The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Read About The WGA Strike

Through the wonders of the Internet, every day I come across great information from better informed people that I.

This was posted by writer Larry Brody on his TVWriter.com message board. It wasn't written by him, but by Robert J Elisberg at HuffingtonPost.com. Since it is so important that we all get the word out to everyone we can, from people who really know what they are talking about, I'm hoping he won't mind me re-posting it here. I urge you all to go visit his original at the HuffingtonPost.com. I'm iffy about that site, as sometimes I like what it says and sometimes I don't, but I encourage you all to see for yourself.

Robert J. Elisberg HuffingtonPost.Com
WGA Strike Primer: Understanding Misunderstanding
Posted December 16, 2007 12:55 PM (EST)
Breaking Entertainment News

For all the flying rhetoric overhead, sometimes you have to wear safety goggles to see the obvious. Eventually that can lead to resolution.

So, first, the obvious:

The corporations of the AMPTP wanted a strike. It's hard not to acknowledge that. Their first offer cut residuals - that was never serious, but just presenting it showed their hand. Their first straight offer was zero for everything Internet. Guaranteed to get a strike-authorization vote. And then they walked away from negotiating. Later, they increased one of their zero offers to $250 (which could drop back to zero) - and again walked away from negotiating. And gave writers six ultimatums before they'd return.

These are not stupid people. Malevolent child-eaters perhaps, but not stupid. Think, Hannibal Lechter with a table at Spago. They knew no sane human could ever accept these. They had stockpiled their scripts, and sat comfortable that showrunners would finish all their TV series, that their pilots for next year would all be shot, that their entire slate of movies would be finished over the next six months, as writers held off striking to team up with SAG. At they point, they wouldn't care if actors struck. Because they'd have their nuts all stored away for an Ice Age, able to carefully ration their release over a very long time. Even directors, whether with a deal or not, would find themselves isolated, with nothing to direct.

There was one problem, something the AMPTP corporations completely misunderstood.

Writers aren't stupid either. Petulant, argumentative, annoying perhaps. Lousy businessmen. Worse dressers. But quite smart. And rather than let the corporations stockpile for a long nuclear winter, they struck while the supply was still limited.

The AMPTP also misunderstood that showrunners were not only really smart, too, but were writers - and they walked out in stunning unanimity. All those stockpiled TV scripts couldn't be filmed. And sit in stockpiles. The AMPTP misunderstood, as well, that stockpiled movie scripts require final polishes, and that companies are wary of spending $100 million without a writer for always-necessary on-set rewrites. The AMPTP corporations misunderstood all of this, while walking away from tables looking toward June and their long hibernation.

Make no mistake, even an early strike is horrific for everyone concerned. No one wins during a strike. The hope is that both sides win once it's over.

Yet the deep misunderstandings continue. And one most of all. But first, it's important to follow the path of misunderstandings.

Alexander Pope's warning is sage, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Indeed, people with limited information often think themselves expert, and it's that crevice where they fall into trouble.

Most outside observers drop into this hole. Unfortunately, the issues in this negotiation are intricate and arcane. One word can make a universe of difference. (Truly. Remember those infamous six ultimatums by the AMPTP? The only demand they care about - the sixth one they never mention - is that writers change "distributor's" gross to "producer's." Distributor's gross is money. Producer's gross is words. Few "experts" are remotely aware of this one-word, essential point.)

Articles with "little knowledge" are everywhere. One example for all must suffice. In a recent Huffington blog, producer Ron Galloway irresponsibly chastises the WGA for introducing reality and animation into the negotiations. It seems informed. In fact - fact - reality and animation were in the WGA proposal since before the strike was called! (Moreover, they aren't even strike issues. The WGA will never strike over these.) Either Mr. Galloway knows these issues have always been on the table, and he was being deceptive. Or he didn't know, in which case he has no business commenting.

In truth, most people not in the WGA or an AMPTP negotiator have little business commenting. Writers themselves barely-near comprehension after walking for weeks with thousands of fellow-professionals debating their own livelihood. If it's hard for writers with all that, imagine how almost-impossible for others.

And so, they misunderstand. The best fortunately go to many sources and touch the surface well. The worst let themselves be dupes. And the public gets hit with misunderstanding.

