The Writer's Strike - Oh Boy, More Reruns!

Since I have never been part of the Hollywood production scene, I am looking at this as a semi-outsider. I am a filmmaker and have worked with television networks as well as independent producers. Most of my experience is in commercial production. That said, let’s talk about Hollywood writers. For he most part they are an anonymous bunch, working away to script everything from Sitcoms to Award Shows. Yes even the award shows are written!

The WGA is holding out for more specifics and more money from “new media”. That’s code for DVDs and HD-DVDs and any other delivery method for programming content. The studios want to keep it and the writers want a piece of it. That is an over simplification, but pretty succinct.

Without writers, television and the movies would grind to a halt. There are only so many reality shows you can create, and even they have writers. Writers are the unsung heroes of the media. Without their toil, the teleprompters would not roll and the actors would have nothing to say. As you can tell, my sympathies are with the WGA (The Writer’s Guild of America) in this dispute.

Let’s hope the networks and studios will negotiate with the WGA and production can start up again. Without it, not only will lots of people be out of work, but we will have to suffer through even more reruns on TV!