During his six years with The Mentalist, beginning in 2009, Jordan Harper’s work went far beyond writing. He and his colleagues were heavily involved in the production every week in the CBS Drama Writer’s Office. They considered costumes and props, remained on set, and provided feedback to the actors and director. The job took most of a year.
But by 2018, when he worked on the Starz drama Hightown, the TV writing business had changed. The writers worked on the script for about 20 weeks, by which time most contracts had expired, leaving many scrambling to find additional work. The job of overseeing shooting and editing largely fell to the showrunners, the writers and producers in charge of the series.
“On shows like The Mentalist, we all went to the set,” Harper said. “Now the other writers are freed up. Only the showrunner and perhaps one other writer remains on board.”
The separation of writing and production, which has become increasingly common in the streaming era, is one of the central issues in the strike that began in May by some 11,500 Hollywood writers. They argue that the new approach required them to change jobs more frequently, making jobs less stable and lowering writers’ incomes. Harper estimated that his income is less than half what it was seven years ago.
Their union, the Writers Guild of America, asked for a guarantee Each show would employ a minimum number of writers throughout the production process, a proposal the major studios said was “inconsistent with the creative nature of our industry.” The Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance, which is negotiating on behalf of Hollywood studios, declined to comment further.
The actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which went on strike last week, said its members are also feeling the effects of the streaming age. While many actors’ jobs have long been shorter than writers’ jobs, union secretary Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said the studio’s “extreme levels of efficiency management” have allowed the show to divide roles into smaller pieces and character said that he came to compress the storyline of
But Hollywood isn’t the only industry that has led this shift, as labor historian Jason Reznikov puts it into a fragmentation of jobs into “many smaller, lower-grade, lower-paying jobs.” It reflects a long-term pattern of
In recent decades, this change has also affected highly trained white-collar workers. Data from ALM, a legal media and intelligence firm, show that large law firms have relatively few equity partners and many lawyers outside the standard partner course. In universities, the number of professors with tenure as a percentage of faculty is decreasing, and the number of faculty without tenure is increasing.Large technology companies employ relatively few engineers while testing software, labeling web pages, and low level programming.
Dr. Lesnikov, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said that over time, “we will have a stratified workforce of high-ranking workers and low-ranking workers,” with fewer officials and more dissatisfaction. is said to increase. The author’s experience shows how volatile that change can be.
The strategy of breaking down complex jobs into simpler, lower-wage jobs has its roots in the meat packing and manufacturing industries. At the beginning of the 20th century, automobiles were largely craftsmanship produced by small teams of highly skilled “all-round” mechanics who assisted in the assembly of various components and systems such as ignitions, axles and transmissions. was
By 1914, Ford Motor Company had repeatedly divided and subdivided these jobs, spreading more than 150 employees across its sprawling assembly lines. Workers typically performed a few simple tasks repeatedly.
For decades, making a TV show was in some ways similar to the early days of car making. A team of screenwriters was involved in every part of the production. Many of the scriptwriters were also on set, often helping to edit the show into its final form.
According to the authors, the ‘all-round’ approach had multiple advantages. Importantly, the quality of the show has improved. “You can write a voice in your head, but if you can’t hear it, you don’t know if it actually works,” said Erica Weiss, co-showrunner of the CBS series “Redline.” Told.
Weiss said having a scriptwriter on set would allow him to rewrite lines after reading them at the actors’ tables, or to rewrite scenes if they were suddenly moved indoors.
She and other writers and showrunners said the system also helped train young writers to apprentice in how to direct their shows, becoming master craftsmen of the era.
But it is becoming increasingly rare for writers to be on set. Like the manufacturing industry, the job of producing a TV show is also broken down into more discrete tasks.
For most streaming shows, the writer’s contract expires before filming begins. And even many cable and network shows are now trying to separate production from production.
“It was a good experience, but I didn’t get to go on set,” said Mae Smith, writer for the final season of Showtime’s “Billions.” “I didn’t have the money to be a part of it, even though it was an established show with seven seasons.”
Showtime did not respond to a request for comment.Industry analyst Point out With the decline of traditional TV and pressure from investors to focus on profitability over subscriber growth, studios feel a growing need to curb spending, the people said.
In addition to potentially impacting show quality, the change also impacts the livelihoods of screenwriters, ultimately resulting in fewer work weeks per year. Guild data shows that the typical writer for a network series worked 38 weeks during the season that ended last year, compared to 24 weeks for a streaming series and just 14 weeks if the show hasn’t gotten the go-ahead yet. only worked. About half of our writers work in streaming today, but a decade or so ago very little original content was being created.
Weekly wages have also fallen for many. Chris Kaiser, co-chairman of the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee, said studios traditionally rewarded producers for their role as producers—creating dramatic worlds rather than just finishing works. He said he paid writers far more than the union-negotiated minimum wage per week. Narrow quota.
However, as studios decoupled scripts from production, they pushed writers’ pay closer to weekly minimums, effectively lowering the pay for production. About half of writers were paid a minimum weekly wage last year (about $4,000 to $4,500 for junior writers on greenlit shows, and about $7,250 for senior writers), according to the guild, but three increased from 1. in 2014.
Writers also receive a balance, a form of royalties, when episodes they write are reused, such as by licensing them to syndicates, while streamers typically don’t license or sell their shows. It is said that the opportunity to receive the remaining balance is narrowing because there is no money. The Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance said in a statement that the latest deals for screenwriters have resulted in a significant increase in balance payments.
(The actors are also getting leftovers, but they say they’re getting paid less in other ways. The streaming age has lengthened the gaps between seasons, during which regular performers aren’t paid, and others are getting paid less.) often unable to participate in the project of
The combination of these changes has transformed the writing profession. As writers finish their jobs sooner, even established writers have to find new work more often and find themselves in competition with inexperienced colleagues. And since more writing jobs pay minimum wage, studios have an economic incentive to hire proven writers over lesser-known writers, hindering the rise of writers.
“You can hire experienced writers for the same price or a little more,” said Harper, who considers himself lucky to be successful in the industry.
The writers also say studios have found ways to limit the duration of work, other than locking them out of production.
According to Bianca Sams, who has worked on shows such as the CBS series “Training Day” and “Training Day,” many young writers are hired into writers’ offices and then “fired” before the office closes. Only a small group will be left to finish the script for the season. CW show “Charmed”.
“At some point, if you have to pay salaries every week, it will cost you to retain talent,” says Sams. (Early writers’ wages are more closely related to the number of weeks of work than to the number of episodes.)
The studio said its writers describe their work as “gig” work, with most guaranteed weeks and episodes and generous health and pension benefits. indignant.
But many writers worry there’s a long-term trend for studios to divide their work into smaller and smaller pieces that are then pieced together by a single showrunner. . This is similar to how a project manager puts software together from the work of various programmers. Some worry that eventually writers will be asked to simply rewrite the drafts generated by the chatbot.
“The final stage is to create the material in the cheapest, piecemeal, and automated way possible,” said Zaid Dorn, a member of the Writers Guild who oversees the master’s program in film and theater at Northwestern University. I think it should be done,” he said. Creators take cheaply produced materials and turn them into something else. “
He added, “This is how programmers write code, and it’s the closest thing to a drone.”
