#screenwriters guild

[girl-bateman]

I guess that this is as good of a time as any to remind people that WRITERS MAKE THE STORY!!!! I cannot count how many times I see posts praising tv directors for things that are simply not their doing. That iconic line of dialogue? Yeah a screenwriter wrote that. The characters you love? Screenwriter. The places, the plot lines, the developments? Writers.

A show CANNOT happen without a script because a script is necessary for EVERYONE to do their job right. It dictates what set to look for/create, the filming schedule, the casting calls, the costumes and so on. It's not just words on a paper, its the backbone for all of production and it deserves to get recognised as the integral part of tv and film as it is.

[booloocrew-blog]

[mysharona1987]

[feckcops]

Joan Is Awful: Black Mirror episode is every striking actor’s worst nightmare

“A sticking point of the near-inevitable Sag-Aftra strike is the potential that AI could soon render all screen actors obsolete. A union member this week told Deadline: ‘Actors see Black Mirror’s Joan Is Awful as a documentary of the future, with their likenesses sold off and used any way producers and studios want. We want a solid pathway. The studios countered with ‘trust us’ – we don’t.’ ...

“If a studio has the kit, not to mention the balls, to deepfake Tom Hanks into a movie he didn’t agree to star in, then it has the potential to upend the entire industry as we know it. It’s one thing to have your work taken from you, but it’s another to have your entire likeness swiped.

“The issue is already creeping in from the peripheries. The latest Indiana Jones movie makes extensive use of de-ageing technology, made by grabbing every available image of Harrison Ford 40 years ago and feeding it into an algorithm. Peter Cushing has been semi-convincingly brought back to life for Star Wars prequels, something he is unlikely to have given permission for unless the Disney execs are particularly skilled at the ouija board. ITV’s recent sketch show Deep Fake Neighbour Wars took millions of images of Tom Holland and Nicki Minaj, and slapped them across the faces of young performers so adeptly that it would be very easy to be fooled into thinking that you were watching the real celebrities in action.

“Unsurprisingly, Sag-Aftra members want this sort of thing to be regulated, asking for their new labour contract to include terms about when AI likenesses can be used, how to protect against misuse, and how much money they can expect from having their likenesses used by AI.”

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Sidebar while I'm here -

The reason I'm so enthusiastic about analysis and breaking down ATSV and dialogue and stuff especially now is because it's one of the best ways to highlight and stress the work and experience of screenwriters, which is something super dear to me

for context, I work in film and live in New York, and I can say that the WGA strike is something very real and very tangible, everywhere in the city.

Writers are not the only ones affected. Family vendors that feed sets are out of work, PAs are out of work, Directors won't shoot without their writers and Assistant Directors won't come on without a director.

These CEOs are starving dozens of industries everywhere. Prop houses are even closing down.

It's really bizarre to work on these big wig sets, and then see your bosses picketing and protesting in Chinatown and Lower Manhattan. But they really are out there.

And they're still out there. Working class people who use to work 10+ hours a day, 5 days a week (or more).

All I'm really saying is please keep the WGA, the actors, and the film industry as a whole in your thoughts.

The film industry is like the culinary industry. These people are doing this work out of passion - not money - me included. They're doing this because they want their work protected and their name on credits. This is about rights and AI.

Hollywood, run them their checks. End the WGA Strike.

GODDAMN.

[burtlancster]

scouring the internet trying to find burt singing thank you very much from the musical scrooge at the oscars

[thefirsthogokage]

More Strike Solidarity!

(link to post) (link to article)

(link to tweet)

(link to tweet)

And Outside the US:

(link to Variety article)

(that "info" link)

It's more than Canada and the UK joining in on showing support on June 14th:

Under the banner of “Screenwriters Everywhere,” solidarity events are planned in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Argentina, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, South Korea, Spain, Mexico and Israel. Even war-torn Ukraine’s Guild of Screenwriters of Ukraine will take part in the day of international solidarity.

