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00:00:01
Writers Strike
28 Plays1 year ago
We talk about the ongoing strikes
https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-approves-strike-authorization-results-1235585560/
https://parade.com/entertainment/2023-wga-writers-strike
https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/striking-wga-members-promise-animation-writers-unionization-230867.html#
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/wga-schedule-of-minimums/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Writers' Strike
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome for real. All right. Welcome to Friday Central. I'm Doc back here again with Keck. How's it going, buddy? It is going.
00:00:23
Speaker
All right, we are going to discuss both the actors and writer's strike today and the most recent news that we have up
WGA vs. AMPTP: The Battle
00:00:31
Speaker
to date. First, I would like to talk about the writer's strike because that's been going on the longest. Yeah. Back in May, I believe. And I think I think there's like the most news with that because that's actually had some like, there's been some, you know, movement in the last 24 hours we were just talking about.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, they just had a sit down recently. But first, we'll go over what the what the writers strike is about and who they're really striking
Animation Writers: Separate Struggles
00:01:06
Speaker
against. Good idea. So the writers, the WGA is striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. They they pretty much are the union that cover 350
00:01:22
Speaker
film and television production companies, which include major film studios, including Paramount, Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal, Disney, also network TV like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, and streamers Paramount Plus, Max, Peacock, Disney Plus, Hulu, Netflix, Apple Plus, and Amazon Prime.
00:01:43
Speaker
So they cover a lot. I'll just call them the producers or the studios
Demands and Challenges for Writers
00:01:47
Speaker
throughout. I'm not going to say AMPTP the whole time. Yeah, I would just say the studios. Yeah, just the studio. I mean, that's pretty much how I've heard it referred to on the news. It's either been the studios or the production companies, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's better than just, you know, repeating their whole thing. Yeah, yeah, that's ridiculous.
00:02:13
Speaker
But yeah, so it was the strike was May 2nd and the WGA is 11,500 members and they had passed the strike authorization vote was 97.85%, with 78.79% of eligible members had cast ballots.
00:02:36
Speaker
So the vote was 9,020 in favor to 198 opposed of the ones who had actually voted. I'm sorry. So this was the vote two strike. Two strike, yeah. And it was, you said 98%? Yeah, about 97.85, yeah. Gotcha. 98%. Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
out of like 79% of members had actually cast their ballots. And do you know approximately how many writers are in this union? Yeah, 11,500. 11,500, gotcha. So this was an overwhelming number. Overwhelming, yes. A very small number opposed the strike.
00:03:26
Speaker
But I also like to mention that most animation writers do not fall under the Writers Guild. They actually fall under the Animation Guild. And that's about half of animation writers are in the WGA.
00:03:44
Speaker
And so animation writers are able to keep doing their anime stuff without writing. Yeah, but they don't get nearly as much benefits.
00:03:59
Speaker
I can go into that a little bit later, but they make about half as much as what a live TV, television, or movie. One question I would have is with animation, does that encompass all animation, like children's cartoons, to adult, what is it called, the Japanese anime stuff? That's basically anything that's animated.
00:04:29
Speaker
And these people are, you know, strictly right for animating. Yes. Yeah, sometimes they do cross over into live action, but only if those members even make that up.
Impact of Mini Rooms and Exclusivity Deals
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker
I'll go into what the details are of like how much they make a little later on. Yeah, I was just gonna say like this would be a really great time to work on like Fist of the North Star Part 2. At least that would be uplifting. Yeah, well, I mean, I know a lot of the Japanese animation, they don't fall under, you know,
00:05:08
Speaker
writers uh you know the american uh yeah stuff like that so they'll that's a whole separate thing but yeah i'm just saying i would take advantage of it yeah you know because somebody's going to be making money out of crisis you know it might as well be them
00:05:23
Speaker
with Fist of the North Star Part II, that'd be bad fucking ass. Well, you can write it, and you can animate it, but then you still have the voiceover work, and a lot of those are actors which fall under SAG, so they can't do the voices. Unless you were to hire people that did not fall under the SAG category, and you just got non-fat, sorry, SAG,
00:05:52
Speaker
SAG people. I accidentally said FAG. I don't know if you would consider this anime or not, but it was the creators of South Park had that thing where at the end Kim Jong Un, what was that, Team America World Police?
00:06:18
Speaker
was it where they yeah yeah and they were they were fags instead of sags anyway yeah i was thinking the other south park the gays against fags where they were ryan against the bikers oh the but yeah then where they got the word the word fag changed in websters dictionary to like harley davison riders like yeah
00:06:42
Speaker
Both South Park references, but yes. So the things that the Writers Guild were asking for were better residuals, in many cases residuals at all, because sometimes they don't get paid residuals at all. On top of residuals, they want to clear up a bunch of other issues.
00:07:04
Speaker
when it comes to respect to like streaming in tech, they want increased minimum compensation, better working standards and regulations regarding AI and anti-discrimination measures, of course. No, my thing, we'll get into this. Go ahead, continue. Is there any more demands that they have or anything else that they're looking for?
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, I can go into details of what because everything you just read sounds like, you know, completely practical, you know, very reasonable. Yeah. The union wants TV shows to staff like a certain number of writers for a period of time, because sometimes they'll just have people come in, you know, plan out the whole season, then they'll go away and then like maybe two writers will come in and like, you know, and actually get like those guys in the beginning won't really get paid.
