WEBVTT - Inside the WGA Strike 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:09.000 Welcome back to It could happen here a podcast about 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.520 things falling apart, and you know, when things fall apart, 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:13.520 one of the few things that can keep you on 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.840 an even keel, you know, keep you feeling like there's 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.360 something that makes sense in the world. It's good TV. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:20.560 You know, I think we can all agree no job 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.000 more important than making television because it's really, for a 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.320 surprising amount of the population, the only thing keeping them 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.600 on the ragged edge of sanity. And obviously, if you're 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:33.960 at all aware of the news, both the Writers Guilt 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:39.080 the WGA and the Actors Guild sag AFTRA have both 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.839 separately although they are now you know, on strike at 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.960 the same time, have both kind of independently announced strikes 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.720 after a breakdown in negotiations with the major studios. And 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.560 to talk with me today about what's going on. What's 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.120 it like being a writer on strike? Is my friend 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.200 and one of the people who makes a show that 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.920 helps keep me on the ragged edge of sanity. Soren Bowie, Soren, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.920 how you doing, Woo? 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:07.640 You're simply the. 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:14.200 Best money you bet of them all the risks. Stop it, Tina, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:14.800 stop it. 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:15.959 Thank you, guys. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:21.399 Very good, very good. Sew. You are my former colleague 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:25.920 at cracked dot com dot net backslash aol. 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.840 Don't send anyone there now, and. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.320 You are also, at least before the strike hit where 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.520 a have been for the last several years a writer 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:40.039 on American Dad, one of the most consistently funny animated 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.720 shows of like twenty years now almost. 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.840 It's been on the air, stop it stop. Thank you, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.960 Robert Tina, You guys are the best. Uh, that's very 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:49.680 nice of you. Thank you very much for saying that. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.280 It did cost a lot of money to get her 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:52.160 in the studio today. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.560 Oh, that's very kind of you to say. Yeah, I 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.480 we try very hard. But it also has like a 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.000 feel at the show of like the warden isn't watching, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:03.680 Like we're kind of allowed to do what we want, 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:04.240 and it's. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.639 Yeah, you love your job. It's very obvious that I 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.040 think probably everyone there loves writing for that show. Most 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.160 of the people I know who write for TV have 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:16.840 the same attitude of like, Wow, I can't believe I 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.920 get to do this. But that attitude is great and 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.600 it makes life livable. But what doesn't make life livable 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.280 and what makes the enjoyment of the job harder is 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.760 starving to death, which is an increasing reality for a 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:35.600 lot of writers over the last like ten years. So 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.440 a decade ago, about thirty three percent of TV writers 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:40.720 got what was paid like the minimum rate, which is 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.120 kind of the minimum rate you get paid to get 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.520 staffed on a union show. And the WGA says that 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.520 about half of TV writers are at that point. Now, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.560 writer pay has declined about fourteen percent over the last 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.560 five years. And that's with inflation. That's like, if you 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.560 kind of take out inflation, right, everybody's making a Yeah, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.160 with inflation, it's like twenty three percent writer producer pay 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.600 over the last decade with inflation factored in. So that 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.919 sucks because people aren't watching twenty three percent less TV. 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.280 In fact, I think we're watching more TV than we 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:19.320 ever have before. Like, so it and I like, if 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.560 you listen to the kind of numbers given by streaming 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.960 platforms about how many people are watching, it sure doesn't 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:29.400 seem like TV writers have have been gotten twenty three 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.560 percent worse at their jobs. So anyway, there was The 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:39.280 WGA went into negotiations earlier this year and basically to 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.160 kind of you know, shorten it, we're asking for more money, 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.680 more money and residuals, more money and upfront pay changes 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.760 to some policies that streamers were using to kind of avoid. 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:50.960 There's been sort of this effort by streamers for a 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.520 while now to kind of kill the concept of a 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.400 writer's room in a lot of shows, and they have 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.320 a couple of different sort of fucky ways to do that. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.160 I gotta say, Robert, it is a dream to come 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.280 on a podcast with you, because you do your fucking homework. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.640 I usually I'm the one who has to explain all 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.480 this stuff, but this is great. I'm loving where this 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:09.760 is going. