Writers Guild of Hollywood may go on strike over streaming services
- Monitors and TV
Ten years ago Hollywood screenwriters brought the entertainment industry to a standstill by suspending operations for three months in a dispute over payment for movies and TV shows distributed on the Internet and on DVD. The strike brought dozens of television and film productions to a halt and hit the Los Angeles economy.
Now there is a sense of déjà vu in the Hollywood community as the threat of a strike looms over them again. After the collapse of negotiations with leading studios, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is seeking support from its members for the strike.
The tense atmosphere is the result of sudden economic and digital changes affecting business. The industry has seen major shifts since the last writers' strikes. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have reshaped Hollywood and contributed to producing an unprecedented number of quality TV shows, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the "golden age" of television.
But the times were not golden for many screenwriters, who now have less work. Shorter seasons are the new normal, with many shows running 10 or fewer episodes on cable and streaming—less than half of a traditional series and TV show season. This led the writers into a financial crisis, as many were contractually unable to work on multiple projects in a season.
“Becoming a screenwriter is getting harder than making a living,” said John Bowman, producer television programs And former leader WGA negotiating committee.
More and more TV viewers are turning away from cable television in favor of streaming. Studios are also struggling with a significant decline in DVD sales and multiplex attendance. They put out fewer shows and episodes a year, which means fewer opportunities for writers.
All this set the stage for conflict. From April 19 to April 24, an online vote for permission to strike will take place. The move is a typical trade union negotiating tactic, and the WGA says it's a response to the tough stance taken by the studios, which have so far not renounced their terms.
"No one on the board or on the committee wants a strike," Chris Keizer, co-chair of the Guild's negotiating committee, said in an interview. “Unfortunately, the only way to deserve fair treatment- use the power of labor.
He disputed the studios' claims that the WGA was the first to break off negotiations, adding that the dialogue broke off last week after the studios left a voice message to prevent the writers from coming in the next day. "We didn't leave," said Keyser, a writer and executive producer, whose credits include the television series The Tyrant and family drama"There are five of us."
The Film and Television Producers Union, which represents major studios, networks and independent producers, said it would like to resume talks but is still awaiting a response. the last sentence which the writers consider a step backwards.
“Keeping the industry up and running is in common interests, and we are ready to return to negotiations, ”the Union of Producers reports.
Negotiations resume on April 10, but on many issues it is far from mutual understanding. The possibility of a strike caused mixed feelings among screenwriters across the city. Apparently, the Guild is divided in half. More experienced screenwriters who survived the 2007-2008 strike are skeptical of the idea. The writers who came to the Guild and the business after these events start from their own needs.
One of the main causes of contention is the development of shorter TV show seasons. Now, according to experts, two-thirds of all series consist of 8-12 episodes per season, while previously their number varied in the range of 22-24 episodes. The WGA claims that screenwriters' weekly income is declining because studios are heavily delaying royalties. This is because shows are becoming more cinematic and take much longer to shoot. An episode that used to take two weeks to film can now take three to four weeks to shoot.
Complicating matters is the lack of transparency. Streaming services operate on a subscription basis and do not provide viewing data, which makes it difficult to develop a formula for residuals - fees for re-impressions. For decades, the way to profit from TV shows was to film the first season, hope it gets a 100-episode renewal, and then sell reruns to cable channels or local broadcasters. And as Netflix and other services continue to gain popularity, writers are demanding that these companies pay balances that are commensurate with those offered by traditional broadcasters.
But such services are not the only source of controversy. Perks are as much a problem as the age of Guild members. The WGA wants studios to increase their premiums to the Guild's health plan by 1.5%, which has been in short supply in recent years. However, the studios refused this offer, and cut funding by $10 million a year.
The Guild is asking for a 3% increase in minimum scripting fees for the lowest paid writers. In a recent letter to members of WGA West, the average salary for TV movie producers has dropped 23% over the past two years, and last year entertainment companies made record profits of $51 billion.
The previous strike began in November 2007 and lasted 100 days, with over 60 broadcasts closed. This is the biggest screenwriters' strike in the US in 20 years. At that time, the Writers Guild demanded a new contract with the Union of Film and Television Producers, which would increase the percentage of royalties to authors for sales of products on DVD and on the Internet.
Labor experts noted that the strike's detrimental effect helped the writers achieve success they might not have. As part of the agreement, authors receive a fixed amount for the first two years and 2% of the sales profit for the third year. However, the strike was financially devastating for many other workers in the industry, especially technicians and art workers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck.
Behind last month American television viewers have had time to sleep well: there is nothing to watch on TV, because the scriptwriters of the most popular television shows are on strike in Hollywood. Producers have multimillion-dollar advertising contracts on fire, channel ratings are falling, but the parties to the conflict are in no hurry to seek a compromise.
