More, please…

It’s quite likely that a union can successfully wage a strike and still not convince a single damned person that what they’re doing makes sense. It’s not like these things are decided by popular vote.

On the other hand, the companies we’re fighting are notoriously sensitive to bad press. Sure, they are the press, but if we can do a good job of convincing people that our cause is just, it can only help.

Since the union struck, I’ve seen some explanations about why we’re fighting.

Some are good (nice job, WGA).

Some are super duper bad (ironically, you have to sit through a commercial to get to this streaming video…but gee, no one makes money off the internet!)

What’s missing, however, is a compelling reason for residuals that anyone, including your deaf aunt, can understand.

John August has a piece running on this tomorrow, and it’s a good one. He stresses why residuals are good things…citing what I call the “Marc Cherry” rule, i.e. residuals can keep writers afloat during the lean times, allowing them to stay in the business, support their families, and stick around long enough to create a huge hit that sends boatloads of profit to the companies.

But even if no one needed residuals, we should still get them.

I hear this complaint quite a bit these days: “I don’t have to pay the architect every time I walk into a building” or “I don’t have to pay my plumber every time I use the sink he fixed.”

That’s right.

You don’t.

But authors of movies (and I consider the authors to be the screenwriters and directors) create something quite different than “blueprints for a single building” or “fixed sink.”

Imagine two guys. One guy writes terrific recipes. The other guy is a fantastic baker. Together, they create a magic cake.

Bear with me.

What’s special about the cake is that you can cut a slice from it, and a new slice will just grow back in its place.

You keep cutting it and serving it, and you never run out of that cake.

Wal-Mart decides to start selling slices of this cake.

They pay the two guys a good amount for the cake, as far as that sort of thing goes. Maybe a hundred bucks.

But Wal-Mart sells each slice for three bucks, and they keep selling them and selling them.

Over and over.

Millions of slices of the same damned single cake.

Shouldn’t the two guys get some small amount of money back on each sale? Maybe four cents?

Maybe eight?

But definitely something?

Movies are a special class of intellectual property. Like music or novels, they can be endlessly reproduced and sold in millions of multiples. One movie can be sold and resold and repackaged and redistributed and rebroadcast and redownloaded and reprojected over and over and over…

If the seller can endlessly exploit this single, unique product, shouldn’t the true authors of that work share in each endless exploitation?

A plumber can only fix your sink once.

An architect’s building is built once.

But not a movie. Not a television show.

So if someone asks you why we deserve to get paid each time someone buys a copy of a movie, tell them about the magic cake.

If they slap you because your analogies are tortured and weird, I apologize in advance.

It appeared in Variety yesterday.

If you’re a WGAw screenwriter, you can still add your name to the online version.

When I was asked to sign this, I did offer a full disclosure that I could theoretically provide A-H exceptions over the course of the next two weeks (although so far, we’ve been bang on script).

This did not deter them from including my name, which makes me happy, because I will, in fact, be entirely “not a word” in two weeks no matter what.

The WGAE also ran an ad that you can see here.

Cuz it ain’t Patric Verrone.

Sorry, Patric, but I just think you’re a little out there.

No, my guild hero is a guy named Howard Michael Gould.

Howard and I are friends, we’re political allies (for Guild stuff, at least), and he’s one of the most decent guys I know in this business.

Watch this video.

The only standing ovation of the night, they say, and it’s easy to see why.

Calm, rational, moderate, clear, non-religious, bottom line, and cogent as hell.

Take a look.

I’d vote for this guy any day of the week.

C.

C’mon, love each otherWell, this caught me by surprise…although now that I think about it, it’s sort of obvious.

I expect a certain amount of strife and conflict in the comments section, but I was taken aback by the sudden emergence of an above-the-line vs. below-the-line war that started taking shape.

Below-the-line commenters started bitching about how the writers were soft-soled dandies who don’t know what real work is, and writers started yammering about how below-the-liners wouldn’t have a job, purpose or existence if the scripts went away.

But you know, guys…the farmer and the cowman should be friends.

We’ve got the big bad AMPTP out there as a common enemy. Let’s not turn on each other. Not right now.

Like I said, the reason for this conflict is pretty apparent in hindsight. A writers’ strike digs right into the livelihoods of our below-the-line brothers and sisters. They have it bad enough with runaway production. Now, the remaining jobs are getting pinched by the strike.

And when you damage people’s abilities to put food on the table, clothe their children and fill their tanks, things get emotional.

Let me try and add some perspective here.

I’m a writer. I’m very proud of the fact that first, before all else, comes my mind. If I and my fellow writers stop imagining, then that’s pretty much it. No more movie and television industry.

I’m also a director and producer. I’m there with the crew from sunup to sundown and long after. And I know that without them, it doesn’t matter what I’ve written or imagined. No them, no movie.

Pick your favorite dualism.

Mind-body.

Architect-builder

Trigger-bullet

Doesn’t matter.

The point is that we’re dead without each other. Above and below the line are essential to the process. Yes, some skills are rarer than others. Screenwriting (at least, the kind done well enough to garner work year in and year out) is a rarer talent than, say, location scouting.

