Is a Hollywood writers' strike imminent?

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It is looking that way. We shall see. The deadline is today.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...al-1235476216/
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I'm not a member and I dont write scripts, that being said, I cannot feel empathy for this event.

I'm hearing about it on non-movie oriented radio shows and podcasts, so, its a big matter to somebody.
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Yup....10 years after #Oscarsowhite you are now seeing collapses in the industry. This is what happens when companies are focused on identity politics and not common fiscal sense. Years of catering to niche markets and basically appropriating successful works has now created a system where studios are going to start having robots write movies and writers are just going to edit them.


Now would this situation be fixed if Washington didn't approve of all of these giant mergers...sure but they aren't going to do that...that's not what they get paid for.



The trick is not minding
Yup....10 years after #Oscarsowhite you are now seeing collapses in the industry. This is what happens when companies are focused on identity politics and not common fiscal sense. Years of catering to niche markets and basically appropriating successful works has now created a system where studios are going to start having robots write movies and writers are just going to edit them.


Now would this situation be fixed if Washington didn't approve of all of these giant mergers...sure but they aren't going to do that...that's not what they get paid for.
This has nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, to do with identity politics if you bothered to read the actual reasons. It has more to do with compensation for streaming services.



The difference between an opinion and an obsession is that when people have opinions, they don't automatically think everything that happens is about their thing.



The trick is not minding
Going back to the topic at hand, I hadn’t realized just how much streaming services has impacted the salaries of writers of TV series, and the fear of AI creating scripts. (Darn you Skynet!)



Yeah, the streaming stuff is interesting. Last time there was a sense, I think, that this was going to be a ton of money and writers thought they were gonna be left out. And I think we've maybe seen a bit of a peak, and people are realizing streaming is maybe not going to grow forever, and while it'll be sustainable, it won't be sustainable at those insane levels. And sometimes when that happens people end up fighting harder, as it turns out each slice of the pie had fewer calories than expected.

I continue to think the economically stable point of streaming is a lot more mid-tier than a lot of those early spend budgets suggested.



I know the potential writer's strike is about streaming services concerns....


But picking up with what Wylde said, I wonder how much AI will effect writers in the near future? I haven't used any of the new AI search engines but I hear that if an intelligent question is formatted for the AI they can give very detailed and accurate responses such as advanced computer help. So if AI can do that right now, then AI might very well be able to write one of those 'no brainier' movie scripts. Any thoughts about this?



I'd hate to play the part of reporter but this article appeared in my Bing news thingy
Late-Night Shows to Go Dark Amid Writers Strike
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/ho...wn/ar-AA1aCiaN
posted 6 hrs ago

excerpt
With a strike, late-night shows and variety shows, which also include NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live,” as well as HBO’s political talk shows “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “Real Time with Bill Maher,” are all expected to go dark, people close to the shows said.

excerpt
The WGA, which has a membership of 11,500, said offers from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents major studios, streamers and networks, have been “wholly insufficient” and that this negotiation has shown their commitment “to further devaluing the profession of writing.”

So it looks like interview shows and variety shows are going down, not your favorite sitcoms and cop dramas and whatever else along those lines they play on TV these days. And truthfully I dont think SNL has been good enough to watch since Will Farrell left so I doubt anyone will notice.



So it looks like interview shows and variety shows are going down, not your favorite sitcoms and cop dramas and whatever else along those lines they play on TV these days.
No, all scripted television is shutting down. The impact of the shows that don't air daily or weekly won't be felt for some time as there are many months between the other types of shows filming and their being broadcast. The episodes that are already complete aren't effected by the strike. NBC is airing three new episodes of their Chicago-based dramas tonight ("Chicago Med", "Chicago Fire", and "Chicago P.D.") because they were filmed weeks and weeks ago. But if the strike were to last for months it could potentially delay when new episodes are ready for the Fall.



The Bib-iest of Nickels
I know the potential writer's strike is about streaming services concerns....