And so we see the John Ridley's and Craig Maizin's of the world quoted regularly for "the other side," without reporters knowing if they are actually explaining the other side, or just their own. Maizin is a WGA member with a personal blog, whose recent entry was wrong in more ways than Dick Cheney about Iraq. Ridley's only saving grace is that he makes Craig Maizin's analysis seem human. (Mr. Ridley's "WGA Film Company" was a bizarre, illegal, impossible fairyland, freakishly made worse by claiming, "This is no fantasy, no act of wild imagination." It was such a fantasy, it made "The Lord of the Rings" look like an Alan Greenspan treatise on world economics.)

But mainly, the AMPTP misunderstands one huge issue. This is that misunderstanding - at the heart of the whole, pathetic mess.

The AMPTP - General Electric, Sony, Time-Warner, News Corp., et al - being multinational conglomerates, understand the relentless drive for money. But it is not in their corporate DNA therefore to comprehend striking any other reason. Yet there is another reason.

The Writers Guild of America is striking because they absolutely understand that their union's future, indeed their livelihood is at stake.

This is not hyperbole. It's literal. Most people misunderstand why the Writers Guild of America is striking, too. But most can grasp it once it's explained.

The AMPTP, not so much.

You see, writers have long had a credo of "Pass it on." When I say "long," I mean cave-dwellers, sitting around the fire, enthralling listeners with tales of hope, terror, laughter and enchantment. Passing on stories is a writer's reason for being - and at the core of that, they pass on their craft to other writers. Writers can be argumentative, isolated and petulant, but they adore what they do - to sit alone for a lifetime, dreaming up ways to enthrall others, you have to adore what you do - and so they have a burning desire to see that devotion continued. And so, they pass it on.

WGA writers understand that all the protections they enjoy today - minimum payment, pensions, health benefits, residuals - all came because earlier writers risked their careers to get them. The corporations did not provide these out of benevolence. And the entire film industry benefited from the gains the annoying writers got for them.

(Everyone. Do not dare think that Hollywood moguls have suffered from decades of contract demands. We all grasp how profoundly successful Hollywood is to the envy of the world.)

And so writers at their center are driven to pass it on to the next group of writers, and proud to do so. And this is something the AMPTP corporations misunderstand critically.

But it goes deeper than that.

The Internet is not new-fangled. It's not even the future, because it's here. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herkovitz created a wildly-popular web series, "Quarterlife." So popular that network television bought it.

And so, at last, here's that "literal" part. This is what lies ahead. It's really obvious:

TV, movies and the Internet are already so seamlessly merged that streaming, Tivo playback, movie downloads, and network broadcasts run on the home video screen, one and the same. Now, go to the next step.

If corporations only have to pay $250 for residuals on the Internet as opposed to $20,000 on TV - where do you think all reruns will eventually be shown?

It gets worse. The corporations don't want original Internet content covered for the WGA. Where do you think the first-run "broadcast" of a series will be? After streaming once on the Internet, a company can simply "re-air" it on network TV. It's the same screen. The only difference is that General Electric-Sony-TimeWarner-Fox won't have had to pay more than a pittance for the material.

If you don't think this would happen, you haven't been watching the AMPTP offering zero and walking away from the table.

You haven't been watching media consolidation. Or the Middle Class being shrunk by power at the top. The AMPTP corporations wanted a strike with the Writers Guild, and a strike with SAG. And don't care about the directors.

But that's where they've misunderstood the one huge thing.

They misunderstand that the Writers Guild actually does get it. (SAG, too.) The Writers Guild fully understands that accepting any empty deal will destroy the WGA, lose all their benefits, and wipe out any protections for those to come. They really do get it. That's why you see such a vociferous strike. And it's what the AMPTP corporations misunderstand most of all.

We all read that the AMPTP is angry at WGA negotiators. This is mere petulance. Get over it, act your age. The WGA didn't send over tennis buddies, they chose tough negotiators, just as did the AMPTP. For actual anger, anyone should walk a picket line for hours and talk to actual writers whose actual livelihood, home and future is on the line. You will see people actually livid at the actual gross negligence of blatant corporate greed at its most egregious. And this actual anger is what the AMPTP corporations misunderstand. It's what reporters and observers misunderstand.

