The studio took the risk and put the money up to make that movie or show exist, not the writer or cast. Why shouldn’t the studio profit off its risk it took? Maybe the writers and cast should give back some of their pay if a show does poorly? Seems fair, right? (We know it’s a big No from Jay)

Isn't that kind of how residuals work? They get less if the show does poorly?

But to Gizmo's point, they already got paid once for the job they did. If 10 writers are in a room, is everyone of them due the same residual amount? What if a writer didn't have any of their ideas used? Allowing anybody who has ever worked on anything to get paid forever is a pretty silly premise. I know highly successful actors use back-end residuals to fatten up their wallets -- but it's not scalable in the real world where it takes MANY moving pieces to make that single actor so successful. I know this is a writer's strike and I don't know how far down the rabbit hole this strike goes; but imagine if the sound editors asked for residuals too. I could argue many of them are more valuable than a lot of writers.

I dunno, are you a good enough writer to get that kind of gig? Or do you just not like it when people have different jobs and therefore different opportunities than you? If this whole thing is just that you are jealous of writers, that would make a lot more sense than your current "corporations deserve all the money" stance.

I'll use an example from my own career - I used to be a daytime talk show TV producer. I was a journalism major, spent time as a news photographer and then a corporate video producer which lead me to working almost 15 years a talk show producer, spending the last 2 1/2 years as the Executive Producer and manager of the show and its staff. We had someone else on staff who was a general office worker. They had come from working as a receptionist in a completely different field and was just hired to do the same kind of office work for the TV show. This person was continuously jealous and upset about the opportunities that we, as producers, received for our jobs. If there was a new restaurant opening in town, the producers might get an invitation to the grand opening. The office person sometimes did too, actually, but not as often. Because the restaurant wants the publicity that the producers could provide. It's completely transactional. And while I was a lot nicer about it when I had to address it, the bottom line is that if this person wanted the perks, then they could have done the things I did to get to the position I was in.

Here's another one. When I was deciding what I wanted to do with my career, I chose stability and to start a family relatively young. I have a friend at my first TV job (same age as me) who moved to California, slept on people's couches and scrapped her way into the TV business, ultimately working for shows like Scrubs and LOST (living on location for years in Hawaii). Was I a little jealous of what she accomplished? Absolutely. But I also knew that I wouldn't have been able to handle the uncertainty and unstable aspects of that life to get to that point. So I made my decisions and I don't begrudge her for a second for all of the incredible opportunities she has received because she put in the work.

That gets back to how these roles are valued. And that's true in any business.

When I was in college, I worked at a video store and one of my roommates worked at a pizza delivery place. I got minimum wage, and he got minimum wage plus mileage plus tips. And he certainly didn't work harder than I did. When I was a news photographer, I found out that the photogs were the lowest paid people in the TV newsroom, when we were the one position you HAD to have to make TV. If the photogs don't shoot any video, there is nothing for the anchors to read over, the directors to call, the sound people to punch in, etc. But the industry just isn't built that way.

If we want to talk about people getting paid what they are truly worth, then we're going to have to start talking about teachers, elected officials, CEOs and every other job in this country.

Presumably they would have been paid more up front without residuals. Residuals are baked into their contract. If it was a terrible deal for the studios then this would have been revamped long ago, so my uneducated guess is that this was working out fine for the studios but streaming provided them an opportunity to make even more money by legally cutting back on what residuals they paid out.

$40,000 annual salary isn't survivable in LA.

https://ktla.com/news/california/thi...in-california/
https://www.movingwaldo.com/moving-t...g-los-angeles/
https://livingcost.org/cost/united-s...ca/los-angeles
You'd stave/be homeless only earning $40,000 a year in LA.





Residuals are paid on a per-episode basis, based on the credited writers for that episode.

https://www.wga.org/members/finances...survival-guide
If you want to argue against residuals, you should maybe read up about them and how they work, instead of complaining about an issue that doesn't actually exist.

"Highly Successful Actors" don't rely on guild-rate residuals, they're going to have their own revenue-sharing deals.

However, residuals can help sustain an actor until the point where they become highly successful. There's very few overnight successes in Hollywood.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainmen...s-cant-give-in
The writers and cast take a risk on every movie and show as well, since they're taking that job over other possible ones, having to turn down other job opportunities because of scheduling conflicts, etc. They also take a risk by taking less upfront pay in exchange for residuals down the line. They also sometimes have to move away from friends and family for weeks to months to years at a time to do the job (such as a British actor working on multiple seasons of a US show), so it's not without sacrifice.