But picking up with what Wylde said, I wonder how much AI will effect writers in the near future? I haven't used any of the new AI search engines but I hear that if an intelligent question is formatted for the AI they can give very detailed and accurate responses such as advanced computer help. So if AI can do that right now, then AI might very well be able to write one of those 'no brainier' movie scripts. Any thoughts about this?
I have dabbled with the A.I. prior, and although it has some setbacks and the tendency to be overtly reliant on clichés, I honestly do think it could be used as a way to write no-brainer movie scripts.

I do a publishing company that releases anthologies, and if I'm being truthful, a lot of the submissions we receive (not accept) are of a similar quality to what an A.I. can create.

The longer the submission / story, the more it will start to show its true colors though. Like the A.I. imagery that's released, it pulls from algorithms and search engines, and things already available on the internet.

As a small experiment, I wanted to try and make a slasher villain.

Using Craiyon, the AI Image Generator, I typed: "masked silhouette lurking in the woods with a bloody axe"

Typed a prompt on Toolbaz.com: A horror story about a masked man in the woods with a bloody axe, terrorizing teenagers.


The sun was setting on an otherwise perfect summer evening, the kind that comes around once in a lifetime when everything seems to be right in the world. The teenagers, friends since childhood, decided to celebrate the end of summer with a camping trip in the woods.

Little did they know that they were being watched by a dark figure--a masked man with a bloody axe, lurking in the shadows. The teens laughed and played, completely unaware of the danger that was lurking around them.

It wasn't until later that night, when the campfire had died down and the group had begun to drift off to sleep, that the masked man made his move. He crept out of the shadows, axe in hand, and silently made his way to the campsite.

The teens were suddenly awoken by a horrific, blood-curdling scream. The masked man had found his victim, and he was not going to stop until all of them were dead.

The teens scrambled in a panic, desperately trying to escape the masked man, but it was no use. He was too fast and too strong, and soon enough, one by one, each of the teens was brutally murdered.

The masked man had accomplished his goal. His bloody axe was stained with the blood of the innocent teens, and he slowly faded back into the shadows, never to be seen again.

The horror of that night still haunts the survivors to this day, and the memory of the masked man with his bloody axe will stay with them forever.
I know it's very generic, but, keep in mind, it was made with two clicks and a sentence of information.

On freelancer websites like Fiverr.com, I have seen individuals offer their "A.I. expertise" for small prices.

I haven't done any research to see how different their results are from what I am able to do with a couple sentences, but it wouldn't surprise me to think people could get this stuff down to a science. That image above was a throwaway image, but even I've had AI image generators spit out some really impressive looking "artwork" before when I first discovered it and would fiddle around on my phone with it.

I would not be surprised if somebody could make an honest and truly passable (albeit generic) slasher villain or action movie script in a day.

Crazy, isn't it?



@McConnaughay

Wow, just flat out wow! It's hard to believe you entered a sentence or two and got out AI writing a passable story. I bet a story writing AI that was crated for the task could turn out TV scripts. Especially as there's already input info available to the AI from previous written scripts. It boggles the mind.



@McConnaughay

Wow, just flat out wow! It's hard to believe you entered a sentence or two and got out AI writing a passable story. I bet a story writing AI that was crated for the task could turn out TV scripts. Especially as there's already input info available to the AI from previous written scripts. It boggles the mind.
Ten years from now so much popculture entertainment is going to be completely written or partially assisted by AI you'll be looking for that special package tag that certifies the content was human crafted without an AI assist.



No, all scripted television is shutting down. The impact of the shows that don't air daily or weekly won't be felt for some time as there are many months between the other types of shows filming and their being broadcast. The episodes that are already complete aren't effected by the strike. NBC is airing three new episodes of their Chicago-based dramas tonight ("Chicago Med", "Chicago Fire", and "Chicago P.D.") because they were filmed weeks and weeks ago. But if the strike were to last for months it could potentially delay when new episodes are ready for the Fall.
Logically you'd think talk shows should be least impacted as the hosts should be able to extend the length of the interviews when the sketches and scripted segments arent coming in. That would be great for the guests and the studios they represent and would add a few minutes of screen time to their reels.

