Directors/Writers/SAG Contracts & The Effects

Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

They will negotiating on Nov. 26, they are ready to talk for contract to the writers. I saw it on Yahoo this early morning.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

I hope that for everyones sake the two parties can get things settled. It will make it a nicer Holiday Season for everyone if they do.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

Here is something that may be worth checking out. In short it's an effort to force the execs hands by bombarding them with pencils the way they were for Jericho with peanuts

Arise and Seize the Pencils... Our Evil(it's not evil) Master(we're not masters) Plan is ready to unleash(it's not a dog).(!)

Well, United Hollywood has fine-tuned the pencil concept into an organized and potentially awesomely visual penstravaganza! Witness the electronic mail messed forth to showrunner types:

Pencils2MediaMoguls

This week, United Hollywood (the blog) met with a group of showrunners who have particularly vocal fan bases. We discussed the fans’ eagerness to put their energy to use in a unified campaign, and this is what we came up with:

Several fan sites have suggested sending pencils into the networks and studios, and some of them are already doing it. It’s a great idea, and we’d like to take it a step further – get everyone buying pencils at the same time, from the same vendor, to be delivered in masses (like the peanuts were for Jericho.) All the fandoms working together, in concert. It seems that the conglomerates take it for granted that the fans will always be there to purchase content, that their concerns about the strike don’t matter. This is a chance for the fans to show that they do matter.


The campaign itself is fairly simple. We’d like to start it right away, and it goes like this:

Point the fans to http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/ , where there will be a banner or button allowing them to click through to buy boxes of pencils. The pencils are plain wooden #2’s, and the company uses sustainable farming for the wood (seriously. They do.) The pricing will be “a buck a box.” (Sustainably harvested wood pencils + PayPal cost per transaction puts us a little higher than the cost of a box if you buy at Office Depot, sorry.) If there’s any money left over, it will be donated to the Union Solidarity Fund, which is a nonprofit for non-WGA members affected by the strike.

When fans click to buy the pencils, they can choose to identify the show they are supporting if they want. (This will generate a database of fans by show – among other things, allowing showrunners to thank fans by group if they want to.)

The pencils will be delivered in bulk, by trucks, like the peanuts were. The deliveries will be to the 6 CEOs of the 6 congloms (Disney, News Corp, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, GE) one by one – we’ll probably start with GE. If we get enough to pencils to do all 6, then we will. If we don’t, we’ll concentrate on one or two.

If the logistics can be worked out, showrunners who choose to can take part in a “load the pencils” photo op – unpacking the boxes of pencils and shoveling them into bins or boxes for transport to the CEO’s. The visual has the potential to be worth a thousand words – for the fans as well as the general public.

We will suggest that the fans send a message similar to this: “We’re all on the same page. Make a fair deal.”

This has the potential to be a historic moment in fan history – the first time that all fandoms band together to show that they are a force to be reckoned with to the corporate world. Given the passion and commitment the fans are already showing, this seems a good way to both show our appreciation and respect, as well as giving them the direction they’ve been requesting.

We hope you’ll be willing to join us in this effort. It won’t be our last.


Carol Barbee Jericho
John Aboud
United Hollywood

Jane Espenson
Buffy, Battlestar Galactica
Jeffrey Berman
United Hollywood

Rob McElhenney
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Laeta Kalogridis
United Hollywood

Ron Moore
Battlestar Galactica

Marti Noxon
Buffy, Private Practice

Jaime Paglia
Eureka

Bill Prady
Two and a Half Men

Shonda Rhimes
Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice

Stephanie Savage
Gossip Girl

Joss Whedon
Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse


Pretty offical sounding, huh? Like grown-ups would do. Well, I, as a showrunner... (but with no show... If I have no show, am I a showrunner? What would Jubal Early say?) Anyhoo I'm a tirribly impahtant Hollyville muckity so my opinion counts oodles. And I think this will be very cool. Let's make our (unsharpened) point. I seriously want to spend a day wading in actual pencils with a big ol' snowshovel. And I want the Execs to understand that forcing one show off the air can rouse the public to make themselves heard in a fairly dramatic fashion, but forcing ALL of them off the air... well, might just be a tetch more dramatical-er. Now you all kinda got your own Union. And it's time to strike.

"CBS and Fox, they think were nothin'!
Are we nothin'? NO!
CBS and Fox they think they got us,
Do they got us? NO!
Even though we all wear scarves and glasses,
We're a union, just by sayin' so...
And the world will know!"

So here goes.

