Thursday, February 14, 2008

Hollywood Writer's Strike Over, yay...

Well, it's over, the WGA in the traditional land of celluloid dreams has won a minor victory. They will now be getting a cut of all online episode sales (as I understand it). There are other details in the new contract that you can read about in several places, and if you're interested in seeing exactly how much someone writing for a popular show makes over time on one episode, I suggest you do. Think tens of thousands of dollars per episode for a start, writers in Hollywood are often very well paid. Do they deserve cash for online sales as well despite that? I say, regardless of what they're already paid, hell yeah! I get paid for online sales when I sell an E-Book, why shouldn't they get paid when work they contributed to sells digitally?

Anyway, score one point for the creative people out there. I believe they should get a piece of every angle even though I think 95% of what is airing right now is absolutely insignificant, pointless, low risk, drooly, fluffy entertainment with absolutely no soul or meaningful direction. Hollywood's favorite flavor is vanilla, it's favorite color is beige, and it likes all it's porridge lukewarm.

Having said that, the shows I watch (and their status) are: Battlestar Galactica (back in April), Numb3rs (Back in March/April), Criminal Minds (Back in March/April), The Universe, Torchwood (BBC, Ongoing), Heroes (Back this fall), aaaand Jericho (Doomed, but airing for the time being).

Anyway, I'm half way through the next act my own serialized fiction, First Light Chronicles: Act 2. Still enjoying it immensely, and even though I think Hollywood is filled with relatively big budgets managed by little minds, I'd still option it for television. I bet if they gave me half the standard budget for a science fiction pilot, I could give them a dramatic pilot and a science fiction pilot.

RL

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