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The Writers Guild, West, is in the process of surveying members about why there is so little work in Hollywood right now, how they feel about that, and what the leadership can do about it:
“Dear Fellow Screenwriters & Television Longform Writers:
As the screenwriters on the Board of Directors, we are asking that you join us in participating in an online survey. This survey is an opportunity for all of us working in feature film and television longform to provide a candid assessment of the current climate for writers. We expect the data to be enlightening and informative for screenwriters as well as for the leadership and staff of the Guild. Furthermore, we believe it will help guide our efforts to best represent the membership.
Writer-specific information will be kept confidential. Aggregated data, without reference to particular writers, may be released in Guild publications as a means of informing the membership of the survey’s findings. The survey tool we have chosen includes SSL protection to ensure your privacy is protected when you participate. We have each already completed the survey ourselves, and we were all able to complete it in less than twenty minutes. So without further delay please join us in participating in the 2009 WGAW Screenwriter/Television Longform Writer Survey.
In Unity,
John Wells, President; Tom Schulman, Vice President; David Weiss, Secretary-Treasurer; Ian Deitchman, Board Member; Howard Michael Gould, Board Member; Mark Gunn, Board Member; Katherine Fugate, Board Member; Aaron Mendelsohn, Board Member; Billy Ray, Board Member; Howard Rodman, Board Member; Steven Schwartz, Board Member.”
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This is further proof of global climate change. It’s an inconvenient truth but all climates eventually change.
Wonder if UFS are thinking of running the same survey? They repeatedly told us the production floodgates would open once they caved to the AMTP.
Jay Leno.
LMAO!!!
Put a “one tentpole project per year” limit on Kurzman and Orci to spread the wealth around.
Kidding.
What are they wondering about? The writers strike and the subsequent SAG issues put a damper on the entire industry, cut budgets, tightened purse strings, reaffirmed low cost and/or reality models, and basically crapped all over any one’s ability to make a feature or a television long form program quickly or easily. Then the economy went in the toilet and even if the economy gets better, the issues that writers and actors have will never be improved upon and they will continue to participate in their own demise.
It’s called “no spec market” and “no credit market.” No one wants to buy non-branded material and money is so tight that of what there is in development, very little of it is being worked on. No more stupid Wall Street money to fleece on slate deals. No development money also feeds back into no acquisition money.
IF the financing problem gets sorted, you still have the issue of the worthless MBA’s not wanting to greenlight anything they don’t perceive as from an existing brand – no matter what the actual revenue potential is.
The branding bubble will eventually burst and then there will be a moderate flocking toward independent material.
However, it doesn’t help that all the network/media mergers will make this bubble grow bigger for longer.
There has to remain a mix of independent and branded material out there to not only stir creativity but also not tire audiences with only one approach to entertainment. Unfortunately, shareholders owning much of Hollywood only want to see a return, and they don’t care how it’s done. The MBA’ers respond to the shareholders and then before we know it Hollywood has turned into crap-wood.
Only the truly brave and creative, who are also well connected in the financial and creative senses, at this point will fight greed and stay true to projects they care about in the most independent way possible. Those are the projects, over time, that will last and ultimately in most cases win out the bottom line.
Well the numbers I read online indicate even the top dogs aren’t selling any specs.
So, that leads to two conclusions.
1. Is the WGA relevant?
a. No sales = no benefits, just paying staff to well do surveys.
2. Are agents relevant?
a. With a closed door, if you are my face book friend, I’ll be your face book friend mentality ;the inbreeds of referrals has lead to some great films but in turn the market has become stilted and dependent on distributors who want a profit and cannot compete with the video footage of Michael Jackson.
3. What will this survey establish, we already know they aren’t buying, and the material they have bought can be updated, republished, revamped and ready for their two to three week run.
Moon lasted two weeks at the dollar show, Pandorum down to two screenings and 9 well their were five of us in the audience.( all great movies, great writing but the numbers are 5m, 10 m and 31 million respectively ( see boxoffice mojo.com)
So,
4. If you want to fix Hollywood like any good biz, cut costs, increase output and build new viewers. The problem with my solution is that most young people have their TV, twitter, youtube, text mails, girlfriends and a life that doesn’t involve film.
So, gear your films to the older crowd who will watch it at home, Netflix or DVD if they don’t want to spend money at the dollar or mainstream show. Most folks will dish out a dollar for a good film which is better than a nickel.
text mails?
Haha, I concur with Unbelievable. It sounds like the WGA is pleading ignorance to a problem it helped create. “It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with us, so let’s commission a study to see what all this unemployment is about.”
Once again the WGA is looking for the horses after the barn door has closed. In the eighties the struck and magazine shows filled the void. In the nineties they struck and reality filled the void. Again last year they struck and fought for a piece of the internet which still is next to nothing. They were fighting like coal miners in their Gucchis….proving once again that unions in Hollywood are proving their own uselessness and ultimately their own undoing. Blame the studios, mergers corporate greed but never look at yourselves in the mirror.