Yours ever, -j.
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Again, the link to send pencils to media moguls in honor of you favorite show(s) or writer(s) is: http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

LibertyBell said:
In order to have a strike both sides need to be two things: greedy and stubborn. It doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong, both sides are greedy and stubborn. And neither of them pay for it.
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I'm always amazed that people equate wanting to be adequately paid with greed. If people knew the "by the seat of their pants" existence most writers live, then greed wouldn't even enter into the discussion.

Also, network TV is on the way down. Not because of this strike, but because of the Internet and DVDs. Look at the overall ratings figures; TV ratings are way down from what they were just five years ago, and they will continue to go down. We're not going back to the halcyon days of the '70s and '80s when TV-viewing audiences were huge. Those days are gone and aren't ever coming back.

Writers can see the handwriting on the wall and know that they need to access the stream of income that networks get via the Internet because that will be their future source of income, and may be their only source of income. If people really view writing not just as a "hobby" but a true profession, then what the writers are asking for is nothing less than what authors and songwriters receive via royalties. In their case, it's called residuals. When writers write so-called "promotional" material and it generates income for the networks, then it should also generate income for the people who created those pieces. That's all the writers are asking for. That's not greed; that's treating them like the professionals they are.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

Just to be clear, I didn't specify a level of greed. I realize that big moneymakers like the studios have much, much more of it.

My biggest problem is this: Okay, so the writers need these residuals as their future source of income. But you know what? They should count themselves lucky. Compared to the crew members, writers are rich. And the crew members are the ones that are suffering right now, as a result of this strike. The actual writers, the people who caused this strike, won't see the fallout for years if they don't win. You can't ask me to be okay with that.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

I back the writers on this. I think it's stupid that everyone is saving money on not having to produce DVD's because of internet streaming, but they refuse to pay the writers for it.

Without writers, there is no show. Period.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

Since both sides are getting together today to talk I just wanted to wish the writers good luck and hopefully both sides can come to a quick resolution.
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

Indeed, I really hope that both sides are there today with the real aim of resolving this as quickly and painlessly as possible. :) *crosses fingers*
 
Re: Writers Strike - Is it going to have an effect on TV sho

I am crossing my fingers too! If everything goes okay I also wonder how long it will take to get everything down on paper and signed. Hopefully we get some more epi's this season as now is the case. The summer hiatus is always to long already without some new epi's. Let alone from januari to september!
 
Re: The Writers Strike - What's your opinion?

CSItame007 said:
The writers have every right to profit from what they contribute to. However, the ones they signed the contracts with shouldn't try to take advantage of them by not updating the contracts with REASONABLE profits for both sides.
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Many posts I read offer an opinion of whether the writers deserve what they are asking for. We are all very subjective creatures with our own biases. I don't think any of us can say what they deserve, or what any other worker in any industry deserves. Therefore, the best way to determine just compensation is (drumrole please)... the free market!

Our labor is a commodity, just like anything else. When an employer sees that they can't find qualified workers, then they raise compensation. When they find that there are too many qualified workers, then they lower compensation. This is the inconvenient but honest truth.

Unions were useful at one time to alleviate gross injustices, but much of the reform that was needed has been codified into law. Now they are just an excuse to not compete.

Oh, and for those who chastise corporations for their greed... last time I checked, their profits go to shareholders, which includes most Americans (anybody have a 401K plan?)
 
Re: The Writers Strike - What's your opinion?

Oh, and for those who chastise corporations for their greed... last time I checked, their profits go to shareholders, which includes most Americans
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And last time I checked, profits were calculated after deductions for management/director salaries, bonuses, pension plans, etc. Look at the big companies and see how much the people who run them are making. Now see how much a shareholder gets by comparision.
 
Re: The Writers Strike - What's your opinion?

Ceindreadh said:
Oh, and for those who chastise corporations for their greed... last time I checked, their profits go to shareholders, which includes most Americans
Click to expand...
And last time I checked, profits were calculated after deductions for management/director salaries, bonuses, pension plans, etc. Look at the big companies and see how much the people who run them are making. Now see how much a shareholder gets by comparision.
Click to expand...

Well, you and I can sit here all day long and decide how much is appropriate for the management of a company to make. In fact, let's create a giant government agency that decides how much everybody makes. They'll decide how much I make (a computer programmer), how much you make, how much the plummer who comes out to fix my toilet makes.

If the shareholders are getting little from their stock, then they trade it for more profitable stocks or other investments, and the price of the stock goes down because there is now more supply then demand. Then the management is fired, because the price has dropped. See how they got what they deserved using a free market model?
 
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