Writer's Strike Thread

[Cyberologist]

The Plot Thickens at strike-hit soaps

By Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 31, 2007

When talks broke down earlier this month between the studios and striking writers, it began to hit home that scribes could be jobless for many months to come. One of those writers finally made the agonizing decision to stop picketing and go back to work.

The writer's show, a daytime soap, had run out of scripts. To this writer, the moral choice lay in keeping the show on the air.

"Daytime serials are not in a healthy situation," said the writer, who asked for anonymity, fearing fallout from both sides in the complex and highly charged standoff. "If we can keep shows on the air, I perceive it as something that needs to be done for the future generation of writers."

Although most daytime writers have joined their colleagues on the picket lines, others -- fearing for their jobs or the survival of the soap genre altogether -- have quietly gone back to work. Even those who are still picketing say soap writers' issues are unique.

Residuals, for instance, a key area of disagreement between the studios and the Writers Guild of America, are not an issue for them because their shows are rarely rerun. Instead, their interests tend to focus on health and pension benefits and minimum salary for the Internet, one place where the genre -- whose audience for the daytime perennials has been dwindling -- could possibly survive.

The specialized world of soap operas creates unique situations during Hollywood's periods of labor unrest; it's widely believed that during strikes in the 1980s, scab writers were hired to keep the soaps going. Some writers currently on strike say producers have tried to lure them back with promises of anonymity. And because the estimated 110 daytime writers are spread out geographically, many working at home, it would be relatively easy to keep such deals quiet.

In re: to GH

More writers might consider the "fi-core" alternative, as it is called, if the strike stretches out. "In a month, things could change dramatically," said Bob Guza, the head writer and producer on "General Hospital."

So far, the networks have continued showing original episodes of soaps. One reason is that many shows had been stockpiling scripts for almost a year in preparation for the strike.

Another, and one hardly anyone wants to talk about, is that the networks have apparently already replaced striking writers with non-guild members, producers, scabs and "fi-core" writers. Viewers have yet to see or judge the work of the replacements, but some say that the stockpiled scripts will soon be running out. Depending on the show, that could be anywhere from a few weeks to two months from now. A "General Hospital" writer said that the last team-written script aired Wednesday and that the last team-created story line would begin airing Friday.

Karen Harris, a writer on "General Hospital" who serves on the WGA daytime committee, said she had turned down offers to work on potential Internet soaps after she learned they were not covered by the guild. But writer Rick Draughon ("Days of Our Lives") took NBC up on an offer to create "Coastal Dreams," an original Internet soap produced after the network canceled its daytime series "Passions." Draughon took the job even though he doesn't receive benefits.

"It's better for one of us to get a foot in the door right now while it's an experiment than later when they've already hired a guild person," he said.

Its a very long article so I didn't know if I should post it click image link for more of it

refer to:

[Sylph]

From the same LATimes.com article:

[Sylph]

[brimike]

That's a total misquote. I think it should say "...when they've already hired a NON-guild person" Doesn't make much sense otherwise.

[Toups]

Oh wow, Karen Harris was offered to write an internet soap? I can see why she turned it down, but it would've been cool to see a soap written by her. I think she deserves the GH HW job if Bob Guza leaves.

Hmm...... I wonder what soap tried to steal Michelle Patrick!! I had no idea that soaps were trying to steal writers for the strike. LOL Interesting.

How ridiculous is that! 18!

Yeah......"split." Like they're not writing together in their own home. LOL

Great article, though. We finally heard from a Fi-Core writer's point of view.

[RavenWhitney]

This LA Times article was chock full of juicy tidbits. And we can piece together some of those major hints to identify the various parties.

The husband and wife team...The Higly's of course. MC wasn't even hired pre strike by Corday/Scott. They only got DH back because she would go core....

The woman with the retired husband and three kids in private school...Not sure. Alden? Addie Walsh?

The producer who tried to steal Michelle Patrick. EW of course; she's desperate to fill the DK void and PKL wouldn't touch the scab duties even the most of her 80's characters are still front and center.

THe only thing I didn't like about the article was that it failed to mention Y&R given the fact that they are listing their ficore writers.

Toupsy: who are the two ficore writers at GH?

Happy New Year.

[DaytimeFan]

Kay Alden only has two children, so she isn't the woman with a retired husband and the kids in private school. Plus, Kay Alden doesn't need to write, she's rich.

[Sylph]

And her husband is a Chicago gazillionaire.

[DaytimeFan]

Where did he make his gazillions from?

[Dan]

The producer who tried to steal Michelle Patrick. EW of course; she's desperate to fill the DK void and PKL wouldn't touch the scab duties even the most of her 80's characters are still front and center.

The irony, of course, being that Michelle Patrick is about 100x better than DK to begin with. Had she taken the job, the show would be much better off lol.

[Kubla Khan]

I love how MP basically outed Ellen Wheeler. Well, of course the only female EP on CBS/NBC is EW! (Unless you count Lisa de Cazotte, who doesn't need scabs from elsewhere! LOL!)

