Hollywood’s current state of failure and the reasons for it

[joberg]

A car designer follows orders on whether he is drawing up a pickup truck, or an economy car, or a sports sedan. Does that mean he isn't contributing to the design? Come on.

What is so objectionable about these writers striking? I don't get it. They aren't making a lot of money for what they are doing in the big scheme.

I mean, your opinion seems to flip to "Hey, that's just the free market at work" when the subject is Bob Iger. Why is it right & proper for a billionaire to get paid whatever stupid amount the stockholders will offer, but it's a travesty when some struggling writers want to make a skilled blue-collar salary? I honestly don't understand the contradictory attitudes. Is there some other consistency in here that I'm missing?

Maybe this is getting too personal & political and I need to back off a notch.

Automotive design is an extremely specialized field that combines safety, business acumen, engineering, and creativity. Moreover, the industry isn’t limited to automobiles but covers various forms of wheeled transportation.

The automotive designers design the components as well as the ergonomics of vehicles. Thus, while a team of engineers completes the functional development, the automotive designers take care if the designs of the transport. Additionally, the general salary for auto designers is US$90,400 per year.

If the design company/car company wants to give the car designer a certain % on top of his base salary at the end of a quarter or a year, that's between the company and his/her employee (contract). No residual are factored in since it's not something the car industry does in general.

When a CEO makes more it's heroic. Altruistic. Virtuous, even.

When the poors make more it's because they're trying to "steal" it from a CEO.

Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply being able to “run the company.” CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can be significant. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly mind-boggling!

On top of all of this, major CEOs still have to do the job they have always done—which includes motivating employees, serving as an internal role model, helping to define and extend a corporate culture, understanding the internal accounting, and presenting budgets and business plans to the board. Good CEOs are some of the world’s most potent creators and have some of the very deepest skills of understanding.

The common idea that high CEO pay is mainly about ripping people off doesn’t explain history very well. By most measures, corporate governance has become a lot tighter and more rigorous since the 1970s. Yet it is principally during this period of stronger governance that CEO pay has been high and rising. That suggests it is in the broader corporate interest to recruit top candidates for increasingly tough jobs.

(Time business magazine).

 

[joberg]

Residuals are simply another way of saying royalties - authors get them, musicians, photographers, etc. - not sure what the disconnect here is. If you create an asset, like, say, JK Rowling and Harry Potter, not sure why royalty payments wouldn't be part of the agreement.

Bingo.

How do you measure their work and apply a pay/royalties % for the crew? Is a model maker getting more royalties than a set designer?
What about a lighting technician or a prop maker, costume designer? What kind of royalties could be given to these types of trades?
Difficult and complex to say the least...the Hollywood accounting was always "funny" to say the least

 

[Captain Dunsel]

SUITS, Netflix, Residuals and what it all means for the WGA strike! Robservations #877

#suits #netflix #meganmarkle #sagaftrastrike #wga #wgastrike #hollywood THE RESIDUAL DEBATE00:00:00 Title Card WGA Strike/Suits Success00:00:12 Promos00:01:0...

www.youtube.com

A pretty good video covering the issues with streaming and the WGA / SAG.

 

[robstyle]

I saw a "documentary" on Roger Corman on YouTube a while back, where he said he had to stop filming at a certain time because people had to get to work. They were barely getting paid, some weren't at all, so he understood that they had to do whatever they had to do to make ends meet. They wanted to be in the movie, they were in the movie, they found creative solutions. I can respect that.

It's the people today who aren't really creative, who don't want to work hard, they just want to be handed automatic success that bug me. Of course, we live in a world where most people don't even get their first job until they graduate from college. That's a major problem. They come out with a piece of paper in one hand, saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills and they still have to start at the bottom because that piece of paper doesn't grant them experience. As I keep saying, welcome to the real world.

One of those two people that made it was a Santa Monica college film student interning for us as I ran the art dept for Corman. Not sure what was going on as I was teaching her how to do a faux stone wall in the black scorpion lair for no money one week and the next week she was off to work on Episode 1.
Corman people stick together as there is a mindset of those that "get it". All this time later Im still friends with those within that mindset from the Corman days. One developed a motion capture rig for the new avatar films.

