11/27/2007

Your Late Night Links

- "Speechless" is drawing a lot of praise. Congrats to George, Alan and company on all the hard work. Here is a flattering piece in Time and one from the Associated Press (via CNN). The AP story also gives some journalistic love to Kristen and Peter, our fellow online activists at Hollywood Interrupted. Between their MySpace and Facebook squads, the Virtual Picket Line is approximately 6500 strong.

- Mark Lisanti at Defamer beat me to this (like Nikki, that guy blogs as if it's his job or something), but I still want to quote this line from Ben Stein's New York Times column:

To the bosses, I say, “We are not afraid.”
I like to imagine Ben Stein intoning, "Counter... Counter..." But then, it's getting kind of late.

- Catherine Butterfield, a picketer at Sony, sent in this quote from New Yorker television critic Nancy Franklin:
"'Gossip Girl' has indeed become a hit, though not a megahit. It's now possible -- and necessary -- for Nielsen to count viewings of shows that people have recorded on their DVRs and watched within seven days, and 'Gossip Girl's ratings jump from not so hot to respectable when those figures are taken into account. It's also the top TV show on iTunes at the moment. It was on the basis of these two elements of our brave new multiplatform world that the CW decided recently to order a full season of 'Gossip Girl.' Advertisers being drawn to a show that sells well on iTunes wasn't even a concept until a couple of years ago. All the new ways of delivering shows to viewers are starting to pan out for the studios and the networks that own them. That they continue to balk at sharing a larger fraction of their stupendous wealth with writers -- the people who make that wealth possible -- is as mystifying as it is sensationally wrong."
Not just wrong, "sensationally wrong." Wow. Variety subscription: Cancel. New Yorker subscription: Renew.

- I'm guessing that in the time it took Nancy Franklin to type, "All the new ways of delivering shows," three new ways launched. The latest I've read about is SyncTV. Big thanks to Disney picketer David Simkins for sending me the announcement from MacWorld.com.

- More New Yorker content! Writer Dana Goodyear maintains a blog about Los Angeles. This week, she visited with Jerry Maren, "who, at eighty-seven, is the only remaining representative of the Lollipop Guild." And Jerry, a proud Republican, is no fan of big media.
[H]e was still bitter about his treatment at the hands of M-G-M, sixty-eight years ago: “They paid us fifty dollars a week. No residuals, no nothing. Midgets don’t grown on trees, you know.” Then he pointed out that “the dog” -- I guess he meant Toto -- had been making a hundred and twenty-five a week.
- WGA member Alan Shapiro has posted a round-up of strike coverage, and it's easy on the eyes.

- Yahoo!'s slideshow feature continues to add strike photos. And Eric Appel is the latest member to send us a Flickr pool.

- I found this parody protest song by Jill Sobule buried in the comments of a previous post. But she's right about what will happen without another season of "Mad Men." That's no joke. Back in September, Jill wrote an interesting essay about how digital delivery has changed the music business.

- I would go to sleep now if I weren't certain I'd have nightmares about Nick Counter's horrible robot minion.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey just wanted to say that we facebookers are totally behind the writers 100%!! There are new facebook groups supporting the writers pop up about every couple of weeks or so!! I'm apart of a number of them!

I try to post articles from the United Hollywood blog when ever I can get on my groups on facebook (which is about every couple of days)!

I've even have done reasearch by reading articles and watching youtube videos - grouped it all together in one post and post that to all my friends on facebook and the facebook groups (apart of 130 facebook groups).

I've even convinced several fellow Law and Order Special Victims Unit friends that the Strike is important and they have picked up in forming a SVU group supporting the writers!

The biggest facebook group right now supporting the writers is called "In Support of the Writers Guild of America Strike" with over 9,000 members (9,976 members to be exact) and they are growing all the time!! New members join every day!! In Support of the Writers Guild of America Strike

Writers, keep putting on pressure!! Hang in there and know that there are thousands of facebookers (9,000+) who are pulling for you all!!

Love ya'll!!
~Twilight~

Anonymous said...

Oh and to add, I did all that research and grouped it all togehter, so my friends can look at the same articles and videos on youtube without having to do the searching like i did. I have more time on my hands than my friends do, so I basically did the research for them. (-:

My post I post to groups and friends: (taken from my notes on facebook)

So you may have seen that i have posted a lot of videos and links on strike.

I saw the lady in my Prof. pic, picketing and I got interested in it (lady below). Her name is Diane Neal she plays Casey Novak from Law and Order SVU (my all-time fav. show at the moment). She also starred in Dracula 2 and 3 as Elizabeth Blaine. Don’t know if you ever saw it, shes more famous for those than as Casey Novak.

