More on wga strike
Several friends have pointed me toward Doris Egan’s Livejournal. Ms. Egan is the real deal, a true industry pro who has written some of the greatest episodes of House MD, which is to say that she’s written some of the greatest episodic television in ever. She’s the sort of person who knows how hard the life of a Hollywood pro is, how the real, paying gigs are few and far-between and how the studios burn through writers like junkies burn through friendships. She has a lot to lose by going on strike in the middle of her show’s season, but she has more to lose — her profession, basically — if she does not go on strike.
Someone in the comments raised the point that writing (not necessarily of quality writing, mind you) is flourishing on the web. But I wonder how much of that writing is generating any revenue.
Very little I imagine. Remember, “writing… flourishing on the web” includes the ever hilarious fanfic! I love that stuff!
Also, Todd, in the opening paragraph a “Louisa May Alcott” was mentioned. Any relation?
And I love the old pulps! The vast, vast majority of the original Doc Savage or Shadow or that sort of stuff is long out of copyright and freely available. I have a huge digital collection, as well as hours upon hours of the radio plays! That Old Time Radio stuff is amazing. The pulp genre stands as my favourite by far.
Denis
Writing Without a LiveJournal Account.
Well, as has been demonstrated, quality and revenue do not go hand in hand. There might very well be plenty of people out there writing terrible dreck but still making a profit… somehow.
I got to read me some more pulp.
I’m putting this here because it’s as good a place as any:
Nathan Rabin has posted the latest entry in his My Year of Flops series and it’s all about Town & Country. I thought you might be curious.
I dearly love Mr. Rabin’s work. The only place I disagree with him in his appreciation of Town & Country is where he says that, in spite of all its failures, the finished movie looks great. It does not.
The nicest thing I can personally say about Town & Country is that they didn’t shoot my script.
There are only so many hours in a day, and with a wide range of digital and analog options available, are there signs of any studio concerns about getting what they pay for in terms of end product? I’m just curious if there seems to be an actual plan or just the assumption that even if film and television writing becomes harder to make a living at, there will be enough takers to make it workable and odds are most of the viewing public won’t notice the difference anyway?
Studio TV-scheduling strategies are not my forte.
Might be an interesting side effect if some show gets picked up rather than getting the axe quickly. Once the content makers stop it’s kind of fun to see how the machine compensates and what sort of inadvertant side effects arise.