Ellen Wheeler is stupid, because Michelle Patrick is fierce and sticks to her guns and everyone in soaps knows it. If there was a writer I would have to pick that was LEAST likely to cross a picket line, it would be Michelle Patrick, and I love her for it.

Addie Walsh's kids are grown and on their own, AFAIK, so the item above ain't her.

[Sylph]

I have no idea. But I could try ti find it out for you, DaytimeFan. If something interesting pops up, I'll let you know.

I just know he's a Chicago businessman who's a heavy donor to University of Chicago or something like that...

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Well, isn't it officially time when force majeure can be declared? By the looks of it, I still doubt any of the hacks will be fired.

[Sylph]

A sequel with the same ending

As they did in the '88 writers strike, the studios are pushing themselves out of the picture.

By Thom Taylor (LATimes.com)

January 3, 2008

The writers guild keeps saying that its strike against the studios is about the future, but one need only look back to the 1988 strike to see that in key ways it is a repeat of the past. Nearly 20 years ago, when the writers asked for a bigger slice of the pie, the studios shrugged and Hollywood sank into a malaise. But out of that emerged new ways of doing business, a scenario that's happening again.

During the 1988 strike, writers worked independently on "spec scripts" (written on the speculation that they would eventually sell them) and a pipeline-dry studio system snapped them up. TV producers also sought alternatives to traditional, high-cost scripted series. The strike resulted in the 1990s' spec script boom and reality television -- two new business models.

It's not strikers' demands but the work stoppage itself that creates a new paradigm. By fighting the writers over the new-media issues today, the studios are effectively creating what they fear most: a major tectonic shift in the entertainment business that will reduce the role of the studios even further.

Generally speaking, before 1988, movie studios -- which then housed genuinely creative executives -- used to "develop" movies starting from source material such as a book, play, life story or pitch and hire a writer to nurture it into a screenplay. They would pay the writer usually a five-figure sum, maybe more, and both sides would see the project through to completion.

In the decade after the '88 strike, studios more often bought fully written "specs," and millions of dollars were thrown at ready-to-shoot scripts. The role of the executive was less creative and more business. The prices for specs escalated to obscene amounts even as studios, in essence, discovered that they were buying only "an idea" and then hiring even more writers to revise, rework and polish it. The process was often financially wasteful and ushered in concept-driven, amusement-park-ride movies. The money's been good, but studios largely relinquished the creation of heartfelt, character-driven films to the independent art-house world.

Flash forward to the current debate, in which studios claim that digital media are too new for them to commit to a particular payment structure. Their response is based on a fear that's haunted them since the arrival of the Internet: "disintermediation." This is cyber-speak for cutting out the middleman. In such an environment, the studios' role (as managers of content) is reduced to nonexistence. Sound a bit like what's been happening to the music industry?

The studios balked at writers' request for a 2.5% sliver of the digital media revenues, and the current strike began. Immediately, many writers emigrated to the Internet, at first generating short videos to virally market their labor messages and now to give creative outlet to their talent. The studios have maintained a misguided "talk to the hand" strategy, so the writers have sensibly picked up their toys and gone to play somewhere else.

The transition to making money from the new paradigm will naturally take time. Right now, anybody with a computer connection can create an overnight sensation on YouTube -- but that's not enough to quit your day job. Yet the Internet is on its way to becoming the public's preferred mass distribution system -- and that means Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and telephone companies will compete with traditional networks by piping broadband content into home theaters. This sea change has the potential to turn the studios as we know them on their heads.

This evolution is progressing with the creation of every Break, Heavy, FunnyOrDie and MyDamnChannel: sites that give writers total creative control and up to 50% of revenue. Of course, these outlets are tiny compared with the networks' reach -- and nobody thinks the studios will disappear -- but they represent the first step toward the new paradigm that the studios fear.

Even before the strike began, many writers were wondering, "Why are we fighting for only 2.5% of a studio process that's so invariably inefficient?" And now the creative genie is out of the bottle. The longer the strike lasts, the more accelerated the disruptive technology becomes.

The companies will likely make a deal with the WGA in the coming months because all reality, all the time is a losing proposition. (Remember when ABC ran "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" every night and destroyed its prime-time viewership?) If the deal is as bad for writers as the studios' original proposal, the companies will feel that they have won the war. But the writers will have effectively won the most important battle: Their role as the creative center of the new entertainment business model has been confirmed.

The studios could have learned a lesson from the U.S. auto industry, which didn't adapt when it faced more efficient Japanese competitors. The car companies forgot that it all starts with innovation. Somehow the studios have forgotten that it all starts with the word.

Thom Taylor wrote "The Big Deal: Hollywood's Million-Dollar Script Market" about how the 1988 strike altered the movie business. He works at a global investment bank.

[Sylph]

Kate Hall and Courtney Simon (Kate says her mother is involved?!)