Writer's and Actor's Strike 2023: Aaaaand Scene...That's a Wrap!

[MenacingMonk]

Bro as a creative person I can tell you right now AI for anything character or story driven is fukkin trash. It spits out the most generic shyt ever, and you will still need someone to mold or direct that story ie a writer. It’s a tool it won’t replace any person anytime soon.

As for shytty scripts you gotta remember unless you’re at the top of the food chain you have a fukk ton of stakeholders editing and demanding changes for marketing purposes.

The thing that scares me is when AI evolves how it’ll affect screenwriting. Right now it ain’t shyt but can develop a plot and story. Of course it stills much tuning, but how will it look in several years? And will it actually do a complete 90-120 page script. Will it understand how to use emotion to a degree too.

 

[BeachBum Unreal]

 

[MenacingMonk]

I’m glad there wasn’t a last minute “we reach a deal, guys. ”

 

[steadyrighteous]

to The Nanny

She's the SAG President BTW

 

[BeachBum Unreal]

 

[the elastic]

They were making a Day of the Jackal reboot?!


PAY THESE PEOPLE

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

"Directors" aren't the only people in the DGA, you literally would not be able to run a film set without an Assistant Director, THAT'S the job that can carry a shytty director and no one will question it.

UPM's are also in the DGA and they handle all the money, another very important job, the DGA is easier to negotiate with because there's some overlap in responsibilites and mindset with the Producers/Execs, i think i said that earlier in this thread. You get a shyt ton of money once you join DGA already, they weren't sweating these negotiations like that, A.I. can't physically run a film crew and deal with all those logistics


it's a different situation entirely with writers/actors (as well as residuals)

Facts, 1st AD is the closest thing to the general on set. Depending on the size of the set that extends to the 2nd AD and 2nd 2nd as well, the set would literally start 4 hours late without them and talent would get golden time every shoot day lol.

The reality is that enough directors profit share on films to enough of an extent to where residuals are not their biggest grievance. And, like you said, you can’t replace an AD (who’s main job is people & time management during principal photography) with AI anyway.

Bro as a creative person I can tell you right now AI for anything character or story driven is fukkin trash. It spits out the most generic shyt ever, and you will still need someone to mold or direct that story ie a writer. It’s a tool it won’t replace any person anytime soon.

As for shytty scripts you gotta remember unless you’re at the top of the food chain you have a fukk ton of stakeholders editing and demanding changes for marketing purposes.

Also facts

The vast majority of scripts that get acquired through a general meeting are well-written… it’s what happens after the purchase that turns the script into generic schlock. Between studios assigning directors to scripts/projects they don’t give two shyts about (who then ‘auteur’ the project into something that completely misses the point of the OG script), the vast majority of screenwriters being cut out of the rewriting process in favor of script doctors whose only job is to implement the studio’s notes, etc. etc. the script that makes it to production is NOT the one that got bought in the general meeting.

It’s a double edged sword because a lot of writers do not have the production background to actually understand how their pages translate on screen… very few production background people can write their way out of a paper bag either, its a miracle that any completed films have intelligible scripts given the number of hands that end up on what’s basically the blueprint.

While it’s true that crew cracks jokes on the scripts all the time, most crew don’t understand the above and really don’t have any room to talk when the most they’ve ever made themselves is a short, if even that.

 

[motionlessZombie]

We might not get Terrifier 3 next year then.

 

[Rekkapryde]

Holdup....so they can hold you hostage like that?

Man gtfoh with these goofy studios

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

script writers would be the easiest to replace out of everyone with A.I., you can tell it to imitate and reference other scripts, include pop culture references, advance the plot within a certain amount of pages, etc. basically all the shyt writers do, and get the same quality if not better.

And it's slowly getting to a point where crew is starting to be like fukk them writers, the shyt they fighting for isn't gonna help anyone else on the crew, nikkas already be mad with how unappreciative/bratty alot of writers are, now everybody gotta wait to get back to filming fun shyt because the producers don't respect them.

To even get shows back on track we're gonna have to set aside a month or so to re-prep, re-hire, renew all the permits to use locations and spend all that money a 2nd time, on top of everyone just having to reschedule their next 1-2 years in general because of the timing of work being thrown off

I feel your pain because this year’s been a lot slower for me than it was the last two years. At the same time though, naw, writer residuals on streaming is an absolute must.

