Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - “HOLLYWOOD WRITERS ARE STRIKING, THE FIRST HOLLYWOOD STRIKE OF ANY KIND — IN 15 YEARS.”

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnalyticWhy Are the Writers Striking?Streaming and its ripple effects are at the center of the dispute. The guild says that even as series budgets have increased, writers�� share of that money has consistently shrunk.Streaming services’ use of smaller staffs — known in the industry as “mini rooms” — for shorter stints has made sustained income harder to come by, the guild says. And the number of writers working at guild minimums has gone from about a third to about half in the past decade.“On TV staffs, more writers are working at minimum regardless of experience, often for fewer weeks,” the guild said in a March report.Writers of comedy-variety shows for streaming have no minimum protections at all, the guild says.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood’s studios, streamers and production companies, says the writers’ demands would require that they be kept on staff and paid when there is no work for them. “If writing needs to be done, writers are hired, but these proposals require the employment of writers whether they’re needed for the creative process or not,” the group said in a document outlining its positions.source: Hollywood Writers Are Striking. Why? And What Are the Impacts? | TimePrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Throughout this whole catastrophe, I keep thinking to myself, what does Quinn Miller think in a time like this? Because now, all the writers behind the scenes want to come together and fight for their rights. But back in the day, I remember somebody lost a leg. I mean, an entire leg. Do you all know how important a leg is? Like sometimes, you know, you may be walking somewhere and you ever just feel like hopping? You know what I mean, the entire way? No, right?

You need both of them. So anyways, Quinn Miller is one of the, what, 11,000, 12,000. I don't know how many writers are in Hollywood. But of course, that man was writing for every, not all of them, but most of the major musicians in the music industry.

And these type of writers are a little different, right? These are the writers of film, television, and a lot of different entertainment that you probably consume and don't even know there's like a bunch of writers behind the scenes. So in 15 years, this is the first, this is the second strike. No, it's the first writer strike, the first Hollywood writer strike in 15 years. So a lot of people wondering, why are they striking? Well, if you don't know, there's been a lot of development and AI.

And apparently, I'm not, you know, guesstimating. I've been looking at a lot of different articles doing a lot of different research myself. But the gist of it is, there's putting it like a clause in their contracts to where companies could not use AI to generate certain amounts of script. And the companies didn't want to buy to that. And also with the whole streaming era, you're not really getting the type of returns you will hope because the numbers are fuzzy. Because if you don't know, these streaming platforms, they're pretty secretive with the actual numbers. they only put out the numbers they want to put out for positive PR. So now the budgets are being decreased,

and a lot of people in the Writers Guild are saying that it's unfairly being shrunk. So with these smaller staffs, of course, their income is harder to come by with this type of pattern that they're seeing now with streaming the evolutionary AI. They kind of see the writing on the wall as writers, just being, they, so behind the scenes, they say that writers are always being not treated the best, but now it's going to be even worse because they could literally say, well, we're just going to

have AI write it, and we don't need y'all at all. And that's kind of what's happening. And attached with that, you have the whole revolution or evolution of streaming. And here we are. We have an entire writer's guild strike in the first time in 15 years. Now, I don't want to get into annual salary apparently they make like four to five thousand on a television series as far as like a weekly minimum for a staff writer and they work on average 29 weeks so you know that's like 131,000 annually and obviously a lot of things when it comes to numbers and salary i don't like to get into because i'm not the biggest pocket watcher i do like to see who's getting the most money but as far as like specifically who's one two three four five like i'm not that specific with uh who's

making the most money out here. So anyways, a lot of people saying that this is going to take a while, they don't know when it's going to be resolved. As far as the effects of it, if you haven't seen already, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, that's crazy. The first name is Jimmy. Anyways, Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers, a lot of the late night shows have shut down production because they agreed with the writers who went on strike. And that's kind of funny. That's like the players and the NBA going on strike and then the coaches being like well we're going on strike with you like um you you I think you didn't really have a choice but anyways that's besides the point so anyway so they're going to go on strike and um agreement with the writers

quote unquote but wait wait to them pockets start being affected they're going to be like you know what how about we just fire up their AI and get the writing you know what I think it's been what a month or two since the strike. There's been no resolution. I think it's been a lot of stuff as far as like, I think protests. I forget what you call them. But I don't think it was like,

I think they're just pushing for more money and just higher residual pay for streaming programs. That's the biggest thing. Like I keep saying, the evolution of streaming and also the latest evolution of artificial. intelligence where you can literally copy any type of writing style and putting out I mean even John Morant you know John Wick out here with the Bliky on Live put out apology and people saying it was written by AI so there's no gray area no more with AI technology

it's hard to tell what's real and what's fake and as far as the actual humans who are writing scripts are can or being considered their job is indeed in jeopardy, I would say. So this writer's strike, I don't think it's out of the ordinary as a lot of the, I would use acronyms, but I don't think I know what these are. So let me see if I can find this acronym. It's the, so the Riders Guild of America's Negotiating Committee. So if you want to look that up, that's what the entire name is.