And all the writers want is a fair deal for both sides.

Imagine that.

Misunderstanding that writers won't settle for a bad offer because they can't gets in the way of reality, and therefore resolution.

Does this mean the writers won't ever collapse? No, anything is possible. But this is the critical: if we get that far, where the AMPTP corporations have starved out a siege, it will by then include actors, directors, crew, staffs and the entire industry, and the companies will have destroyed themselves in the process.

And out of the ashes, the creative talent - who make the movies and TV people watch - will have found a new canvas to paint on, as they always have throughout history. It will be called the Internet. You know, that thing that doesn't make money. And stories there will continue to amuse, excite, scare, annoy, educate, titillate and entertain everyone. And the old dinosaur movie studio and "TV" networks will be lost in the dust.

It will happen. And the AMPTP companies can join in and even take the lead, or be destroyed by it.

That's why understanding opens the door to resolution. So, understand that the members of Writers Guild of America get it. They know their future depends on the Internet. They know that they need to pass it on. Once anyone understands that, the rest comes like breathing.

I'm glad people like this share their knowledge with the rest of us.

And here I found another one of Robert Elisberg's articles, this time from the LA Times, posted by the same wonderful Brody on TVWriter.com message board, which has a lot of great information.


Producers fight the future

By Robert J. Elisberg
December 25, 2007

LA Times

Several weeks ago on the picket line, I mentioned to a negotiator for the Writers Guild of America that the absolute worst analysis I've been reading about the strike has come from entertainment lawyers. He laughed and said, "I know."

It was no shock to read that a Thursday Op-Ed article in The Times, "Curtains for the guilds," which posited that creative unions will be swallowed by a Black Hole, was co-written by an entertainment lawyer. At least his co-writer was someone with an intimate awareness of what is actually taking place in Hollywood — a Cornell professor.

Kevin Morris and Glenn C. Altschuler are bright. What neither know, however, is what the strike is actually about. Alexander Pope was right: a little learning is a dangerous thing.

Writers Guild members are livid. They'd be livid whoever was leading them. Never mind that the support for guild leaders David Young and Patric Verrone is enthusiastic, regardless of the studios' snarky attempts to discredit them. Guild members are livid that 22 years ago, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers sweet-talked a 4-cent royalty deal for home video, with a promise to revisit this new technology — then failed to do that and insisted that the guild remove a request this year to increase it.

Writers removed it — the alliance did nothing, and then walked away from the table.

Writers are livid, too that the initial offer for new media payment was zero. Zero for streaming, original Internet content, downloading: you name it, it was zero. The insult was galvanizing, for it showed the producers' hand. And when the producers "raised" their offer to $250 for streaming — which can drop back to zero if the companies themselves decide — writers remained livid. Pound the picket line for weeks on end and you will begin to learn how furious the writers are. Especially after the AMPTP corporations walked away from the table again.

Writers have a long tradition of "passing it on" that dates back to the caveman. Not just passing on stories themselves, but the love of the craft to future writers. What the companies have offered would destroy that future. And the Screen Actors Guild's. And yes, even the future of the Directors Guild of America, whose members may well recognize (despite the authors' certainty) that they too must have a fair deal on New Media or perish.

Does this mean the writers will never collapse? No, anything is possible.

But this is the critical point that Morris and Altschuler miss: If we get that far, to the point at which the AMPTP corporations have starved out the writers, as the authors postulate, the siege will by then include actors, directors, crew, staffs and the entire industry — and the companies will have destroyed themselves in the process.

But life happily has a way of correcting itself. What the authors overlook is the core issue of the strike — the new media. The Internet is not, as the AMPTP insists, a newfangled thingy that doesn't make money. (Viacom and Microsoft recently announced a $500-million deal. Surprise.) And if the companies end up taking everything down, the creative talent — who actually make the movies and TV people watch — would find a new canvas to paint on, as they have throughout history. It will be called the Internet. You know, that thing that doesn't make money. And stories will continue there. And the old dinosaur movie studios and "TV" networks will be lost in the dust. Anyone who thinks that Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Yahoo and on and on aren't chomping at the bit for content, is not looking close enough. Because the door has already been opened.