00:08:02
Speaker
You know, it's called like a mini room where only a handful of writers working on a series. They're employed like during development before shows greenlit. That means the writers can be working on a series that doesn't get picked up for as much of a year after they've worked on it or not at all. And like this process has kind of circumvented some of the protections WJ members have from being like overworked and understaffed.
00:08:29
Speaker
The use of mini rooms accelerated during the pandemic with writers often meeting by Zoom, which is still like a common practice. So many of the TV rules surrounding like TV writing are based on like, you know, old outdated models. The writers... It's antiquated. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that.
00:08:50
Speaker
They're also, they were once, you know, working on like almost a year for like 22 to 25 episodes. And now it's like maybe like six to 10 episodes.
00:09:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah, like back in the days of like, like friends, for instance, who used to have like what they used to have like 29 episode seasons, or I think it was at least 24 episode seasons, or like 24, 24 episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So and then a lot of that times they're assigned to like exclusivity deals, which means that like, they can't work on anything else. You know, like, while like in between. So like,
00:09:30
Speaker
you know if you worked on one thing and then you then you're signed to that agreement and then you can't work on it until on something else until like they either canceled the show or like you know
00:09:43
Speaker
Although I can understand why you would want a writer to be exclusively linked to your
Financial Strain on Writers
00:09:53
Speaker
current production because it makes the writer solely focused on that because I can tell you from first-hand experience writing can be
00:10:04
Speaker
very stressful very anxiety provoking writers block is very very real and I would I would just think you know I'm just saying like you know just deductive logic would tell me that like it might be better for them to lock the writer down to like one thing rather them have them involved in many many different projects so ideas start to become scattered and then maybe you see like a
00:10:33
Speaker
kind and like the quality of the writing. So I mean, I'm just like sore plain devil's advocate because like I could understand that. But then I can understand on the other side to limiting them to be able to pursue multiple forms of gainful employment.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. It's one thing when they're signed on to something, but then once something's done and you're just sitting around waiting to see if you get picked up or while they're shooting, you're not working. That means you're not getting paid, so you're having trouble paying rent, so you're just stuck not doing anything. You have to get a second job or something.
00:11:13
Speaker
And that can also greatly affect your creativity. Because if you're an idol writer, that's just not good. If you're a writer, you're supposed to be writing. I would think that a lot of the writers, and I'm saying this,
00:11:34
Speaker
I have no idea. I'm just saying hypothetically, I would think a lot of the writers aren't necessarily completely idle. Hopefully, a lot of them are doodling ideas.
00:11:51
Speaker
maybe have like something in mind for like where they're going to be going to next or do you think that they're all just like sitting around on the couch depressed with like blank expressions on their face staring at TVs of static? Well I think a lot of them might uh are uh probably out get you know working second jobs while they're waiting to hear back from uh all their projects as well because you know they got bills to pay yeah everyone makes like millions of dollars on uh
00:12:21
Speaker
writing i mean some do but not everyone well can you talk a little bit about apparently there was like a war chest for the writers like some kind of funds where the out-of-work writers were going to be receiving some form of compensation while on strike or was that only for the actors because i know that there's a fund for the actors that have been set up
00:12:48
Speaker
so some of the actors are still getting paid out of like a I don't know if it was like donations or some kind of like charity contribution but I know some of the actors are still receiving payment while on strike do the writers have an equivalent of that
Producers' Tactics and Writers' Pay
00:13:08
Speaker
I'm sure they do, but I had not come across one because most of the news was about the SAG Foundation, which is not part of SAG. It's a separate nonprofit organization that people have been donating to that will pay out. It's for people in financial need. I'm sure the WGA has something similar as well.
00:13:27
Speaker
But you would assume that it's dwindling right now. Like whatever funds they had put aside, you would think that like, it has to be dwindling. It has to be close to empty by now, right? Because now it worked for what, three months now? Yeah, I guess it depends on how much they had and how much people are donating as well. Yeah. I'll go into the donations of the SAG one when we talk about SAG.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't heard as much about the writers because most of the news coverage is more about the actors' strike than it is about the writers' strike. Unfortunately, in my opinion. In a famous, or should I say infamous, interview with Deadline, one of the members of the Producers Guild
00:14:19
Speaker
stated on record that the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses. Now you mentioned this to me for the first time like two or three nights ago. Now when did this episode of Deadline air? This was like very recent.
00:14:42
Speaker
July 11th all right so almost a month ago but who was it that said this was it was it on a anonymous okay so they're a chicken shit all right just one of the
00:15:01
Speaker
Well, actually here, not Halloween precisely, but late October for sure is the intention as a top-tier producer close to the, yeah, it just says one of the producers or one of the members of
00:15:15
Speaker
Again, that's like over 350 different studios. Yeah, but I mean, I'm assuming that whoever said this was probably high up in one of the studios and that's why they chose to remain anonymous and they're probably very angry.
00:15:35
Speaker
And what they're basically saying is they want to bleed them dry until the writers basically come crawling on their hands and knees back. And then they don't want to give them any demand but actually kind of fuck them over and like demote them and give them actually less pay.
00:15:57
Speaker
like to teach them a lesson like don't ever fuck with us again. Is that what they were sourcing? Because that's fucking hardcore. Yeah, acknowledging the cold as ice approach. Several other resources reiterated the statement. One insider called it a cool but necessary evil. Cool. Cold but necessary. Yeah. Necessary.
