Thoughts From a Screenwriter

Just wanted to mention this, after reading Phil Alden Robinson's piece:

As someone who works almost exclusively as a screenwriter, here's why I reject the idea I hear often that "this is a TV writers strike."

It's true that the streaming numbers don't affect screenwriters now -- but in the future, new means of delivering content, including movies, are going to be invented. Will we get 1.2% of 100%, as we do for pay-per-view/video on demand? Or will the companies arbitrarily decide to classify whatever the new technology as getting the DVD rate (1.2% of 20%, i.e. .3%)?

Don't think it can't happen, screenwriters -- just take the case of EST, aka downloads. The DGA, WGA and SAG all maintained that EST should have fallen under the "video on demand" formula, meaning 1.2%. Common sense says it should. But the companies unilaterally declared downloads to be DVDs. We got .3% -- and improvements on that in the DGA deal still don't come close to the 1.2% that should, logically, have been the baseline we started from.

If our union fractures, and screenwriters decide not to support the needs of TV writers in this negotiation, then when our turn comes, we'll be in the same position -- and we'll be there with no leverage.

It certainly seems to me that it's no accident that the companies didn't go after the screenwriter hotbutton numbers of 1.2% for New Media rentals (Netflix, Apple TV, etc.) in this round of contract talks. By doing this, they convinced some of the membership that this strike wasn't about their interests. It's strategy, it's smart -- but the congloms didn't decide to do that just because they like screenwriters. They did it specifically to divide.

I personally remember hearing, during the contract talks in the 90s, that DVD residuals were "a screenwriter issue." In hindsight, that perspective proved to be both misguided and totally incorrect -- and TV writers who bought into it were some of the most affected, when DVDs of their work sold millions and millions, and they were effectively shut out of a whole new revenue stream.

I hope we won't make the same mistake again.

Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book. But it's still a trick. Unions survive, and make meaningful gains for all their members, when all those members recognize that the greater good matters. Not for altruistic or idealistic reasons -- although those are also important -- but because of the cold, hard math of the bottom line, which is this: once the companies succeed at picking off some of us, it means they're eventually going to come after all of us.

We're not just the Screenwriters Guild of America, or the Television Writers Guild of America. Nor are we the Comedy, Drama, Punch Up, Soap Opera, Late Night or Script Doctor Guild of America.

We are the WRITERS Guild of America. And that's where our strength lies.

-- LK

"We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
-- Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence