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.

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