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I thought the sticking point of negotiations was AI-generated content, not residual for actual work done. Are they stuck on both?
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Jul 16, 2023 03:14
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I wonder if the best outcome here is basically the YouTube model. The rightsholder of a show splits ad revenue and subscription revenue with the streaming service in some predetermined ratio. The more eyeballs the show gets, the more money everyone makes. The rightsholder makes its own show-specific deals, including on merchandising, product placement and residuals. Rightsholders can choose between a multitude of streaming services, competing on revenue split, product features, content policy and target audience. They can obviously also choose to release films in theaters before bringing them to a streaming service. Instead we currently have this mishmash of licensing deals and a glut of streaming services that apparently no one is happy with anyway.
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Jul 17, 2023 21:26
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It looks like at least Max and Prime Video are offering shows to other services. Take it to its logical conclusion, and it seems likely that they will end up on the Criterion Channel model, where nothing is truly exclusive and things cycle in and out based on licensing agreements. They’ve maybe realized that consumers don’t truly want a bottomless pool of content and that 99% of shows never gets watched. Consumers want some curation, even if it is as rudimentary as “Leaving this service soon — watch it now or never!” To be sure there will probably always be some initial exclusivity — Max is where you see the latest GoT shows first. And that’ll be why networks still want to make originals. But they won’t want to hold on to content in perpetuity. This perhaps will be how subscriptions become financially viable.
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Jul 17, 2023 23:10
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I wonder if part of the challenge of streaming residuals is: 1. There isn’t really an industry standard definition for “views.” Regular TV viewership is measured, I assume, by Nielsen. It’s a crap methodology but it’s a standard one. Instead I’m sure every streaming service has their own internal, technical, individualized notion of a view count. 2. Streaming services don’t want to share viewing numbers with other services. We’ve been assuming the opacity is to help them pay cast and crew less. But it’s also invaluable competitor data. Imagine if, I dunno, Peacock had data on what was working on Netflix. It’d be much easier to close that gap.
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Jul 22, 2023 03:32
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Is there history of WGA or SAG-AFTRA scabs losing work afterwards? It seems like at least the studios would be more than happy to hire them.
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Aug 1, 2023 23:49
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Tbh I don’t think the public cares about these strikes
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Aug 5, 2023 21:53
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Do writers truly down pens during the strike? Obviously they can’t submit work to the studio. But I’m wondering if they take the time to punch up scripts for their existing shows and develop new projects. It seems like a really long period of time to be doing nothing professionally.
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Aug 6, 2023 18:26
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Don’t some A24 projects end up on streaming? I’m not sure how they can fulfill the residuals part of things when the streaming platform is not theirs to control. Likely the deal is far less complicated — and expensive — for A24 than for actual studios.
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Aug 11, 2023 03:29
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Dude whaaat, I didn’t know they made a frog and toad show
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Aug 12, 2023 17:39
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howe_sam posted:Yeah about that... It’s a pretty bad idea imo. Hiring writers for the sake of it.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:48
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I don’t get what an interim deal for a specific show would even look like. Surely they’re not gonna concede on streaming residuals or AI rights just for that show. Maybe it’s a lump-sum payment to the actors involved. But why would SAG-AFTRA be okay with it? Other striking actors must be pissed.
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Sep 1, 2023 00:47
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I thought some of the talk shows went on during the previous writer’s strike, albeit without writers. I recall the hosts doing a lot of improvisation. Is there a reason why talk shows are downing tools this time?
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Sep 11, 2023 20:21
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Kinda icky but not outrageous when you think about it I guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if an actor’s metadata ends up becoming personal AI fodder for a disgruntled VFX person. There are serious ethical and security issues with storing biometric data and there’s a reason big tech companies are so gingerly about it.
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Sep 13, 2023 21:49
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Because other shows don’t have jobs at stake? There’s nothing unique about these talk shows. Plural because The View and The Talk and The Jennifer Hudson are all returning to air as well, but somehow they’ve all escaped scrutiny for this.
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Sep 15, 2023 23:21
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Studios will be able to train their machine learning models on writers’ work. There might be more nuance in the details, but it looks like WGA at least partially buckled on their demand. https://www.wsj.com/business/media/hollywood-studios-can-train-ai-models-on-writers-work-under-tentative-deal-aedae589
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Sep 26, 2023 21:03
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I’m sure the same info will be available soon on the trade rags. But here’s my copy paste of the relevant sections from that WSJ article: “Hollywood studios are expected to retain the right to train artificial-intelligence models based on writers’ work under the terms of a tentative labor agreement between the two sides, people familiar with the situation said. The writers would also walk away with an important win, a guarantee that they will receive credit and compensation for work they do on scripts, even if studios partially rely on AI tools, one of the people said. That provision had been in an earlier offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios, streamers and networks. […] AI bots, which provide sophisticated, humanlike responses to user questions, are “trained” on large amounts of data. Entertainment executives didn’t want to relinquish the right to train their own AI tools based on TV and movie scripts, since their understanding is that AI tech platforms already are training their own models on such materials, people familiar with the matter said. Entertainment companies are looking at the use of AI tools for everything from summarizing scripts to special-effects to promotional marketing, The Wall Street Journal reported.”