00:16:24
Speaker
They think that financially strapped writers would go to the WGA leadership and demand they restart talks before they get a very cold Christmas. This was someone saying the quiet part out loud, but they were representing probably a substantial amount of the overall sediment of the production companies.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean publicly they're refuting the so-called October surprise. Seen as like several other members kind of re-ate it, re-radiate the statement. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
That's kind of the plan for that. Yeah, it's a real scumbag move. Yeah, I mean, look, I can understand that there's anger on both sides, you know, because obviously, you know, I was just reading something about how they said that the Fall TV lineup is basically on life support right now and how it like,
00:17:30
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff that's just not even going to happen. Like there's probably a lot of things that were in the works that we're going to never know existed. So I get that there's frustration and anger on both sides. But like to say that like
00:17:48
Speaker
We're not only going to not give you any of the things you're requesting, not compromise in the slightest. We want to hurt you for this. We want to make you pay. This is retribution.
00:18:07
Speaker
so i mean that's fucking hardcore i mean to even if they said like you know what we're gonna refuse to negotiate when they want to come back or welcome to give them exactly what they were getting before that's still shitty to not compromise at all but at least that's not like absolutely cold blooded like that's some fucking cold blooded ruthless
00:18:35
Speaker
Ruthless as shit, you know, that's um, you know, Kevin Spacey Frank Whaley That's some swimming with the sharks type shit right there. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's like you said it's like they're saying the quiet parts out loud like yeah You need to like but they also did it as chicken shits because they did it in a manner where you know their names are never going to be mentioned and
00:19:01
Speaker
at least not presently or anytime in the near future. I mean maybe at some point we'll learn who said that but like you know if you really want to be ballsy and you're gonna make like you know you're gonna say something to deadline and you want your word to be heard like you know
00:19:19
Speaker
have some fucking courage, and if you're gonna be that hardcore, be a man or be a woman, and throw your name into the mix. Let us know how you feel. Don't hide behind privilege. That's how I see it. Yeah. Now, I got some numbers here of how much riders make, at least in the previous deal. Their deals run about three years,
00:19:49
Speaker
Before they renegotiate it helps you know keep up with you know technology and stuff like that Before you mentioned the numbers real quick. I just wanted to ask are there different tiers of writers like within the get because for example like writers that have done like larger projects and
00:20:13
Speaker
that have gained more notoriety and success for their work, for movies and television that have been more profitable and been more successful? Are they on a higher level, comparable to a SAG actor? Somebody like Sean Penn?
00:20:34
Speaker
compared to somebody like you know who's not really very well known at all like are there different tiers of pay on the right like do you understand what I'm asking or yeah absolutely yeah I'm just talking about like what the minimums are okay okay what people can get paid up to like you know I was just curious about rough rough payment
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah, for like an original screenplay without treatment, a screenwriter can get paid like 54,000 for a low budget project and roughly 111,000 for a high budget one. These numbers become 81,000.
00:21:15
Speaker
to $152,000 dependent on if like a treatment is involved or not because you get paid for a treatment as well. For non-original screenplays with no treatment, you can get $44,000 for low budget and $91,000 for high budget with additional treatment can bring those numbers up.
00:21:34
Speaker
treatments and rewrites alone can net writers around $26,000 for low budget and $40,000 for high budget, while story by credit will pay $10,000. This does not reflect the entire reality because not only do these amounts tend to get paid incrementally,
00:21:51
Speaker
It's likely a writer will get like a portion of the total for the treatment, another portion for the first draft, another portion for final draft, and the case where the treatment is present. But for beginning writers, there's no guarantee that the same writer will be hired to write anything beyond a first draft or even the treatment. And once you've sold your script, the studio owns it and can hire whoever they want to work on it.
00:22:15
Speaker
Also, they don't account for additional expenses such as paying a screenwriting agent, a manager, lawyer, taxes, which can bring the writer's total income down to as low as 40% of the original number.
Streaming Services and Residuals
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's something wrong there. Yeah, so those numbers might seem like high up front, but like if you're not, if you're a tied to a deal for the whole year,
00:22:41
Speaker
you're getting paid, okay, $40,000, let's say, but then you got to pay taxes on that as well. But then you get, you got manager payment, you know, all these other payments you got to make, you're only gonna make like 40% of that, like that's not enough for anything. It doesn't really, I mean, when you say a low budget project, around $54,000,
00:23:05
Speaker
What is low budget? I mean, are we talking about like, what would you consider low budget? Like, what would like the total, um, the total amount that went into the entire production? Like, are you talking about like, like maybe like 5 million or something like that? Or are you talking about like, you know, like shoestring? Because, you know, there's different tiers of budget, like,
00:23:28
Speaker
You know we're not talking about shoestring budget shit obviously you know yeah we're talking about like yeah i think it's less than i think it's something like less than five million yeah i was just trying to get like a reference point of what was considered low budget like you know are we talking about
00:23:46
Speaker
five million are we talking about like two million you know i mean like what's considered to be like low budget like what what's the you know low mid tier and then like top tier because you would think it i mean if low budget is like really low budget and then you look at a project like avatar which is
00:24:06
Speaker
obviously like really high budget where you know they spent like what was it like 2.1 billion dollars it you said the low budget was 54,000 I believe you said high budget was 111 or 110,000 out that's like actually not that much considering like a high budget movie could be bringing in ridiculous amounts of revenue
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah well of course then again on the other hand let's say this low budget project that they're in.
