My Thoughts on the Writers Strike
Posted on January 30, 2008 
This evening I was asked by Thomas over at Williamsboard.com what I think about the WGA strike.
I shared a video I posted a month before the strike began about the opportunity creators have right now to make their own content. Then I gave him this answer as well:
We are in a time where writers can completely leave their positions if they want to. Then write their own content using small digital video crews to produce low cost shows to self-release online. Blip.tv, Brightcove, Revver and youtube’s content partner program all provide ad revenue and are looking for well written content. So thats the real strike in my mind. At that point a creator of a show can write what truly inspires them rather then being confined by the parameters of a mainstream TV Show. Plus instead of 4 percent they’ll be getting 100 percent.
Also it would be cool if then audiences jumped on board and could actually “boycott” mainstream media by simply not watching it and instead subscribing to independent shows they like and getting them free on what ever device they want to watch them on. Now and then there would be a thanks to a sponsor or some kind of ad model that gets the creators paid but it wouldn’t need to be nearly as obtrusive as annoying 30 second spots.
Even right now there is enough independent media out there to not have a TV and to do screenings of independent films at friends houses rather going to movie theaters. So I imagine this will only get more and more practical as things like the writers strike pull us into a new era.
Do you have any idea how much some of these writers get paid? In your perfect little DV world that plan works out fine…but in the “real” film world it’s a little more complicated. Please do us all a favor and get some more experience in this “biz” before you go spouting off on topics you are grossly misinformed about. Whomever gave you the idea that you are an “expert” or that your opinion needs to be heard about new media ideas should be shot. A handi-cam video does not warrant any cred.
Wow. D.Coulier has a stick up their ass
Arin, you’re right, *most* of these writers get paid very little, it’s been very interesting watching a handful of vlogs by normal-everyday writers who say they also work part time jobs at the gym around the corner to make ends meet. Not everyone is a Seth McFarlane or a BJ Novak… so this would be a great time to give the ultimate “Fuck You” to the old media, and do what they want, how they want.
Do you have any idea how fast an online series written by the people who worked on the Office, for example, would spread online. I’d support it in a second, and all I’d have to do to support it is watch it, because it’s based off viewers and downloads and page hits.
And before D. goes off on a rant about me about growing up and getting a clue, I worked at NBC, and I was close enough to have an idea of what’s going on… old media is dead… they just don’t know it yet.
These writers don’t need a broadcasting corporation telling them what and how they should write, or how much of a profit they’ll make if their lucky.
I’m sure a few writers have done this, but it would have been a great message if the moment they striked, they began pooling together to push hard a few online weekly shows - carried signs with the web address of those shows, all the news crews and passing people would check it out, word would spread, money would begin to come in, and a point would be made… that the networks need the writers, more then the writers need the networks.
These guys are getting their feet pretty wet making all kinds of short films about the strike but also delving into the DIY world while they are at it.
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