You have stumbled upon the truth. I'd stay away from a typewriter if I were you.writer strike and banking crashed happened same year, 2008
now banks are crashing and writers want to strike again...
I'm kinda interested to hear more about this. Do you know of any journalists or experts covering this that have described that problem in more detail? Especially with reference to how these mini-rooms churn out garbage and cause massive breaks in continuity because the writers pop out a script, their contract ends, the script gets mangled and then the edited show doesn't make much sense. This was my biggest beef with the last season of Mandalarion which felt like a jumbled mess of "bad writing". It's easy to blame the writers for bad writing, but if the people actually doing the writing were abused during their work and removed before the script was truly finished, maybe it's not a writing problem but an exec problem?The writers definitely have good arguments, for example the way you learn to be a good writer is working in a writers room with a bunch of senior writers and you contribute but mostly soak up what everyone else says. You also advance from journeyman to middle-tier to showrunner in a long standing writing room like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, etc where the writers work on stuff for months and months and they would rotate going to the sets to do last second rewrites etc but getting industry experience.
Studios don't allow that anymore though, they put together fast rooms that last maybe 3-4 weeks, bang out a bunch of scripts, and then the showrunner is the only one left with all the writers let go except for one maybe who just stays in an office on call to change stuff. There is no career advancement anymore, you just jump from short contract gig to gig similar to every gig economy job nowadays.
GRRM, in solidarity with WGA, is also pausing his writing on Winds of Winter, effective 2007.‘House of the Dragon’ Season 2 to Continue Filming Amid Writers Strike, All Scripts Were Finished
Filming on Season 2 of 'House of the Dragon' will continue in the U.K. despite the U.S. writers' strike.variety.com
Also, anyone who thinks ChatGPT is ready to churn out scripts for TV shows that you'd be willing to watch, give it a rip and post what scripts you can make with it.
I disagree with you on how AI is going to impact screenwriting. You are not going to need a full team to write anything ever again. Look at this fully AI generated ad and tell me you couldn't just have one moderately non-shit writer go in and clean it up and you are off to the races. Have ChatGPT generate a couple runs through a script and have the writer weave and mold them into the best possible iteration.The writers definitely have good arguments, for example the way you learn to be a good writer is working in a writers room with a bunch of senior writers and you contribute but mostly soak up what everyone else says. You also advance from journeyman to middle-tier to showrunner in a long standing writing room like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, etc where the writers work on stuff for months and months and they would rotate going to the sets to do last second rewrites etc but getting industry experience.
Studios don't allow that anymore though, they put together fast rooms that last maybe 3-4 weeks, bang out a bunch of scripts, and then the showrunner is the only one left with all the writers let go except for one maybe who just stays in an office on call to change stuff. There is no career advancement anymore, you just jump from short contract gig to gig similar to every gig economy job nowadays.
I don't really give a fuck, being a writer is not a "good job" its just another aspect of being an entertaining clown and who gives a fuck what clowns say or think. Plus instead of thinking about their own careers the last decade they have turned most TV shows into garbage thanks to diversity hires who are absolute shit at doing anything other than posting on twitter. Still, if they have the power to strike and demand better pay and work environments -- why not, thats capitalism, fuck over the company for more money if you can.
It may take a decade or two but its obvious a mix of AI and self-insertion will allow Holodeck type self creation of all content, I for one can't wait to author classics like "TNG Dreams Vol 7: Ensign Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher Nude Hot Yoga"
I'm normally anti-union, but not in Hollywood. Studios fuck everyone they can at every turn. Contract disputes can take years to sort out, and that's if you can afford lawyers in the first place. Without a union, the people who can't afford lawyers on their own is nearly everyone on the set.
The ONLY thing they care about is money. They will screw anyone to get it. As I said before, they know they don't have to serve steak when people are just as happy eating shit.That actually makes sense, along with some of the other industry norms people were discussing.
Here is my issue with the whole thing; why are these studios so fucking short sighted that they won't treat writers like any other profession? Hire the good ones for SALARIED work, go find up and comers to learn from them, and let them move up the ranks. It has worked for *literally* every industry so why wouldn't it be the same here?
The ONLY thing they care about is money. They will screw anyone to get it. As I said before, they know they don't have to serve steak when people are just as happy eating shit.
ChatGPT at the moment can only produce stuff like the "Intergalactic Cable" episodes of Rick and Morty. It can unintentionally stumble across some clever meme-like bits, but most of it sucks