00:24:43
Speaker
does very well because like low budget projects have the ability to you know see exponential returns if they're successful you know i mean you look at something like that where which project comes to mind and they're only going to be making $54,000 if this thing turns around from like a five million dollar budget and ends up making like a total of like you know let's say
00:25:11
Speaker
250 million dollars overall, which 10 does and has happened.
00:25:17
Speaker
you're only getting 54 grand from that and you read the whole thing. Yeah. And that's upfront pay. That's where residuals would come into effect where you would get paid like, you know, depending on like how much something was reaired on TV or, you know, I guess, you know, video on demand, you would get paid from because you have to pay for those or like a red box or, you know, like Amazon Prime, you have to pay like, you know, 10 bucks or something. You get paid for those.
00:25:45
Speaker
you know, if you are, if that's in your contract at all, first of all, because that was one of the things. But yeah, when it comes to streaming, and this also like goes with the SAG, what they're talking about as well, like you like stream is really difficult to even get residuals. And if you do, you're going to get a very small amount.
00:26:07
Speaker
because it's really difficult. They don't release a lot of numbers for like Netflix and Disney and stuff like that. They don't release viewing numbers. And sometimes like if it's a Netflix owned property,
00:26:21
Speaker
like say orange is the new black, you know, that is something they had owned and produce themselves. Um, they could be paying residuals based on like maybe, I don't know, maybe like how many hours, you know, they could be saying that I don't know how they work it. I think it's just a one time payment at the end of the month or something, but instead
00:26:43
Speaker
like um the sometimes you know universal will sell like license a project to netflix and then like they'll get a residual payment from universal but then if it does really well on netflix they won't see anything you know based on that and like that's where it gets kind of fuzzy is like how yeah they uh i know sag and writers want like a third party
00:27:06
Speaker
to determine how many hours or views things are getting so they can negotiate. An independent arbiter that oversees everything that doesn't really have a horse in any of the races. And they're able to just objectively look at things and mediate.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah. And also, but like, when it comes to Netflix, the the amount of views something gets doesn't necessarily come into, you know, actual revenue for Netflix, you know, because they get paid by subscribers. And it's hard to tell if certain things bring in a certain amount of subscribers or not. So that's a that's a whole nother like thing you kind of have to work around as well.
00:28:00
Speaker
that's why my suggestion was like if they should get a certain cut by how many hours it gets viewed and not necessarily how many views or like it like if you will only watch like 10 minutes of something
00:28:13
Speaker
that does that count as a view like like you didn't watch yeah I mean we don't well we don't know the Netflix algorithm I mean I know that's been something like I know Netflix had tried to retain employees when there was like
00:28:32
Speaker
I think a couple years ago there was something of a mass exodus from Netflix and Netflix was really worried about some of its employees that had resigned going to other platforms and revealing their formula to success. Considering that other streaming platforms are now having
00:29:01
Speaker
a greater degree of success than they initially were. You would think that some of that got leaked out, but I mean, we don't know exactly by what metric Netflix is. Like you just said, like if you only watch like a small amount of something, like the first five or 10 minutes, is that like a full view?
Complex Pay Structures in Writing
00:29:24
Speaker
And also, I just wanted to backtrack a little bit.
00:29:30
Speaker
with the low budget and high budget were you talking about does that count as a film or what is the difference between a writer working on a film and a writer working on a television production that's like going to see several seasons you know what I mean like for example if you're making a movie or you're like writing for Game of Thrones
00:29:57
Speaker
where you know that you're going to be seeing like you know a certain number of seasons like you know it's going to be picked up what Game of Thrones went for eight seasons one season unfortunately too long and you know you're obviously going to be seeing like a lot more constant work do you get paid like by the episode or
00:30:23
Speaker
Is it, you know what I mean? Like, what's the difference between film and television?
00:30:29
Speaker
Well, that was mostly film that I made. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was just curious as to the writers' compensation for a television series, especially a television series that after the initial season, they will sometimes get picked up for multiple seasons afterwards. So you would think, well, in a perfect world, you would think that the writers would
00:31:00
Speaker
see substantial compensation for that especially if their writing was very well received and they've already been negotiated and signed for multiple extra seasons. Assuming that they're going to keep the same writing staff on there because I mean there's been several incidents where
00:31:22
Speaker
God damn it, the specific show I'm thinking of eludes me right now, but after the first season, which I thought was a very good, strong season, the production company fired the entire writing staff and they replaced them with somebody else. It was like kind of a big deal back in the day.
00:31:45
Speaker
I can't think of the show. It's on like the tip of my tongue, but I just can't remember and yeah, I was just curious about the the difference between film and television and the writers' compensation between the two. Alright, well for a feature film for which a writer is paid over $150,000 in six months where it takes
00:32:11
Speaker
Whereas it takes nine months for a writer who has paid under $150,000. Sorry, let me rephrase that. All right. The WGA discovered that the average duration of employment for a first draft in feature films for which a writer has paid over $150,000 is six months. OK.
00:32:34
Speaker
Whereas someone who's paid under $150,000, their script takes nine months. So the first draft is 50% longer for those who earn more. I think that's for feature as well. Where did the... Okay. For television, it looks like 33% of TV writers are paid minimum rates.
