The Fucking AMPT(P) and Studios, Man
[Image ID: The above tweet thread by Amy Thurlow (@athurlow) from August 23rd, 2023 reads in its entirety:
This proposal (that very much shouldn’t have been released under media blackout) is wild to me for so many reasons. Here’s why it is a giant nothing burger of an offer. 🧵
[this tweet includes an image of part of the proposal that reads:
Required Employment in the Writers' Room
Oh High Budget SVOD and pay television series or serials, the Showrunner may select at least two writers to be employed (together with the Showrunner) for a period of at least twenty (20) consecutive weeks in the writer's room, but not to exceed the duration of the writer's room.]
The Showrunner “may select” aka it is the Showrunner’s choice. This may seem like an out for SRs that don’t want to be “forced” to hire but really it’s a loophole. The studio can just suggest that if the SR makes this “choice” will pay for it some other way.
Maybe that means the studio tells them “we’d really rather you not” or “actually we don’t do that here” — there are a million ways that passing this off on the Showrunner is a way of hiding how little power many Showrunners have — especially if they’re new.
If a SR does manage to hire these two lucky lads for 20 weeks they are not to exceed the duration of the writers room. 🤔 So, if a room is 10 weeks they can’t stay for 20 and be involved in production and post. So they’re just hired for the TIME THEY WOULD ALREADY BE HIRED FOR.
And only for 2 of them when a standard room is no less than 10. But wait, there’s more: this only applies to High Budget SVOD, pay tv and serials — meaning maybe 10% of television that’s made.
The spin is going to be “we gave them minimum staffing” but this proposal is maybe worse than the current system because it codifies the 2 person room as being the Showrunner’s “choice”.
It does nothing to address the broad issues of 4 writers doing the work of 10 and those lucky 4 people not being able to pay their rent bc they have to make 8 weeks of employment with a 25% rep tax last 52+ weeks.
[Image ID: The above is a tweet from David Slack (@slack2thefuture) quote-tweeting Amy's "The spin is going to be..." Tweet. Also from August 23rd, 2023. It reads:
It’s also worth noting that unless the term “showrunner” is rigorously defined as a writer in our MBA — which it presently isn’t — there’s nothing to stop the studios from saying, “You’re just the head writer. Exec X is the showrunner now and they select zero writers.”
[Image ID: the above Image is Jose Molina's (@JoseMolinaTV) August 24th, 2023 Quote Tweet of David's tweet that reads:
Happened to me a couple of years ago on an animated show. I had all the responsibilities of a showrunner, but my producers had final call on all things -- like when they took scripts I'd assigned to writers of color and gave them to white guys who weren't even in the room.
