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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Discussion of...     General Chat  ›  WGA Industry Strike Moderators: bert
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  Author    WGA Industry Strike  (currently 11386 views)
Higgonaitor
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:15pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Takeshi
I When I was a kid, a good film could play at the cinemas for up to six months, but these days they’re gone in a matter of weeks to make way for the next wave of shit to come out of Hollywood.


Hahaha.  I don't think you get to use that phrase, untill you're like, at least 40.


NEW!Everquenching Lemonade:Thirsty for a comedy short?
And the Rest!

Watch Squirt! (My web-series!)
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tomson
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:25pm Report to Moderator
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Heretic,

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe Ezterhas makes fairly good money. I'm a fan of his and some of his screenplays has paid him a few M's. He also writes books and stuff. Sure if you divide that by how many scripts he's written, the average might be low, but he's still a millionaire so unless he spends absolutely nothing and has an amazing financial planner helping him, I'd say he's doing alright. He is by far one of the few that makes more than average however.


PS. No wonder writers are heavy drinkers and tend to be bi-polar.  
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tweak
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:28pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from tomson
I bet a lot of wanna be writers find the salaries depressing. More than once have I heard people talking about hoping to sell that 1M script. I guess that would be like winning the lottery...


Oh, jeez. Folks here think they're going to write one script and make a million?

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tomson
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:37pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from tweak
Oh, jeez. Folks here think they're going to write one script and make a million?


I didn't say here at SS, but definitely that's what a lot of people say in a joking way, but hoping at the same time. That is usually the case when people read success stories. They get their hopes and imagination and dreams going.  Doesn't matter if they are 10yo dreaming about being the next amazing quarteback, moviestar, scientist or whatever. People have big dreams and hopes and I think that's good. Not many countries on this planet where it can actually come true...
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Heretic
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:37pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from tomson
Heretic,

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe Ezterhas makes fairly good money.


Ezterhas makes ridiculous amounts of money.  Over two million each for at least three of his scripts, I'm pretty sure.  But I'm not talking about him.

What I'm saying is, look how relatively little money you would make as a screenwriter with the seemingly impressive $65,000/script assumption, EVEN IF you were as prolific as Ezterhas.
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tweak
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:41pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Heretic


Ezterhas makes ridiculous amounts of money.  Over two million each for at least three of his scripts, I'm pretty sure.  But I'm not talking about him.

What I'm saying is, look how relatively little money you would make as a screenwriter with the seemingly impressive $65,000/script assumption, EVEN IF you were as prolific as Ezterhas.


I think the $65k a script is not a reasonable assumption.  I still stand behind the $25-30k a script, and that's being generous.  Now, I am talking about tv scripts, not movies.

I wouldn't move to LA to make $65k a year.  The cost of living there is just too high.

tweak

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tomson
Posted: November 5th, 2007, 10:51pm Report to Moderator
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Not only is the money not real great, but the pressure to always come up with new and interesting ideas. Even worse if you're a comedy writer. Having to always be funny sounds very depressing to me.

Btw, I do believe they said on the news that the average WGA makes about 200K/year.
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Kamran Nikhad
Posted: November 6th, 2007, 4:48pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Shelton
Does the fault for the film not being any good fall upon the person who made 60-70k for writing it, or the person who got paid 3 mil to direct it?  Could be one or the other, could be both, could be neither.

When an actor is in search of that great story and role, what are they looking for?  A script.  Who creates that script?  The writer.  Who gets all the recognition when a film is tops at the box office?  The director and actors.  When the result is the opposite?  The writer.

And a new one to the mix...

What apparently doesn't qualify as a real job?

Writing.

Oh no, writers don't get shit on at all.


BINGO Bud.  We don't get much credit at all, which is fine, the screenplay by in the credits, and the check for the time and effort put in a screenplay is more then enough for me, but don't demean us and say we're a bunch of lazy sacks who have the easiest job in all of Hollywood compared to a quote unquote "real" job.

Honestly that's a load of bulls***.  How is screenwriting NOT a real job to some people?  We spend a MORE then fair amount of time writing and rewriting as we try to make our dollar.  We meet with producers to meet their standard of liking, and do our damn best to make sure we blow them away with our screenplays.  Not to mention how competitive a profession it is.  Unlike a "real" job, you have to worry about making sure your stuff is original, and more importantly likable.  I've worked at WaMu's teller counter for six months, and as a personal account manager for 2 years.  Was it a pain?  Yeah sometimes, but I honestly think Screenwriting is a hard profession as well for a number of reasons, most of which we all already know.  It's a REAL job, end of discussion, and anyone who says it's easy and that it's not a real job, is full of s***.

