Ron Moore is the executive producer of Battlestar Galactica. He spoke with Eric Goldman of IGN Entertainment:
"This is literally the future of my work in television and film and the work of my writers and everyone involved, because it's all going to become transmitted to people via the internet, in some way, shape or form. Whether it's on your cell phone, whether it's on your lap top, or whatever other devices come along, it's all going to go through that pipe. And either we participate in that formula or we're completely destroyed. If you buy a book, there's an expectation that every time you buy that book in hardback, the author gets a dollar. And if you buy it in paperback, he probably gets a dollar to[o]. Well, you have a situation where suddenly, he doesn't get paid anything if you buy the paperback, then guess what? Then they're only going to sell paperbacks. And that will happen with us too."
There's a strike blog here. The Huffington Post has been publishing opinions about the strike here.
Other than "Lost," I don't watch scripted television, so you could ask me "why do you care?" Easy. "The laborer is worthy of his hire." As I understand it, most writers are essentially free-lancers (like me) who may be in the chips when they've found a gig writing for a long-lasting series or late-night talk show (you mean Letterman, Leno and the rest don't write their own monologues?), but it's a chancy occupation. How many new network shows survive beyond their first 13 weeks? As we all know, not many. When the show you're writing for fails, you've got to go out and peddle your work to a new group of producers, and there are 12,000 other writers trying to do the same thing.
Meanwhile, you've still got kids to put through school, mortgages and utilities to pay, food to put on the table, and t-shirts and jeans to buy (or wash). And have you seen how much gas costs these days? In a town like L.A., that's no small expense.
It's not an easy life, no matter how the corporations portray it in their propaganda (from the President of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers: "It is unfortunate that they choose to take this irresponsible action."). They are primarily corporations, by the way: 350 motion picture and television producers (member companies include studios, broadcast networks, certain cable networks and independent producers). Viacom, Disney, General Electric, Sony, and Time-Warner are in that group.
I know where my sympathies lie.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 8, 2007 09:16 AM | TrackBack