Studios deserve to earn money on a show, but they're not the only ones, and arguably give the least contribution in terms of how well the final product turns out. Why are you begrudging writers and actors simply wanting a bigger piece of the pie, especially when it's still relatively a sliver of a slice?

Boy, that pie chart should be the end of the discussion but I am sure it won't be.

I'm 99.97% sure that pie chart is created with data to make it look like something it's not.

I wonder how you all would feel if the United Auto Workers (UAW which is prominent here in Detroit) would feel if the line workers got $2 every time a car was sold... and then sold again and again and again. It's the same thing. You were paid up front to do a job and your transaction is now complete. Because a Studio or Streaming Service or Network took a chance on you is the important thing. No company is going to let the most important cog in the machine go... but an upcoming writer or an average writer - like everybody else - either keeps plugging away until they earn their status or they find another gig.

Personally, I want the working man to get the money. I am a firm believer that a strong middle class is waaaaaay more important that a few rich guys and corporate execs getting multi-million dollar bonuses and tax breaks. That said, I get that not all things are equal and certainly not every person should get money into perpetuity for doing their job. If you want that, you'll need to create your own IP and own the rights, distribution, marketing, financing, etc. Studios take the gamble because they can -- and they reap the rewards.

Producing art isn't the same thing as producing a product. Look at music recording. The artist and the songwriter might get paid for recording the song, maybe paid per album or single sold. But since there are entire businesses built around playing that music in perpetuity, like Radio and Streaming Music services, wouldn't you agree that the songwriter and artist should continue to receive compensation if their work is continuing to generate new revenue? That is a completely different business model to a car which someone owns outright and then can resell to recoup any remaining value in the owned product.

If you think that line workers deserve profit sharing...then I agree with you. As would many people. But of course companies aren't going to do that. To quote "Office Space": It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation?

But I'll go back to my earlier example - who should get the most money for the sale of a book, the writer or the publisher? That's the simplest distillation of this fight.

I don't even think your question of "Who deserves more" is the right question to ask. The publisher, and the studio, absorbs all the risk of failure, so I have no problem with them realizing the lions share of the reward for success. That said, the writer is certainly entitled to a fair share of revenue. And while the writer might have recieved a nice check for writing their book, I think they would still deserve some share of the continued income going forward. However much Harper Lee saw when she sold To Kill a Mockingbird, her estate should still be seeing dividends because that book sells lots of copies every single year.

So they need to find something else since their gig job is just a gig job. Amazing how that works out when you are not a great writer and no one wants you on their show. In any other industry they would just leave and find something else. But not being a writer, apparently.

They do go and find other jobs. Do you know how much the average member of the union makes a year? It's been said dozens of times but you still seem to think they are millionaires.

https://deadline.com/2023/08/writers...ix-1235521671/

The anti-competitive union is trying to get the Government involved in what they deem to be anti-competitive. Meanwhile the WGA has told TikTokers, YouTuber and anyone else they won’t be allowed in the WGA in the future if they “scab”.

WGA has been handling this terrible. How have they not tossed leadership yet?

Only a truly benevolent organization operating from a position of strength is compelled to make membership (and accompanying payments to them) compulsory and issues tyrannical threats to those who defy them.

Unions only work if the workers are, you know, united. They only ever form if a majority of workers vote to have one, and all their actions are predicated on votes from the members. It's a democracy. "Right to work" is a scam industrialists use as a wedge to try and break unions, so they can better exploit their workers.

It's literally not. The line workers didn't design the car, merely produced a copy of it. Something analogous for movies/TV would be a person working on a DVD/Blu-ray disc production line. And for both line workers, they get paid for the amount of work it makes to produce a copy, which isn't all that much. But for car designs, car manufacturers pour millions to billions of dollars into R&D and such, and Ford would be in dire straights if they designed a new car model, and every other car manufacturer was free to just take the design for no cost and start producing their own copies.

Also, nobody gets paid for the same copy being sold a second time. Not car manufacturers, not studios, not writers or actors. They're asking to be paid for each copy made, or at least the revenue from the initial sales of that copy, or for each broadcast (effectively a new copy) or each stream (again, effectively a new copy). If the copy is permanent, like a DVD, they're not asking for money when it's resold.