But again, I am not for or against this strike.  I want it to end because people may start looking more down on screenwriters then they already do, but on the other hand, I feel the WGA on this one.  I just can't support the decision of striking, under ANY circumstances.

Also, in regards to my 65-70k remark.  I never said that was bad, I apologize if that came off otherwise, but I am saying 65% taxes come with screenwriting, when you have an agent, normally in any REAL job you look at 40%.  But what needs to be cleared is that it isn't always a big check they offer you.  Suppose you get one for 100k.  You are then looking at 35k, which just doesn't seem worth it unless you do it because you want truly want to write screenplays.  And when you're just starting out, you're lucky if you get one screenplay produced since normally your first couple of screenplays won't be made unless they're REALLY damn good.  35k isn't much, and for a year, that's utter crap.  So don't think pay is always good when you're new, because pay is garbage.  That 65k Net pay is only when you're screenplay is REALLY good.


Nolan The Security Guard - Short/Comedy 1st Draft, 12 pages.pdf
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Chris_MacGuffin
Posted: November 6th, 2007, 9:02pm Report to Moderator
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I'll add my two cents and say I'm glad for the strike. Screenwriters are grossly mistreated in the industry and for how much a film and others on the film make, they get next to nothing.

Without the writer there WOULD BE NO MOVIES or TV. All we'd have is documentaries and reality tv. And not even, cause even those are scripted to some degree. Yet Hollywood pisses on them like they errand boys. It's not that a screenwriter can't make a good living, they should be making alot more.

200K is nothing compared to the millions that producers and directors make. It's a gross inbalance that needs to change. I do feel and support the WGA on this.
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Takeshi
Posted: November 6th, 2007, 9:57pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Higgonaitor


Hahaha.  I don't think you get to use that phrase, untill you're like, at least 40.


No. I haven't hit the big Four-O, yet.
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James McClung
Posted: November 6th, 2007, 10:16pm Report to Moderator
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I'm surprised these guys have waited so long to go on strike. Writers in the studio system are treated like garbage and have been for a long, long time. Seriously, they're at the bottom of the food chain. The only (non-director) writers I know of who seem to make any good money are David Koepp and William Goldman and to be fair, Koepp's adapted one or two of his own works. Maybe there's others out there but none I'm aware of at the moment.


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mgj
Posted: November 6th, 2007, 11:05pm Report to Moderator
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Let's face it alot of these genre films that Hollywood is churning out have been widdled down to a science.

My impression is that producers and other studio bosses basically use these movies as a template.  From there they think all they need to do is just hire any old writer or writers to more or less fill in the blanks.  You know - rearrange the order of certain events, change around the names, maybe toss in a plot twist here or there and then voila - you have a screenplay.  Easy as pie.

This is just my impression from where I stand as an outsider but I'm sure I'm not too far off the mark.


"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein
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Helio
Posted: November 7th, 2007, 8:20am Report to Moderator
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Better to die with vodka than with tedium!

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"PS. No wonder writers are heavy drinkers and tend to be bi-polar. "
Pia

Are'u talking about my person, dear?

The best thing of this strike is that lot of scripts that did haven't no chance to come alive will appear now.

An piece of advice to the writers: write a great book then the pros will pay you rivers of money in order to get the rights.

Okay, okay It was just a thought, fellas, but I'm with the writers!

"We're fighters! We're fighters! Not beggar-writers! "
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Shelton
Posted: November 7th, 2007, 2:00pm Report to Moderator
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Below is a link to the list of WGA companies.

Those of you with scripts in development or thinking of sending out queries, may want to look through it to see if/how the strike affects you.

http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2537


EDIT:  An additional list from the WGAe website

http://www.wgaeast.org/index.php/articles/article/c146/


Shelton's IMDb Profile

"I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." - Steve Martin
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Mr.Ripley
Posted: November 7th, 2007, 2:16pm Report to Moderator
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It's a tragedy that things have to come down to a stand down of this sort. But hopefully, everthing becomes settled down and that the writers win. In the meantime, it's a good time to work on one's script.

Gabe


Just Murdered by Sean Elwood (Zombie Sean) and Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley) - (Dark Comedy, Horror) All is fair in love and war. A hopeless romantic gay man resorts to bloodshed to win the coveted position of Bridesmaid. 99 pages.
https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1624410571/
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