An e-mail has been send around to WGA members stating that a tentative deal has been reached that, I get the impression, is going to be satisfactory to all concerned. A meeting was held today at 2 PM which I was not able to attend, since Ariel’s High School bowling team had their county-wide playoffs today. One has to have priorities (Ariel’s team came in second, by the way, and Ariel herself did excellently, shooting four games over 200.
From the tone of the letter, it appears that there will be no further picketing (which of course means the Oscars will go forward with no impediment–a big relief for Jon Stewart, I should think.) I have to think that, short of some sort of egregious problem, the strike is done.
PAD
• 
Actually, it was “Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.” You can find the whole thing on youtube.
James, I think one of the reasons that Curse of the Fatal Death worked so well is because it was written by Steven Moffat, who is not only a very talented writer, but has also written some of the best Doctor Who episodes ever. Small wonder that he won two Hugo Awards in a row, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if ‘Blink’ makes it a hat trick.
Is there any reason the writers don’t get fans involved in the strike? For guys like PAD and Joss Whedon it would be easy to get a large group of us to picket and chant “Fair deal for writers or our TVs stays OFF!!!”.
What purpose would it serve? The AMPTP already knows people are watching less because of they know the ratings they’re getting. More importantly, they know that no new products are being made, which means no money from ads now, plus no money from syndication and DVD sales later.
Looking over some of the terms, it’s both good and bad for the writers. It’s good in that some of the rollbacks didn’t implemented. It’s bad in that some of the gains were pretty miniscule. The income for internet income is capped at a rather low level; there’s no way that popular shows on the ‘net will be worth just $80K. Even with figures from distributors’ grosses, it’ll be hard for the writers to get the studio to budge from that (on the other hand, with those figures in hand, it’d be easier to get public support for a strike and to organize public boycotts).
On the other hand, some of the concerns seem overblown. The 17-day window for promotional use with no fees paid to the writers seems bad, but all the research I’ve seen is that most viewings on the web following initial broadcast are within 24 hours or so–in other words they’re viewers that just missed the initial broadcast and are catching up online. The real gain for writers is when a show has good buzz and viewers go online to get caught up—that’s usually outside the 17 day window, and gets the writers something.
All in all…not a great deal, not even a good deal. But it seems to be something a lot of writers will accept.
Mike Weber and Alan Coil: Yes, of course I did mean that. I know I’m a snarky bášŧárd, and certainly do not feel in the minority around here.
The Oscars: I’m glad the strike has a tentative settlement, mostly because it is fair play to pay the writers what they deserve. The contribution the end of the strike makes to the Oscars is much more the removal of the strike lines than the production of brilliant scripting. Even if the Oscars show is well written, the underrehearsed and nervous presenters (many of whom offer ill-considered ad libs) obscure that fact.
I always wondered why the WGA didn’t call the AMPTP’s bluff when the moguls kept insisting their was no money being made on internet transmission and so forth. It would have been interesting if the writers had said, ‘Okay, in that case, we’re prepared to take most of our demands off the table, but you can give us 50% of the one medium you say you’re not making money from. If that’s true, 50% of nothing is still nothing, so you’re not losing a dime!’ It would have been interesting to see how quickly the AMPTP negotiators had to, ahem, change their tack, and very quickly.
Is there any reason the writers don’t get fans involved in the strike?
To be fair, there was quite a bit of fan activity in support of the WGA, whether it was the mailing-pencils-to-movie-producers stunt, or general organization of food deliveries to picketing writers, or whatever else. That sort of fan activity certainly doesn’t hurt, can gain a bit of publicity, and are surely morale-boosters for those on strike, but as Jason M. Bryant points out above, those sorts of consumer/fan actions are also unlikely to have a major effect on the resolution of what is at heart a labor/management negotiation.
I always wondered why the WGA didn’t call the AMPTP’s bluff when the moguls kept insisting their was no money being made on internet transmission and so forth. It would have been interesting if the writers had said, ‘Okay, in that case, we’re prepared to take most of our demands off the table, but you can give us 50% of the one medium you say you’re not making money from.
Though I’m (of course) not privy to the negotiations, I like to think that at some meeting, at some point, WGA negotiators did exactly this, turning producers posturing around on themselves. It’s a sorta obvious point, so I like to think that everyone in that room recognized that somewhere in the process.
Outside of the negotiations, the writers have been making the “percentage of nothing” argument since before the strike started. Go onto youtube and look for “not the daily show” to see the writers talking about exactly that point.
The AMPTP basically ignored that point the whole time.
I guess it’s not suprising that they ignored it, since the claim was rubbish anyway. Unless of course they were giving away all that advertising space on their websites for free.
Jason M. Bryant: “You can find the whole thing on youtube.”
Which would be a violation of the copyright holder’s legal rights. Also, if the writer is entitled to any royalties or residuals, he too would be getting screwed by anyone watching “Fatal Death” on YouTube for free.