00:33:01
Speaker
I'm looking
00:33:14
Speaker
because with some shows, you know, you have like an hour show, like, you know, we'll have like a 57 minute runtime, which is the equivalent to like almost like a small movie. So if a writer is getting paid, say 54,000 for like a low budget movie or 110,000 for a higher budget movie, like what would they, I mean, I can't think that like they would be getting that for like,
00:33:43
Speaker
that wouldn't attribute to an entire season like are they receiving like somewhere around like 50,000 an episode or you know I'm just not sure what the difference is between TVs and movies in terms of what they make. It looks like they can make up to 250,000 a year. So it would be like a salary position in that regard like
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because it's not gonna be paid all at all. So they're basically the writers who are being held on retainer like as a show renews and stuff like that like Yeah, I just saw something where did it go for uh, I believe zip recruiter Had said the average TV writer Gets paid. Where is it?
00:34:41
Speaker
It looks like nearly all half TV writers are working at minimum pay. WGA minimums. Minimum is $5,000 a week. Okay, so for a television series like a low-budget episode, you'd be getting $5,000 per episode. Is that what you're saying?
00:35:07
Speaker
for a week, that's not necessarily an episode. Each episode, one episode airs per week. Sorry to anybody listening to this, this is a lot of information to take in. There's a lot of moving parts here.
00:35:27
Speaker
The writers production companies were going to be getting into the actors. There's a lot of numbers out there I've seen a lot of like confusing and misleading information about this so in order to get like solid fact you really have to like dig into this and
Independent Films and Interim Agreements
00:35:47
Speaker
yeah there's just like a lot of moving components because you know until like we started the cast I didn't realize that like anime was separate and then you have television which is obviously a separate thing and then you have film which is a separate thing and then um right before we did this cast we were listening to a guy talking about like um
00:36:12
Speaker
the independent films being able to enter into I believe he said something called an interim agreement where you were able to kind of get around the strike somehow and some people could do that so there's there's just like a lot of different components to this so it's like really hard to like you know keep track of all of it because there's just so much shit going on
00:36:39
Speaker
All right, I found that from StudioBinder.com, the WJ minimum for screenplay is a budget of $5 million or more is $145,000. For a screenplay with a budget of $5 million or less is $77,000. Option price is 10% of a script minimum, if they option to buy it. Yeah. Future employment is $6,000 a week. This number goes down more weeks of guaranteed work you have. The minimum would be roughly $5,000 a week.
00:37:07
Speaker
Uh, of course this is all before, you know, taxes and all your manager fees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although all of the other costs and overhead, uh, for television, uh, theatrical and television, basic agreement, the length of program, 15 minutes or less. Uh, the story is about 5,000 a week for a teleplay is about 11,000.
00:37:36
Speaker
which includes like your first draft and final draft is 90% of minimum or 60% agreed compensation whichever is greater story and teleplay is 14,000 oh this was uh that was 2021 sorry uh it's up a little bit more so it's uh 5,000 for story 12,000 for teleplay 15,000 for story and teleplay
00:38:01
Speaker
A program 30 minutes or less is 9,000 teleplay, 20,000 story and teleplay, 28,000.
00:38:11
Speaker
No, you're throwing out a lot of numbers there, buddy. I can't keep track of all that. But like, um, so basically, all right. So for television, the minimum they're going to get is about 5,000 a week. So I was just looking at that as 5,000 episode. If you're going by an episode week to week while you're employed during that season.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, so like it for like a under 30 minute network primetime story and teleplays. Or would that be the entire length of the airing? No, the 5000s week to week week to week. So even if like, they don't release them every week, so like the whole thing could be like stretched out. So they're getting 5000 a week regardless. Okay, gotcha.
00:39:02
Speaker
Of how long they're employed? Yeah, of how long they're employed. And that's the minimum, right? Yeah, but if the more weeks guaranteed work you have, the WGA minimum goes down to $4,000 a week. Really? So if you're employed longer, you get paid less.
00:39:22
Speaker
So that makes no fucking sense at all because I guess you're going back so for so if I'm a writer it would be more advantageous for me to tell my agent to get me involved in a lot of more short budget projects and Constantly would be looking for work. Yeah at least if you have guaranteed work
00:39:48
Speaker
You know you're going to get a guarantee pay, but yes, you would make them less than something if you were just to do like a one-off.
Deadlines and Streaming Pay Structures
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, it's confusing too. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, especially if you're a new writer, just getting into the business. And you know, this is something you're very passionate about. It's something you really want to do like, and depending upon like, you know, whether you have whether you're just relying on the union or whether you have an independent agent,
00:40:20
Speaker
that also might be taking a cut of your earnings based upon like work that they're finding you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of other expenses that they're going to have as well potentially. So yeah, I mean, it's kind of a cluster. So they really are getting fucked over. Yeah, there's a I mean, there's like, like, there's just treatment pay. There's like,
00:40:45
Speaker
There's also like, you know, under 30 minute network prime time pay, which is about 27,000 for the whole thing. Under 60 minute, I mean, yeah, under 60 minute network prime time is 40,000 and then under 30 minute other than network prime time. So I guess like your streaming services and stuff would be 15,000 and then under 60 minute other network prime time is 28,000.