I'll also add at the time when Corman was still making movies, while the vencie beach studio still existed, if you had a script and breakdown, and it fit a profit margin, you could get a film made. All those late night no budget action movies and skinamax fodder are the examples. Some moonlighted on Reservoir Dogs editing that movie in Cormans editing room. There was always something going on at the Venice Beach studio.

All that said the entire industry flipped on a production stand point where people had talent yet lacked the equipment to make a film. Now people have everything at hand to make a film yet lack the talent to do so. It all started when digital film making ended the cost and process of film. Every person that could afford a RED was now a DP and anyone with a credit line was a director. I'm really hoping the entire entertainment industry implodes as the music industry did so we can return to film making and end the content dump era.

 

[Lost in Trek]

I’m a big believer in what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If CEOs can negotiate for higher salaries then the people working on the the nuts and bolts of the film have the same right.

Always thought it was odd that people understand supply and demand with some things but not others.

This is a negotiation between upper management and the people who do much of the work to make the product. Both sides have legitimate concerns in an ever changing market place.

I’m sure they will come to an agreement at some point. Some will be happy… and some will be pissed. But there will be an agreement.

 

[Cephus]

It's not really a negotiation though, is it? It's a threat. "We're going to shut your ass down unless you give us what we want!" I'm sure that sooner or later, they will come to a compromise, but the unions are counting on the general public to get mad, which really isn't happening, is it?

 

[cboath]

It's not really a negotiation though, is it? It's a threat. "We're going to shut your ass down unless you give us what we want!" I'm sure that sooner or later, they will come to a compromise, but the unions are counting on the general public to get mad, which really isn't happening, is it?

They'll get mad, but only once they realize the fall schedule is toast. They could end it today and you won't see anything new til january at the earliest. There's a chance they wipe out the whole season at this rate. I'm surprised we're not hearing more from the networks who i think have the most to lose. They're already in trouble, and this could kill them outright. Nothing but garbage reality stuff til 9/2024? That could be a deathknell.

 

[Cephus]

They'll get mad, but only once they realize the fall schedule is toast. They could end it today and you won't see anything new til january at the earliest. There's a chance they wipe out the whole season at this rate. I'm surprised we're not hearing more from the networks who i think have the most to lose. They're already in trouble, and this could kill them outright. Nothing but garbage reality stuff til 9/2024? That could be a deathknell.

Netflix won't care because they've got stuff from all over the world. I don't really care because I'd rather watch nothing than the kind of garbage that's been on TV forever. I won't watch reality anything, ever. I've got thousands of DVDs and TV shows from the past 50+ years. Let Hollywood die. I don't care at all.

 

[batguy]

It's not really a negotiation though, is it? It's a threat. "We're going to shut your ass down unless you give us what we want!"

Bob Iger also 'threatened' Disney into giving him $27m/yr. Either Disney paid up or they would lose their CEO and have to shut down.

It's the same logic. Getting/keeping workers is a matter of supply & demand. A CEO is just a very high-level worker.

I'm sure that sooner or later, they will come to a compromise, but the unions are counting on the general public to get mad, which really isn't happening, is it?

They'll get mad, but only once they realize the fall schedule is toast. They could end it today and you won't see anything new til january at the earliest. There's a chance they wipe out the whole season at this rate. I'm surprised we're not hearing more from the networks who i think have the most to lose. They're already in trouble, and this could kill them outright. Nothing but garbage reality stuff til 9/2024? That could be a deathknell.

Probably accurate. The public hasn't felt the impact yet.

I don't think ANY of the players involved (writers, actors, studios, or networks) are gonna like the long-term effects of this strike being dragged out for several more months.

 

[Lightning]

How do you measure their work and apply a pay/royalties % for the crew? Is a model maker getting more royalties than a set designer?
What about a lighting technician or a prop maker, costume designer? What kind of royalties could be given to these types of trades?
Difficult and complex to say the least...the Hollywood accounting was always "funny" to say the least

Only the "above the line crew" gets residuals. In theory, working on a flop (which remember, might not be a bad movie) won't negatively affect the careers of the below the line Crew.

Sky Captain (a movie I love) destroyed Kerry Conran's career in the cradle.

It's not really a negotiation though, is it? It's a threat. "We're going to shut your ass down unless you give us what we want!"

Its a threat the other way too "do what we want or we will fire you". You just realistically cant fire everyone (unless you are Ronald Reagan) and of course there's an added layer of legal protection since 1935 in the US.

