John August

Strike

Strike, days 42 and 43

Strike

Yesterday was the last official day of picketing before the new year. I was happy to see a large contingent turning out at 5:30 a.m. for my home gate at Paramount. Blog reader Andrew brought along his girlfriend Olivia. Since she’s not even a future WGA member, I felt an obligation to promise her that if the UCLA psych-bio majors ever go on strike, I’ll carry a sign at her picket.

Paul Weitz came as well, which gave us an opportunity to talk about the experience of being in the audience at a Sarah Silverman show. Mostly, it’s really funny. And then a moment comes when you realize the boundary between hilarious and offensive has been breached, and you find yourself replaying the last few jokes to figure out exactly when it happened.

I missed the general membership meeting last night in Santa Monica, because (a) we had guests over for dinner, and (b) open microphones make me squirm. I was in bed by nine.

This afternoon, I’m having the Disney Feature Fellows over for a chat about craft and career. It’s a cold, drizzly, sleepy day, which seems perfect for quasi-academic conversation.

In a previous comment thread, reader Paul Ramos (a friend from Boulder) asks…

Is it totally outside of the realm of possibility that the WGA can form its own production house that offers the terms that writers are looking for? Or is it just completely financially un-doable? Why must writers deal with production houses that don’t want to play ball? I realize that these questions probably seem rather naive. But wouldn’t distributors of media still be interested in a movie shot by the WGA vs. by Paramount or some other large production house?

Not naive at all. While the WGA itself can’t be in the movie or television production business (it’s a union which represents writers, rather than employing them), there’s nothing preventing writers from finding alternate sources of funding and setting up their own productions.

And, in fact, that’s [happening as we speak](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-webwriters17dec17,1,299083.story). There are venture capitalists who recognize this as a unique opportunity: you have giant pool of unemployed content creators, and a hungry distribution system (the internet). Depending on the nature of those deals, they would probably need WGA vetting. But there’s a history of alternative deals being reached.

At the Indie Gate last Thursday, I heard it put thusly:

After the first time negotiations fell apart, the message was, “Come back, baby. We can work this out.”

After this last blow-out, the message is slowly becoming, “Maybe we should see other people.”

Look, the strike will end eventually. We’ll go back to working with and for the studios, writing TV series and summer blockbusters that make money for everyone. But we’re at a strange point in time. Certain ideas, certain properties, may not need giant corporations behind them. If you created the next South Park, or the next It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you as the creator might find it more profitable to deliver it through the internet, where the playing fields are much more level.

That’s one irony of the strike: the key issue of internet distribution may become more viable because of the strike itself.

Strike, day 38

Strike

The main gate at Paramount was more packed than I’ve seen it all strike, and featured some familiar names and faces, both at the podium and in the crowd. Speakers included Howard Rodman, Robin Swicord, Bill Condon, and Harlan Ellison, who filled in for a muted Josh Olson. I wasn’t brave enough to introduce myself to Sarah Silverman, but did get to talk with Iris Yamashita (Letters from Iwo Jima) and Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain).

As with most gates, there were a number of blog readers and film students. Thanks for continuing to come out to the lines.

On Monday, I’ll be back at my usual post: 5:30 a.m. at Paramount’s Van Ness gate. That’s the last day of normal studio picketing before the holidays.

At the gates of Paramount

Strike

paramountYesterday, I braved Actual Sunlight to speak at the Indie Gate gathering at Paramount. It was a great turnout, with a collection of writers expressing a range of opinions, from moderate (me) to far less than moderate (Harlan Ellison).

I’ll have a full recap of the day up later, but I wanted to post what I (more or less) said while I could still reconstruct it.

*

A few weeks ago, I got involved in a pretty heated discussion online, talking about one issue that screenwriters think about a lot. Namely, where would you go if Los Angeles were suddenly overrun by zombies?

There are many good options. If you can get to Angeles National Forest, great. The desert is another possibility. But if you’re stuck in the city itself, I’d propose a good choice would be one of the movie studios. They have big walls and defensible gates.

They’re really the castles of Los Angeles.

And to an outsider, seeing us here today, it might look like we’re villagers trying to storm these castles. Like this is a siege. But that’s not really accurate. We’re not trying to get in — we’ve been inside, and really, it’s not that nice. Rather, we’re here because we want those guys to come out. We’re not here to bring war. We’re here to make peace. And we can’t do it alone.

The theme behind today’s gate is “Independent Film.” But I think we all know that’s a misnomer. We might write our scripts independently, but shooting them requires the cooperation and hard work of a crew, producers, and financiers.

And over the last few years, companies like Paramount Vantage have taken a big interest in our movies. Yes, some of them make money, but more importantly, they make the studios look classy. It’s no accident that most of the movies “For Your Consideration” were first considered in our heads. First written with our hands.

If anything, we should be calling it “co-dependent film.” We’re good at making movies. They’re good at releasing movies. Yes, we have a fucked-up relationship — but it’s a relationship. And we’re here every day because we want to make it work.

I have a blog, and every day I’ve been writing up what happens on the picket lines. One of the things I never anticipated is how many non-WGA writers would be joining us. I like when they sign-in as “Future WGA.” Because they’re recognizing that what gets decided through this strike will be the contract they’re working under for the next 20 years. So I want to give a shout-out to them now. [cheers]

What they see — what we all need to remember — is that however long this strike goes, it’s nothing compared to the 20 years ahead. These studios, these castles, they’ll probably be here. We want to make sure writers are too.