#writer's strike

[etakeh]

In case you think the writers on strike aren't making good use of their time, think no more!

Only click the read more if you're fully prepared. I'm taking no responsibility past this point.

Help a guy out. He's stuck. Who's got 18 brothers who all wanna cook. (source)

[gingerswagfreckles]

Hey y'all. With the Writer's Guild of America on strike, you might be hearing a lot more about something called "residuals," which are payments that the writers get for the studios continuing to air their work on reruns and such. Already I'm seeing people trying to frame the union trying to bargain for better residuals as greedy and unreasonable, so I just wanted to give you guys a peek into my dad's full, 100% real residual payments for writing some of the most watched episodes of American late night television.

Yeah lol. If u hear anyone trying to frame the conversation around residuals as writers being greedy, please do me a favor and punch them straight in the face ❤️🙃🙃

[kropotkindersurprise]

July 25, 2023 - Striking stuntman Mike Massa walks in the SAG-AFTRA picket line while on fire. [video]

[mwagneto]

i genuinely dont care if the creation of all media comes to a screeching halt btw i will very gladly live with no new movies no new tv shows no new anything for years if that's what it takes for the people who create them to be treated like human beings. i hope every other facet of the entertainment industry goes on strike too and i hope all the ones that havent unionised yet will. i want media creation to become completely impossible and i want the people who could make it possible again to hold out until they get every single thing they want. btw

[re-bee-key]

I pointed this out in a Discord server I'm in and thought Id share here:

Bob Iger announced that Disney is going to absorb Hulu, and Hulu will no longer exist next year. All shows will move to the Disney+ app.

Disney also announced they were going to remove shows and movies periodically from their streaming services.

I believe both of these moves are because of the Writers Strike.

Disney knows its going to lose the strike. There is too much public support. Specifically, the WGA is going to win writers getting more residuals from streaming.

So if Disney takes shows off of streaming, they dont have to pay the writers the residuals.

They are going to use excuses like "not enough funding for the server capacity" or "not enough views to warrent keeping the show". These are BULLSHIT. Its all greed. Its only GREED.

Pay attention to what happens in the following weeks.

And keep supporting the writers' strike.

[friendshiptothemax]

I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.

That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”

Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can -- characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.

This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years -- if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.

Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me -- a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels -- the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form -- what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just...fucking suck.

The WGA is proposing two things to fix this -- a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.

[aquitainequeen]

David Slack warning against AMPTP trying to turn the unions against each other, and stating the facts.

[gatalentan]

🗣 WRITERS AREN'T SHUTTING DOWN HOLLYWOOD THE STUDIOS ARE

Edit: This post popped off unexpectedly, so here is some further info & direct action you can take if this situation makes you as furious as it should:

Donate (crowdfund) food for the strikers

Learn more about the strike

WGA linktree