I just double-checked my Curse of Fatal Death video that I bought in the UK a few years ago, and it is noted on the jacket that ‘At least £2.00 from the sales of this video will go to Comic Relief to help fund briiliant projects in the UK and Africa.’ I assume everybody who decides to watch it on You Tube will be making a four-buck donation to Comic Relief? No, I didn’t think so either.
If the vote goes well tomorrow, and the members approve the new terms, I’ll be happy. Not because it means that TV shows and films I’m looking forward to can continue, but because it means all those people who aren’t writers or big name stars can get back to doing the things that puts food on their tables and funds into their kids’ education funds. I also hope that the WGA members overall feel they got something of value for all this.
Joe and Bill, you make fair points. When I find a DVD of Curse of Fatal Death, I will buy it.
To update. I was at the Shrine Auditorium, which is magnificent, by the way. I’d been to the other side of the Shrine for the monthly comic convention but not the big auditorium. Interestingly and perhaps ironically, the meeting where they talked whether the strike would end in time for the Oscars to proceed is the very same auditorium that, up until a few years ago, was one of the two homes for the Oscars.
On is website Mark Evanier pretty much explained what happened. Mark left before I did so I was there when the one real voice of dissension spoke up. He had a solid point to make, but then went Howard Beale on the audience and was somewhat silenced after speaking forever. But he was the only real negative. I’d say 99% of the people there were very positive about what has been going on. I’d been to the WGA 2001 strike meetings and the 1988 ones and there were always lines of people wanting to speak out against whatever was being said. You could have said it was 8PM and you would have found folk to argue that. This time there was pretty much unanimous solidarity which I credit to WGA prez Patric Verrone. I had been on the animation writing caucus with Patric for many years before I finally left and he’s a quiet but fiercely intelligent ex-lawyer and brilliant comedy writer who I think was able to keep all the disparate writers together the way no one else has since I became a WGA member.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) a vote is being taken as whether or not to end the strike. I’m pretty sure the vote will be yes. At which point the writers will be back on the job by Wednesday.
There’s an interesting, and what looks to be a pretty thorough analysis of the deal at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-handel/writers-deal-analysis_b_85867.html
As an interested onlooker, there appear to be some very encouraging developments, particularly as they pertain to transparency, i.e. getting complete and honest records from the powers-that-be; and also the fact that certain formulae are based on distributor grosses as opposed to studio grosses (translation: we didn’t make a dime, so go away). Less encouraging is the fact that a ‘favored nation’ clause with the upcoming SAG negotiations appears to be based on a handshake deal, as opposed to being set down in writing. Expecting the moguls to stick to a deal made with a handshake ain’t gonna happen as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll admit that I’ve got a downloaded version of The Curse of Fatal Death. Much like Jason M. said, though, the moment it gets an R1 DVD release, I’m there! (Same thing goes for K9 and Company… Which oddly enough, just after downloading it I read it may get an R2 release. Here’s hoping R1 won’t be too far behind.)
Anyway… Curse of Fatal Death was awesome. I love Tennant and hope he stays on for a run that gives good ol’ Tom Baker a run for the money, but I would love seeing Rowan Atkinson as an actual Doctor (rather then just a spoof)!
I loved The Curse of Fatal Death. I got the VHS years ago and have written it into the “what DVD would you like to see next” line in every survey card that I’ve gotten in a Doctor Who DVD. It’s worth tracking the VHS down for the extra Who spoofs on there from French and Saunders, Victoria Wood On TV, and The Lenny Henry Show. Funny stuff.
Mike Weber: On re-reading your post asking about my parenthetical aside, I see you were asking whether I was accusing “our gracious host” of being or admitting myself to be a snarky bášŧárd. You should realize it is not an either/or situation. In this one case, I was willing to admit a point of similarity to PAD. Where I would not admit any similarity is in comprehending Denny’s post. PAD took a sarcastic comment not particularly different from his own style as “making stuff up purely to denigrate others.” I think he should think twice about dismissing such stuff, as it makes up a large part of the his own OPs and has made him a fair number of friends on this site.
Posted by: Jeffrey S. Frawley
Mike Weber: On re-reading your post asking about my parenthetical aside…
Actually, if you look a little more closely, soemone had asked whtheer you meant PAD or yporself.
The sole “original content” on my part was a deliberately ambiguous “yes”.
(Also, please note that the correct spelliong of my name is “mike weber”.)
As I am fearful of capital punishment, I will accede to mike weber’s preferred orthography. Your interposition of “yes” was accurate, but perhaps unnecessary: My confession of snarky bášŧárdÿ had been fairly overt and perhaps also unnecessary, if I take the response to some of my posts seriously.
Does anyone know what happened with DVD residuals? I thought that before the strike, writers got around 4 cents per DVD sold. Did that change with the new deal?
Hello I am doing a school project and I was wondering how many charcaters you have created. Which comic stripe (that you have made) is your favorite? What Character is your favorite. I heard about the writers srtike and wondered if that took affect on you, your job and your pay. I am a fan of your work and hope you post back or email me back at betts.kayla@cmjhs.com