This all could be an utter disaster. Writers could splinter. And so too could the companies of the AMPTP, seeing their finances going down the drain, TV seasons and movie schedules lost, huge competitors rising on the Web, stockholders up in arms, $30-million bonuses lost, advertisers demanding give-backs, and the public pressuring them.

The latter outcome seems more likely than the former. Writers are profoundly united because their future is at stake. Corporations are dealing with somebody else's money. Hopefully, no disaster will occur. Hopefully, the AMPTP corporations will return to the table. Hopefully, they'll recognize that it's in their best interest to be part of the future rather than be left behind.

Robert J. Elisberg is a screenwriter in West Los Angeles and a commentator for the Huffington Post who has written for the Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, C/NET, E! Online and others. He served on the editorial board for the Writers Guild of America West, helped created the WGA.org website and writes a technology column for the Writers Guild East.

Fair Use Notice: This material is made available, free of charge and without profit, for research and educational purposes, public review, and debate as provided for in Section 107 of the United States Copyright Law.

Reality Television - the Reality is It's Written

Today there were no picket signs at Warner Bros. Studios. Were writers so weak-willed that a little bit of rain kept them away? Were they afraid they couldn't hold umbrellas and strike signs at the same time? No! The reason that nobody was out picketing WB was that there was a rally up the street on Alameda Street for the Reality TV writers among us.

What? Reality shows have writers, you say? News flash, they do. So do game shows -- somebody has to research all those questions and formulate the questions -- they don't just drop down from the heavens like manna.

Anyway, I know very little about that world, so it was an eye-opener. Reality TV writers are not covered by the WGA, consequently, their employers don't have to pay them health insurance benefits, or provide a pension. Residuals are unheard of. Wages are lower than industry standard -- guess the AMPTP won't be trotting out one of these writers saying they make $230,00 a year. And a typical day is 14-16 hours with no overtime. The typical crew member, covered by a union, gets overtime after 12 hours. You say you get overtime after 8 hours? Welcome to glamorous showbiz.

It's not unheard of for a game show to be covered by the WGA. Jeopardy is. Deal or No Deal is not. When reality TV writers approached FOX studios for health insurance, FOX responded that it wasn't their problem, go talk to the production company. One of the biggest suppliers of Reality TV is Fremantle Media of North America, which makes shows like American Idol, Price Is Right, Next Great American Band, and Temptation. Apparently, Fremantle responds to its employees desire for health insurance by getting rid of the problem: firing the writers who request it.

One reality writer and producer, Kai Bowe, formerly of America's Next Top Model, mentioned that reality TV writers are very aware that studios are using them as strike busters -- that they are being forced to work against the very union they would like to get protected by.

Aaron Solomon ran Temptation for Fremantle until he got tired of working 14-16 hours a day seven days a week trying to get 170 hours of programming done and into their schedule with unpaid overtime and quit.

In front of Fremantle, President of the Guild, Patric Verrone vowed to not abandon the reality TV workers in their quest for benefits and unionization. Not knowing much of the subject, I always naively assumed that if a group wanted coverage, then they could just join. I figured if the WGA was having trouble getting the reality TV writers under their wing, it was because the reality TV writers did not want to be unionized. The large group of people who gathered in the streets today, in what started off as rain, told me different. Apparently, once again, it's getting the Studio and production company to agree to the WGA covering the reality TV writers that's the hang up.

Patric had some interesting information to share. Apparently FOX gave health insurance to writers on The Simpsons after the show was on the air for 9 years, but refused to do the same for the Futurama writers.

Since unpaid overtime is a violation of state labor laws for any industry, some of the angry FOX writers threatened to sue and got quiet settlements from FOX. One writer, however, refused to settle and went for the hearing. The state decided he was owed $35,000 in unpaid overtime from FOX because the fact that he wasn't in a union made him an hourly employee entitled to overtime pay. So Patric encouraged Fremantle to unionize its shows because Union writers don't get overtime.

Patric's closing remarks were to read from an email from one of the state senators. The email informed us that the state legislature is going to look into labor violations for Reality TV workers. That brought cheers from the crowd.

Earlier, before the speakers took the stage, we were entertained by American satirical rock band duo, Tenacious D, (Kyle Gass and Jack Black). These musician/actor satirists had a couple of wonderful satirical songs on the Writers Strike. You can hear them on You Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlgm_rtfQS8.

