Writers Strike…
Posted on December 12, 2007
Filed Under Movies |
UPDATE: A characteristically insightful post from Bubblegeneration explaining why the writers strike is dragging on…
Ultimately, it’s because boardrooms still don’t have a clue about how or why media and consumer economics are in shock…read the rest.
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My parents still have a VCR! They’ve only got one tape mind you, an old copy of Top Gun recorded off the TV many years ago…I have watched that movie so many times I can just about quote it verbatim:
“Don’t screw around with me Maverick. You’re a hell of an instinctive pilot. Maybe too good. I’d like to bust your butt but I can’t. I got another problem here. I gotta send somebody from this squadron to Miramar. I gotta do something here, I still can’t believe it. I gotta give you your dream shot! I’m gonna send you up against the best. You two characters are going to Top Gun.” ~ Stinger
That there’s some classic Hollywood screen writing, written back in the 1980’s when Studios didn’t have to worry about the internet, DRM or peer to peer distribution…you know, the good old days.
Fast forward 20 years and we’re now in the midst of the big writers strike which is all about how studios renumerate writers for online distribution of their content. I met an LA based screenwriter in Sydney last weekend who explained in the simplest terms he could muster how it is all going down, and the gist seems to be that Studios have no fricking clue how to make money through online distribution, or even if they can make money online…Which is the problem, because if the Studios don’t know how to make real money with online distribution, then they don’t feel like paying the talent much for that.
Of course everyone knows that the future is online, so with contracts up for renegotiation now it’s unsurprising that the writers are looking to address this. And they are being supported by the actors whose contracts will be coming up in 2008 (or sometime soonish), and will be looking for similar changes.
Anyway, the whole point of this ramble is that the Studios are kinda screwed…
The very thing they are worried about is being accelerated enormously by the strike. What do they expect the writers are all doing with their downtime? Aside from rostered picket lines they are all busy writing the independant content that they’ve always wanted to, and then they’re co-opting their industry friends to produce it for next to nothing (digital baby!), and sometime in the new year there is going to be a flood of really cool content onto the web. The screenwriter I met confirmed as much, he’s working on his own thing (something about “Reservoir Dogs with midgets”). I can’t wait.
It’s good to be the talent right now. Right now the talent has everything they need to be successful totally on their own terms. And when I say talent I mean it in the very traditional sense of the word…there’s no question that the democratization of media creates an awful lot of noise (and an awful lot of rubbish content), but the real talent will rise to the top. And perhaps once they get a taste of independent production and direct distribution the talent will start to wonder why they need the studios so much.
“Wow, you guys really are cowboys.” ~ Iceman
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I so agree with this. And even in the midst of the strike action a few weeks back, the writers were proving just why they were so good:
http://www.simonyoungwriters.com/why-im-enjoying-the-writers-strike/
Reservoir dogs with midgets? Hmmm… sounds good!