So now I'm about to use acronyms, okay? All right. So anyways, the WGA is negotiating. Overall contract just re-halls because of the streaming. And it would cost the studios approximately $429 million. Like I said, I did a lot of research going into this. So of that, the committee said $343 million should be attributed to the eight largest employers. So they're coming with demands.

Don't know if they're going to be met. Apparently it's going to be a while until this gets resolved because it's the first time this happened in like 15 years. So I don't think this is something that you just scoff at, but it's something that you probably have to put on a back burner because it's not going to get resolved anytime soon. And they're also calling for industry standards on writers assigned to each show, because if you don't know, sometimes, you know, well, I guess you may not know. That's why you're listening. But people, the hire-ups, basically, maybe they don't hire enough staff. So now somebody's being overwork, underpaid, and you know that combination results in what we're seeing right now.

So obviously there's been some pushback to the WGA's demands, particularly for the mandatory staffing because it was like, hold up. First of all, if y'all going to ask for increased pay, we definitely not increasing the staff. So it's a little standstill. It hasn't been a lot of guarantees on the demands of the WGA. So now we're at a point where we just got to wait and see. which one breaks first is the writers who doesn't make as much as the higher-ups can they hold out or can the higher-ups just eventually go in the direction of AI and just say forget the writers in their entirety so I feel like the WGA is making a notable stance and they are definitely sticking together with this but all is going to take I mean what they say was like around

approximately like 12,000 writers who went on strike is only going to take a couple of thousand for them to go back to work for the others to be like yeah you know what being broke it's not that fun let's go back to work or or somebody can start up their own independent company i mean 12 000 is a lot of workers i mean obviously they're all writers and you need like other people who specialize in other areas but you can start doing on entrepreneurial type tactics and only uh working for commission that's a that's a pathway but it's not as a consistent you know, obviously or not as yeah, consistent because you don't know

where your next commission is going to come from. So that's why a lot of people take these industry jobs because of course you know where your paychecks can come from week after week after week. So this whole WGA situation or a fiasco or whatever you want to call it is pretty interesting and it's definitely important, which is why I'm covering it as a hip-hop and gaming content reviewer.

But I think that this writer's strike going on it's probably going to go on for at least six months because I don't see too much damage being done as far as salary until we get into like the year or the two year. I forget

how long the NBA strike lasted or the lockout lasted but I think that lasted for the most like three months and the NBA is like a player led type of league. So if that lasted that long and we see the way that writers are being treated in Hollywood, then I don't think it's

at minimum it's going to be half a year that we're waiting and we're already like a month through so i'm trying to see if i think i covered everything so yeah like your favorite shows like the hyphenates i don't know what that is abbott elementary i heard about that um a lot of those tv shows can start to be delayed because it's hollywood strike actually a lot of stuff is going to start to be delayed um writers have gone on strike six times more than any group in hollywood makes since because they've heard they're treated the worst obviously i don't know for a fact but i listen to people who's in those circles and they'd be like oh yeah they just they talk to you like you just the bottom of the earth dirt like dirt beneath they shoe you know and they straight uh trash

you know i don't know why they treat writers like that but i guess they act like their dot their jobs aren't that important but anyways so they they they have uh it doesn't surprise me that they've won our strike way more than any group of hollywood uh the first one came in 1960 so a little history lesson right here. The first writer's strike came in 1960. A writers' guild walkout lasted nearly five months. Okay. And then the strikes followed

was in 1973. That was the second one. 1981, the third. 1985, of course, the fourth. And then the fifth one, lasting exactly five months came in 1988. But the most

recent strike, 2007 to 2008 strike was resolved after three months. Along the main requirements that was met was the streaming shows will have to hire guild writers if the budgets were big enough. So that's interesting. So yeah, so that's basically all the information that you need to know about the Hollywood

writer strike. In general, I say six months. And as you can see, these articles are saying the previous ones lasted five months. And with the evolution of AI technology, I don't think that's ever been something that was considered back in the day. So I think the higher ups are going to think about this a little longer and be like,

hey, do we really need y'all or not? Whereas back in the day, there was no AI technology to be able to mimic any type of writing style that you saw fit. So anyways, click my link, sure in my bio, let me know in one of my social medias. Which side are you on in this whole strike? Are you on the side of the higher ups and the companies or are you on the side of the Writers Guild Association? And also, how long do you think that this writer strike is going to last?