Americans are especially worried about the fact that they cannot see a talk show with David Letterman and Jay Leno on the evening air. The channel repeats old episodes, which does not save the situation, because the popularity of this and many other TV shows is that their plots are based on the events of the past day. And there is no one to write scripts now.
Hollywood is not only a city of stars. It is also a city of cinema workers unions. Among others, it is home to the headquarters of the Film and Television Producers Alliance (ACTP), led by Nick Counter, and the Writers Guild of American (SAS), led by David Young.
Like cats and dogs
Writers and producers have never had particularly warm feelings for each other. From the early days of cinema, it became clear that without a quality script written by a professional writer, good movie do not remove. And from the very beginning, movie bosses were forced to put up with the existence of screenwriters, whom they treated as second-class people. Screenwriters paid producers and studio owners in the same coin. Far from always, peaceful coexistence is the best illustration of the relationship between the heads of trade unions of producers and screenwriters. Counter and Young cannot stand each other and do not even try to hide their, to put it mildly, mutual antipathy.
In 1988, this antipathy escalated into open confrontation: the screenwriters went on strike for the first time. In 2001, they again were going to stop working, but at the last minute the leaders of the GAS and ACTP managed to agree.
The main reason for all the strikes is the unfair (from the writers' point of view) distribution of the profits of the television and film business. Each time it was about deductions from the sold media. In the movie business they are called residuals. The only difference between the strikes, which are 19 years apart, is that in the last century, screenwriters wanted to get more money from videotapes sold of their films and TV shows, and now from DVDs and other modern media, as well as from Internet sales.
The main battles unfolded around the DVD. No wonder, considering that this year the movie studios hope to earn $16.4 billion from DVD sales. Revenues from the sale of films via the Internet are much more modest - only $158 million, that is, 10 times less! Another $194 million should be brought to Hollywood studios by selling TV programs via the Internet.
A feather was equated to a bayonet
The Guild of Screenwriters, formed in 1941 and divided into two branches - "East" and "West", has 12 thousand members with a little. Of course, among them there is a very narrow stratum (several hundred people) of those who feel themselves in financial plan quite comfortable and safe. Included in this circle receive $ 1 million - 4 million for blockbuster scripts. Annual income of over $ 5 million for the elite GAS is not such a rarity.
Scripts for popular series are also well paid. Of course, such well-known television writers as John Wells (ER), Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing), David Kelly (Ally McBeal, The Practice), Steven Bocho (NYPD Blue) may not worry about the future. But the vast majority of screenwriters live from movie to movie or show to show. It is extremely difficult to get a job, but it is even more difficult to keep this place. About 48% of ASG members on the West Coast are unemployed. In between orders, they live on deductions.
“In our profession, consistency is a dream,” sighs Diane Sun, scriptwriter for Law & Order. Criminal intentions”, by the way, the mother of three children. We have to change jobs frequently. Therefore, royalties are an important part of our income.”
Both sides are right in their own way. The writers accuse the producers of paying them pennies, and the producers accuse the writers of being inflexible and acting like stubborn children and rejecting any constructive suggestions out of the blue.
Nick Counter argues that the doubling of royalties to 10 cents, which the writers demand, is out of the question. The new media market, he says, is still too volatile for studios to pay screenwriters more than 5 cents. The film business, explains the head of the producers' union, is going through hard times. better times. The cost of films and television programs is rising faster than expected. As a result, anything can be predicted only for a very short period of time: only a few months, but not years.
Falling stars
Counter, however, is silent about another important reason for the sharp increase in costs in the film business. From the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford to Clooney's Ocean's 11, 12 and 13, Hollywood has always adored the stars. However, now the enthusiastic attitude towards them is slowly beginning to change. Exaggerated superstar demands make films unprofitable even before filming begins.
According to the Global Media Intelligence (GMI) study "Do Movies Make Money?", 132 films made by six of Hollywood's top studios in 2006 would generate losses of nearly $2 billion.
After another "golden" period, which lasted from 2000 to 2004, the growth of income in the cinema slowed down sharply. Experts from GMI believe that several hits from last year (Mission Impossible 3, Superman Returns, The Girls of My Dreams and Miami Vice) either did not bring the expected profit, or even became unprofitable.
Of course, the fall in DVD sales, the constantly rising cost of advertising and marketing campaigns, and the need for ever more impressive special effects are to blame. However main reason- the human factor, superstars.
Roger Smith, the author of the GMI report, who has over 30 years of experience in the film industry, points out that top actors, directors and producers are getting bigger deals every year. Another them hallmark is the inclusion of a clause according to which, in addition to the royalties, that is, a fixed amount, they receive a percentage of box office receipts, DVD sales, etc. GMI estimates that last year this item cost Hollywood at least $3 billion. Next to them, the $121.3 million royalties paid by film studios to screenwriters seem like a trifle.