Once again it was really nice to reconnect with a writer who I hadn't seen in a few years, BARRY O'BRIEN. I met him when we were both working at Spelling Entertainment, he as a writer on Titans and me, the script coordinator of All Souls. I last saw him at the House of Blues where Barbara Hall was performing. She was the showrunner of Joan of Arcadia, for which I was the script coordinator and she was a consulting producer on Judging Amy, on which Barry was a writer. He is now a writer on CSI: Miami.

Additional comment: To anyone who thinks that Reality Writers DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE GUILD or the WGA is forcing them, please read this article and the subsequent comments:
http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/2007/12/reality-writer-responds-to-amptp.html

I also wish to highlight this comment from Raye on the above:
To quote a fellow writer, if we took animation and reality off the table, and DVD residuals, then Nick Counter would scream, "Take off your pants! No pants at the table! I will not negotiate with people in pants!"

Bloggers on the Line Day

Another day on the picket line at Warner Brothers. But today was special in that four WGA writers who normally walk the line at various studios decided to congregate at one studio in the Valley and declared this Bloggers Day, inviting the readers of their blogs to join them on the line today at Warner Brothers.

Now I'm a non-WGA writer. I had enough WGA writing credits to get to be an associate member of the Guild at one time, but not enough YET to become a full-fledged WGA member. So consequently, I do not have to do any picketing, but I do it because I see the WGA as right in their demands and as my future. I'm still the person who has the 'day job' to pay the bills (often in support of the writers as script coordinator) while throughout the year (not on the picket line), I try to convince agents, studio execs, showrunners, and yes, even some of these writers, who are inviting non-WGA support people to walk with them, to read my specs so I can become one of them. So consequently I'm holding down an 8-hour day job, walking the picket lines, trying to end this strike by communicating with people on the Internet to help them understand the writers side, etc. etc.

Since I'm already functioning on 5 hours sleep a day doing this, I can't picket every single day. So even though I was not planning on walking the line today, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet JOHN AUGUST, JANE ESPENSON, CRAIG MAZIN, and JOSH FRIEDMAN, who invited us to walk and talk with them, as I don't necessarily get to the studios they are picketing.

I only attempted to talk to two of them, as I only can recognize two of the four and I only have time to read the blogs of two of them. So imagine my dismay that after I waited until they were free from talking with other people and I introduced myself, I got a perfunctory and polite hello from them and watched them walk away from me, without even giving me a chance to come up with something interesting to talk about. Now, I don't expect every writer on the line to talk to me, but I did expect better from those who had specifically invited people to come walk and talk with them.

Now, perhaps you are thinking that we are not there to socialize and that is true. It's grim business we are doing. But consider that we are walking back and forth across the same street for three hours straight instead of what we'd be normally doing: writing, watching TV, shopping, petting the cat or dog, even cleaning house. And the only things to keep one from going nuts with boredom are responding to the honking cars and trucks and talking to each other.

Perhaps I would have had better luck trying to talk to the other two of this group, had I had the opportunity to speak with them, but I had a satisfying tour of duty because of other people I did get to talk to - a couple of screenwriters for whom I only know first names, my writer friend MELODY FOX, and actor STEVEN CULP.

Before the strike, Melody Fox was on staff of the SciFi series Flash Gordon. She's a great writer, a nice person, and fun to be around. I don't get to see her often enough. I thoroughly enjoyed a discussion on spec scripts and I learned a lot from her.

I also spent a lot of time with actor Steven Culp talking as we walked back and forth across the street in front of Warner Brothers gate 2/3. This is a solid actor whose work I've admired ever since I first saw him play Bobby Kennedy in the movie, Thirteen Days. He creates wonderful characters, who are very real and moving. He was my favorite character in JAG, yes even over the two main stars. I liked him in Desperate Housewives, where he played Bree's husband, Rex. But I had just seen him do a tour-de-force guest role on Stargate: Atlantis, where I felt he was able to show more of the breadth of what he can do than in any other role I've seen. He was nuanced and moving as a man so desperate to save his child that he crosses the line into doing things that he knows are illegal and reprehensible and who is later devastated by what he has done and has to atone for. I really felt for his character and that was a hard thing to do considering what the character had done. Steven Culp had done a great job in finding the sympathy in this character.

