#Making a Living

[simplecountryboy]

https://linktr.ee/Barbieporter?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=a633975b-4a39-44e9-8c7a-f2c0811df4b6

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The following was written by an Emmy-winning Showrunner with long experience in Hollywood, and published anonymously in The Ankler today. I’m publishing it here because I’m a big believer in not reinventing the wheel. This really sets out what is wrong now with Hollywood, and what’s really at stake.

TC

HOW TRUST DIED IN HOLLYWOOD

“There’s always been a struggle between art and commerce, but now I’m telling you art is getting its ass kicked, and it’s making us mean, and it’s making us bitchy, and it’s making us cheap punks and that’s not who we are.”

Aaron Sorkin wrote those words for the pilot of Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip, which premiered back in the comparatively halcyon days of 2006. Mr. Sorkin wasn’t prescient so much as he vastly underestimated commerce’s complete and utter victory over art and the white-hot rage that would engender in the artists.

Consider this: In just the past four years, the writers of television, film, and comedy/variety shows have fired their own agents — going so far as to sue them in federal court and accuse them of being “mobsters” — and gone out on strike for the first time in 15 years. Some may say — and have said — that this is because writers are “crazy” or “spiteful” or that their leadership is “militant.” And all of that may even be true, but such characterizations elide the simpler, far more accurate explanation: Writers are angry AF.

And, unfortunately, even if the WGA strike were to end tomorrow (please, God, let it end tomorrow) with the writers getting absolutely everything they’re asking for (and, God, that wouldn’t be so terrible either), we — the collective “we” of Hollywood — would still be left to contend with that rage because it won’t go away and it won’t go away because the system that engendered it is broken.

Let me let you in on something that the WGA Negotiating Committee prefers you not know: Writers don’t really care about money. I mean, we like money — don’t get me wrong — but we practice our craft for its own sake. And the way you can tell is that, right now, half of television writers are working at guild minimum. We let that happen. Does that sound to you like people who are in it for the money? No, it doesn’t. We’re in it for the love of the game. The problem is... the game is no longer lovable.

Here are just a couple of examples: Screenwriters have watched opportunities dry up as studios eschew mid-budget movies that used to be the lifeblood of the feature side of the industry in favor of “blockbusters” (some ultimately more so than others). And those screenwriters lucky enough to get a gig are constrained by single-step deals which result in their payments being held hostage to free work. Even more soul-crushing, their hope of writing something original is a pipe dream in a land where studios worship at the altars of “intellectual property” and “pre-awareness.”

Things are arguably even worse on the television side. Writers for streaming shows are used to “development” that goes on for years and years. In broadcast (remember that?), the deadline of May upfronts kept everyone honest, but the recent move to “year-round development” now just means that development is a never-ending process. It used to be that the price of admission was a pilot pitch; now it’s a “pitch” for multiple seasons combined with a visual deck (if not a full-on sizzle reel) and, hey, an actor attachment and a filmmaker wouldn’t hurt either. And showrunners? They’re as interchangeable and disposable as feature writers have always been. (The biggest unsung offender on this front is easily Amazon. Here’s a partial list of all the shows where they’ve fired and replaced the showrunner: Carnival Row, Citadel, Gen V, Goliath, Jack Ryan, Paper Girls, The Summer I Turned Pretty.)

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[ferdifz]

Does any working musician anywhere in the world make their main living or derive their main income solely from Spotify royalties?

Not one musician I'd bet.

...But I'd love to be proven wrong though.

[mattsmemes]

[stardella]

Maria and her little alien brother sketchbook dump from the last few weeks

Minor spoilers for Sonic 3 ig

[iloveswan]

[codecicle-archive]

Guys I'm so glad everyone loves hit JRWI campaign: The Suckening so much. 12 thousand notes on just a thumbnail that's so cool. Anyone think about emizel pussy-out post revival

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[homunculus-argument]

No wait, random worldbuilding idea:

A people who have an age-old tradition, that when warriors left home to go to war, their family that remains home prepare funeral goods for them while they wait, sewing them the clothes and preparing the tools and all that they will be buried with - to emotionally prepare them to the hard possibility that the one who left will not return home alive. If the warrior returns, their burial goods are all burned in a bonfire that is lit for the celebration of their return.

And to this modern day, mothers of the culture will tell their children "fine, but let me take your measures for burial clothes before you go" as a way of telling them that something they're about to do is lethally stupid. Sharing stories about just how dramatic their mothers are, someone tells their group of friends that his mother once actually took out a measuring tape to start taking his measures when he said he's leaving home for a work trip.

And another one goes "pfft, yeah. This one time I went to a rock concert and came back home to mom sitting on her sewing machine, fucking making me a funeral coat."

[xlcovo]

[aviancali]

sneaking away from the party.. 🌙💗

[pearlsforthesoul]

SPEND YOUTH WISELY (20-30 life guide)

The title makes the point & we will explore the obvious point further. You see, the plain fact is YOU (youth) knew nothing before you came. Think of an empty vessel for a lower-level example. The container awaits whatever usage you assign to it.  Now, apply it to mankind & behold the mysteries, without end, boundless, awaiting to enter into & for you. Until you can take the helm, your first…

[mythtakens]

“these characters should be mentally healthy before they get together 😌” ummm no I actually think we should smash their mental illnesses together like clumps of play-doh and see what colors it makes

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Making a Living: Poems

By Rosalie Moffett.

[gracefuldisasters]