Superstars like Tom Cruise or, for example, Tom Hanks are guaranteed not only 20 million dollars in fees, but also up to 20% of the box office. In blockbuster cases, that's a lot of money. Latest "Pirates caribbean”, for example, raised half a billion dollars.
What this practice leads to is eloquently evidenced by the example of the third “Mission”. Tom Cruise, who starred in leading role and produced the picture, earned $ 95 million from it. The film grossed $ 400 million. The share of the Paramount studio, which invested approximately $ 150 million, was only $ 10 million. It is not surprising that, having made a simple calculation, the bosses of the film studio decided to part with their main star soon after the failure of the film. Even 14 years of fruitful cooperation did not stop them.
Investing in the movie business has always been considered a risky investment. Blockbusters usually covered the losses of the bulk of the pictures. However, now they themselves bring less and less profit.
Usually all commercial calculations are kept in deep secrecy. The exception is the Disney film studio, which has never hidden who gets how much. In 2006, she paid her actors $554 million, almost four times more than five years before.
It would seem that one can only be glad for the growing incomes of the stars. But the thing is, the link between the star status of actors and box office receipts is getting weaker and weaker every year.
"Now there is new feature to predict the commercial outcome of a particular film project, writes Peter Barth, editor of Variety, an authoritative film world newspaper. - If a superstar is at the head of the list of actors employed in a film, then large profits should not be expected. Yes, stars can help launch a film, but they can no longer guarantee the ultimate commercial success. More and more producers are coming to the conclusion that the very concept of a movie star is becoming an anachronism.
The list of stars whose films did not live up to expectations or even became a failure is long. It includes George Clooney, and Ben Stiller, and Jodie Foster, and Halle Berry, and Brad Pitt, and Mark Wahlberg, and Joaquin Phoenix, and Jude Law, and other famous actors and actresses. Of the 15 most commercially successful Hollywood films this year, only three featured superstars. These are The Bourne Ultimatum with Matt Damon, Die Hard with Bruce Willis and Wild Pigs with John Travolta. The records were such low-budget films without stars and special effects as “Knocked Up” and “Paranoia”.
It turns out that producers and film studio owners are to blame for the sharp increase in the cost of film production, making the wrong bet on famous actors, and not on a quality script.
Night of all saints
It is probably no accident that the expiration of the next three-year contract between ACTP and GAS fell on the night of October 31 to November 1, that is, Halloween. The fruitless negotiations dragged on for five months and, of course, could not end in one day.
After eight hours of fruitless deliberations, the ACTP press release stated that the writers' excessive demand for DVD sales royalties has become an insurmountable obstacle to continuing a constructive dialogue and reaching a new agreement.
Of course, David Young could continue negotiations with the producers and offer the guild members to work under the old agreement for the duration of them, but he did not do so. On the one hand, Young, a veteran trade unionist who previously led the builders' union, is much more radical than his predecessor, John Wells, who managed to maintain a fragile peace by maneuvering. On the other hand, back in the summer, when it became more and more obvious that the negotiations would reach an impasse, a survey was conducted among the members of the AGM. 90% of writers were in favor of a strike.
The strikers are now picketing 14 Hollywood studios. On their posters there are slogans: "No contract - no scenarios!", "Handles down!", "Give us back our money!" They go to pickets like they go to work: from 9 am to 5 pm and work in 4-hour shifts.
Most of the stars that experts blame for the crisis that has gripped the film business support screenwriters. Jay Leno went out to picketers who were rallying outside the NBC building in Burbanks, where his show is filmed, and treated them to donuts. Eva Longoria, star of Desperate Housewives, fed pizza to the strikers who had gathered outside the set of the series. Other actors and hosts expressed their solidarity with the writers.
But, of course, not everyone is ready to support the strikers, because the whole industry can suffer because of them. Major studios are already planning the suspension or complete cessation of work on dozens of long-term projects. Thousands of employees of television production companies may soon be out of work.
For such cases, there is a force majeure clause in Hollywood employment contracts. It allows you to terminate contracts in crisis situations. Usually a person is first sent on 4 to 8 weeks of unpaid leave and then fired. By the way, it is this item that allows you to close low-rated projects.
Keane will not
Comparing current events with athletics, experts advise not to tune in to the sprint, but to the marathon, hinting that the strike may be protracted. Of course, she did not take producers and studio owners by surprise. Everyone prepared for the war as best they could.
Filmmakers are in the best position. Expecting a strike, film studios throughout September and October, not sparing money, bought dozens of scripts. Quality aside, which has often been sacrificed in such a rush, filmmaking should, in theory at least, last the next year. However, then all the same collapse.
Things are much worse for those who shoot serials. Of course, their producers also tried to make a reserve, but, given the specifics of the product, one can assume without much risk of making a mistake: scripts prepared for future use will not last long.