 

[Lost in Trek]

Make no mistake, this is 100% a negotiation. Just because one side may have a better bargaining position doesn’t mean it’s not a negotiation.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who has the better hand.

 

[Riceball]

I think this makes a great point regarding how much of a writer’s work never turns into an actual project.

I imagine a lot of a writer’s time is spent on creating and “pitching” a story that never actually gets “sold” or “picked-up” by the studio.

That has to be pretty rough.

That depends on the writer. More often than not, from what I've gathered watching behind the scene videos, writers generally don't make pitches to the studios, they're usually brought on by a studio to write a screenplay for a project that was pitched to them either internally or by some a producer or director. And if a writer does actually pitch to a studio, they're either working for a studio already or they submitted their script to the studios via their agent. Studios rarely, if ever, accept unsolicited scripts or treatments for a movie because of liability. If they adopt a policy of automatically trashing any unsolicited script or movie/show idea then they can't be sued for copying somebody else's idea on the grounds that they never saw, much less read that script.

 

[Riceball]

Don't think anyone has a problem with that. But as much as people just love to complain that execs get paid too much, you see the numbers above with Cameron. Not saying he doesn't deserve it, but 95 to him up front? Say he took 85 instead. Still a monster fee, still he can pretty much do anything in the world he wants with that. It doesn't change his life one tiny bit. However, that 10M would hire a lot more people for Avatar 2, or could raise the rates for the lower people on the spectrum dramatically. Avatar 2 had a budget and for him to get that big a chunk meant they couldn't spend that money elsewhere. Same with actor's getting those mega checks. I'm not debating the 'do they deserve it aspect', but i'm saying, they take a small portion less that will not affect their lives at all and everyone does better. Same thing applies to execs, but on a smaller level. Iger got what? 30ish last year? Disney overseas, what? 50? 100? productions a year? he takes 5M less, does it affect much of anything across those productions? Not likely.

The thing about that is, how do we know that this isn't already the case in some productions but we just don't hear about it? How do we know that the big star(s), director, producer, or whoever didn't already take a bit of pay cut in order to add to the production's budget?

 

[Riceball]

Make no mistake, this is 100% a negotiation. Just because one side may have a better bargaining position doesn’t mean it’s not a negotiation.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who has the better hand.

I'd say that neither really has the upper hand since both sides can result in the demise of the other. The writers and actors get too stubborn they can completely shut down some studios resulting in a lot of lost jobs, and not just theirs. Of course the studios can hold out and/or end up "giving in" and not working with the any number of the writers or actors. But that makes them look bad in the court of public opinion and is kind of a risky move in today's world of social media and virtue signalling.

 

[blewis17]

I posted the full video on a new thread so it wouldn't get buried, but the last 2 minutes is well worded summary by one who works in the film industry, RE: how big, expensive Hollywood productions can ultimately fall flat. Link below is appropriately time flagged. Worth you 2 minutes.

 

[Cephus]

Bob Iger also 'threatened' Disney into giving him $27m/yr. Either Disney paid up or they would lose their CEO and have to shut down.

It's the same logic. Getting/keeping workers is a matter of supply & demand. A CEO is just a very high-level worker.

It wasn't a threat, it was a negotiation. He gets $1 million per year and the rest ONLY if he hits certain metrics. They could have told him to pound sand. He could have gone somewhere else. Disney could have hired someone else. There's a difference. The unions, they are blocking access and saying that if they don't get paid, NOBODY gets to work. They are insisting that only their union gets to work, nobody can hire scabs to do the work instead. Disney, and the rest of Hollywood, can't just say "we're just not going to run union shops anymore".

That's the difference.

Probably accurate. The public hasn't felt the impact yet.

I don't think ANY of the players involved (writers, actors, studios, or networks) are gonna like the long-term effects of this strike being dragged out for several more months.

Probably not, although I think everyone is expecting the status quo and I don't know that the public wants that back this time. The last time there was a strike, there wasn't this kind of choice in entertainment. Plenty of people hardly watch TV anymore. There is YouTube and video games and tons of free options out there that aren't going away. There may have to be a fundamental shift in the way Hollywood works because frankly, I don't think the general public cares if any of it comes back the way it was, ever.

 

[Cephus]

Its a threat the other way too "do what we want or we will fire you". You just realistically cant fire everyone (unless you are Ronald Reagan) and of course there's an added layer of legal protection since 1935 in the US.