We went on Strike and got nothing. No one came back on top. That’s what happen. If you told me to strike again for some internet risiduals and some fair treatment of America’s Top Model writers I would go Fi-core in a second.
Pat Verrone.
Give me a break. Yeah, it was the strike. Pay no attention to all the other things destroying the business, like the entire business model changing in front of our eyes.
Idiots.
The WGA is guilty of the same sins as the studios and networks.
The writers should try electing a President who is not a millionaire or a a delusional Harvard graduate who thinks his degree translates into IQ points.
Or better yet stop selling your copyrights a gunpoint, douchebags.
How do the members feel about there being so little work?
That’s just the old rhetorical question as to how Mrs Lincoln liked the play (even if she actually didn’t go to the theater with Abe).
The WGA threw us in the ring like a fish out of water and look where it got us. Nothing! Its like when a bear dances with a walrus, they might think its good for everybody but we ended up nowhere near where we need to be and the walrus still wont return our calls.
I hope everybody finally sees how dated and old the WGA is and decides once and for all that we need to have a strike against them! How can you do no better? I remember all this talk back in 1989 when they talked about changes then. Changes? Costner still has that Oscar and you have got to be kidding me if you think that stupid movie was better than Goodfellas. Give it back.
Pandorum was used as an example only. I was going to see the movie today but it was switched to a 2:45 showing.
My example is based on the fact it made its money back and imdb.com
has it around 7.1 a decent film score.
I wrote an astronaut script so I’ll respect your opinion. The producer in me loves any film that makes it money back so Pandorum may deserve a second look by all.
Is the WGA to blame for the firings at E, Lifetime and A&E as well? lolz.
The global recession has hit everywhere.
It’s silly blaming the WGA. There’s nothing the union can do about studios absolutely refusing to buy any original material in favor of *anything* that’s an existing property. Including stuff where the writer goes out and makes the original property for his rejected spec, then gets the exact same thing picked up *cough*30daysofNight*COUGH*. Good for the writer in that case, though.
Or what Berg allegedly pulled off with Battleship. Still not sure if I believe that rumor, but it’s crazy enough to work.
You can’t force someone to enter a transaction. There’s nothing the WGA can do to change studio buying practices.
The WGA also probably doesn’t even understand the financing issue, let alone have anything they could do about it. Outside money has been taking huge losses on projects AND the lending market in general basically shut down. That impacts both outside and studio financing.
Blow up the WGA and start over.
One union with jurisdiction over all Hollywood (decent to high paying) writing gigs. Is this the best thing for writers?
The WGA asking writers what the climate is like is akin to asking,
“Is it hot in hell?”
It’s pretty simple economics- The WGA refused to back reality, animation and cable writers – so networks are simply doing more of these shows as they are cheaper to do. Same talented writers- 1/8th of the pay and no residuals to hand out. The WGA ignored this important segment of writers in these last negotiations and now we all pay the price. Everyone saw this coming- everyone except the WGA I guess.
I have been writing for actors for years. My lines are heard just about every week on primetime tv and I actually make very good money. Years ago another producer (aka writer) from our show approached the WGA about representation. When he said we were writing for actors and asked what should we do, he was told that we “should not be doing that”. End of phone call. So we’ve continued doing that and never thought twice about the WGA ever since.
How many strikes have had positive effects over the past few decades? Especially when there was no real reason to strike? The WGA helped screw their members over by coercing them into striking over nothing. The economic downturn helped fuel that fire. Now they want answers? Look in the mirror!!
Hollywood is a highly credit dependent industry. The biggest deflationary debt collapse in 80 years has sapped credit worldwide. The biggest institutions in every major financial sector have collapsed or been nationalized. It is a highly risk-averse environment due to a generational scarcity of credit.
That is why there are not many jobs.
The strike was worth it. The future will prove that. WAY TOO EARLY to judge whether strike was a success.
If you want someone to blame, try Mr. Obama. He had the chance to switch from the Bush economic politburo of Summers-Paulson-Geithner, and didn’t. Unfortunately, after a brief respite from recession we will be in bigger trouble than before.
Buckle up for hard times.
“If you want someone to blame, try Mr. Obama. He had the chance to switch from the Bush economic politburo of Summers-Paulson-Geithner, and didn’t”
Bravo!
Sorry, the Obama blame shizz sounds like a cheap cop out.
Shrub was the President for 8 years. Who was in office longer and who got us where we are at? Dummy up, you can’t turn this depression around in 4 months, or even 4 years. The American people were drilled a new hole by shub and the gang. So enough of your BS.
With regards to financing, the Germans have been sinking money into Hollywood as well as the Chinese and are looking for high returns, hence the franchse/branded shizz we get (ie. twilight, terminator, batman, spiderman, ironman…poopman.) etc.
Hollywood is driven by numbers $$$ and are cutting budgets, like any other industry to make greater profits for their stockholders.
I think when you talk of the movie industry, you will have to differentiate movies for profit (franchise movies) vs. art movies (movies that are written well and actually tell a great story).