Take, for example, at least the same "Desperate Housewives". Mark Cherry, the author of the idea and the head of the screenwriting team, of course, is one of the highly paid members of the CEO. Nevertheless, he dreams that the strike ends as soon as possible. Cherry and her team, like the rest of the writers, are not working now. Spectators, it seems, are waiting for a greatly truncated season. At the beginning of the strike, the director and producers had 9 scripts left. Until the end of the year, they somehow hold out, and then, if the strike is not over by then, the shooting will have to be stopped.
Approximately in the same position, the producers and other popular series. The directors managed to shoot 13 out of 24 episodes of the Ugly Betty series, the analogue of which is our film Don't Be Born Beautiful.
In Lost, half of the episodes were also filmed - 8 out of 16. However, this series starts its season in February. So the situation may still change in better side. Things are getting worse with 24, where only 8 or 9 episodes out of 24 are ready. The new season was supposed to start in January, but has already been announced to be postponed to spring. Another well-known American series in Russia, Prison Break, is also half ready. And only fans of The Simpsons need not worry. They have all 22 episodes ready.
A catastrophic situation has developed with the talk show. American favorites The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Daily Show and The Late Show with David Letterman were the first major victims of the writers' strike. Already on Monday evening, on the very first day of the strike, old programs began to be shown.
At first, the producers intend to plug holes in the program grid with repetitions. If the strike drags on, then it may be necessary to resort to impromptu again, as Letterman and Johnny Carson did in 1988.
The organizers of Hollywood awards ceremonies may also have problems. The Golden Globes are less than two months away, and the Oscars will be handed out a month later. If most of the laureates write their speeches themselves, which is very noticeable in standard set thanks to God, parents, grandparents and other relatives, then there is no one to write complex scripts for the ceremonies themselves. As well as the big monologue of the main host, which this year will be Jon Stewart.
Of course, there remains a faint hope for the strikebreakers. 19 years ago, some screenwriters were still working. True, they had to temporarily give up the right to vote in the guild, but they continued to pay membership dues. In 1988, such "traitors" to a large extent contributed to the defeat of colleagues. Therefore, now the leadership of the GAS, one must think, has taken measures in advance. There are many ways to influence strikebreakers. For example, after the end of the strike, they may simply not be returned to the full status of a member of the GAS.
The developments in California and New York are also being closely watched in Canada. Global and CTV, the main Canadian television channels, buy a lot of programming from the United States.
It is still too early to talk about the outcome of the strike. On the side of the film bosses - material resources, the strikers - the determination to restore justice.
The writers try not to remember the 1988 strike. It lasted 22 weeks and ended in their defeat. Everything remains the same. True, some changes in television, which suffered losses in the amount of half a billion dollars, did take place then. TV companies have lost 9 - 10% of the audience. Viewers switched to cable TV and reality shows.
Reality shows, no doubt, will be among the winners this time. The fact is that the scripts for them are written by screenwriters who are not members of the GAS, and therefore do not participate in the strike.
Broadway stagehands joining the strike are unlikely to help the writers because they are pursuing their own goals. Not surprisingly, they have already sat down at the negotiating table with the producers.
But 4,500 truck drivers who are also ready to join the strike can help the scriptwriters. So far, however, their leadership is feverishly deciding what tactics to follow. If the drivers transporting equipment and props go on strike, the movie bosses will have a hard time.
Of course, in Los Angeles they are well aware that the strike will have a negative impact not only on the cinema, but on the entire economy of the city as a whole. Shooting a film with a budget of $ 70 million creates up to 1,000 jobs and provides orders for many local businesses and firms. A day of strike costs Los Angeles about $80 million. It is no coincidence that Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of the City of Angels, met with both producers and writers, but all his mediation efforts were unsuccessful.
Many hope that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be more successful in this matter, who knows the whole kitchen of cinema as well as the strikers and wants to help establish peace. "It is very important to resolve this issue as soon as possible," he says, "because the strike has a huge negative impact on the state's economy."
There is still hope for a new agreement. Two weeks after the start of the strike, the parties returned to the negotiating table and made mutual concessions. In any case, the writers seem to have given up on the demand to double the royalties from DVD sales. Yet skeptics and even cautious optimists prefer to hope for the good but prepare for the bad. "Get ready for a long and cold winter reruns and reality shows,” they advise American viewers.
So, there was no new strike of screenwriters, and Hollywood safely returned to its business. It would seem that there is nothing to discuss the missing event - you never know what and where did not happen. But the strike threat itself is an important indicator of how the entertainment industry has changed in recent years. Today we will try to figure out the reasons for the failed strike, the factors that allowed the screenwriters to win without a fight, and the possible consequences for the industry if the authors of films and TV shows really went on strike.
