Pencils Down

The Writers Strike continues to put out good product:

United Hollywood explains why this strike is important to other unions in the industry:

But it gets better, and this is why IATSE members should be supporting us as the Teamsters and others are. Last year, the AMPTP entered into an agreement with IATSE, which states in part:

The bargaining parties agree that if any other Union or Guild negotiates as part of its collective bargaining agreement with the AMPTP residuals on product for iPods or similar devices, the Producers will meet with the IATSE to negotiate an appropriate residual formula.

Strike captains have been passing out leaflets at the studios for a week explaining all this, and maybe in a hundred years, every production crewmember will get one. Or, if you’re on a crew, maybe you can just steer your colleagues to this site, and speed up the process.

Because here’s the thing:  if residuals are NOT paid for reuse on new media, every union member in Hollywood will suffer.

The NYT reports on an underground "Hey Kids Let's Put On the Show" version of Saturday Night Live and it takes them until paragraph 12 of 21 to let us know that it was a benefit show:

Proceeds from the tickets were to go to SNL’s production staff, most of whom had had been recently laid off; some were in the audience. But the performance was less about money than community. (A sold-out live version of “30 Rock,” the Tina Fey comedy, is scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday at the theater.)

That came after this inane observation five paragraphs earlier:

She [Amy Poehler] added: “We’re treating this as an optimistic night. We’re celebrating all the hard-working people who have been laid off.”

Celebrating with cash.  And even if we buy that the evening was "less about money than community," it would have been great if the reporter could have taken at least a minute to define what that community is.