WGA

Craig and John take a look at awards-season screeners before diving deep into a discussion of how residuals work and why they’re so important to screenwriters.

Plus, a visit from Craig’s cleaning lady, who thinks he’s insane.

Near the end of our discussion on residuals, I give some actual numbers on an actual movie. Percentages are abstract; money is money.

I chose Go because I had the most data on it, going back to 1999. It’s also useful because the movie was only moderately successful at the box office.

As you can see in the charts below, residuals taper off over the years — but that long tail still adds up:

Keep in mind, there’s a possibility that residuals could spike if another home video medium takes off — digital downloads or rentals, for example.

I went into the podcast thinking I could easily reverse the math to figure out how much the studio has made off the movie, but as Craig points out, it’s more complicated than it appears at first. Most home video is calculated as 1.5% of 20% of gross earnings, so in order to get an accurate number I would need to sort out how much of Go’s residuals are coming from home video (and not television licensing).

But we can still get a sense of minimums: Go brought in at least $30 million in the aftermarket, and likely much, much more.

LINKS:

* [Downton Abbey, Season One](http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Masterpiece-Classic-Downton-Abbey/70155164) on Netflix
* [Father Ted](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Father_Ted/70217141?trkid=2361637) on Netflix
* [Security theater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater) as defined on Wikipedia
* The WGA’s [Residuals Survival Guide](http://www.wga.org/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=133)
* Intro: [Tree Top Apple Juice commercial](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ub0zlogFCY&feature=related)
* Outro: [Country Lane](http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/country-lane/id413671408?i=413671527) by Telekinesis

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_14.m4a).

UPDATE 11-30-11: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnotes-ep-14-how-residuals-work-transcript).

In episode five of Scriptnotes, Craig and I dive deep into the esoterica of the WGA, copyright and separated rights as prelude to a discussion of two ongoing lawsuits: Jessica Bendinger vs. the Bring It On musical and Harlan Ellison vs. In Time.

Most installments of the podcast are very back-and-forth, but this is a case where Craig simply knows a lot more than I do, and can explain it better, so I shut up and let Professor Mazin do the talking.

The truth is, most screenwriters never need to worry about the vagaries of copyright and labor law that make our professions possible — the same way cinematographers don’t need to know the exact chemical formulations of developing baths, and gaffers don’t worry about the overall power grid for Southern California.

But it’s still good to be *aware* of the issues affecting your part of the industry, because small disruptions can ultimately have big consequences. In particular, I’m worried that a string of copyright-infringement cases could lead to situations analogous to the patent warfare happening in technology.

Links:

* [WGA election results](http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=4730)
* [Facts about the flu shot](http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm)
* [Jessica Bendinger and Bring It On](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/16/entertainment/la-et-bring-it-on-flap-20110916) (LA Times)
* [Harlan Ellison and In Time](http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/09/harlan-ellison-in-time-law-suit-harlequin.html)
* [Harlan Ellison’s filed complaint](http://www.scribd.com/doc/65128834/Kilimanjaro-Corp-v-New-Regency) on Scribd
* Intro: [Opening titles to Voyagers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2rz7bMeDTA)
* Outro: [If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time](http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/if-youve-got-money-ive-got/id193890268?i=193891011) as performed by Willie Nelson (on iTunes)

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_05.m4a).

UPDATE 9-28-11: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnotes-ep-5-wga-copyright-and-musicals-transcript).

Today marks the inaugural episode of Scriptnotes, a podcast that Craig Mazin and I are trying out. It’s meant to be a weekly-or-so conversation about items of interest to screenwriters, from getting stuff written to dealing with insane producers.

Topics in episode one:

* Pitching a take. When screenwriters are asked to come in and meet with the studio (or producers) about a project, what do both sides expect? How much work do you do in advance? How different is it from pitching an original idea?

* The WGA elections. It’s time to pick new officers and new board members. We talk about issues and priorities, and what the WGA Board actually does.

You can listen to the episode here:

Down the road, we plan to have the podcast up in the usual places (like iTunes), so you can subscribe and get episodes automatically delivered. I’ll post details when they’re available.

UPDATE 9-4-11: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnotes-ep-1-pitching-a-take-and-the-wga-elections-transcript).