What they didn't like
In April 2017, the Writers Guild almost in full force(96%) announced their readiness to start a new strike. The 20,000 people whose collective brains created most of the productions shown today on US TV, in theaters, and via pay-per-view Internet services have prepared to take up protest banners. The time was not chosen by chance: the contracts that set the rules of the game between the largest film studios and American professional guilds are usually concluded for three years, and this May, the moment came when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) was supposed to Once again shake hands with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing the interests of entertainment industry giants (Comcast Corp., Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp., Viacom Inc., Time Warner Inc. and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.).
The scriptwriters would like to renew the contract on new terms, more favorable for themselves. In fact, they want it every time the old contract expires, but they don't always have the courage to announce it. Everyone understands that organizing a strike is not an easy task, hitting the pocket (after all, while you are on strike, you do not earn money), lasting an indefinite amount of time and, moreover, not guaranteeing victory. To get involved in a strike, it is necessary that things in the profession go completely unimportant. And in 2017, it seems that such a situation has ripened. But, unlike past performances of the guild, now their main dissatisfaction was not with film studios, but with online services.
Actually, every time the writers go on strike, it means they don't want to be left out. technical progress. In 1960, the Screenwriters Guild demanded that authors pay a percentage of showings of their films on TV, in 1973 - from showing on cable channels, in 1988 - from sales of video cassettes, in 2007 - from DVD distribution and Internet rental . After all, if the studios repeatedly cash in on content, then why should the writers of this content suck their paws?
In 2017, the writers decided to show everyone how much cable channels and streaming platforms have made a leap over the past few years. Today, these venues are actively luring viewers from cinemas and on-air TV, producing high-quality and diverse new series content, and all this would be nice if the new series were not made according to new scheme. Unlike broadcast TV networks, which pack their shows into about 22-23 episodes each season, streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon make seasons much shorter - an 8-10-13-episode season is the standard here.
There is an understandable reason for this: in order to compete with TV, new players are trying to make their shows more cinematic, spending not two, but 3-4 weeks on shooting each episode - of course, it turns out to be impossible to produce 22 episodes a year in this scenario. The overall quality of products, of course, is growing at the same time. On practice new standard means less yearly work for the screenwriter hired on the project (and less money, since royalties are paid not by week, but by series). Worse, since work contracts often forbid authors from working on multiple projects at the same time, it turns out to be impossible to cheat on the side. This has already led to the fact that the earnings of screenwriters composing "short seasons" have fallen by an average of a quarter, while the incomes of online content producers are only growing. With an explosive record growth the number of scripted shows (last year there were as many as 455 such series in the US), the authors felt that their wallets were only getting thinner from season to season.
Not surprisingly, the members of the WGA considered this situation unfair and demanded to compensate for the imbalance by equalizing the fees on 10-episode projects with the general salaries of the profession: in their opinion, it should not matter for which platform you compose, because in any of the cases the author works with full devotion. If, in addition, we take into account that not only more episodes are filmed on terrestrial TV channels, but also minimum wage screenwriters are almost twice as high as on cable or streaming, then the stratification among fellow professionals turns out to be completely blatant.
To all other digital technologies today they do not allow tracking "replays" (or rather, they do, but the owners of streaming platforms hide the data on the number of views), which have great importance on TV. Previously, for each TV show of a film or series, the author was entitled to some kind of penny, and it was not difficult to calculate the size of such payments. How to calculate royalties on the Internet, in the absence of transparent reporting - that's another question ...
A formal reason was needed for the strike, and the Screenwriters Guild of America found it - put forward "ultimatum, very expensive and impossible demands" at the negotiations, which, of course, no one was going to satisfy. This gave rise to the announcement of the inability of employers to negotiate and to uncover the banners. The calculation was clear to everyone: in order to stop the strike and return everyone to their jobs, employers must come up with their proposals, which, of course, will be worse than the conditions demanded, but still better than that what was before. For the strikers, any such concession is a victory, and they already know that the less you demand, the less you get in the end. Hence the "very expensive" initial requirements, leaving room for bargaining.
Among their other demands were also an increase in contributions to the pension fund, an annual increase in fees by 3%, an increase in the minimum medical insurance by 1.5% (so far the studios have not increased, only reduced funding) and the possibility of receiving parental leave without losing workplace.
How it was done before
To understand what a Hollywood-style strike could lead to, it is enough to recall how the previous one ended. The first and so far the only strike of the Writers Guild in this millennium, which started on November 5, 2007, broke out for a standard reason for such strikes - due to insufficient royalties. The writers wanted a percentage of DVD sales and Internet rentals, as well as other high-tech distribution tools like downloading movies to mobile phones. The strike was well-organized: 12,000 angry screenwriters, "We're on strike!" posters, picketing of major studios, "changing of the guard" every four hours.