00:41:12
Speaker
So I guess that means like not primetime shows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your high budget basic one hour drama story and tell a place 30,000. Okay. And what about projects that are on deadlines? Like, for example, like something where they tell the writers, you know, you have to have your material out to us by a certain point. I mean, that when you take that into consideration too,
00:41:40
Speaker
Is there like a maximum amount of hours that an actor or a writer can work in a week like do they have like a cut off point or if a production company is like you know we you know in your contract we said we have to have the final draft.
00:42:02
Speaker
by this point, does that mean a writer could potentially have to be up for three days straight writing? You know what I mean? Like a truck driver. Yeah, so that's a component that I didn't even consider because a lot of these things are going to have deadlines when the companies are going to basically be like, we need the material by this point.
00:42:31
Speaker
So writers basically do not have any kind of work protection where they can't work so many hours. They can be up at all times working day straights, snorting Adderall and whatever else.
00:42:55
Speaker
they have to have that material in by a certain point right unless like well i think the one example i had heard was i remember the final season of game of thrones i know hbo company had basically told the
00:43:12
Speaker
the writers we would rather get this right you know you have a lot they had basically said we're going to be very lenient on the time frame like you know take your time write this out right and you know we'll put it out when it's ready and I'm thinking that that was a very unique instance when
00:43:36
Speaker
Most other projects, they're going to say, you know, we want the final draft by this date. Like, so you're on the deadline too. You know, writer's block, fuck you. We want our fucking shit. You know what I mean? We also have numbers for streaming too. A platform with over 20 million subscribers pays the highest minimum rates.
00:43:59
Speaker
rates decrease when a platform is fewer than 15 million. But it's about roughly the same, like a 20 to 35 minute program with a budget of 1 to 2.1 million makes about 15,000. A budget of 2.1 million or more makes 27. A budget of, then it goes up from like, you know, 36 to 65 minutes with a budget of 1.7 to 3.8 makes 28,000, you know. So the numbers are pretty much the same as
00:44:29
Speaker
TV but then you get into like you know your residuals.
00:44:34
Speaker
And, um, yeah, it's, it's a whole nother thing. And that, that seems to be where we're in your opinion, you think the residuals is where they're really getting screwed the most. Oh yeah, absolutely. As in residuals, uh, I believe in the music business, they call it royalties and things like that. Different terms. Yeah. It's almost like how like Spotify pays like
00:45:01
Speaker
0.0000 like 10 Yeah, like one stream or something. Yeah, it's almost
Strike's Impact on Industry and Viewers
00:45:08
Speaker
like that. So Yeah theoretical free TV pay TV basic cable new media sales is 1.2% First million and video DVD is 1.5 every sale after the first million 1.8 first 50,000 units in electronic sales on iTunes is 0.36
00:45:31
Speaker
Every sale after the first 50,000 is 0.65. TV, the same numbers as above for DVD, iTunes, sales, et cetera. Under 30 minute, high budget prime time first rerun was 13,511. This is TV. Not streaming. Low budget 13.
00:45:56
Speaker
under 60 minute high budget prime time return 24,000 low budget 19 and then we get into you know on demand and then you get into like you know go all the way down you know narrations fee you see they don't even have what they make from uh on i'll share this uh
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think we get the point. You know, we're throwing a lot of numbers out there right now. You know, we're getting a little stale. The bottom line is, I mean, my thoughts on this after kind of like laying out the groundwork. At first, I wasn't like 100% on board with either side.
00:46:41
Speaker
But as I looked into it a bit more, at least in terms of the writers, it is very clear that there is a lot of injustice here.
00:46:52
Speaker
Like this is just bad practice. I mean, these people work their asses off to get out this material. And you see what happens when they strike. You see what happens when you take away the writers. Everything shuts down. And I mean, I'm just going to briefly sidebar because I've heard this from a lot of people, not just me.
00:47:15
Speaker
this shit has had an effect on my mental health. Like, you know what I mean? I was talking to friends, family members, and like, you know, like, especially people like my mom who love her, like late night comedy shows, like everything shuts down. Like, you know what I mean? So these are the people that really make the world go round, if you will, in like the entertainment industry because
00:47:44
Speaker
The actors can't do it alone because the actors are just doing what the writers write. So the writers are just so central to everything. And I actually was surprised at how much it actually encompassed because it literally shuts everything down.