Have you ever actually done the dance it takes to be a screenwriter? We talking:

-writing 3-4 scripts a year every year

- each of those scripts is being re-drafted a minimum of 5 times off top before it’s halfway decent, often involving 2-3 complete rewrites with new outlines and new beat sheets

- paying to attend pitch fests, paying to submit to screenwriting competitions, etc.

- if one of your scripts actually does land a general meeting, there’s a much higher chance they’re not buying it than they are, which leads to the next point:

- if one of your scripts generates interest, you will not get any further in the business unless you have 5-6 scripts in the same genre/niche ready to go during that same general meeting. This is because you will now be the go-to source for other production companies looking for content similar to what your last successful sale was. Don’t have more similar scripts? They’ll take your loglines and have some other writers take the credit

- even if you successfully sell a script, that is zero guarantee you get the credit for that script, particularly if a director gets attached to the project who then gets their writer to re-write it.

The above process requires an investment of 4+ active, dedicated writing years MINIMUM to even get in the game. Crew don’t understand that shyt fr, streaming residuals is about not having to be grinding 3-4 scripts a year every year forever without accruing the passive income to match the grind.

 

[daemonova]

See what happens when you break the truce @Bryan Danielson

 

[Json]

Bro as a creative person I can tell you right now AI for anything character or story driven is fukkin trash. It spits out the most generic shyt ever, and you will still need someone to mold or direct that story ie a writer. It’s a tool it won’t replace any person anytime soon.

As for shytty scripts you gotta remember unless you’re at the top of the food chain you have a fukk ton of stakeholders editing and demanding changes for marketing purposes.

I think you’re missing the point of people’s worry.

Most Hollywood scripts are derivative. Buddy cop comedy isn’t only Lethal Weapon.

But instead of paying another JJ Abrams 500 million to produce movies, you hire AI to craft the barebones of a cobbled together Back to the Future like series, since Zemekis and crew won’t, and just have some newbie who wrote a good time travel spec script to flesh it out.

I’m not saying there won’t still be writers on set making scripts. I’m saying it would fundamentally make the studio system a top down affair

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

I think you’re missing the point of people’s worry.

Most Hollywood scripts are derivative. Buddy cop comedy isn’t only Lethal Weapon.

But instead of paying another JJ Abrams 500 million to produce movies, you hire AI to craft the barebones of a cobbled together Back to the Future like series, since Zemekis and crew won’t, and just have some newbie who wrote a good time travel spec script to flesh it out.

I’m not saying there won’t still be writers on set making scripts. I’m saying it would fundamentally make the studio system a top down affair

The bolded is the point he was making though, most Hollywood scripts end up generic, derivative, etc. after going through the Hollywood machine. That doesn’t mean that’s where they started, nor does it really speak to what it took for that script to enter the Hollywood machine in the first place.

When you pitch a new IP, they’re not reading your script until after you pitch them on it. This means that your “buddy cop #123xyz” has to intrigue them -from elevator pitch to logline to pitch-deck -before they’ve even read a single page. You’re not gonna accomplish that pitching something that sounds derivative as a pitch, period.

Where AI rubs writers the wrong way is that it’s creating an incentive for the biggest studios to fukk future writers out of residuals for the new IP they conceive when they can instead get AI to conceive the original script draft, claim ownership of it and then pay the writers as work for hire to rewrite it. Basically, the way it’s trending, they want writers to be logline prompt inputters. Imagine an AI that can literally take a logline and spit out a completed script that is synthesized from composites of existing scripts with similar log lines… it’s pretty much the end of general meetings as we know them.

 

[HipHopStan]

I knew this AI shyt would blow up in our faces. The fact that studios were even teasing the notion of it possibly writing scripts in the future is a move. You can’t make a movie without actors or writers so just pay these people what they want and get back to work.

 

[T-K-G]

The wall of text you just served me says otherwise

Providing context for statements is healthy for discourse genius you nikkas love getting sassy when you don't got shyt to say back, how you fighting for writers but intimidated by a paragraph? the irony

I knew this AI shyt would blow up in our faces. The fact that studios were even teasing the notion of it possibly writing scripts in the future is a move. You can’t make a movie without actors or writers so just pay these people what they want and get back to work.

I personally think this is more about them getting more streaming money than the A.i. shyt

It's gonna be crazy when the streaming era gets a documentary and we can really see why musicians and others were kept in the dark for so long about what a stream is worth. It's gotta be some trillionaire up top doing the nastiest work ever



The animation world barely has any union protection I wouldn't be surprised if Disney or something made the first a.i. assisted script already and they just waiting to see what happens