Here's The Black List's Twitter Thread On This:

For better viewing:

(link in tweet: blcklst.com/strike)

[rocknroll2024]

[wolf-tail]

"No matter how much new technology can be thrown into a movie, no matter what new stars or concepts or directors are hot, and no matter how much Sylvester Stallone gets paid, the foundation of any successful film will always be a good, well-written story. A bad movie can be made out of a good script, but never the reverse. Hollywood will always need the screenwriter."

-Michael Hauge, "Writing Screenplays That Sell"

[whitegownsandflowercrowns]

PSA For All Aspiring Screenwriters (From An Aspiring Screenwriter)

When you’re trying to break into the industry, screenwriting competitions are usually an excellent way to do that. They get you exposure, money, deals, and more.

Right now, they’re the worst possible thing that could happen to you.

During this writer’s strike, there is a very high likelihood that a lot of screenwriting competitions are tying to get you to scab. They’re offering you amazing opportunities in the hope that you’ll give them your script and then the studios can use it, meaning that you have scabbed, you have crossed the picket line. If you scab, you will not be able to join the WGA, meaning that you go through your career without any protections against getting taken advantage of.

So no matter what’s being offered, don’t fall for it.

[filmcourage]

Why Studios Are Going To Regret These Strikes - Corey Mandell

[malerfique]

they do everything to be stupid or what, he doesn't want AI to do scenarios and they want to remove the script pieces where they write it's nonsense. it's been over 100 days

again for the second time“The Zaslav effect”

the three major corporations are almost all on strike because of the entertainment industry which pays badly and lacks recognition, the entertainment industry thinks it can replace everything with AI it’s clearly not . I propose that we call this kind of phenomenon “Cost-cutting measures not respecting inclusivity in movies and in series and in the entertainment industry resulted in much more lost money

never forgotten. writers guild of america and SAG-AFTRA and the animation guild

[rickchung]

Vox x "How Streaming Caused the TV Writers Strike".

The way scripted television gets made today has transformed the careers of writers.

[witchern]

a quick word about the writers guild strike, for those of you who currently AREN'T guild members but would like to be one day: the WGA has always strongly enforced its right to ban from future membership any non-member who crosses the picket line and engages in scab writing, aka writing for any of the struck companies during the WGA strike.

so if you're seeing job openings for screenwriters at places like netflix, amazon, paramount, etc and you're thinking "hey, maybe i'll apply and get my foot in the door," just know that you WILL be scabbing and you WILL be barred from ever obtaining WGA membership. permanently.

learn more about the strike on the WGA contract site.

[feckcops]

Artificial intelligence is coming for creative workers too

“It seems inevitable that machine learning will replace many of the tasks involved in creating things like games, novels, films and series. This will start with the replacing of seemingly lower-level tasks – think translating code in programming or writing initial drafts of dialogue for a script – and progress from there. Hence the screenwriters’ demands – which are explicitly aware of how AI will improve over time.

“Rather than the rise of the robots wiping out entire professions, machine learning will remove entry level positions in dozens of industries – meaning these jobs still exist, only there will be fewer of them. This is not only an issue regarding employment, but poses deeper questions about how to sustain the conveyor belt of future human talent ...

“The idea that capitalist competition creates consequences beyond the intentions of capitalists is nothing new. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote how capitalist society had conjured up ‘such gigantic means of production and of exchange’ that it was akin to a sorcerer ‘no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.’ What Marx had in mind when he wrote those lines were the rising ziggurats of the Industrial Revolution, dotting the skylines of Europe’s cities. Yet more than 170 years later they read as even more apt in the unfolding race for AI. If the sorcerers are Google, Microsoft, Apple and Meta, then the key question is this: if any of them create a new form of intelligence can they control the consequences?

“But we don’t need to go as far as speculating whether AI would, as Hinton muses, mean humanity is merely ‘a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence’. The fact that striking screenwriters are arguing against recursive learning in their industry is significant enough. If machines are set to swallow ever more creative work, as well as the repetitive data-crunching that will cost millions of jobs in industries like accounting and legal services, then the conclusion should be obvious: we will need a radically different kind of economic system. Recognising that doesn’t require the emergence of a real life Skynet.”

[lenbryant]

Some great points are made in this only slightly outdated podcast from last week. Also, I could live without the platforming of David “Axis of Evil” Frum.