The Writers Guild Strike is well into its second month with no light at the end of the tunnel. Each day, hardworking, stressed members picket in front of the likes of Warner Bros, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Paramount, Disney, Universal and more. They’re determined to throw an antiquated model out the door and create a new one that allows an integral, yet stepped-on, part of the industry live a decent life while doing what they love.
The WGA has now culled together anonymous stories from the people who are out there every day on the pavement, eating gifts of donuts and wraps from a supportive public. These stories highlight why this deal is critical to screenwriters, comedy-variety, episodic writers and more.
Here are a few of them:
“WGA members: help us amplify the real harms of studio greed. Share your story by emailing MBA 2023 and we will share it anonymously. Until we get the deal we deserve, let’s make sure the town never forgets why we strike,” says the WGA website.
Episodic Writers
“I have been making television for 20 years. For 19 of those years, I made it with a writers’ room in place during preproduction, production and post-production. While all for broadcast networks, I made a series with six-episode orders, 22-plus episode orders, and everything in between.
In 2022, I made two shows for two different streaming services. Both were 8-episode straight-to-series orders. In both cases, a writers’ room was hired for a finite number of frustratingly negotiated weeks that ended before production started.
I was told there was not enough room in the budget of these $3- and $5-million-dollar-an-episode shows to pay a writing staff for the time needed to do our work. To make fewer episodes does not mean the process changes and writing suddenly ceases to exist the whole way through.
On the last show I made, I spent three months living in Brooklyn during production, working seven days a week, 12-hour days on average, in a desperate attempt to succeed with the limited tools provided. I was given the choice of having one writer on set with me or a producing director.
These are two very different jobs, but I had to pick. I chose a talented writer and still, the workload of writing plus production demands required more hours than we had available. I got the job done, quite frankly, by making myself unwell. This is unsustainable.
We have asked for the writing staff we need. We have asked to have them work for the amount of time necessary. We have been told no.”
— TV SHOWRUNNER
“As a creator/showrunner at a streamer, the size of my writer’s room was the hardest part of negotiations. They initially restricted my room to only three writers—luckily, with the help of a more powerful producer, we were able to argue it up to six.
We had 15 weeks to write 10 episodes. While longer than some mini-rooms, that length was still impossible, especially at a bloated streamer who is late and finicky with notes. Every week from weeks 15-25, I had to ask permission to hire back one or two writers at day rates. The executives approved this every time—because they know that writers are still needed.
You never saw my show because when it was nearly done, they decided to cease production. The reason, they were insultingly clear, was not because they could not afford to produce it. They told me they simply had run the algorithm and the data said the genre ‘wouldn’t perform well on The Service.’
These massive corporations only respond to money. They don’t care about the product’s quality—they are only interested in soulless cost/benefit analysis. The WGA’s proposals about protecting the writers’ room will do so much more than guarantee the survival of the middle class in our industry—they will make every single show better by allowing us to work at a humane pace with adequate resources. And perhaps if they’re paying writers for a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable rate, they will stop abusing the process with the hybrid development-production pipeline that leads to endless rewrites on the whims of data.”
— TV SHOWRUNNER
“Shortly before the strike, I worked in a pre-greenlit Season 2 mini-room. We had five weeks to break the season and write the first two episodes, with only three writers in the room (including the showrunner). With so little time to break and write, the two writers assigned to episodes 1 and 2 had to finish their drafts after the completion of the mini-room. The studio refused to negotiate my weekly pay for anything above the minimum and told my lawyers that everyone in the room was getting paid minimum, no exceptions.
They also did not offer credit for my work done in the room; we had to negotiate for that. Ultimately, if the show gets picked up for a full season 2 and I’m not in it, I will only get credit for working on the first two episodes, despite the fact that I helped break the season.”
— TV WRITER
REELated:
Screenwriters
“I had a spec optioned once with a rewrite. That ‘one-step’ deal lasted 10 months and included five drafts that went directly into the studio (not counting the producer passes). It took a year after commencement to get health care—and I almost didn’t qualify because the delay between commencement and delivery was so long.
Months later, the studio attached a director. I did multiple drafts for him over the course of a month. But the studio wouldn’t trigger the optional polish in my deal. So all told, that was 11 months, seven drafts, 75K divided between me and my writing partner. Take out commissions, and we got 28K a piece. Before taxes. There is no such thing as a one-step deal.”
–– SCREENWRITER
“In February, 2016, we pitched a production company on a book their studio wanted to adapt. After four months of development with the production company, we pitched a lower-level studio executive in June and then pitched the president of the production in July.
In August, 2016, we made a deal in principle with the studio only to discover that the studio hadn’t locked down all of the book rights. Eight months later (April, 2017), we signed our writing deal. However, they were still working out rights issues with the book publisher and as a result, we weren’t commenced—aka PAID—until September, 2017, over a year and half from first engaging.
We then had additional studio meetings over the next month and a half to refresh everyone’s memory on a project they “hired” us to adapt over a year prior.”
— SCREENWRITER
“My twin brother/writing partner and I have Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease that—when untreated—wrecks the respiratory and digestive systems like a raccoon at Wendy’s hot bar. Our healthcare costs can blot out the sun, so meeting the WGA threshold for insurance coverage is always front and center for us.
A few years ago, we delivered a draft to a studio exec in early January, giving us a three-month cushion before the March 31st deadline to meet the annual health coverage threshold. We felt good. But by late February, we still had not received payment. So, we checked in with our reps.
‘The studio exec has some ideas she’d love for you to execute on before she submits for “official delivery,’ our reps said.
Yes, this was the dreaded one-step deal. And as up-and-coming writers trying to establish ourselves, we didn’t want anyone—producers, reps, execs—to think of us as difficult writers. On top of that, all we could hear was the ticking clock of that March 31st deadline to qualify for insurance. All that is to say, it didn’t feel like the moment for us to take a stand on free work. So, we raced through another draft, executing on the exec’s notes. This time the exec accepted the draft as “official delivery” and we were paid three days before the deadline.
We were relieved to qualify for continued healthcare coverage, but felt that we’d let down our fellow and future guild members by continuing the culture of free work.”
— SCREENWRITER
As the strike continues, the Reel 360 News Team will share these personal stories about how writers are really treated by the studios and streamers.