Hollywood still remembered the strike of 1988: although at that time the screenwriters, who demanded percentage payments from sales of videotapes, achieved almost nothing, the strike still hit the industry hard on the pocket. Studios had to shoot many of their films from unfinished scripts, and on TV the strike disrupted broadcast plans scheduled for months ahead. Continuations of a number of series were released months later (the famous “Moonlight Detective Agency”, which fell in the rating due to a long downtime, was completely closed). The quality of late-night TV shows has gone downhill, and soap operas have become godlessly dumb and their stories have stopped moving. All of this contributed in no small measure to a 10% loss of audiences to cable channels, a blow from which mainstream TV is believed to have never recovered. This is not counting half a billion dollars of lost profits by television people.
In 2007, things didn't go any better. If film studios prepared for the war in advance and, just in case, bought up in advance all the scripts that they managed to reach, then TV channels operating in multi-episode formats could not make a large reserve - this meant a greatly reduced television season, and on some reality shows, where the screenwriter almost needed, won't last long.
Taking into account the fact that there were no steam platforms at that time, and the cable had no influence today, the crisis hit first of all on terrestrial TV. Evening shows, left without full-time joke writers, showed their TV presenters as "naked kings" (and not at all "witty from God", as many considered them) and lost a significant part of the audience. Due to the departure of the scriptwriters "in failure", many series received cut-down seasons with scanty story arcs (including Friday Night Lights, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, The Office, Law & Order, House Doctor, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Bones and many others). The opening seasons of The Big Bang Theory and Breaking Bad almost became the last due to the crisis (however, Breaking Bad only benefited from this, since the suddenly cut off season finale saved one of the main characters from being cut out, in developed into a powerful character in the following years). The release of some series was shifted by a year, others were completely canceled, and already filmed episodes were shelved.
The film industry was also hit by a strike: everyone remembers how weak the X-Men: The Beginning turned out to be. Wolverine", Bond's "Quantum of Solace", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"... These and other tapes, despite the high budgets that became a disappointment for the audience, were filmed according to draft scripts, and there were no authors on the set who could quickly correct the wagging plot . The authors rested: the guild forbade them to respond to any cries for help.
The strike lasted 100 days before the writers achieved the desired increase in royalties to 2% for showing, buying or downloading each of their films. According to conservative estimates, the demarche of the guild cost Los Angeles $ 2 billion. During this time, a number of ceremonies were canceled big prizes(the failure of the Golden Globes, boycotted by many movie stars, alone cost $60 million), about 60 television programs closed. The weekly audience of TV channels decreased by 21%, and some American channels lost up to half of their audience. 5% of viewers stopped watching TV altogether, having successfully switched to alternative media.
Some screenwriters, we note, also suffered: not only did they not earn anything during the strike, but then they could not find work for a long time, as a result of which they left the profession. Other authors, faced with the same problem, were forced to switch to cable channels and streaming platforms (with which they had a serious conversation by 2017). Television, too, has learned a lesson from the strike: since 2008, channels have been flooded with "scriptless" TV shows that don't require the ability to put letters into words.
What could happen this time
It would have happened about the same as in previous times, only with a noticeably increased magnitude. The scriptwriters may have aimed primarily at streaming platforms, but the strike is a total phenomenon: it would shake up all related industries, including television, cinema and advertising production. After all, if the screenwriter is in the guild, then during the strike he has no right to work anywhere, even if they promise big money for it. As a result, the viewer would again be faced with unsuccessfully joking TV presenters, and in the longer term - with cut seasons of high-rated (including "The Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones") and debut television series, the closure of some television shows, "baked" Hollywood blockbusters ...
On the other hand, on the field of the so-called. scriptless reality shows would have exploded, because losing one side is always a new opportunity for competitors who would not fail to take advantage of them. Producers of Canadian TV series would also have their own gesheft English language who are not obliged to reckon with the demands of the US guilds: the strike of 2007-2008. allowed some shows of this series to break into the American market, and now, a decade later, Canada would hardly refuse a new chance.
The redistribution of viewers between existing series would also be inevitable, because when favorite show turns into crap, a capricious consumer is not inclined to endure it. Sooner or later, he starts clicking the remote control in search of something better - and an alternative is sure to be found, since the choice of serial entertainment today is wider than ever.
What did the parties eventually agree on?
At the very last moment- in fact, on the day the alleged strike began, a few minutes after the expiration of the previous contract - the bosses of the industry, with a sigh, agreed to conclude a peace settlement with the rebels (which was a great relief for both parties). Former head of the WGA Patrick Verron, who participated in the negotiations, described the new agreement of the parties as "a good deal." The strike was canceled, everyone continued to go to work, and the protest posters remained gathering dust in the closets until better times.
