Last week’s issue of Hollyweird about our business’ fixation on refusing to pay writers for development was the newsletter’s NUMBER ONE POST. EVER. Most readers, most shares, most engagement. Clearly we’ve struck a chord! I’ve heard from a lot of you (but always happy to hear from more!) about how, “yes, this is what’s happening!” And that does in fact feel broken to me.
I proposed last week that first and foremost it’s up to us writers to know that our work is in fact valuable, and to ask about payment when we’re meeting with production companies. Their business model is very much something you can and should be asking about, since their business model is going to be what determines how they treat you if you’re doing business together. That at least allows you to avoid the most egregious models. But, awareness of a problem does not in fact solve the problem.
So how do we solve this problem? Are there any concrete things we as artists (or the writers guild) could do?
Thief, Michael Mann’s most pro-labor movie.
Here are some concrete ideas to combat this kind of free development work (aka unfair labor practices):
Require companies pay writers for a formal pitch for open writing assignments. Some people claim this would be bad for younger / unestablished writers but as someone who has been a younger / unestablished writer QUITE RECENTLY I really would have preferred to pitch on fewer things if it meant when I was pitching I was earning $5000.
Require companies pay for the development of internal pitch materials. Too often I have been asked to create entire documents (and/or presentations) to pitch a property that I in no way control, and that no buyer has seen yet. And every single time I've done this, that pitch document has gone through at least three rounds of revisions, if not more. Imagine if we were to establish a WGA Minimum for pitch documents, and for each revision of that pitch. I'd propose $2500 with a flat $1000 revision fee.
Require pay for "packaging attachments." It's interesting, I've often gotten to the phase of a project where I have done all of my work developing a pitch and then a producer / production company is tasked with finding a director or piece of talent, and the pace at which they operate is absolutely glacial. I know it takes forever to get people to read, but this is also most often the phase when production companies get skittish or lose interest. They'll drag their feet and then when they find no momentum eventually bail. Imagine if once a pitch was firmly squared away and ready to package the producers felt some sense of time pressure. Most option fees are pretty minimal, and this feels most equivalent to me to an option fee. I wouldn't mind saying $2500 for six months so that a writer forced to package a show with a producer for a year would then be entitled to $5000.
I'm not sure how much data the guild has on pitching and Open Writing Assignments, but I think it would be extremely useful to get more data about how many people tend to be pitching on assignments, what their status is within the guild, what they usually earn within a given year, and what percentage of pitches they are then hired for.
My guess would be that the vast majority of people pitching are underemployed / earlier career writers, while the vast majority of people being hired on assignments are those more established in their careers. I would also imagine that the time spent packaging something for a less established writer is much longer than for more established writers. But we need better data!
Does anyone from the guild read this newsletter? Can we do a longitudinal study? Or comprehensive survey? I feel like candidates for the board will sometimes float ideas to deal with the free work issue, but those seem to often be shouted down by arguments about who it would/wouldn’t help. The argument that I have seen writers get into in the past over paid development work (that it would hurt earlier career writers) may end up being moot when we see what the numbers actually say, rather than us talking about this anecdotally over and over. I have a feeling the people who would stand to gain the most from workplace protections are the least powerful people in the system. Would make sense, don't you think?
I also think one of the things that writers get stuck on with the argument over paying for development is the strange generational thing of “I had it bad in my day, so you should also have the same lack of protections.” It’s this kind of “pay your dues like I did” thinking that tends to burn people out, and keep cultures from becoming healthier.
, who wrote THE book on burnout was writing in her newsletter just this week all about the “Generational Bullshit Thinking about Work Ethic” as she calls it. The piece is more about media at large (especially news media), but a lot of the same thought process and generational divides contribute to what I think is going on here in terms of people feeling resistance to changes that would ultimately benefit nearly everyone.
What do you all think of these strategies and numbers? I think one could make the argument that pitches should be valued even more highly, as a guild minimum treatment for a non-original feature is around $27,000. But then again, is a pitch the same level of work as a treatment? (Yes. But, do production companies consider it the same level of work? No.)
Most WGA minimums are not designed to be life changing sums of money (especially for this scale of work) but they would incentivize companies developing projects to get the projects made in a timely fashion. There's nothing like a semi-annual fee to remind you that you should probably try to get something done before you have to write someone another check for waiting around.
A quick recommendation from my inbox to yours:
I’ve been finishing a revision on a draft for project (sending it in tomorrow, fingers crossed) and it was nice to see this piece from
’s substack in my inbox this week, about the joys of self-editing. It’s a really lovely piece (as is Meghan’s entire substack) and I’m always struck reading her work by how well she synthesizes the very messy process of writing.
This week, I’m editing my book manuscript—currently about 26,000 words—before writing a big new section. I’m hoping to cut at least 5,000 words, and aspire to radically compressing two long sections into mere paragraphs. I find that this process of self-editing is one that my students tend to underestimate the true scope of. I noticed as a baby editor at The New Yorker that when I gave editorial notes to emerging or less experienced writers, they tended to do the exact scope or bare minimum of what I was suggesting, when really we were hoping that our notes would serve as a prompt to make good changes that we couldn’t even imagine.
For me, perhaps 65% of the writing is in the editing. Sometimes only a little changes; sometimes a LOT changes. But the changes I make in editing are usually the things that give the manuscript its “voice,” its urgency, its sense of propulsion and authority (if I succeed).
It’s a great read, with some great concrete tips that just might help you on your next revision. I’d highly recommend!
What have I been up to, you ask?
As mentioned above, have been on a tear to finish this revision of a feature screenplay (unpaid). About to start trying to cast another feature I’ve written (unpaid). Finishing up the pitch cycle I’ve been writing about recently (if we get someone to bite it will be paid, but so far has been a lot of unpaid work). About to start on an assignment I got through pitching (paid). And that about sums up the usual balance of paid to unpaid labor!
How are you all out there? Any other ideas about how to fix the unpaid labor problem in film and television? I’m all ears!
Always a fantastic read. Appreciate you, Colby!
Thanks for the recommendation! (And I'm sending this to some writer friends who are working on film stuff; wise ideas here.)