Well then actors and writers would have to ask for much more money upfront then, and studios will take a bigger bath on projects that don't perform well, as well as not being able to produce as much at one time since they have to pay for everything as a single, upfront fee, instead of defraying costs across the marketable lifespan of the product.

This is a very capitalist viewpoint, in the sense that you give extraordinary weight and power to the person with the capital. It's a massive power imbalance that only means the rich get richer, and gives them justification to exploit their workforce, which is plentiful but lacking in capital. It leads to a new aristocracy, where the wealthy get wealthier because they have the money to spare to spend on people to create new works. Why should people gambling with money make money for decades on something other people worked hard at making, while the people most responsible for the work, the writers, actors, etc. have to settle for merely an upfront payment? Also, do you think that will actually produce better works? Writers, actors, musicians, etc. all quitting shortly after starting and having to find a different job, because they can't support themselves, and then the industries just throwing new, inexperienced creatives into the meat grinder?

Like, when a new TV show or movie is announced, do you ignore the writer, director, actor, etc. and just look for what studio is making it? "Oh, a Universal film! That'll be good!" For me, the studio name is almost meaningless. What matters is the actual talent. And sure, the studios should get a return on their monetary investment, but not to the detriment of everyone that worked on it.

I'd love to write for THE ROOKIE, can I do so without joining the WGA? It's pretty anti-competitive I can't write for the majority of scripted TV unless I join a Union and pay them money to do whatever they do (which currently is keeping writers out of work for 4 months and hundreds of thousands of others for much, much longer).

WGA is going to lose control pretty quickly if they don't get things resolved, and doing what they are currently doing isn't helping.

You realize you're basically arguing that nobody should write, act, direct anything, because you don't want it to be a sustainable career, right? Like, you either don't want movies and TV shows to exist, or you want to punish those that make movies and TV shows by denying them the money that's readily available and only a small percentage of the amount generated from the work they do. Like, I'd understand if their demands were unreasonable due to movies and TV shows not making that much money, but it's a $275 billion a year industry, and growing. The studios rake in so much money, over decades, for the work produced, and the writers and actors are merely asking for amounts that mean they can continue to afford to live and work in the industry, have health insurance, and maybe be able to retire at some point.

That's not how it works. You actually have to do get hired first before the WGA will let you join. So you actually have to convince the studios to hire you, not the WGA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriti...to_membership/
You keep being wrong about everything. Keep that streak going.

It literally does not work like that. You can't just send Alexi Hawley a blind resume and writing samples and hopes he hires you. You literally have to start from the bottom as a PA and maybe get lucky and be given a chance as a Assistant to a writer to start out. But you should know that you'll likely need a connection to get in on a show as a lowly PA. They don't advertise these kind of jobs.

I don't know why we bother talking to these people. There's a fundamental lack of understanding on their part. Propaganda is a hell of a drug. Keep simping for corpos.

And once again, Gizmo fails to understand that the UNION isn’t forcing WRITERS to strike because THE WRITERS ARE THE UNION. It is a union of WRITERS.

To be fair, the WGA is using propaganda too. They parade the the 2 cent residual checks and writers making only $25K per year as examples of what they are fighting for, yet nothing they are proposing or asking for will change these people's situations. A 1000% increase in residuals will give them a $2 check. A 10% increase in pay will give them $27.5K per year.
It's the equivalent of using Wal-Mart employees who qualify for food stamps as a reason for increasing the minimum wage, yet if the minimum does increase, these employees will still be broke and getting food stamps. That's propaganda.
WGA is negotiating in bad faith also. They're asking for the ability to solidarity strike. That will never happen. It's unreasonable and prolongs the strike for no reason. No company, of any kind ever agrees to that. In most cases it's illegal in the U.S., and when it is legal the contract will always have language forbidding it.

1. Get the biggest raise you can. Every bit helps.
2. Get everybody covered by health insurance regardless of income
3. Don't allow any A.I. shit
4. No matter how little it is, get the streaming residuals started. Work out the kinks next time
5. Don't agree to more than 3 years. Industry is changing too fast. If I were the union I'd already be working on strategy for next contract in 2026-27 to build upon this one.
6. If presented with "take it or leave it", leave it. If you take it, live with it