Although at the time of the announcement of the verdict, undercover trading with representatives of the studios was still ongoing, all members of the guild interviewed by journalists were satisfied with the “preliminary agreement”: the Alliance of Film and Television Producers satisfied their requirements in an acceptable form. Namely, the scriptwriters of the series will receive from streaming resources in the form of remuneration a certain fixed amount in the first two years and 2% of the profit from sales in the third year. Deductions from TV shows, in turn, will grow by 15%. On projects where work on each episode requires the involvement of the author for more than 2.5 weeks, scriptwriters are now entitled to an additional payment. Medicare has reportedly strengthened "for years to come". A number of other issues still have to be settled, but on the whole the conflict can be considered settled, and, apparently, there is no threat of a new strike of screenwriters in the industry in the coming years.
Why the threat of inaction worked
The guild threat worked for three reasons. First, every major studio in the US has signed a contract with the WGA and, accordingly, is now obliged to deal only with their screenwriters. Neither a film, nor a serial pilot, nor a single line for a TV show can be written by an outsider, otherwise the guild will roll out a fine and forever prohibit its authors from dealing with such a studio. You can, of course, hire students to work for food... But if you want to work with good screenwriters (and this is what all content producers want - at least in words), you need to respect the rules set by their "roof". Quarreling with the guild is an unprofitable occupation and fraught with a bunch of problems in the future; Serious people don't do things like that.
The second reason - unchanged for all Hollywood strikes - is that the demands of the writers, whatever one may say, were completely justified. The development of the entertainment industry has entered a phase that can be called "the era of quality series and new ways of distributing content", and the need to resolve the related financial issues is really ripe.
The third reason follows from the second: screenwriters, not feeling professionally and socially protected, would lose much less in the event of a strike than their employers (it is clear that a person who really has something to lose cannot be forced to strike). For comparison: if the strike of 2007 brought the industry two billion direct and indirect losses, as well as a bunch of problems that came back to haunt the following years, then in 100 days the strike took away only $340 million in lost fees from the scriptwriters.
This time, the strength of their inaction has grown - if the scriptwriters had refused to work, the damage would not have been limited to two billion.
Experience shows that as a result of the last strike, first of all serial production did not go well - and this happened 10 years ago, when the modern “serial renaissance”, which the specialized media loves to talk about, was at the very beginning of its heyday. Today, with both entertainment content producers and international viewers hooked on American shows more than ever, the consequences of such a strike would be far more severe. The same set - a drop in product quality, a collapse in ratings, unconcluded advertising contracts, disrupted work schedules and lost wages, a new hole in the California budget - in 2017 would have been exacerbated by the dissatisfaction of overseas consumers in many countries, for whom watching new episodes of some any "Walking" for Lately turned into the same habit as Pushkin's Silvio - a dinner glass of vodka.
There are a lot of serials, they are crowding out traditional cinema, pulling the blanket over themselves and beating bread from traditional cinema. Most of the good storytellers are already working there, it was with their brains that the notorious renaissance was created, and if you replace them with "cheap labor" from somewhere in the UK, then it is quite possible that the "serial miracle" will collapse as quickly as it blossomed (not to mention that companies that hire "guest workers" bypassing the guild will be blacklisted by the guild, and WGA members will start bypassing their offices by the tenth road). new reality makes its own adjustments: today's strike is no longer equal to yesterday's, because if it has already become that "serials are the new cinema", then the industry now depends on the writers of these series much more than before. And whether content producers want it or not, the pie will now have to be cut in a new way.
At the same time, few doubt that it was the memories of the last strike that played a decisive role here: in the eyes of the industry, the 2007 strike became an eloquent example of the possible consequences of production downtime. And if there were no such example, it is still unknown how everything would turn out.
Of course, if the writers go on strike and get their way, it's only good for the writers themselves. Representatives of other specialties - primarily technical workers - simply sit for some time without work, and no one raises their salaries in the end. For example, the last strike left nearly 38,000 people idle. (What pitfalls the failed strike will result in for the scriptwriters themselves is not yet clear, but it is possible that the increased costs of content production will lead to a decrease in the number of ordered series - i.e. in the future, it will become more difficult for a scriptwriter to find a job than now. But the authors, Apparently, they are ready to put up with such risks.)
Not everyone likes writers. On Internet forums where the impending strike was discussed, one can see user comments in the spirit of: “they have bred”, “they are pumping rights”, “they are preventing people from working”. In part, this criticism is true: they have bred, and pump, and interfere. On the other hand, any film or TV show begins with a script, and good scripts on an empty stomach is problematic, and if the industry forgets about it, then lively feathers are always ready to remind it. Not now, but in 3 years (or 6, or 9, or 12) they can again knock the boot on the pulpit - and as long as professional guilds exist, the studios are forced to bear this in mind.
Time will pass, and the rules of the game will change again? Well, if necessary - "we can repeat."