I’m not saying location scouting is easy. It’s not. And I’m not saying I’d be any good at it (I wouldn’t).

I’m saying that there are more location scouts working in any given year than writers, because screenwriting talent is just rarer.

And so, you know, supply and demand.

That doesn’t mean location scouts or dolly grips or camera operators or riggers labor any less than writers do.

They sure as hell don’t.

My call time is one of the earlier ones, but it’s not the earliest. I’m due at work tomorrow at 6 AM. People will be working for me and the production at 5 AM or earlier.

When we’re talking about labor unions and labor action, it’s important to remember that we’re all the same in the companies’ eyes.

We’re laborers. Fingers on a hand, okay?

And as a filmmaker, I have to say…I have an enormous love and respect for the work a good crew does. I judge people for their competence at their job and their commitment to doing it well.

I expect the same in return.

When it all comes together, it’s incredibly gratifying and humbling.

So below-the-liners…remember, writers are often intimidated by you and the set, because we’re so often excluded from that world. Don’t confuse unfamiliarity with disinterest or arrogance. Welcome us, and teach us. Don’t laugh when we don’t know the lingo.

Writers, don’t think that the crew owes you their jobs. They don’t. We don’t hire them, and they earn every damn nickel they make. That much I know. Don’t look down on them, respect their working space and honor their labor.

Sure, one man likes to push a dolly, the other likes to write a script…but that’s no reason why they can’t be brothers.

So hug it out, people.

We’ll get through this, but it will be a whole lot easier if we do it together.

First, I was absolutely wrong when I said the WGA would only be picketing one gate at Warner Brothers. I apologize for getting the facts wrong.

Second, some of you may have noticed your comments getting eaten by the system. This appears to be the result of an overaggressive spam filter, which was junking any comment that included the word “loan” in it (much of the comment spam out there is from companies promising you low interest loans, yadda yadda).

I’ve changed the settings, so the word “loan” won’t kill your comment.

As always, I do not screen comments at all, and I welcome all criticism. Please keep your comments civil. I simply don’t have the time to moderate the comments after the fact the way I normally do, so you’re all on the honor system for a while.

Okay, then strike.The strike is on.

From what I’m hearing, it’s the usual he-said, she-said, but the bottom line is this: both sides finally got all of their stupid crap off the table (and for those of you who honestly though the WGA really really really meant that DVD increase demand, all I can say is…listen more closely to Uncle Craig next time, okay?)…and still…

…the AMPTP wouldn’t step up on The One Issue.

This strike is mostly the fault of the AMPTP, in my humble opinion. They had a choice here. Once the other demands were gone, they were in a perfectly good position to finally start talking in a real way about internet residuals, and they chose instead to insist on the DVD rate for electronic sell-through…and their ridiculous “promotional” position on streaming.

Nonsense.

On the other hand, the Guild bears some fault as well. They played their strike threat hand well, but I think they seriously believed their own hype. They convinced themselves that the AMPTP would wobble in the face of a strike.

Wrongo.

Any of you see that South Park where sanctimonious intellectuals stand around smelling their own farts?

Yeah.

Anyway, here we are. I’m not sure we wouldn’t be here if, say, I had been running the Guild. No way I’d ever take the DVD rate for internet sales.

Still, the backchannels will continue. And in a weird way, both sides have accomplished something very positive.

We’ve finally broomed the crap off the table. It’s down to the real issue.

One last thing.

I have to amend my “praise the leadership!” post from a few days ago.

The one about The Teamsters.

I praise the leadership for convincing everyone that the Teamsters were going to support us. In reality, the WGA is picketing studios between 9 AM and 5 PM.

Trucks come in before 9 AM, and they leave after 5 PM, so this isn’t really conducive to getting Teamster support…

Furthermore, I know that writers will be picketing Warner Brothers today…but at one gate.

Warner Brothers has…I think 9 gates…maybe 8. But more than one.

So I wouldn’t be counting on anything valuable from this alliance of the unions’ leaderships, although I still believe that the rank and file of the Teamster Brotherhood are behind us, and I know I’m behind them.

Lastly, if you see writers out on the line today…do more than honk your horn. Talk to them. Shake their hands. Tell them that you’re behind their fight to ensure their rights as authors…and to secure those rights for the writers who are yet to come.

I hate this strike, I hate the circumstances that led to it, I hate the missteps that occurred along the way, and I really hate to say “I told you so” to all the people who said “Patric Verrone will keep us out of a strike!!!”….

…but the strike is here.

Back it all the way.

And if the companies are serious about eliminating residuals (which is what much of their proposal would achieve), then back it to the death.

I’ve got a 6:30 AM call time tomorrow, so it’s off to bed with me.

The kind of negotiating I have hoped for all along…the intense kind, with the key decision-makers huddled together in a room…news blackout…etc….is still underway.

Might work.

Might not.

When I wake up, I guess I’ll know.

If it’s a strike, then it failed.

If there’s a deal (unlikely), then it succeeded.

More likely…if the WGA agrees to postpone the strike for a limited amount of time—say a week or something like that—then it means there’s a deal in the making.

I hope I rise to good news, but I’m ready for bad.

[Five minutes after Craig posted this, the word came in: No deal was reached. - Ted]