Bent Corner

One might think that after the recent Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and the blow back it caused to the TV industry, it would be a very long time before anyone in Hollywood wanted to go on strike again. It would seem that thought would be wrong.

The Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) is planning on seeking authorization from it’s members to go on strike. From Vanity:

SAG hasn’t yet disclosed exactly when it will send out the authorization, which will require a 75% approval from those voting to go on strike. The guild will need at least three weeks to conduct the vote, so it’s still unclear whether SAG could be on strike in time to disrupt the Jan. 11 Golden Globes.

SAG members have been without a contract for months now. Why doesn’t SAG just agree to the same deal that the other six (6) Hollywood labor unions got? I thought that was why so many actors supported the WGA during their strike. They knew that they as SAG members would be getting the same deal as the WGA got.

Evidently they want more.

SAG president Alan Rosenberg insists that SAG members are different. From The Hollywood Reporter:

“Management continues to apply its one-size-fits-all demands to SAG actors,” he said. “And we continue to stress that actors have unique, reasonable needs that are different, not better, but different than writers, directors and crewmembers.”

The SAG should just take the same terms that the other unions got and be done with it.

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The Daily Show and The Colbert Report look to be returning with new episodes after the first of the year. From the LA Times:

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert joined their late-night comrades Thursday in announcing that they would reluctantly return to the air next month without their writers.

After a previously scheduled two-week hiatus, “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” will resume production Jan. 7, Comedy Central said in a statement released late Thursday afternoon.

Stewert and Colbert are members of the WGA. Both of them will in effect be writing their own material for the respective shows. Doesn’t this mean that they are scabs? It certainly seems that way to me. They as members of the WGA will go on to enjoy any advancements the WGA secures as a result of this strike. It just seems unethical for them to cross the picket line now and go back to making new episodes.

I’m not going to pretend that I agree with this strike. I think most of what they are fighting for is silly and not important. With that said, if you are a member of the WGA, you ought to respect your own union and your fellow union members. You ought to be respecting your own strike.

As far as I can tell, both Stewart and Colbert are scabs.

The New York Post is reporting that NBC has fired nearly the entire production staff from “Saturday Night Live”. The people that do all of the behind the scenes work on the show each and every week are now faced with a holiday season without the benefit of a job.

It must suck not being able to provide Christmas presents for your kids. That doesn’t matter though. What’s important is that the writers get their fair share (whatever that is) of all that Internet streaming video money the networks are raking in. It doesn’t matter that the paid advertising doesn’t even cover the bandwidth costs associated with streaming video on the Internet. It doesn’t matter that the networks only stream episodes on the Internet as a way of promoting the show and that they are not streaming them as a revenue source. That’s something for the accountants to figure out. The writers aren’t really good with numbers. They are much better with words.

Speaking of words, The New York Post included the following words in their article about the layoffs:

Despite being scrooged out of their Christmas-season paychecks, the “SNL” crew still has a big heart. Playbill reports that the cast plans to perform a nontelevised show tonight at the New York Upright Citizens Brigade Theater on West 26th Street. Ticket proceeds from the sold-out performance, which was produced by Lorne Michaels, will benefit the Writers Guild’s strike fund.

The proceeds went to benefit the Writers Guild’s strike fund? They could have given the money to the people that now don’t have jobs because of the strike. That actually would have been the decent thing to do. I’m not saying that the Writers Guild doesn’t need money in their strike fund. You don’t expect Julia Louis-Dreyfus to buy her own red WGA strike t-shirt, do you? Now that would just be silly.

It’s a known fact that streaming video on the Internet is worth billions upon billions of dollars. Look at all the people that are now millionaires because of videos they posted on YouTube. I heard that Chocolate Rain guy bought his own island in Dubai and he’s even thinking of adopting a baby from Cambodia. The vast fortunes that can be made from streaming video on the Internet are without limits.

A percentage of this limitless streaming video Internet wealth is clearly worth fighting for no matter who gets harmed in the process.

I’ve been trying to learn more about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers strike. Much of what I’ve read or heard about the reasons for the strike seem to be contradict other things I’ve read or heard about the strike. I found a list of points at the WGA.org website. Here’s a quick summery of the main sticking points:

• Home Video (Videocassettes and DVDs) Residuals - They currently get 0.3% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.36% thereafter. They want 0.6% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.72% thereafter.

• Non-Traditional Media Residuals - They currently get .3% of the gross for downloads where the customer pays for the download. They currently get paid nothing when the customer pays nothing. They want a residual payment of 2.5% of the distributor’s gross for re-use on non-traditional media, including the Internet. I’m not sure what they want to be paid when the content is free. It’s hard to assign a percentage to free.

If you go back and watch the YouTube video I posted the other day from the people from The Office, what they say in the video seems to contradict the information found on the WGA website. B.J. Novak, actor and writer for The Office, says that every time he meets a new viewer to The Office, they are watching it on the Internet or on DVD. I’m assuming that when they say they were watching it on the Internet, they were downloading the episodes from iTunes. Only recently did NBC start streaming episodes from free. The inference is that Novak and the other writers aren’t getting paid for the episodes on the Internet or on DVD.

That’s not true. If money changes hands, the writers are getting a percentage.

Talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended with the two sides not being able to agree to a new contract, resulting in television and movie writers going on strike. The conflict seems to be over on how to divvy up money generated from DVD sales and the Internet.

Much of the disagreement seems to be over how earnings will be generated in the future using technology or mediums that may not even exist today.

Jay Leno and David Letterman will be in reruns until the strike comes to an end. Evidently they both need their zany wisecracks written out for them before hand. The same applies to The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. No new episodes until the strike is over.

I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that I don’t understand the concept of residuals and perpetual earnings. I’m a simple electronics technician. I repair frequency drives used to power three-phase AC electrical motors. I work for the company that makes these drives. When I repair a drive and ship it back to it’s owner, I don’t continue making money from the profits generated from the drive I repaired.

I don’t understand why somebody that wrote something for Jay Leno to say on TV should be paid more then once. I don’t understand why they should continue getting paid for said writing on a continuous basis. Its hard for me to grasp.