I had been so taken with his performance that I had told Joseph Mallozzi, showrunner of Stargate Atlantis, in his blog how much I enjoyed Steven Culp's performance in that episode. How neat and serendipitous that only a few days later, I find myself walking the picket line with the actor himself, so I can tell him in person what a fine job he did. I would be honored if someday it works out that he is acting in a script I've written.

On the WGA Strike Lines: Shawn Ryan Talks to Us

Today I decided to see what it was like picketing at Warner Brothers Studios. First thing I did, like always, is check in the strike captain's table where I put my name on the picketers' list. This is important because for WGA members, it proves they've done their shifts and also it gives the guild the numbers to report at each facility.

Then I was asked if I wanted a T-shirt. Of course, I wanted one, I had wanted one, ever since I first saw people on the picket line wearing them. I guess I just never came at the right time or place to get one.

So I now have my own gray Writers Strike T-shirt with its fist clenching a pen logo. And if this strike goes on long enough, you may even see a photo of me in it. Now at least I don't have to keep trying to find red things in my wardrobe -- a color I rarely buy because I don't look that great in it. I did notice that many writers have started wearing red shirts with the WGA logo on it. SAG wears deep navy blue with the logo Screenactors Guild on it.

In fact I ran into SAG actor, DON BALDERAMOS, http://pro.imdb.com/name/nm2414827/, who if you are a long time reader of this blog, you will recognize as one of the wonderful actors of the movie I'm producing and acting in. I wrote up a post about shooting Don's scene on Veteran's Day. Elissa and Don did a great scene, but apparently there was something wrong with the sound, so the scene has been reshot, in a different locale.

We also had an imposing Teamster with us from Local 399 and he would really get the supportive honks of passing cars and trucks. God love him he was an impressive addition.

One of the gates was manned by the writing team of Without A Trace, led by DAVID AMANN. I managed to meet him, but not really talk to him because he was mostly involved in talking to his writing team or on the phone. But I did get to briefly chat with one of his writers, AMANDA SEGEL. It gets boring walking back and forth for three hours in front of a gate, so being able to talk to the people around you keeps you sane. Especially for someone like me who always prefers to spend more time in the writers office than on set, which can get boring quickly.

As we walked back and forth, I spent most of my time chatting with writer LEE FLEMING who did mainly sitcoms like Friends, but who last did One Tree Hill, and whose pilot was caught up in the strike shutdown. I asked him how he managed to go from writing sitcoms to a drama like One Tree Hill and he told me that he had written a couple of movies about young people and that's how it was determined he might be a good fit for One Tree Hill. I thank him for the wonderful insights he shared with me, which not only made the day go faster, but taught me things as well.

And then, SHAWN RYAN appeared. He is the showrunner of The Shield and The Unit. And today more importantly, he is part of the WGA negotiating team. Early on in the work stoppage, he was the first showrunner to announce that he could no longer do his producing duties, even as it pained him to not be there for the last episode of The Shield, the show which made him. But he couldn't do his producing duties without rewriting, and the line between rewriting and producing was too blurred for him to walk. For this decision, the news media called him a 'hawk.'

He mentioned that the showrunner who had given him his start on Nash Bridges, CARLTON CUSE, was labeled by the press as a moderate, because Carlton made the opposite decision -- to fulfil his producing duties, even though that made him cross the picket lines of many of his peers, something which other striking writers did not take kindly to. And yet, while he and Carlton might have different ways of achieving their goals, they and all the rest of the negotiating team were on the same page in terms of what they needed to get.

Apparently, after the studios gave the same proposal to the new negotiations that they did before the strike started, Carlton realized that they were not negotiating seriously like he thought and he came to the conclusion that he needed to stop producing as well.

Anyway, Shawn said he was there to fill us in on what has transpired with the latest round of negotiations and to answer our questions. He said he would stay as long as it took and wanted to meet every one of us as well. I remember reading something about the negotiating team planning to talk to the strikers today because they were not resuming negotiations until tomorrow. And after that misleading post by Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly, who claimed to have been told there was a deal in the offing and the strike would be over soon... something had to be said.