I'd love to see it. That's really the only barganing chip that the unions have, if you don't concede to their demands, nobody works anymore. Funny thing, AI isn't unionized and while it isn't worth much right now, that will change. Maybe the entire WGU can take a long walk off a short pier and we won't have human writers anymore. Maybe CGI will get to the point where we won't need human actors anymore.

I don't think most people in the general public will really care.

 

[ghostryder]

Maybe the entire WGU can take a long walk off a short pier and we won't have human writers anymore. Maybe CGI will get to the point where we won't need human actors anymore.

I don't think most people in the general public will really care.

Nice to see where you stand. And it's the WGA, not "WGU" or whatever that is.

Meanwhile...

"We need to be clear about what’s happening in the industry: Studios are offloading the financial burden for development onto writers."

From here:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90918934/my-story-highlights-the-importance-of-the-writers-strike

Also:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1690764303794946049

Here's one take on it over at the Hollywood Reporter:

Robert Reich on the Hollywood Strikes, Tech “Leviathans” and a Second Gilded Age

"We can't simply sit back and assume this is normal or necessary or inevitable," says the former U.S. Labor Secretary.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

And on another note, remember all the X-Files lawsuits:

Duchovny sues Fox over TV rights sales

"X-Files" star David Duchovny sued 20th Century Fox Film Corp. Thursday, alleging that the studio has cheated him out of millions of dollars in profits from the television series.

variety.com

'X-Files' Are Closed; a Lawsuit Opens (Published 2006)

The final episode of ''The X-Files'' was broadcast almost four years ago, as the F.B.I. agents Mulder and Scully stopped searching for the truth. Now the show's creator is searching for more money. Chris Carter, the creator and executive producer of ''The X-Files,'' which ran from 1993 to...

www.nytimes.com

Speaking of Fox's shady tv dealings:

Fox Rocked by $179M ‘Bones’ Ruling: Lying, Cheating and “Reprehensible” Studio Fraud

In a long-running legal battle over profits from Fox's 'Bones,' the David Boreanaz-Emily Deschanel hit, an arbitrator's stunning decision calls out top executives Peter Rice, Dana Walden and Gary Newman and could alter the economics of hit shows in the streaming era.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[batguy]

It wasn't a threat, it was a negotiation. He gets $1 million per year and the rest ONLY if he hits certain metrics. They could have told him to pound sand. He could have gone somewhere else. Disney could have hired someone else. There's a difference.

There is no difference in principle.

#1 - The metrics of Bob Iger's contract are irrelevant to the threat/negotiation thing. Compensation is compensation. It's also a contract 'metric' to pay a factory worker a certain hourly wage, or to pay him extra for overtime, etc.

#2 - Even if Iger's contract metrics were relevant, the setup is a sham. It's the standard pay structure for the top players at big corps. The official 'salary' is small and they categorize most of the real paycheck as 'bonuses'. Gotta get around those federal laws.

Iger's baseline salary might theoretically be $1m/yr, but his last 3 years of pay was a total of $93m. That's pretty dang far from $3m. He actually took home dozens of millions every year, including while the company's stock was tanking. How on earth is that a 'performance bonus' in any realistic sense? It isn't.

The unions, they are blocking access and saying that if they don't get paid, NOBODY gets to work. They are insisting that only their union gets to work, nobody can hire scabs to do the work instead. Disney, and the rest of Hollywood, can't just say "we're just not going to run union shops anymore".

That's the difference.

The studios can cut ties with the unions any time they want. They can go try to hire other non-union workers in LA. Or they can try outsourcing the work to other counties. There is no law against it, it's just "financially unfeasible" because they are used to getting very specialized skilled labor in the LA area. The best workers are in the unions.

It's also pretty "financially unfeasible" for the union workers to lose months (or even years) of pay while they are on strike. But they collectively made the choice to do it.

CEOs are just very highly-paid workers. They aren't unionized for practical reasons but there is absolutely a group effect. If the CEOs of the other big studios all started getting paid $300m/year, then Bob Iger would hold out for a lot more than $27m at his next contract re-negotiation with Disney.

 

[Lightning]

. He actually took home dozens of millions every year, including while the company's stock was tanking. How on earth is that a 'performance bonus' in any realistic sense? It isn'

I'd love to find out how bad Disney would have to be doing for him not to get any bonus.