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I’m told writers are miffed that Fox’s new Wanda Sykes show coming Saturday nights is asking prospective scribes to do a lot of free writing in order to try out for a job there. It’s a WGA show, which is not supposed to ask writers to create new material as part of a submission packet. Now, in truth, most shows do it, whether it’s Letterman asking for a sample Top Ten list, Conan asking for some sample monologue jokes, etc. But writers tell me they’ve never seen one with the nerve to ask for this much for free. And, speaking of nerve, “How about their bombastic description of Wanda Sykes’ talent and what this show is going to be? You’d think Nelson Mandela was getting his own talk show here,” one scribe emailed me. Here’s the submission packet:
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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@here in flyover:
There is a big difference between “give us your samples already created” and “create samples specifically for us.” Would it be okay for computer jobs to ask you to write specific code they can use on their company product? Would it be okay for finance jobs to ask you to create reports specific to that company’s needs?
The employer should ask for general samples of writing ability and then make their own determination of who is the best fit. Otherwise it becomes a full time job just to apply to places.
Jake, what a putz you are. I know you hate unions so much you’re about to have an aneurysm, but try to understand this for a second if you’re capable:
The networks and the WGA have an agreement, a contract. The contract says they can’t ask for this. Don’t you think people should honor their contracts, Jake? These shows hire maybe 8 to 10 writers. This is a way to get free work from hundreds of writers, then they take the best stuff they receive and use it without ever hiring the writers who sent it. Instead they hire their friends and steal the ideas they like outright or change them just a little to justify their consciences (ha ha) or their lawyers’ notes.
What do you do for a living, Jake? You sound like you’re a roofer. What if I say, hey, put on half my roof for free so I can see if I like the way you do it. Then i say the same thing to someone else and now I have a free roof.
Maybe you should think twice before going with your knee-jerk reaction, Jake. Because you have no idea what you’re talking about. None. You know, like always.
wow that last sentence is just a bit homophobic no. come on wanda don’t hate on your people
Wanda Sykes is smart?
writermonkey,
Yes and yes.
In the overwhelming majority of jobs, you do what your prospective employer tells you to do if you want the job.
Wow, a lot of hate out there for Wanda today. Sorry your projects got passed on, it’s not her fault.
Call me crazy, I could see Wanda going pet shopping with Michael Vick being not only funny, but taking on a new life on youtube.
I for one think she IS funny and she has the stand up career to prove it. I hope the show works.
Here’s my pitch:
Wanda is so desperate to get noticed, she tries to make her own I’m Fucking Ben Affleck video only to discover Ben and Matt are totally brokeback.
– - – -
Not sure this is quite strained and unfunny enough, judging by the memo?
When I was in college I got a call to try out for a gig writing comedy sketches for a TV pilot. What they did was bring in all the writer candidates, hand us the front pages from various newspapers and told us to come up with something topical in 90 minutes.
Since all the papers were carrying stories that day about girls in street gangs, I wrote a skit called “Gang Violence Barbie.”
I got tapped to work on the pilot with about 5 other writers, and a team of 6 performers.
That 90 minute session was our tryout, to see if we could work under pressure. If they were going to use your material, they’d have hired you, that was the deal. It was a reasonable test of our abilities, so I didn’t mind the doing it.
My problem with this Sykes show is that it wants to be topical, but they’re actually terrified to be really topical, because they might offend someone who actually lives in their neighborhood. The material they seem to be looking for is either dated, or already done to death by others, but because it’s what they think is “edgy.”
This type of humorless pomposity shouldn’t be surprising, coming from an exec-producer and head “writer” John Ridley, a conservative sheep who voted twice for Bush, went anti-union during the writers’ strike and scabbed.
Hollywood is just plain stupid sometimes. Doesn’t the employer get it that this type of application process opens them up for liability? Unless, of course, they make you sign a waiver of rights to your material created in the application process. Did you miss that page Nikki? Hmmm. Sounds like Hollywood to me.
