Monday we posted the latest news about the ongoing WGA-ATA, um, contretemps. Here’s a primer for those who don’t quite know what’s been going on:
by Vonti McRae
As a writer, getting your content out there in the media can be a long shot in the dark on a sunny day with 3-D glasses on. Your sense of direction can be lost on which path to take that actually pays off. But that could all be changing very soon due to an uprising that has led to quirky hashtags on Twitter.
If you could log onto social media then add a hashtag and pitch your writing to Studio Executives – Would you? This is what happened when the drawbridge to the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) opened and writers of all levels came sprinting in.
On Twitter, the hashtags #WGAStaffingBoost and #WGASolidarityChallenge started trending, creating a perfect storm of allegiance with those who are going against the grain that has defined Hollywood for decades. Within 48 hours, Twitter users like David C. White received over 1200 DMS (direct messages) from screenwriters who wanted to shoot their shot. He’s won four primetime Emmys for his work and hails as a Writer, Director and Producer who was accepting content to review.
This one move became a gold mine of wealth and insight into pitching your scripts to the people that want in. However a looming strike may force the media to hit the pause button and reboot as IT works out who planted the virus onto the business computer in the first place. Not so long ago a strike happened and Hollywood almost didn’t survive.
On November 5th, 2007 the Writers Guild of America Writers Strike brought Hollywood to its knees. At least 12,000 unionized film and television screenwriters from the WGAe and WGAw stopped working. The hot steaming apple pie with whip cream on top started running cold. It was being sliced into too many pieces and the writers found themselves at the kids table. Hoping to get a slither of what studio executives were retaining in profits….