Writer's Strike

 

So... apparently the WGA is striking at midnight unless some sort of miracle occurs and Hollywood acquiesces to their list of concerns (which includes the potential for AI to create content and to compensated accordingly when the material they wrote appears on streaming services... right now writers get severely lowballed when the content they wrote shows up on streaming... yet another reason to hate streaming).

The last writer's strike (in 2007) shut Hollywood down for 100 days and was held over residuals to DVD sales and digital download content (which at the time was pretty much limited to iTunes and Amazon, if memory serves). 

I listened to NPR this morning and they ran the potential writer's strike story twice. 

In all honesty, the life of a Hollywood writer (at least a television writer) doesn't seem all that glamorous. It seems like they're living hand-to-mouth and constantly waiting for their next job/paycheck.

I think it's different for film writers, a lot of whom make millions on a single sale. But I could be wrong. In fact, I probably am. But perhaps I'm not, and that's why it's so hard to get a foot in the door.

Although, I know I have to stop reading screenwriter autobiographies and watching interviewers with screenwriters on Blu-ray special features. I know I won't, but I need to. Why do I need to stop watching these things? Because, apparently, in the 70's, 80's and into the 90's they were just handing out screenwriting careers once you got off the bus (and most of the time you were getting off the bus from the Midwest... you know... like Roger Corman and Dan O'Bannon did). It seemed pretty easy then; now it is nigh-impossible to get a foot in the door.

I'm still trying.

Although now I feel much better about waking up at 5:40am 5 days out of the week, 10 months out of the year.

Sure, screenwriters can free health insurance for life through WGA, but if the life of a Hollywood writer is wringing their hands waiting for the next TV writing or straight-to-streaming movie gig, then I'm okay being a teacher-professor until I sell a script and can live off the initial sale amount for year to come (if that's even still a thing today).

Other than that I can think of a few good things that may come of this.

1.) The glut of content being spilled into the ether may ebb. This will actually be a great thing for me, because it will allow me to catch up. I have countless shows and movies on streaming that I need to watch, let alone DVDs that came in the mail from Netflix (that I have to watch before Netflix's enacts one of the dumbest decisions they've ever made as a company, IMO, and shuts down their DVD division in late September), unwatched Blu-rays and 4K discs I've bought and movies I've checked out from the library. Asd Chris Sarandon said in Princess Bride, "I'm swamped!"

2.) It may clear the way for new screenwriters to have a chance to slip in the door while the established, heavy hitters are on the picket lines. This is something I didn't think about, or act on, back in 2007 when the first strike was happening. But now I have a tried and tested script, Personal Demons, and another script that I think is pretty good, and is a guaranteed hit if produced, in Muscles & Wine, to present to the Hollywood high sheriffs (as Joe Bob Briggs would say). Of course, this is all assuming that the writer's strike lasts until late July, when Pitchfest takes place. And even if the writer's strike is over, hopefully the agents and producers I pitch to will have the recent memory of the strike in their minds and will want to stockpile unproduced scripts by a new screenwriter for the next dry spell or strike.

That's what happened with RoboCop 2. The original writers wrote a draft, then had to go in strike before they got a chance to re-write it. Enter Frank Miller (who producer Jon Davidson loved from his Dark Knight Returns comic). Miller hadn't written a screenplay in his life, so Orion could hire him while the strike was ongoing. So, Miller cranked out RoboCop 2 and 3 before he had to join WGAw and the picket lines. 

If that happens with Personal Demons, well, I will just be ecstatic.

Especially since (and I hope I'm not swindling myself by announcing this publicly on my blog) Personal Demons 2 is already written and 3 is outlined and ready to be written.

It is my hope that, this summer, I can finish my third werewolf script (Wolves at the Door), then write my allegorical lake monster movie (Depths) and a serial killer script I have been toying with for the last 8 years (Gruesome... or Grotesque... the title depends on my mood, how I think it sounds and how serious I am about the Poe connection to the script).

Then next summer I can write PD3 and my opus script (unless Flatdog or Personal Demons is it), State of the Art. 

But at least I am excited about writing again, and looking forward to a season when I will have ample time to write, and, due to the writer's strike, the fact that I may have a better chance than I would normally have to get my foot in the door.

We shall see.