Stay in touch with us and be the first to receive the latest reviews, selections and movie news!In 2007, the US Writers Guild demanded an increase in royalties from the sale of films and series on home media (DVD, Blu-Ray), as well as any content via the Internet (through online cinemas). The strike, which began on November 1, 2007, lasted until February 12, 2008. Studios, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result, were forced to stop the production of many new television series (some of which aired received orders only for shortened seasons), as well as to postpone the shooting of potential blockbusters indefinitely. In 2017, the Guild again raised the issue of improving the working conditions of screenwriters: they demand a review of the size of fees, royalties and a detailed study of the social protection system.
Most a prime example problems caused to Hollywood by the previous writers' strike - a fantastic action movie began to be shot without finished script, which, of course, entailed financial and reputational risks: many fans consider the second film of the film series to be the worst of all. Popular TV shows, which were released at that time, instead of the usual 20-24 episodes, they received greatly reduced seasons (, "Lost" and others). This year, problems may arise for such top projects as, (the new MARVEL series), many Netflix series, and in general for most of the new projects that American TV channels will present to viewers very soon. In the US, most new products must go through the so-called "pilot episode" stage: the first series is filmed, which is evaluated not only by customers (TV channel), but also by advertisers, representatives of foreign distributors, the press and viewers. If the reaction is positive, then usually ordered additional episodes, then shooting begins, and then, as the episodes go on the air, the order is supplemented by some more episodes. Often, new series with high ratings receive an order immediately for a full season, but there are exceptions.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer Started Shooting Without a Finished Script
It is already clear that the producers will not be able to settle their differences with the guild until May 2, which means that the strike will still begin. How long it will last is not clear, and therefore it is difficult to predict the specific consequences. But even a short period of downtime can hurt both new films and new series, so stakeholders will have to find common ground in a fairly short time.
Plan
Introduction
1 Chronicle of events
2 Results of the strike
Bibliography
Introduction
The Writers Guild of America strike is the largest screenwriters' strike in the United States in the last 20 years, which began on November 5, 2007 and lasted until February 12, 2008.
The Writers Guild's demand was for a new contract with the Film and Television Producers Union, which would increase the percentage of royalties to authors for sales of film and television products on DVD and on the Internet. During the negotiations, the parties could not reach an agreement, as a result, the scriptwriters announced the start of a strike that lasted 100 days. The strike was attended by the western and eastern branches of the US Screenwriters Guild, they were supported by the Actors Guild, many popular actors and politicians.
The strike caused multimillion-dollar losses to the studios. The shooting of many television series was suspended for a while, the shooting of some feature films and talk shows, several film award ceremonies were cancelled.
The decision to end the strike was made on February 12, 2008, and on February 26, the Writers Guild announced the signing of a new contract with the producers.
1. Chronicle of events
Negotiations between the Guild of Screenwriters and the Union of Film and Television Producers were launched on July 16, 2007. On November 1, 2007, a three-year contract between screenwriters and producers, which governs the allocation of funds to screenwriters from film studios, expired. On November 4, 2007, the scriptwriters broke off negotiations with the Producers' Union and announced the start of a strike.
The parties managed to conclude a preliminary agreement only on February 8, 2008, on February 10, the leadership of the Screenwriters Guild approved the signing of a new contract, and two days later, by decision of 92.5% of the total number of members of the Guild, the strike was stopped.
2. Results of the strike
According to the signed final agreement between screenwriters and producers, screenwriters' royalties from DVD sales have been increased, also for film and television products distributed via the Internet, mobile phones and other modern distribution channels, screenwriters will receive a fixed amount for the first two years and 2% of sales profits within the third year after the commencement of the agreement.
The economic damage from the strike is estimated differently. The total losses are estimated according to various sources from 1.3 to 2.1 billion dollars. According to the head of department economic development Los Angeles by Jack Kaiser, the total economic damage from the strike to Los Angeles cost US$2.5 billion. The cancellation of the Golden Globe ceremony in January 2008 alone cost the organizers $60 million. Many studios terminated contracts with striking screenwriters. According to research company Nielsen, as of the end of January 2008, the weekly audience of TV channels has decreased by 21%. Some American TV channels have lost up to 50% of their audience.
Bibliography:
1. Steve Gorman Hollywood writers vote to lift 14-week strike. Reuters (2008-02-13).
2. US screenwriters have launched the biggest strike in 20 years. Lenta.ru (2007-11-05).
3. Q&A: Hollywood writers "strike (English). BBC (2008-02-13).
4. Clinton and Obama supported striking screenwriters. Lenta.ru (2007-11-06).
5. The Golden Globes Gala has been cancelled. Lenta.ru (2008-01-08).
6. Letter from the Presidents. Writers Guild of America, West (2008-02-26).
7. TIMELINE: The Hollywood labor dispute. Reuters (2007-11-27).
8. WGA strike costs CA $2.1 billion. Variety (2008-06-05).
9. The writers' strike cost Los Angeles $2.5 billion. Lenta.ru (2008-02-20).
10. US TV channels lost a quarter of their audience due to the Writers Guild strike. Lenta.ru (2008-01-31).
