DGA/WGA Member Busts Myths

UPDATE 1/17/08: The "Simpsons" movie was not WGA covered. References to it being covered have been removed.
Melissa Jo Peltier, DGA and WGA Member, recently posted on a DGA board the following myths and truths about the WGA negotiations with the CEOs. She permitted us to excerpt it here. To see her entire post go here.

Myth #1) "The only sticking points with the WGA are reality and animation."

Truth is, there were four other sticking points on the table besides reality and animation - and two of them were issues the AMPTP cares MUCH more about than reality and animation. These issues are:

1) The fact that the WGA would NOT agree to abstain totally from work stoppage in solidarity with other striking unions (like the DGA or SAG or IATSE)...

...and 2) The fact that the AMPTP wanted us to take "distributor's gross" out of the formula for internet residuals, and accept "producer's gross" instead.

Anyone who has ever had a piece of a successful film or TV project and had to fight for their fair share in the courts knows that when studios are forced to open their books, "producer's gross" turns out to be translated in studio speak as "Whatever I SAY we made" - (and usually, what they say they "lost") on the film.

Myth #2). "Studios will never accept animation writers as part of the WGA"...and/or "Animation writers are already covered under IATSE and don't want to be WGA."

FYI, here's some TRUE history: about ten years ago, THE SIMPSONS television show writers fought tooth and nail and finally DID win the right to be represented by the WGA. (No one could argue convincingly that THE SIMPSONS wasn't "written", although FOX surely tried to!). So the argument that the studios will "never" accept animation writers in the guild is proven fallacious right there.

Feature animation has been highly scripted ever since the day that Mike Eisner famously said, "I don't get storyboards." Thereafter, most feature animation has been developed in the same way that live action features have. Without WGA protection, writers of 120-page dramatic scripts who create concepts, characters, backstories, dialogue, etc. can be asked to deliver draft after draft, and have no share in back end that runs to the hundreds of millions and often includes more mega million dollar merchandising such as toys, games, clothing etc. Remember, these are the same films that are paying superstars like Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, Tom Hanks, and Owen Wilson their going rates (per their SAG contracts) to do voiceovers.

Myth #3) "Reality writers don't even want to be in the guild."

Here's a news flash - REALITY WRITERS DESPERATELY WANT TO BE IN THE GUILD. DESPERATELY

This one really gets me because I am a writer IN the guild and most of my work is in reality. I also co-own a reality production company that is a signatory to both guilds. We were one of the first in cable reality to do so, I'm proud to say, and over the past decade we have helped convince other small production companies to do the same.

Because our budgets are so small (a one hour non fiction cable show can be around the same as the craft service budget for one episode of a scripted drama series), and because the cable networks rerun our shows ad nauseum, we use a limited buyout deal on the Hitchcock formula that we negotiated with the WGA. Our writers get their P&W covered, and they are protected by WGA laws including arbitration in case company owners like myself and my partners unscrupulously decide to take the writer credit for themselves. In fact, our writers have earned several WGA awards nominations for reality/non-fiction/documentary writing that would not have been possible had we not been guild signatories. We also get the best writers in non-fiction this way. BECAUSE THE BEST WRITERS ARE GUILD AND THEY WANT TO CONTINUE TO WORK WITH GUILD PROTECTION.

What writer in her/his right mind wouldn't want that kind of MINIMAL protection?

I have yet to speak to a fellow reality/non-fiction writer who doesn't want to be in the guild.