I have done a lot of watchin of videos and reading and i'm so in support of the strike. Cause see, hopefully in about 10 years from now, I will be on the road to pursing the acting career I want. I’ll be in a guild called SAG = Screen Actors Guild which works with the WGA = Writers Guild of America. The WGA is what is on strike right now. WGA are the people who write all the scripts for every movie you have ever seen and every TV show you watch. They are supposed to get what are called “residuals” or money every time their shows and movies are bought (videos, DVDs) or shown (ie. Movie theaters).

Its like for authors, every time they sell a book, they get mony. Every time a singer cuts a album, they get money for every time someone buys their album or a songwriter gets money if their song is used in something like a movie or a tv show or a commercial. Well, people in WGA aren’t getting the residuals promised them. And with the new media in effect now (Internet, Tivo) they aren’t getting residuals off their episodes when put on those. NBC is the worst right now about that. They air entire episodes and seasons on their website that the writers aren’t getting paid anything because NBC says “Its promotional” But NBC is rerunning the show which falls into the category as “showing the episode”

Here this video will explain it better to you: Why We fight Called “Why We fight” Its put in real simple terms to help people understand whats going on better.

But many people think “Oh well it doesn’t affect me so why should I care??” Little do they understand is that it does affect them too. Go here to find out what shows are affected by the strike:
Strike Watch: Track Your Favorite Shows
I’m sure you have a show in the list that you might like to watch that is being affected. I do, SVU.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzgUT36TVk Sally Field explains a little why writers are important. Without them there, it (movie or TV show) doesn’t work quite right. Glen Close hits it nicely explaining also the point of writers. I’m sure you saw her as Cruella from 101 D. She is reading the words writers brilliantly put together for her to make her Cruella. http://youtube.com/watch?v=i9QAV2pwTmg you may have to turn the volume up pretty high to hear it, don’t forget to turn it down when you get done with the clip.

And because the Actors/Actresses are affected if the writers don’t write they are in support of them. But too, when you work on a show such as Law and Order SVU, you get close when you work as long as SVU has been out. They are in the middle of the 9th season which means nine years together with the producers, the crew, the other actors/actresses and the writers.

Some other videos on youtube you might find interesting:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bVH_6pZRtUQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IMBljNmFCOk
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Cdm6V08w530 – Day one
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D2dFCaAxo4s – Day two
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QSltqlW2Rq0 – Day three
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SnLdS6pP2-g – Greys Anatomy’s entire cast support
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lyegkkPrtFM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gn9tvyh5dHY – Sandra Oh explains (Princpal from Princess Diaries and on Grey’s Anatamoy)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tkE_GPi2p1E – for Grey’s Anatomy
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uVvSG1c8tt0 – Mr. Marshall (Penny Marshall’s brother. Penny Marshall – Laverne from Laverne and Shirley - http://youtube.com/watch?v=mRmKzxhMzwo / http://youtube.com/watch?v=X7oHvQu-dc4 )
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b6hqP0c0_gw – The Office closes.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-1W-HHK6SS4 – Lost and Desperate House Wives
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bLd9BAH7kTI
http://youtube.com/watch?v=S3zELcO0Sc8 – The writers get creative!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0vX8VEo0orE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hcq9lyrvdrs – WGA briefing

Anyway, I think you get the point. I’m all for the strike and wish many others would be too, but they won’t. I know better.

So that’s what the whole “strike” thing is all about. I would hope that my friends would support me down the road if the SAG ran into the same thing down the road (which I pray we don’t).

Look at it this way, Suppose you retail or fast food and you work on an hourly rate. Lets say you work a 10 hr shift for 6 days straight - youd get 60 hrs right. And you get paid 6.25 an hour. The company has it in your contract that you would work 60rs a week for 6.25 an hour and you get paid every two weeks. That would be some good money for all your hard work right oh about 750 every two weeks thats $1500 a month. So on check day you'd be expecting the full amount right?? What if when you went and got your check, its written out for two hours - $12.50. Would you say "Thank you so much, I'm going to go get this cashed and save it."

The heck you would! You would be pissed!!

Thats basically (as I have been told) what these big companies are doing with these writers.

Also since they aren't getting paid for what is aired on the internet and Tivo its like a Doctor, Pharmasist, Banker, Realitor, Teacher, or an Actress performing their services and then not getting paid. And their bosses thinking its ok because its "just promotional so you don't get paid for promotional stuff".

So how many of you would stay with your job after that if they dealt ya that way??

How many of you would be looking for a different place to work at?? I would be.

However in today's society we have laws against that stuff in average work places.

It is NOT so with writers, which is why there is a strike going on which I am all for!! (none of us are happy to have to do the strike or have it go on, but it is Ness!)



Its not a perfect post, but it gets info across and has changed minds on the idea of the strike

Hang in there writers!!
~Twilight~