No matter the job title or craft, the writers strike is the inflection point for the future of how all filmmakers will make a living (or won’t) in the entertainment industry. It’s now or never. As artists, creatives, and storytellers, this is our last, best, and final opportunity to refuse the way we currently do business as “normal,” because as we learned three years ago when the world shut down, “normal” wasn’t working. If we want things to change, It’s now or never.
Whether it’s the acceptance of 16-hour-plus days (and “Fraturdays,” late Friday shoots that go into early Saturday hours) as normal, rolling lunches with no actual meal breaks, wages not even remotely keeping pace with inflation, the expectation anyone working from home is available 24/7 for notes and revisions, the Uberfication of mini-rooms (a small group of writers assembled before a formal series order) that exploit writers’ time and ideas, hiding residual pay in mysterious streaming data, and the complete erosion of any boundaries between work and life — we are dangerously close to the extinction of filmmaking as a sustainable career path.
When the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike first began, there was unprecedented solidarity across all unions and guilds — not to mention the SAG-AFTRA authorization to strike (and even support from non-industry unions!) — and it was clear this fight was different than the many that came before it. But unfortunately with the recent tentative agreement between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the Directors Guild (DGA), it’s clear the honeymoon period is over. Now that we’ve settled in for the long summer ahead, the guild vs guild arguments of “What about us?” or “I thought we were unified?”begin precisely on schedule according to the AMPTP playbook.
I’m not a part of the WGA, but as a film and TV editor and producer, I understand how terrifying the uncertainty is of not having work for the foreseeable future. I know we’ve already drained the majority of our emergency savings because of the pandemic. And I know how frustrating it is not being able to support our families but still be expected to support a fight that we as non-writers may not benefit from directly at all. We all want to get back to work.
But if we divide ourselves as above-the-line versus below-the-line — and if we divide ourselves as guild versus guild — I can all but guarantee we will not only lose this battle but also the war.
We the filmmakers — whether above the line or below the line — can either play the short game and let yet another opportunity for systemic change pass us by because the writer’s concerns aren’t everyone’s concerns and we myopically “just want to get back to work.” Or we can play the long game, protect the future of our industry, and seize this opportunity for what it is: A once-in-a-generation reckoning of how Hollywood has treated filmmakers as expendable widgets rather than human beings.
Why should non-writers care about artificial intelligence?
Asking humans to predict the future of artificial intelligence is like asking a dog to do calculus. We have no ability to comprehend what’s coming next. We are at the most radical inflection point in recorded human history far beyond the advent of electricity, the motor vehicle, or even the internet. This is not the time to take a “wait and see” approach. It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer, an editor, a composer, a mixer, a grip, a gaffer, a makeup artist, a production designer, a transpo driver, the director of photography, or even a flesh and blood actor — artificial intelligence is going to transform the way we work, and it’s here to stay.
The question is: Are we?
There are no contract provisions that can realistically remove AI from the creative process. If the argument is “AI can replace us, so we must outlaw the use of AI!” then we lose the war because we’re arguing from the faulty premise that we are in fact replaceable as creative problem solvers. Instead we must protect our ability to be included in the conversation and have a say in where AI can (and cannot) claim creative authority. The DGA has thankfully helped lay the groundwork for this conversation, but we’ve only just begun.
As AI evolves throughout the entire industry and changes how we both create and consume entertainment, there are only two possible outcomes: Either artificial intelligence works for us, or we work for artificial intelligence. There is no third option.
Without safeguards and the constant monitoring of the rapid evolution of AI, there is a very realistic world where studio executives control the entire creative process. As an editor, I, for one, welcome our robot overlords as yet another tool that helps make the tedious less tedious so we have more time to focus on doing the creative work that makes our stories better (or more importantly having time for a life outside of work), but I have no interest in becoming the janitor who puts the final polish on an otherwise digital turd.
If you think your job is safe because you do manual labor far too complex to be replaced by a robot, it’s not the need for your hands on set that will become obsolete. With the advent of AI, it’s the sets and actors themselves that become obsolete (along with all the other cast and crew on those sets … including you).
Why should we care if writers get their share of streaming residuals?