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.320 You're right, Can you walk us through kind of what's 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.080 been happened, because that's a thing that I think is 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.040 sort of you miss that on kind of the big 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.480 level sort of like discussions of this is like what 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.440 like what a writer's room is and sort of what 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.560 streamers have been tiny to try to do to change 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.040 that because fundamentally, like one thing people who know what 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.960 they're talking about will point out is that like movies 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:30.880 are you know, not that scripts don't matter, but it's 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.200 like a director's medium. That's like the big sort of 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.560 like guiding you know, through the vision of like what 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.000 a film is going to be and TV is a 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.800 writer driven medium more often you'll at least hear that 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:43.080 a lot, and I kind of want to talk about, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:44.720 like what is a writer's room and what has been 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.880 changing in terms of how studios have been trying to 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:49.080 edge that concept out? 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.240 Great, great question. So, so writer's room traditionally, like you 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.120 think back to broadcast television and it's heyday, the way 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.440 writer's room worked is you had probably first you're gonna 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.760 have like twenty to twenty two episodes a season, and 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.880 then within that you've got a block of anywhere from 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.560 like ten to almost sometimes twenty writers. And the reason 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.279 that you have so many writers on a show like 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.039 that is because while you're working on it, it's also 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.240 in production, so as stories are being broken, and that 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.680 means that there are rooms where people are creating a 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.719 story together. As that's going on, there's like six other 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.800 things going on, like you're gonna have they're probably filming 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.440 during that time, and if that's your particular written by episode, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.200 like that's the episode with your name on it, you 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:32.920 might be on set for that because you're going to 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:34.800 be having to make changes on the fly. While that's 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.640 going on, there's table reads happening, there's joke punch ups happening, so. 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:39.880 There's generally a separate room for that. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.520 And so you need like a pretty big group of 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.839 people to just make a show, to just write a show. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.680 And that's that's to keep the hours within like, to 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.520 keep them bearable. I mean, it doesn't even you wouldn't 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.520 even turn that into a nine to five. Generally, that's 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.480 still a lot of hours with a lot of people, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.640 but at least it's bearable for everybody. Now, streaming has 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.680 tried to change that because they're tired of hiring so 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.800 many writers and they're tired of paying writers, and so 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.720 with streaming there's different loopholes that they can get into, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:14.280 which is, if you start creating a show before it's 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.920 even technically green lit, you can start having writers write episodes, 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.200 but because it's not green lit, you're not beholden to 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.719 the same rules through the WGA. You can start hiring 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.080 people at their at a minimum even if they are 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.320 should be making more than that. And depending on what 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.160 your position is at as a writer, like you start 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.200 as a staff writer, then you move up to story editor, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.359 then executive story editor, and you move up and up 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.520 and up, from there. Generally, what happens is if you 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.760 leave a show as a as an executive story editor, 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:42.880 you don't then go to another show and drop back 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.120 down to staff writer. You maintain the position that you 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.080 have because you've now learned the trade enough that usually 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.080 you have a skill set that's valuable enough that you 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.119 should be being paid for being an executive story editor. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:55.960 So what they're doing is they're making sure that people 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.640 are not being paid for the roles that they generally 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:00.520 have because they can do that. Be four show has 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.960 been green lit, and then they will say we're gonna write, like, 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:08.760 let's just write twelve episodes, and that's a lot, Like 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.440 that's a whole season of television. But they're doing it 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.000 before it's green lit. And then what happens is you 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.760 will have these writers who are burning the midnight oil 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:19.600 trying to get this thing done and calling in a 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.360 lot of favors from friends because you have such a 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.240 small group of writers. You have maybe like in a 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.160 pre green lit room, you've got like three or four 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.840 people trying to write an entire season of a show. Yeah, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:33.160 and as they're writing it, they're like they're calling in 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:34.760 favors from friends, and be like will you come edit 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:35.200 this and stuff? 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:35.800 Because you don't have. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.040 Enough people for everything. You have to break all these 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.680 stories simultaneously. You have to know what's going on in 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.840 each individual room, but you don't have enough bandwidth for 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.680 all of that. So you're calling in favors from other people, 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.000 like do we just come and like look at this? 