They do have the right to ask for samples. But so many original samples seems strange. I wouldn’t doubt if they already have writers in mind for the gigs available and most of these applicants are just providing those writers and producers with ideas to work from. That’s the cynic in me. The realist in me says they don’t know if their vision can work and they are using the samples to see if that vision can really be actualized.
“With Wanda we want to be color blind, but race, gender, and orientation aware”
If that doesn’t say edgy, I don’t know what does!
This is so liberal and politically correct it almost seems like a joke.
I agree with “writermonkey.” Why do writers and actors – especially those who have created a body of work – give these producers work for free? They will steal ideas, use interpretations, imitate concepts and expect job seekers to do their job for them. Hollywood has created a monster with these practices.
I’m not familiar with what these packets should look like, but this just strikes me as unprofessional all around. “Bring it like Dave Chapelle?” And that unnecessarily verbose opening paragraph? It speaks down to the perspective writers and sounds more like a 17-year-old’s Sykes fan site than a serious job application.
I enjoy reading these comments. Most of us in this business are self-absorbed, entitled, nut jobs. Seriously! So easy to criticize, experts at what’s funny and what’s not, assuming you don’t have to work to get a job, AND sneaky sly sellouts who can’t be trusted as one of you leaked this document and many other confidential docs and info that Nikki posts…
Poof, be gone!
“that uninterrupted block of WHITE guy’s yattering”
I wonder what would happen if a different new show made their own a-hole, derogatory (and in reality, incorrect) stated about “black men.”
Racists. If was a writer (WGA or not) and read that, I’d toss it in their garage can and walk out.
Good luck!
Wait, when I purchased my Obama bumper sticker there was nothing on there that said I would have to prove myself to a black woman. That’s against the rules. I mean come on buying a pet with michael Vick, totally classless. But I’m sure Seth McFarlane will love my Michael Vick and Brian go to a strip club Family Guy spec I just wrote. I mean that’s just funny.
We’re all colorblind as long as we’re in Power!
It’ll be funny to watch this show fall on its ass, but I’ll probably blink and miss it.
If they have to issue a memo like this to build a show, the enterprise is already in deep creative trouble.
Can you imagine Colbert issuing something like this when he was starting up his series? No chance.
Thanks, Nikki! You’ve just reinforced the reason people should never email sensitive and confidential material, especially creative material. People who are too lazy/established to write on spec submissions, are also probably too lazy to retype/scan/photocopy hard copies of material, so they can forward it to folks like you.
This just shows the short-sightedness of the WGA.
Under their own union rules, once a writer like “Wanda” showrunner John Ridley goes “FiCore,” there is no effective mechanism to inform him that “yattering” is not an actual word.
But since this looks to be a posted image vs. type, guess not even hard copies are safe from prying eyes. This makes sense since base intentions transcend all.
Hmmm, folks who are interested in keeping a lid on top secret formulas might have to perform an entire team’s worth of work on a project, themselves.
This packet is no worse than others. FYI- Sarah was fucking Matt Damon, not Ben Affleck.
The only thing new here is the quantity. Shows always ask for new material even though they know they’re not supposed. I’m pretty sure the Kimmel show got fined by the Guild over this when it started production and wound up cutting checks to writers who had submitted. A friend of mine who didn’t get hired got a check for like five hundred bucks. So maybe the Sykes show will have to pay out, too. But that won’t stop the process. It’s widespread. There’s so few jobs now that writers have to bend over and take it. They work hard to craft a good submission, then the showrunners steal their ideas and hire their own friends. It sucks, but in a way, yawn.
It appears there are a lot of haters out there. As a young writer, I would happily create this app packet (as long as I retain rights to the material) for a staff job on a new show. The ideas they gave are pretty solid (I actually think pet-shopping with Michael Vick would be hilarious and Chappele-ian). As a matter of fact — who do I submit to for consideration?