Shawn explained that the reason the membership had not heard anything from the negotiating committee in response to the supposed 'close to resolution' claims was because the WGA was honoring the agreement it made to a news blackout. Obviously the studio side didn't honor the agreement when they leaked the deliberately biased and untrue information to Nikki. Shawn said that it was part of the strategy the studios were using -- to put the strikers on an emotional rollercoaster, to get their hopes up high, only to be dashed shortly after. The idea is that this will wear the strikers down and they will give up. Shawn asked everybody to not fall prey to this and to hang tough. That the supposedly new proposals were just a repackaging of the proposals given before the strike. And basically a rollback.

He mentioned that it was unlikely that the WGA would agree to another press blackout which made it impossible for the negotiating committee to talk to the members -- not unless they were in the final couple of days haggling out a really serious agreement. Shawn also said he thought that Nikki was duped by the studios as part of a pre-planned PR push and that she usually is a lot fairer to writers in her reporting. [From what I can see on her site, Shawn was being diplomatic and generous to her.]

If I understood correctly what he said the terms were, the studio wanted to pay just a flat $250 for a year run of content... in other words, they could run it over and over until it is so dead that nobody will want to see it again, and not pay a single cent for reuse, like they have to do now if it is rerun on television... and they would be able to run it wherever they want because they are refusing to give writers any jurisdiction over where and how their work will be used on the internet. Plus, when it's new, they want the first six weeks of use to be free, and they can run it over and over, wherever they want during that six weeks window, and if at the end of six weeks, they don't want to continue, because they have run it to death and nobody wants to see it anymore, then they don't have to pay the flat $250 at all.

Compare that to the initial payment of $20,000 for the first rerun of a typical network hour long show (payments for each rerun on television decreases percentage wise, to a few dollars eventually.) Do you like Desperate Housewives? Well, it was the residuals from Golden Girls that Marc Cherry lived on so he could remain a writer and create Desperate Housewives until he could convince a studio to buy it. [Aside: if anyone has ever heard Marc Cherry talk, he tells of how desperate his situation was, that he was at the point of needing to leave Hollywood and go back to living with his mom when the greenlight came for Desperate Housewives -- a few days later and we wouldn't have had this show.]

Shawn let us know that the negotiating team understood our hardships, but stressed we needed to hang tough longer and not let them wear us down or divide us. He said that the AMPTP is using this new media, with its deals yet to be made, to get rid of the residuals system. He brought up the case of the new show Chuck, which against the desire of the showrunner, had its pilot aired first online and then on television. If the studios are successful in their proposals, they will be in a position to say that a show like Chuck was an internet show, not network show, and hence pay everybody, actors, directors, writers, and crew as an Internet show, not television.

Hence, the WGA leadership will not back down until it gets a deal that writers can live and work under. Shawn said that ultimately the studios will have to deal. The writers want to make a deal and get back to work... the studios will have to make a deal soon, but right now they feel they have some wiggle room and want to break the writers down as much as possible.

But soon -- mid December -- the advertisers' piper will need to be paid. The advertisers who have paid a premium for their commercials to be run during brand new episodes will not be happy with reruns and will be looking for refunds. Also, if a deal isn't made soon, then the strike will take out this season and next, at least in terms of the advertisers. In January and February, they hand over billions of dollars for the spots on the upcoming season, and if there is no season to be had, the studios will be hurting from that loss of revenue and will need to make a deal.

Shawn said that even though the DVD residual payments were back on the table, the reason they went off in the first place is that that battle was lost 20 years ago. That it is very difficult to get a model corrected once it's been put in place for that length of time... because there are so many deals that become attached to the original one. First whatever deal the writers get, the directors have to get too, and then three times that amount goes to the actors to be divided among all of them. That in itself is a hefty amount, but the studios can well-afford it, so he wouldn't cry about getting it from them.

However, those aren't the only deals tied into this one. IATSE, which is the union that most of the crew belongs to, gets a percentage off the residuals fee for their own health insurance and pension plans... the crew may not get direct residual payments, like the above the line talent does, but this residual fight is very much theirs as well, because no residuals means no money into their health and pension coffers either.

Then if that isn't enough to weigh down the DVD calculation, the WGA found out when they started looking into this that the studios have done even more fancy footwork and tied various producers' deals into it -- once more proving how creative their accounting can get.