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:48.960 Will you just take a look? 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.560 Like we need like eyes on this, and so you're 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.000 calling in favors from friends. Students have figured out that 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:58.160 they can. They can you can ask people to do this. Essentially, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:07:58.840 it's like they. 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.560 Get a natural part of the process. Every writer in 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.920 every form of writing does a version of this, and 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.080 they're like, what if we did this to help to 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:07.080 make it easier to start? 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.880 Yeah, yeah, exactly, and then and then what they would do. 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.240 There's different tactics beyond that, which is like once those 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.720 are app once those episodes are written, then maybe the 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.840 studio will will uh. They can kind of pick and 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.160 choose when they want to release that. They don't have 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.280 like a it's not like in broadcast television where everything 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.040 gets released in the fall. It's just like you can 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:29.440 choose when you want to release it, So maybe you 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:31.440 wait a year or whatever, you release it, and then 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.600 you can release it in two seasons. So if you 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.520 have twelve episodes, you can cut those into six. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.240 Six six, which I fucking hate. This is a little 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.760 bit of a distraction, Like we miss by because we're 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.360 not doing seasons the way they used to. There's so 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.760 much good shit we miss thin. Like half the best 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.320 episodes are star Trek. We're just like, we have forty 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.679 dollars to shoot this episode on, Like what can we 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.080 do with like three guys in a room? You know? 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.520 I know? Like you, yeah, you're like you miss out 0:08:57.520 --> 0:08:59.880 on those bottle episodes, those like little ones where you're 0:08:59.920 --> 0:09:02.160 just like or like that. If you think back to 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:03.400 Breaking Bad, like there's the. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:04.640 Fly episode episode. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:06.760 Yeah, oh, it's like the best episode of the show 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.680 because you've got room to stop and breathe and like 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:09.880 build just characters. 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:10.760 Yeah. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.160 Anyway, Yeah, it's like you lose out on all that. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.040 Then you can also because you're breaking it up, you 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.560 don't have to pay people to like advance them to 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.440 the next the next season, and then that would also 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.400 be released over the course of like two years. And 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.760 so you have a writer who's written for maybe like 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.520 eleven weeks on something on a show, and then they 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.720 don't know that they have that job again for another 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.680 two and a half years, and so there's no consistency, 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:41.520 there's no and nothing is stable, and that makes it 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.959 very very difficult for writers to keep their jobs and 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:46.200 like maintain a writing job. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.360 It's this really fucked up situation in which I think 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:55.240 the streaming era in freeing sort of television from some 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.480 of like the way that sweeps used to work, the 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:58.920 way that a lot of like kind of the way 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:00.640 that you would have to like run shows, and the 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.400 way that they aired when you were you were doing 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.600 it on like fucking cable and they're that supported. Has 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.800 allowed for kinds of TV shows and structures of shows 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:09.280 that you never could have had, right it was just 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.040 we're just watching the Bear. Probably the standout episode of 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.600 The Bear from season two is this like episode about 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.440 a family Christmas party that's just this absolute, like anxious 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.920 nightmare that's an hour long episode, twice the length of 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.920 a normal episode, And oftentimes that's kind of a mixed 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:26.560 thing with TVs, but it works in this one, and 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:28.720 the fact that it's so much longer actually like helps 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.480 with like trans you could you can only do that 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:33.280 with shows that work the way they do in streaming. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:34.520 That wouldn't have been a thing that you would have 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.640 gotten to do in nineteen ninety three. Probably. But while 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.440 I think like there's a lot of cool stuff structurally 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.560 that's gotten to come out of that, it's also it's 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.400 it's made the compensation so much worse. It's made the 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.760 job so much less reliable. Like it's it's like it's 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.920 really stark, how much more difficult it's become to make 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:02.160 a living in TV? Yeah, yeah, is more popular than ever. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.600 Yeah yeah, that's like it's making more money than it 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.520 ever possibly has in the past, and certainly through streaming. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:10.559 Like they're not these these studios are not moving to 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:14.080 streaming because like they they're early adopters of technology. The 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.040 money is there, so they're going to streaming. It's like 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.600 they're making way more through streaming, but writers are getting 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:20.280 paid les and less because they're finding these, like well 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.000 West loopholes in streaming. Residuals is another one that's like 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.079 it The way that residuals work is it is if 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.480 you have a show that then gets played again through 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.560 syndication or through streaming, you should then get a residual 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:37.320 check for every time that the wrote episode that you 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.760 wrote shows up on television, and it was very easy 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:44.720 to track that as it would show up on like 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.080 our show on American Dad. Yeah, I know that it's 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:48.839 going to get played on Cartoon Network. I know that 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:50.360 it's going to get played at these other spots. The 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.920 TBS will rerun it at some point, and I can 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.400 I know when those are coming in. With streaming, it's 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.280 much more difficult to determine when somebody watched something, not 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:04.000 because those numbers don't exist, but because all these platforms 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.760 that are created by studios will not give out that information. 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.360 That information is like in a black box where you 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.680 have no idea how often a show gets streamed. There's 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.040 a couple of reasons, like people are speculating as to 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.240 why that might be. One is that either shows are 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.760 getting watched way more often and people are not getting 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.000 the proper residuals that they should be, or that the 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.439 whole business model doesn't quite work. Yeah, it's all yeah, yeah, 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.560 And if you found out how little people were actually 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.040 watching television, this whole all investors, everything, the whole thing 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.439 would collapse. I don't know which is true. 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:35.960 I don't care. 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:37.600 I just want to know what the numbers are. So 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:39.320 like a big part of a big part of this 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:43.480 is is the WJA asking different streaming platforms. You got 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:45.120 to you got to be more transparent. You got to 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.000 tell us how well our show is doing, so that 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:48.600 we know if people are getting paid properly. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.240 Yeah, and it's again, it would be one thing if 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.640 like writers were getting less than ever and TV was 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.280 just like dying as a as a thing, as a 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.240 as a create things that people want. But there is 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.000 the money. We know where the money is going. The 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:10.280 eight major Hollywood studio CEOs in twenty twenty one made 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.440 nearly three quarters of a billion dollars an annual salary, 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.559 which is more than the value of what the WGA 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.680 and sag AFTRA want to take out of them and 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.040 increase compensation for their members. For those eight guys, I'm 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.640 gonna guarantee you ari Emmannual, the highest compensated of these 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.160 CEOs over at Endeavor three hundred and eight million dollars. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.840 And like, I don't think he made any of your 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.520 He's not responsible for any of your favorite shows whatever, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.920 Like lying in the great you know made you made 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.320 you laugh? Or cry or like whatever joke from American 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.160 Dad keeps you you know, makes you suddenly start like 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.720 balling out laughing while you're driving down the highway. That 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.360 was not ari am manual. Yet neither the shows were 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.200 endeavor whatever. You know what you know what I'm trying 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:52.560 to do here? 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:52.800 Right? 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:53.120 Yeah? 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:59.800 Yeah, Ted Sorrando's whatever. Fucking you know, Bob Eiger, all 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:04.160 the guys like they're they're I mean fundamentally like Bob Eiger. 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.480 One of the big things he did was pushed the 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.440 Flash movie out into theaters, really put a lot of 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.880 money into that, thought it was gonna be important for 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.079 the brand going forward. Lost so much money lost, like 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.200 probably about as much money as like the Writer's Guild 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.000 is asking for it increased compensation this year, like if 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:39.600 they just hadn't made that movie. So let's talk. You 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.120 guys went on strike. What it's been like two months 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:42.680 now already. 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:44.800 Yeah, it's like day eighty four or something like that. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.640 Yeah, so a little more than two months. How are 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.280 you feeling, Like, what does it mean like physically to 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.600 be on strike, like going out and picketing and stuff. 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:59.320 Great questions, Robert, Uh, it's uh, it's actually really nice. 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.680 I don't want to say like it's I enjoy it 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.040 because I would rather be getting paid and not being 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:05.120 freaking out about the fact that. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:05.880 I don't have a job. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.680 But going out it gives me gives me a sense 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.280 of purpose first of all, each day to like get 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.280 up and go out of this to the picket lines. Yeah, 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.960 and you're out there, you're marching around it. You choose 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.720 your studio, like from the majority of the time I 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.960 go to Sony or I go to Amazon, and I 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:23.640 know the people there. Now it's like going to the 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:25.280 gym every day where you get to know the people 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.200 there and then you build your community. And so I've 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.000 got this group of people that, like I go there. 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.120 These are just people that like I happen to talk 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.920 to because like we'd see a truck going and we're like, oh, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.640 I hope that's not teams their truck or whatever. And 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:38.880 then and then you just like strike up a conversation 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:40.640 with somebody. You start talking, and then you find out 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:42.800 that this person like ran Malcolm in the Middle for 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.440 eight years and you're like, oh, okay, cool. 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.520 You know, people talk a lot about how the last 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.240 writers strike, which was kind of like right when I 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:51.840 was getting out of fuck in high school. They're not 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.040 far from that point, like a year or two later. Uh, 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.480 how the last writers strike was kind of what gave 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:59.600 us the birth of like a lot of reality TV. 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:01.600 You can almost argue there was a degree to which 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:03.920 it like was part of Trump's rise to prominence, right, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:05.920 because that's why The Apprentice gets on air, because that's 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.360 a way the studios can get around paying writers. But 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:10.800 I also wonder on the opposite and like, how many 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.840 shows do we get because of connections people make out 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:15.920 of the picket line, because like folks meet each other 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.040 and get talking, like I do. I do wonder if 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:18.920 that's like a thing. 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.080 Yeah, I guarantee it is. I mean it is shocking 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.120 how like how quickly you just chum up with people 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.760 and like, yeah, the the contact I shouldn't call. It's 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.040 like it's not supposed to be a networking experience, but 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.160 it just ends up being that. Like you can't help it, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:34.680 Like you're just talking to people and then all of 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:36.440 a sudden, your jobs come up and you start talking 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.840 about your work, and then people are like after lit 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.240 while like well like send me something, like send me 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.800 some of your writing and then you just become buddies 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.880 and like you start working on stuff accidentally together. And 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.360 I guarantee that like by the end of this, there'll 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.960 be writing teams that didn't exist before, and there'll be 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.600 people who want to make stuff together. Plus the studio 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.680 pipeline will be empty, so like they're gonna want to 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.120 like fill it with They're gonna want to fill it. Yeah, 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.840 when the strike ends. And guarantee there's gonna be people 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.840 from the lines who came up with stuff on the lines, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.280 So we're gonna be like we've got lots like there's 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.000 what about this and be like, yes that by it, 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:11.560 we'll take that. 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.880 And I like just kind of in general, the fact 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.240 that like that's sort of the the hope, right, Like 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.280 that's actually the thing that can defeat these giant industry colossuses, 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.199 not just like writing TV shows with other people, but 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.720 like the solidarity, like the fact that you're building connections 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.159 with people, the fact that you there's an understanding of 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.000 shared interest. You're seeing this especially like now that like 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.479 sag After has joined the strike. There's a lot of 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.160 a lot of people who are very famous and prominent 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.960 talking about issues that go well beyond Hollywood, right, the 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.760 the incredible amount that executive pay and compensation has increased 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.760 over the years, the fact that a lot of companies 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.560 that used to do things of value and employee people 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.800 and good jobs have been hollowed out for the short 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.159 term profits of you know, vulture capitalists who's job is 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.239 to you know, fucking suck money out and hand it 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.960 to shareholders and shit like this is not just a 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:08.919 you know, a lot of this started in the fucking nineties. 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.600 We've talked about like uh, Jack Welch and Ge and 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.760 kind of like how that company was turned from something 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.119 that made stuff to something that produced stock value and 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:22.440 fired people. And you're you're getting that all across entertainment 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.439 right now. And I think this is I think, and 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.080 this is something I think kind of everyone knows on 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.560 some level. This is an inflection point, right, you know, 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.320 AI is a part of it, the fact that we're 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.480 about to see them try to use this technology to 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.240 cut down the number of people they have to pay 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.240 even further. But it's like this is bigger than Hollywood. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.440