If the WGA has such a monopoly on TV productions let this be a lesson to the networks that lazily depend on that big can of words. Maybe they'll diversify their dependencies to prevent a repeat of this.



Most of these shows might as well have been written by ChatGPT. Let's just make it official.



Got my reporter hat on and brought you a writers strike update.

Will AI write the next Hollywood blockbuster? Writers' strike intensifies over studios' refusal to regulate use of AI
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world...425045699.html



Got my reporter hat on and brought you a writers strike update.
...
Will AI write the next Hollywood blockbuster? Writers' strike intensifies over studios' refusal to regulate use of AI
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world...425045699.html
Artificial Intelligence greatly concerns me. Interested parties are rushing head-long into AI with very little thought of its ultimate potentially negative capabilities and outcomes. If State or Federal law makers do not step in, AI will continue to grow. It's very much like The Blob.

Personally I have no sympathy for the WGA. They’re trying to squeeze every penny out of the studios now and for the future, just as the studios are trying to make as much money as they can for their shareholders, boards of directors and backers.

The entertainment industry is extremely treacherous for its participants, especially the music business and the film industry. I don’t know which is worse. But if one is an artist in either, one almost has to be in a union in order to guarantee that the artist is paid for work performed. Pre-union I was on gigs where I was stiffed; or we’d show up to play, but the employer said they changed their mind, and didn’t want a band. Still, like all unions, the leadership have gone overboard to the point of dictating to the producers/employers who they can hire, how much they must pay for those services, and what benefit packages must be agreed to.

[N.B. I was in three American Federation of Musicians unions during my career: Pittsburgh Local #60, Cincinnati Local #1, and Hollywood/L.A. Local #47. I joined Local #1 because otherwise I couldn’t play in the symphony. I joined Local #47 (along with SAG-AFTRA) because otherwise I couldn’t get TV work, and some studios and contractors would not allow non-union musicians.]

The existence of all the involved unions and guilds are why it's so nosebleed expensive to produce a movie or series in L.A. Filmmakers are going to other states or countries where they can save money.


Anyway this is a huge and very complex situation, and can be discussed on and on. But as far as AI is concerned, they might be in the process of letting the genie out of the bottle.



I'd hate to play the part of reporter but this article appeared in my Bing news thingy
Late-Night Shows to Go Dark Amid Writers Strike
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/ho...wn/ar-AA1aCiaN
posted 6 hrs ago

excerpt
With a strike, late-night shows and variety shows, which also include NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live,” as well as HBO’s political talk shows “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “Real Time with Bill Maher,” are all expected to go dark, people close to the shows said.

excerpt
The WGA, which has a membership of 11,500, said offers from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents major studios, streamers and networks, have been “wholly insufficient” and that this negotiation has shown their commitment “to further devaluing the profession of writing.”

So it looks like interview shows and variety shows are going down, not your favorite sitcoms and cop dramas and whatever else along those lines they play on TV these days. And truthfully I dont think SNL has been good enough to watch since Will Farrell left so I doubt anyone will notice.
It's a shame. I use to stay up to watch late night especially Conan and Early Kimmel. They've sold their soul to corporate America and lefty politics. Besides podcasts with neutral entertainers, for the most part, have taken over their spot. It sort of outdated their shows through authenticity or at least more honest interviews. Sort of burned a hole through this fake talk show interactions.

Anyways I'm so happy this didn't effect Better Call Saul the only thing i've really cared about watching since the pandemic. Although I am bummed this probably will effect the new Fraiser reboot. I was intrigued to see if they could catch the same magic as the first one, I know they were shooting maybe it just cut a season short.
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It's a shame. I use to stay up to watch late night especially Conan and Early Kimmel. They've sold their soul to corporate America and lefty politics. Besides podcasts with neutral entertainers, for the most part, have taken over their spot. It sort of outdated their shows through authenticity or at least more honest interviews. Sort of burned a hole through this fake talk show interactions.
...
I agree. One reporter said something to the effect: "Well at least there won't be any late night propaganda now."..