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Sep 26, 2023 21:52
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On minimum writer’s room size, the WGA did get their way: “For shows with six or fewer episodes, studios must hire at least three writers and three writer/producers. For shows with between seven and 12 episodes, the minimum is now five writers and three writer/producers and for shows with more than 13 episodes, there must be at least six writers and three writer/producers.” But there also seems to be a pretty big carve out. If _all_ episodes are written by the same writer or writers, then that group can be as small as they want. It’s hard to say how much this diminishes the new requirements. The most obvious beneficiaries are the lone wolf writers like Taylor Sheridan. https://deadline.com/2023/09/mike-white-taylor-sheridan-rule-showrunners-wga-deal-1235557877/
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Sep 28, 2023 08:45
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Edward Mass posted:As someone who barely passed Directing for Stage in college, I can firmly say that AI is at my level right now with regards to the skill. Now, seven years from now? Anything's possible.
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Sep 29, 2023 00:10
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I wonder if the SAG conditions have more at stake than the WGA ones. I always assumed writing was a very small part of a production’s cost.
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Oct 14, 2023 19:59
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The A-list proposal seems more like a PR move for the rich actors than anything. It entirely misses the point of the strike and doesn’t actually close the gap. Surprisingly Variety has a good write-up on it: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/george-clooney-proposal-sag-aftra-explained-1235762621/
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Oct 27, 2023 18:32
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Pinterest Mom posted:What SAG-AFTRA is asking for here wouldn't have changed the Cushing situation. The current legal status quo is "the studios can't use your likeness without agreement from you or your estate". Obviously, Lucasfilm had to get permission from Cushing's estate and pay them to use him in Rogue One. That'd be perfectly consistent with SAG-AFTRA's ask.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:54
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I don’t think even the studios meaningfully know whether their projects are turning a streaming profit. It’s a whole science to attribute subscription revenues to specific pieces of content.
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Nov 7, 2023 22:47
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Tracking watchtime isn’t a hard thing and I think even the crappier apps will have it nailed down. The problem is that traditional creatives, I think, will be hugely uncomfortable with apportioning royalties using just watchtime. For creatives, it heavily skews incentives. It drives you to make bloated 2.5 hour blockbusters instead of lean 1.5 flicks. For actors it likely means TV or miniseries will be more lucrative than movies. For platforms it’s also a poor way to attribute subscription revenue. A million people might join to watch the latest Christopher Nolan blockbuster. A thousand people might rewatch Parks and Recreation on loop. The two might end up having similar watchtime, but the former is clearly far more of a revenue driver, at least in the short term. Netflix has presumably thought about this endlessly so their internal metrics for attributing revenue are likely complex as heck. Traditional creatives won’t understand or agree with them. They have every reason to be skeptical. It’s not a solved problem. That’s why many in the industry are in favor of streaming companies going back to having ads. It’s a straightforward way to attribute revenue. e: yeah whatever the person above said
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Nov 9, 2023 23:22
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stev posted:How do ads not create the same problem? Presumably the more ad breaks you cram into your work the more revenue you make - incentivising longer movies and shows in the same way. It's not like there are limited timeslots to be negotiated over like with regular TV.
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Nov 9, 2023 23:52
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I wonder if the bigger stars leaned on the union to cave in. They’re not really gonna be affected by these new rules anyway.
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Nov 12, 2023 05:44
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It’s not ideal, but to be honest the watch count for the first three months is probably a really good predictor for lifetime watch count. There might be some methodological or technical complications to extending the window.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:38
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tanglewood1420 posted:I worked on Nautilus (Captain Nemo adaptation) in 2022 and Disney canned that about three months ago. 10 month shoot, $200m budget, the sets are absolutely mind blowing it looks stunning. All just chucked in the bin. Sure I still got paid for everything, but to say it's disheartening is an understatement.
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Nov 19, 2023 01:09
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I think Marvel has kinda tried to do the right thing. Hiring an art house director who literally just won an Oscar was an attempt to do the right thing. And the director of The Marvels has a similarly exciting background. Something is going wrong in production obviously but they’ve arguably made bold leadership picks. Or, as it turns out, making a good movie is just really hard.
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Dec 3, 2023 06:03
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