00:48:05
Speaker
from like you know things like you know last week tonight with John Oliver to like fucking um Seth Meyers and I mean it shuts everything down like it just went from you know uh business as usual everything's fun to everything fucking gone like I've forgotten what Jimmy Kimmel looks like you know I mean so it's just
00:48:32
Speaker
it's fucked up. It's a big shit sandwich and everybody's taking a bite. Yeah, well, I was gonna say like before the actors went on strike, like, yeah, studios might have been okay with like, you know, scripts and stuff they had ahead of time. But yeah, all those late night television shows, like, they all shut down because they have writers on set and a lot of like the ones that were in production
00:48:57
Speaker
It like you know showrunners and stuff that like they they usually have writers on and the same thing with movies They have writers on set that all had a walk away as well You know to help with like, you know on day rewrites were like, okay this at the time this this day quite makes sense We've got to rewrite this the next day and same thing with like
00:49:17
Speaker
Ryan Reynolds like he was shooting Deadpool 3 and he's both he's in both guilds and he wasn't allowed. Ryan Reynolds he's the mint mobile guy too.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, he owns. Yeah. Well, he's not hurting for money. No, no, he's not. But he wasn't allowed to improvise on set of the and he's like, you know, if you know, Ryan Reynolds, he improvises on everything. Yeah, he improvises, then he gets a writing credit and he was marijuana. Why? He wasn't allowed to improvise on set at all. So like they were only allowed to do so many things. And at least with Deadpool, you can go back and do a lot of ADR
Negotiations and the Future of Writing
00:49:58
Speaker
anyway. Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
It does kind of fuck up the flow because you can just have a bunch of takes and let him improvise and do different things and then go. His improv has been widely hailed as being pretty successful too. I would think if you have an actor that's trying to pivot to improv and is just making a fucking constant full of himself,
00:50:22
Speaker
So they're constantly cutting and half to doing a reshoot to the point where you're like, yeah, dude, just shut the fuck up and read your lines. Like Ryan Reynolds is like known for that. Like he's like, he'll read the line, but then he'll do like a couple more takes. Like, yeah. Like, Hey, like, how about I do that? Or like, you'll just like, you know, roll. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Do that. So like that had to shut down. Right.
00:50:45
Speaker
showrunners had to walk away on TV sets. That's a really interesting point. His actual improv was affected.
00:50:54
Speaker
like you know what I mean because I guess that counts is he's part of both guilds so basically like they were like not even though you're not putting this shit down on paper like technically your improv counts as writing so you can't be doing wow writing writing new dialogue
00:51:18
Speaker
even if you're just doing it all. Yeah, so the production companies constantly have their hands on your scrotum the entire time. Yeah, so they were trying to continue filming that and eventually it had to shut down because of the, you know, the actor strike, which now we can talk about because that's, oh, well, the writers did sit down with the producers recently. But
00:51:49
Speaker
What I've just read was, as of now, there is no agreement on these items because the producer said they need to consult with their member studios before moving forward. That's why the statement by the union was released late Friday night.
00:52:04
Speaker
So they did sit down, but there was essentially no progress. They were like no agreement on these items because they said they need to go back to talk to their member studios before they can move forward. So like they couldn't even be like, hey, all right, we can agree. Let's go back into negotiations. They were like, no, we need to go back and like.
00:52:26
Speaker
talk to our people again first before we can even come back so it's it's still like and fucking chaos like yeah yeah I was pretty much the can agree to resume negotiations strike to go on indefinitely yeah well based on all the facts that you've laid out I mean I'm
00:52:45
Speaker
There's just no way that I could say that I'm not on board with the writers here. And it's not like the evil production companies and all that. I'm not saying that necessarily.
00:53:01
Speaker
this is just fucking like classic injustice right here like this has to be fixed and I know that the writers had initially like one of the reactions from the companies was that the writers demands were like
00:53:17
Speaker
like, very extreme and unreasonable, but you always, from a negotiating standpoint, you always ask for a little bit more than you know you're going to get. And you hope that you meet somewhere in the middle, at least. You know, but in this case, I mean, the writers really were getting screwed over. So, I mean, at this point, what would your, like, final thoughts be on this situation?
AI's Role and Threats to Writing
00:53:43
Speaker
do you think like the writers uh... you know just your opinion like do you think if uh... the companies were say alright you know we're going to give you half of everything you've asked for will you take that like fifty percent of all your demands will compromise with you if we can and this quickly or do you think the writer should just say fuck it and keep holding out and risk
00:54:11
Speaker
losing everything, possibly. Well, it depends on what they give them, because I know they wanted protections on AI as well. That is one more thing I wanted to mention before concluding the writer's discussion. And I just wanted to give a brief take on this, and then I was wondering if you could respond to it.
00:54:36
Speaker
I realize that AI is obviously a threat to both the writers and actors with the technology progressing so rapidly. I mean, AI seems to be like every day I hear something new. It's like, you know, the day of Skynet is coming. Like, you know, shit is getting very intense. However, right now, as far as I know,
00:55:02
Speaker
implementation of AI in film and television hasn't been incredibly prolific yet. So, they are more, right now, talking about hypotheticals. Now, those hypotheticals are probably very realistic and reality-driven. But, like, right now, AI isn't necessarily, like, crippling the industry. They're more talking about what they're afraid of
00:55:32
Speaker
is going to happen in the very near future as AI evolves, correct? Would you agree with that? Because it is sort of a hypothetical. Well, no, because what the producers want to do is they want to let AI come up with a script and then they'll hire writers to come in and fix that script.
00:55:57
Speaker
But when they do that, that means they're getting paid less because you're just coming in for a rewrite and like, you're basically editors at that point. You're not even the writer. You're an editor. You're getting, uh, you're getting what, like one of the rewrite pay is. You're not going to get like treatment pay or, you know, first draft pay or second drive. You're just going to get like.
00:56:17
Speaker
final draft pay by like just coming in and fixing it. Oh well see well that's that's changing your job title completely because at that point you're not a writer anymore you're an editor you're editing something that computer software shit out. Yeah well it's just like rewrite it's just like a rewrite you know like you get paid for rewriting it which it's not necessarily editing it's doing it's doing another rewrite based on somebody as based on the AI's treatments of a real person's treatment.
