Stttttttrrrrrrrriiiiiiikkkkkkkeeeeee

Its the second week of the heavily covered writers strike. From what I gather, and this is an overly simplistic bumpter sticker slogan explanation, the writers recognize that the business models of entertainment are changing rapidly and they demand new modes of compensation. The biggest source of contention seems to be in residuals on many new media formats like online downloading and things like TV shows on DVD, a recent phenom. There is an interesting article from the International Herald Tribune.
It basically comes to the conclusion that movies are no longer profitable. The culprit? Superstar celebrities, both of the acting and directing/producing/writing kind. They often are given "participation" points which means they get their salary [say 10 to 20 million] plus a percentage of the net gross of a film and NOT the net profit. They point out that 3 billion dollars were doled out in residuals and participation points last year. How much of that three billion went to the Writers Guild of America West which represent most Hollywood writers and have around 10,000 members? 121 million, a puny puny amount. A big name star, say Drew Barrymoore with the Charlie's Angels series or Keanu Reeves with the Matrix trilogy can easily make 70 million off one picture in participation points. Now you can see how the figure reached 3 billion and it wasn't due to the writers. They point out that the novelty of DVD's has worn off, people just aren't buying them as much and that is where movie studios were making all their money as they are incredibly cheap to make and have a high profit margin. This means the producers are digging their heels in, as one of their main duties is to make a profitable venture.


These photos were taken on my cellphone outside of where I work in Downtown where writers were protesting the filming of I believe CSI: New York