Thirteen days into the Hollywood Writers’ Strike and the blogs have sprung to life with daily accounts of writers walking the lines in Los Angeles. Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin have running accounts of what it’s like out there in the first full-scale WGA strike since 1988. According to the Los Angeles Times, negotiations are scheduled to resume on November 26th.
The LA Times also has an entire section devoted to strike coverage. Many predict that this strike will last longer than the 1988 strike (which lasted 22 weeks), because the issues are more complex, and the parties are farther apart in negotiations than they were twenty years ago: Writers Seek Bigger Slice of Half-Eaten Pie and Writers’ Strike Opens New Window On Hollywood.
Douglas McGrath’s recent article in Newsweek does an excellent job of summing up: Why We’re On Strike: A screenwriter on Hollywood’s labor pains. McGrath’s article links to this excellent YouTube video, Voices of Uncertainty, which says it all.
In the meantime, some writers have diverted their energies to bypassing the studios and doing what they do best: entertainment: “Colbert Report” Writers Parody A Greedy Producer.
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Here’s to hoping the writers get a fair deal on the new technology this time. They got reamed on videotape in the 80′s. And I don’t think another four cents on each DVD is going to kill the producers either.