00:56:46
Speaker
Yeah, but what I was saying is what the future could bring is as AI becomes like even more integrated and becomes even smarter, eventually AI would be able to write everything for you and edit the material and do rewrites. So I guess that was sort of like the hypothetical scenario, but like
00:57:13
Speaker
I guess if you look at it and if there is no regulation to AI and how it translates into a whole plethora of things, not only film and television, but we could go on and on about the threats that AI proposes.
00:57:31
Speaker
compared to the benefits it offers but like eventually you could see AI completely replacing writers all together. At that point you would just have creators that have an initial idea and an outline for a project
00:57:48
Speaker
and then they could basically outsource it completely to AI and have the whole thing written to them. You know, you just basically feed the software the idea of what you're looking for and it will eventually be able to basically write your idea for you, right? I mean, that would... that's a realistic scenario, no?
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, the writers are sort of facing extinction, regardless of whether that is currently a hypothetical and a possible future. I mean, it really depends on
00:58:28
Speaker
How we're going to regulate AI and that's going to probably be left up to the United States Congress and how government like steps in but that would just be our government you don't know what they're gonna do in the EU and other places so
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah, this is a very confusing time and very complicated time. There's just so many moving parts here that I don't know really what the solution is, but I know as of the present, not thinking of the future, not taking into account hypotheticals,
Studios' Financial Impact and Directors' Agreement
00:59:04
Speaker
Right now, something needs to change. There has to be some form of negotiation. Because we have to, you know what I mean? Just on like a human level. Because the studios are still going to see a lot of money. Like regardless of what, even if they agreed to all the writers' demands.
00:59:27
Speaker
you know they're going to still be very like slightly less filthy rich on the projects like you know i mean like you know like even if they gave in to everything they're still going to be making a lot of money especially after this drought has ended and everybody goes back to wanting to consume everything they can
00:59:52
Speaker
wait can you imagine when things start rolling again everybody's going to be tuned in to see what they've been missing everybody's jonesing yeah from what i was reading that like their demands were asking for less than two percent of the studio's bottom line yeah i heard that as well i think something roughly around 425 million over three years yeah so yeah that's that's not incredibly unreasonable no
01:00:22
Speaker
I mean the studio sees that and they're like well you know that's 425 million that we could also have. We could be buying private jets and yachts. Yeah I mean like you know think about the missile defense system that you could build over your yacht like the old owner of Chelsea FC want.
01:00:48
Speaker
you know that's for that's a you know but you know Joe joking aside this isn't it I mean it's not funny it's it's really remember what happened the last writers strike and that was just the writers how bad I like television shows like became
01:01:08
Speaker
yeah back with the ones that at least the ones that got cut off like mid-season like you said that went on for a hundred days correct yeah this is roughly 90 days so far yeah so and from where we're at
01:01:24
Speaker
It would seem like it would be highly unlikely that things were going to be resolved in the next 10 days. Hell, I'm hopeful. I'd like to see that.
01:01:39
Speaker
a magic ball and I were to shake that eight ball it would say outcome highly unlikely like you know I mean so but I'd really like to be wrong about that. The only other thing I wanted to mention before we get into the actors in the next part is
01:02:03
Speaker
I just found out something maybe an hour before we were set to cast, and that was that the directors were actually set to go on strike. I had no knowledge of that whatsoever, but apparently they reached an agreement before it ever got that far.
01:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they don't necessarily have to worry about AI taking their jobs because you can't have artificial intelligence. At least not yet. I mean, animation, they probably could, but they can't do all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, animation. Yeah, that's a good point. Animation, you could see AI getting involved. But I mean, essentially, with the AI question, it's going to be down to
01:02:49
Speaker
Not really them. It's going to come down to government regulation. Well, that's why unions are right to put that in now to have protections on that so they can pick it up. The only other good thing I could say about that is it does seem that on a somewhat bipartisan basis,
01:03:10
Speaker
Both sides seem to be displaying a lot of trepidation and fear and uncertainty about what unregulated or official intelligence looks like in a whole myriad of different sectors of
01:03:30
Speaker
you know not necessarily just like television but like you know in terms of internet privacy and things like that so at least you know they're active in talking about it in government so maybe
01:03:48
Speaker
will come to some understanding which could benefit both the writers and the actors considering both sides of the aisle seem to share concerns. Now of course a lot of their concerns are based on
01:04:04
Speaker
totally different reasoning but like nonetheless they are all somewhat concerned so I mean if you're gonna put a positive spin on that I would say you know I'm not someone that's like real pumped about over regulation but with AI I'm scared of it too bro
01:04:26
Speaker
You know, do you have any other final thoughts on this or I Think we encompass things fairly well about as well as you could at least within an hour, but you know to Go into it more and give more numbers and stuff like that You know
01:04:49
Speaker
I think we've summed up the situation about as well as could be expected. Yeah. We'll go ahead and wrap this up for the writers and then on our next cast will do. Yeah. Give the actors their own say. Because that's going to be a whole other hour to talk about.
01:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, obviously, yeah, we, I mean, if we were to go in and talk about the directors to and then get into like an in depth discussion about AI and what we see it, what it can and cannot do in our predictions for where AI is going to go, you know, we could talk all night about this.
01:05:36
Speaker
But thank you guys so much for joining us. And in our next cast, we are going to be discussing the actors strike. And unfortunately, probably have to talk a lot about their president and spokeswoman Fran Drescher. So thank you for joining us and we will catch you next time. Take care, buddy. Bye.