creative work field, there are two approaches: work-for-hire and what I shall call “personal” work (lacking an official term).
If you accept a work-for-hire contract and payment, you are sacrificing the right of ownership of that work IN EXCHANGE FOR a guarantee of payment. Any additional rights granted to you and all forms of payment to you will be specified in that contract. The other party will OWN your work after it is completed. The contract may be (and frequently is) “unfair”, because typically you are not contracting as equals — the other party has all the cash and all the distribution channels, and you have an idea — which the web is showing is actually a relatively common commodity. You are free to not take the contract, but then you are working in the realm of:
“Personal” creative work is retained by you through the copyright and other IP laws. You own it. Nobody can (legally) do anything with it that you don’t specifically grant them the right to do. Of course, IN EXCHANGE FOR this greater level of control and power over your own creation, you have accepted considerably higher risks. Not only do you have no guarantee of payment for future work, you don’t even have guarantee of payment for the current work. And you have to take on the challenge of protecting your copyright privileges. This road is MUCH harder to survive on, but if you do, you must have good stuff and a helluva drive to succeed, and you’re going to do well out of it.
Note that this distinction isn’t just about paper and music. An engineer or engineering company can do work-for-hire engineering, with the resulting product being the property of the other person. Or that engineer/company can do engineering for itself and retain ownership of the product.
So, we have a spectrum of career possibilities. We start with “guaranteed” monthly paychecks and benefits, but no creative input or ownership at all, and as we move down the list we accept more risk IN EXCHANGE FOR more creative input and ownership.
* Government office job
* Office job
* Work-for-hire
* “Personal” creative work
Sorry to keep hammering on the phrase “IN EXCHANGE FOR”, but all life decisions are tradeoffs based on what is important for you. I personally would love to have a guaranteed income for sitting around developing the virtual world role-playing game that I want to write. Ain’t gonna happen. My options range from getting guaranteed paychecks at my office job and being too mentally gummed up to do any development at night, through to living on my savings and hoping to get the game done and selling before I starve. There’s a wide range of tradeoffs in between, but they’re all TRADEOFFs. If you decide to do creative work, you decide to take on more risk in your livelihood.
I know at least slightly of what I speak. I created a 3D facial animation tool. I had to do this in my spare time from work. When it came time to sell it, I found that I was very attached to it. I had the option of selling it to another company for a meaningful amount of money and royalties on each copy, or of selling it myself for all the money and control over future directions. I chose to retain control. From a monetary standpoint, I chose poorly. But the product is what I want it to be, and the people who own it like it that way. But it was a tradeoff, and I had to decide, and I had to live with the consequences. My particular choice was based on a combination of low-risk personality (I’m still working my day job, so I don’t have to eat based on sales of the product) and control-freak tendencies. C’est la vie…
(Should you happen to be interested, with all due apologies for the shameless plug: http://macreitercreations.com )
Are the studios sticking it to the writers? Almost certainly. Are the studios sticking it to us? Yep. Should the writers get paid more for what they do? Depends entirely on how firmly they feel about it, how firmly the audience feels about reruns, and what supply and demand eventually turn out to be.
Wow, that was a LOT longer than I meant for it to be… (but it rambles almost precisely as much as I expected)
Mac
I grew up in Flint, Michigan. Ever see the movie ‘Roger & Me’? Trust me, unions are death to any industry (although they were useful fifty or more years ago).
Concerning Shamus’ remarks about sit-coms: they took the characters from an already-past-it’s-sell-by-date commercial and made it into a sit-com! ‘Nuff said.
Bottom line: If television was all as well-written and entertaining as Shamus’ rant (whether you share his opinions or not) – we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
the show Bones has stepped up the vilence and gore just to attract the veiwers. the sad thing is that the studio is accepting these ideas to get more veiwers. and they are getting the veiwers. the veiwers might even be asking for the gore. the veiwers ask, the writers write, and the studio shows it. i also wonder how many times the show takes breaks so the actors can puke.