Hence, because of all this deal integration, the studios feel that they can't budge and the WGA feels that it would take at least a year of striking to get the deal changed on DVDs, and even then they might not. Hence, the reason, the WGA is so adamant that the Internet will not fall into this same kind of abyss for future writers.

Shawn also made it clear that residuals were not gifts, were not freebies. A playwright or a novelist never gives up his/her copyright. But due to the very collaborative nature of television, it isn't easy to quantitate how much of the copyright on the finished product is due to writer, actor, director and producer. Hence, they all traded in their copyrights to the studio in return for the residuals agreements. Hence, residuals are due to them because it's the other half of their payments for giving up the copyright. [So it sounds to be like what the US Government did with Native Americans: make treaties, and then once you had them, turn around and unilaterally abolish them.]

Shawn said to hang tough for the next few weeks and if things are still at a stalemate by the first of the year, the negotiating team will come back to the membership to see what options they wanted to pursue. But they were fighting for the future of all writers. For people like him, his future was set... there's no question about his health insurance or pension being funded... the fight was for the average writer to whom residuals can mean the difference between health care and pension or none.

Shawn mentioned that Patric Verrone, the president of WGAW, had dinner with a retired AMPTP negotiator who gave him insights into how the studios thought. Shawn shared some of those revelations with us as well. Apparently these first few weeks of negotiation are never about a number -- it's about who blinks first and who gets whom to reveal their bottom line first. Once a side reveals its bottom line -- which is the least amount the side will take -- then you can negotiate 80% of that number, or even a lesser fraction of that number, and it's surprising how many times that even lower offer will be accepted.

One of the first questions to Shawn was about force majeure -- whether the studios were going to use that to get rid of writers with expensive deals and was he worried about it. He reminded us that all his payments had been suspended because he wasn't doing his producing bits as well. His new pilot was sitting ready to be made, but they weren't making it yet, because there are no other scripts to have a series with.

Shawn admitted that the studios might use force majeure to get rid of some of the deals that weren't working, but there weren't many of those deals left anyway. Studios hadn't been handing out housekeeping deals like they used to in the nineties. And as for people like him, when the strike was over, they were still going to need Marc Cherry to run Desperate Housewives so they weren't going to negate his deal and they still needed him to run The Shield, The Unit, and the new Oaks.

The most important question I had for Shawn was that from the beginning my IATSE buddies were really upset that they had to cross the picket lines to go to work (because they still had a viable contract with a no strike clause) and even felt somewhat dirty about it. Thus they were totally dismayed and confused when their president came out and attacked the WGA leadership with really dreadful accusations. I showed them where their president had deliberately misquoted the LA Times to present the WGA leadership like he did, but I told Shawn I was also perturbed that the WGA had not countered him. Shawn said that they did, in emails to the membership.

I also asked what I could tell my IATSE buddies when they asked about the strike. Shawn said to remind them that this was a fight for residuals from the Internet for everybody... that IATSE's health and pensions funds were funded off the same residual deals that the writers got. And that the writers were heading this strike only because their contract was the first to come due. That this could have easily have been a DGA or SAG or IATSE fight -- the issue is important to all of the unions, it's just that the WGA contract expired first.

Another concern I expressed was that the studios planned to hire Canadian and British writers to step into all the American shows, since there are a good number already being written off-shore... what's to stop them from sending the rest out of country? Shawn didn't see that happening because filmmakers were always coming to our country to learn how we do it. Shawn said that the writers here are very good at what they do.

I also brought up the Pencils For Media Mogul program that allowed fans to buy boxes of pencils to show their support for their shows. I particularly care about that program because whatever's left over goes into a fund for non-WGA people hurt by the strike. I mentioned that Smallville was running a raffle/contest to encourage more people to support the program -- the winner would get a five-minute phone conversation with Michael Rosenbaum, one of their main stars. I wondered if other shows might not be willing to follow suit and participate in a similar endeavor. Shawn said he hadn't heard of it but thought it was a great idea and would bring it up to the negotiating committee.

Before Shawn Ryan left our gate to talk to other strikers at another gate, one of the stars of his show, The Shield, appeared to lend him support, an always smiling and affable, KENNY JOHNSON.

So that's about it, unless I can think of anything I missed.