Craig Mazin writes about the (potentially) upcoming writers' strike in the US. Worth a read if just to see how the utter lack of any kind of business model for downloading material off the internet* is causing utter and amusing chaos across the television and film industry.
While I'm Craig Mazining, he also writes about the new writers' collective set up with Fox, in which a group of screenwriters have agreed to nine original scripts over four years and be paid slightly less than the usual kajillion dollars upfront in exchange for more creative control, including not letting the scripts be rewritten without the writers' permission. At which point I made a sort of 'oooooooh' noise.
It's all (if you're a writer, or interested in film-making) interesting stuff. It's perhaps worth noting that the films these writers have already been involved with (the Pirates of the Caribbeans, the first Shrek, most of the Scary Movies and a metric shitload of Adam Sandler creations) have generated more money than actually exists in the world, which gives them a certain amount of clout. Handily, most of the writers involved have blogs, so it's been possible to watch the story brew for a while now.
In fact, and I only thought of this, what with writers being naturally drawn to blogging, and the internet making it increasingly easy to self-organise, was the very technology that created the issue in the first place (by making a whole new secondary market of downloadable material) the same beast that could bring about a solution (facilitating writers coming together in a way that previously been neither practical, or, bearing in mind most writers smell a bit and have weird facial twitches, desireable)?
If so, this all goes to support my theory that the internet is the Best Thing In The World, and that if it is all heading towards reaching some kind of Singularity whereby it achieves collective consciousness and starts organising our society for us from the bottom up, we should probably just let it.
In case that was all a bit dry, here's a music video with a little dancing robot.
*er, apart from iTunes, obviously. You idiot, Henry.
The little dancing robot is the best piece of work you've ever done.
ReplyDeleteThe internet: the cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems?
ReplyDeleteWell exactly.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, it took me ages.
So basically, when not actually writing you're typing "dancing robots" into YouTube.
ReplyDeleteIf Adam Sandler is measured by the metric shitload, how do you measure Jim Carrey? Imperial spewbucket? Avoirdupois wanktanker? Approximate fartbag?
ReplyDeleteWell it's difficult, as JC's films are mostly rubbish, but occasionally brilliant (and even Sandler did Punch-Drunk Love, which bought him a temporary reprieve).
ReplyDeleteWagonload of curate's eggs?