As the seemingly interminable writers' strike drags on, I thought it was time to offer my two cents. I should add that I'm not a WGA member (though I probably would have joined years ago if they offered health insurance in Massachusetts, which they did not in 2004). Nor do I have any inside information, other than what I read on Deadline Hollywood Daily.
But just because I'm not a guild member doesn't mean the strike's not affecting me. For one thing, I'm reduced to watching crap like Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew instead of my favorite scripted programming! (Who am I kidding--I'd watch this anyway! Yeah, I feel dirty and ashamed when it's over, but man, is that compelling TV! I can't wait for Thursday's episode! I think the American Idol girl is going to vomit on camera again!).
I have sold a few movie options on my books. This means that, in exchange for a small but non-trivial sum of money , I agree not to sell the movie rights to anybody else for a certain period of time. Now, like I said, this isn't big money, but all the options are being automatically extended because nobody can get anything done because of the strike, so the renewal date, when I might conceivably hope to have the option renewed and receive another small non-trivial payment, has been pushed back. Not to mention the fact that, with not much happening in Hollywood, nobody can use their option to make a movie and buy the rights, which involves a much larger sum of money. Not to mention the fact that, with nothing happening, nobody will be optioning my books that are not currently under option right now.
So, okay, the strike is costing me money, though certainly nothing like what it's costing people who are full-time TV or movie writers. But I still support the goal of the strike, which, if I understand correctly, is ensuring that writers are fairly compensated when their work appears on the internet, on cell phones, and on media that haven't been imagined yet. So far so good, and the producers should just give them what they're asking for on the internet stuff. It's really far from outrageous. The corporations will hardly notice the missing money, and it will be much fairer to the writers.
Having said all this, the current impasse in negotiations is really dumb. As far as I understand it, the WGA was asking for the right to organize reality TV and animation writers. I think everybody understood this was a bargaining chip--something to put on the table so you'd have something to take off later. I mean, especially with a strike on, the producers are never going to agree to eliminate reality tv as a fallback in the event of another strike. And the strike is really about new media money, not reality tv.
Okay, so this is how negotiations work. You ask for more than you actually want so that you can give stuff back and end up with something close to what you wanted in the first place. But the producers demanded that the WGA take reality tv off the table before they would continue negotiations. In other words, they made caving in a condition of negotiating, when the cave-in was almost certain to come about as a result of negotiations. The WGA said no way, we're not taking this stuff off the table, the producers walked out, and here we are.
So people are out of work, and my longshot chance of seeing a movie with the "based on a novel by Brendan Halpin" credit has gotten even longer, all over what amounts to a pissing contest. The producers knew the writers would cave on reality tv--so why not just negotiate it away? Why walk away from negotiations? Having said that, the WGA is staying on strike and refusing to negotiate because they don't want to give in to a demand to give up something they were going to give up anyway. This seems kinda asinine. Yes, the producers were wrong to walk away and set conditions for negotiations to continue, but what's being gained by not going back to the table at this point? It might be time for the WGA to swallow their pride and give in to the producers' bad-faith negotiating tactic just to get what they really want out of this strike anyway.
That way, the inevitable feeding frenzy for film rights to my work can begin!
