Hello dear readers!
This is my extra newsletter in between my longer pieces. I’ll fire off quick thoughts, updates and articles/films I’d like to recommend.
First off there was big news yesterday, with the Writers Guild of America (East and West chapter) voting in unprecedented numbers to go on strike. For those of you who don’t know the significance of this, the WGA is the union for screenwriters in the USA. This means that all writing on film/TV/animation, etc. will cease if they don’t come to an agreement with the the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over contract changes.
What’s the main beef? The WGA has been in negotiation with the AMPTP over standardised pay and residual payments in relation to streaming services for TV and Film. Whenever technology changes so does the need for new protections for writers, as we will have as much taken from us as possible if we don’t resist encroachment. At risk here is the on-going livelihoods of screenwriters, with the shadow of generative AI growing on the horizon.
The last big strike was 2007–08 which was a tough battle. Screenwriters didn’t work for fourteen weeks, and that was in the day of broadcast TV. With the insatiable demand for new material across so many platforms fourteen weeks will seem like an infinity today. Will producers start to experiment with AI-written scripts to replace screenwriters? The results will be poor as the technology isn’t there yet (but in two-three years time it will be far better). For formulaic fare it might serve as a lowbrow stop-gap, but the best TV/film today is inventive, collaborative and tightly-created.
I worked for the Writers Guild of Ireland during the last strike so I followed the issue closely. Writers’ Guilds around the world will support the WGA as the principles it is defending are common concerns for writers everywhere.
I could tell you story after story of the importance of collective action by writers to ensure their rights, especially in the film industry. Everyone I know has a story of chasing payments, broken contracts, and terrible treatment. On that point, it always works in the favour of writers to join whatever national guild or representative body in their country is fighting on their behalf.1
Writers often grumble about paying annual fees, because so much of the Guild work that goes on behind the scenes is slow, bureaucratic and unsexy. It’s quibbling over the wording of contracts and liaising with other guilds around the world over current practices. It’s long and tedious litigation on behalf of low-status writers. Believe me, this tireless labour is incredibly important. Give them your support and thus support your fellow writers!
Substack has been rolling out a number of additions in the last few months to enhance the experience of writers using this platform. It’s useful to mention that Substack has an excellent app (available for IOS and Android) on which you can read newsletters, participate in chats, or peruse the new Notes function they added last week. If you are reading several Substack newsletters it is worth your while to download the app, since you can avoid having all the newsletters delivered as emails, and can read them in one handy place. I’m subscribed to a lot of Substacks now and I find the app essential.
I haven’t started using Substack Chat yet, which is available on the website and the app, but I’ll do it eventually. It will allow me to open up discussion threads exclusively for subscribers of my newsletter. Let me know in the comments if you’d use this and what topics you’d like to kick about.
The latest feature Substack launched last week was Substack Notes, which is also available via the web site or the app. It allows Substack writers and readers to create short notes that can become a threaded discussion open to all - rather like a gated Twitter. As someone with a long history of observing technological trends I’m fascinated to see how it develops. Thus far it’s been pretty good and I’ve noticed a marked up-tick of readers coming to my writing via the massive Substack community of writers/readers. You can choose to read the open feed of Notes writers or only those to whom you have subscribed. It’s an evolving space that I’m monitoring and participating in with interest.
Will it survive or will it devolve into internecine warfare? We shall see, it is too hard to predict yet. What I do know is that I’m becoming increasingly tired of most of the other social media platforms I’m on. A simple example is the amount of bots I have to contend with on Instagram, and the overbearing number of advertisers and content that is injected into my feeds. (I’m not going to discuss Twitter at all as it’s only usable with tight curation.)
The problem with all of them is the intent behind their genesis. Users are making free content for the platforms but are treated like ungrateful moochers.
This is the ‘we’re paying you in exposure’ line. There’s a reason why creators bridle when someone doesn’t pay us but suggests we’ll get some nebulous long-term benefit from donating free work. We have to eat and live. The classic joke ‘but you can die from exposure’ applies.
The biggest con is that most social media platforms are not even allowing your followers to see your content. The initial pact, why so many people joined social media in the first place, was that it bypassed traditional gatekeeping and offered you direct access to your audience.
I recently saw a reel on Instagram in which a series of creators begged Instagram to stop throttling their posts to their followers. Ponder this scenario: creators built up followers on the platform and then Instagram (or Facebook, etc.) hinders the material getting to the people who opted in to see it. This is thanks to algorithmic shenanigans that benefits Instagram but not its users.
Let me triple-underscore that none of these platforms can exist without the free content created by its users.
It’s madness to participate in a system that penalises you in arcane ways while it maximises its profits from advertising while selling on the information it is scraping from your browsing behaviour.
At the moment Substack is not doing this. You have opted to read the thoughts of the Substackers you like, and no one is getting in the way. If you enjoy it you can pay the creators directly for extra content. Substack is also creating new ways for us to interact with each other.
Will it remain this way? My greatest fear is that Substack will be sold on to some mega-Corp, the common fate of so many earnest companies in the past, and the new owners will dismantle its benefits to enhance their bottom line. There are indications that they will not take this route. I’m cautiously optimistic, but I’ve also experienced enough online betrayals not to take anything on faith. It’s a wait-and-see approach.
Finally, some things I’ve recently enjoyed
The arrival of Spring in Ireland after winter dragged its heels. I’ve hauled out my lighter clothes and stowed away my heavy jumpers. No doubt Ireland will rain on me again (as it did on Saturday), but the signs are good for the approach of our summer. Blossoms and flowers swoon in the hedgerows (as does the pollen…). The evenings are a-hum with lawnmowers.
Renfield - a gross-out comedy about Dracula’s familiar trying to escape his master's control. Talented actors have fun with the material. Thankfully, it clocks in at 90 minutes so you’re not stuck too long in some of its clunkier scenes. If you want silly nonsense and have a high tolerance for violent fights then this could be your movie. I’m a Dracula nerd so this scored a number of extra points with some in-jokes if you know the Dracula film canon. And I loved many of the set designs.
The terrific Substack Noted, in which Jillian Hess sends ‘a newsletter focused on a particular note-taker with an overview of their note-taking life, inspiring quotes, archival photos, and meditations on what I’ve learned from their notes.’ This week’s piece focused on musician Kurt Cobain’s notebooks, and was beautiful and poignant.
I re-watched Everything Everywhere All At Once with my husband, who hadn’t seen it, and I enjoyed it as much on the second viewing. There is loads to like in this film, but mainly it is bursting with joy and invention, and has a big heart beating in the midst of its far-out effects.
I got misty-eyed during the latest episode of Star Trek: Picard. I found the previous two seasons tiresome in places (please stop using time-travel as a plot device!) but this season has delivered the goods for fans, along with some genuinely funny moments and snappy writing. It’s not for everyone — non-Trek fans will list its demerits and I wouldn’t argue with them — but this Trek aficionado is looking forward to the finale.
And for all my complaints about social media, I received a deluge of messages wishing me a happy birthday over the weekend, which was truly heart-warming. This one thing is where Facebook shines. I appreciated each emoji, gif and fond good wish. Thank you, all!
Catch you on the flip-side!
Here’s just one example, the WGA just won an arbitration ruling against Netflix for residual payments in relation to the film Bird Box. There are positive knock-on effects: ‘Because the arbitrator ruled that writers on original Netflix productions should be paid on the same level as the licensing fees the streamer pays for third-party titles, the decision is also being applied to 139 other original Netflix films, meaning that 216 writers for those films will receive $42 million in unpaid residuals’.
Happy Birthday!✨🎂 Mine is in about 20minutes.