The reality of “pattern bargaining” — whether we like it or not — is that future negotiations happen downstream from the WGA. If the writers lose, we all lose. For above-the-line talent such as writers, actors, directors, and composers, a decent portion of your income can often come from residual payments. For those of us below the line across all of IATSE, although we may not be fortunate enough to receive individual residual checks, our pensions are partially funded by residuals. And if the writers lose their leverage to earn residual income from the success of their ideas in the streaming world, we’re all screwed. (Side note: Ask musicians how the streaming model is working for them.)
Furthermore, in the world of streaming there is no mutually agreed upon public data. It’s a black box of information, and those who hold the keys also control the purse strings. Therefore beyond a flat initial fee, there’s no telling how much (or little) of the pie you’re receiving proportional to the impact of your work. Like The Night Agent creator Shawn Ryan, you can have the fifth-most-watched English-language original series in Netflix’s history (generating 627 million viewing hours in its first four weeks), and end up being compensated less than you were for The Shield (released way back in 2002) when you were on a “fledgling basic network,” as F/X was considered at the time.
Our ideas and contributions (that make the AMPTP billions of dollars) have value at every level of the creative process. This argument isn’t about whether or not writers and showrunners are already rich enough, this argument boils down to a simple principle: If your ideas, your words, your characters, and your stories lead to financial success, you should have a proportionate share in that success. And the data should be transparent.
Why should non-writers care about the battle over mini-rooms?
As a non-writer, I’ll admit that at first I didn’t understand the fight over mini-rooms. Here is the best article I’ve found explaining the basics. What a mini-room essentially comes down to is the studios expecting writers to pitch ideas, write a pilot, and even flesh out a full season (or multiple seasons) of a show in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost. And if the studios then greenlight the project, those original writers often do not enjoy the fruits of their labor if their ideas become successful. This of course costs writers a significant amount of income given the shortened schedules, yet the studios expect the same amount (or more) work from them. And in less time!
Hey non-writers, sound familiar? That’s because every single craft has been paying “The Passion Tax” for generations. This term (coined by author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant) — and backed by scientific research — simply states that the more someone is passionate about their work, the more acceptable it is to take advantage of them. In short, loving what we do makes us easy to exploit.
No different than residuals, if the exploitation of mini-rooms is accepted as “how business is done” it will continue to trickle down to all departments more so than it already does. If top senior writers and show runners are expected to write pilots for scale because “there is no more money,” what prevents studios from treating us all the same way further down the food chain? I get it — there is never enough time and money to do it right. But, alas, there is always enough to do it over again, isn’t there?
Unless we collectively fight for the writer’s ability to stay on a show from day one of the writer’s room to the completion of a season, all that will be left are the writers available on the “Uber for Writers” app who polish the garbage ideas of studio executives basking in the brilliance of their ChatGPT prompts.
The most short-sighted aspect of the mini-rooms, however, is how blatantly the studios are cutting off their nose to spite their own faces. If you don’t develop young and diverse talent from the bottom up and allow them to be part of the production and post-production process, you have no right to complain about the lack of experienced showrunners to run the overwhelming amount of content you want to create to keep feeding the streaming machine.
And as much as the studios want to pretend that diverse voices matter, as stated in this article about what underrepresented writers say is really at stake, “If writers of color, who are already underrepresented in Hollywood, can’t make a living from their work, there simply won’t be anyone left to tell those stories.”
If we as filmmakers across all guilds and crafts don’t collectively stand up for the writers and support this existential threat to their craft right here and now, filmmaking as a sustainable career path is at stake for all of us. Three years ago the pandemic forced us to hit the pause button and reflect on our life choices, and I touched a nerve when I argued that “normal” wasn’t working for any of us in Hollywood.
Now, we’re once again forced to either play the short game and selfishly fend for ourselves, chasing the next paycheck, or instead play the long game and band together — unified as filmmakers and storytellers — to protect the future of our industry for generations to come.
Zack Arnold, ACE is a film and television editor (Cobra Kai, Empire, Burn Notice, Glee), host of the Optimize Yourself podcast, and a career strategist who helps artists, creatives, and storytellers design the more balanced, more sustainable, and more fulfilling careers they deserve.
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June 14, 2023 at 12:07AM
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Guest Column: If Writers Lose the Standoff With Studios, It Hurts All Filmmakers - Hollywood Reporter
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