Writers' Strike, 11/13.

First, a string of online viewing tips. Ze Frank: strike #2; via Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay, "Voices of Uncertainty"; via Nikki Finke, "A World Without Writers"; and Ray Pride's got "Phil Robinson's 4-minute history of the Writers Guild."

Notes Dwight Garner: "One of the few good things to come out of the 1988 Writers' Guild of America strike was a small, photocopied comedy zine called Army Man - a publication that, happily, has been getting its due (here, here, here and here) recently."

"The studios' problem is that they see the sweeping change represented by the Internet as more of a threat than an opportunity," argues Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times. "For all the talk of how the industry needs a titan like Lew Wasserman to mediate the strike, everyone seems to have forgotten that Wasserman's greatest coups, like buying the Paramount movie library for a song, involved a belief that entertainment would always have future value.... If the studios really believe they can't share a sliver of profits with the people who create what they sell, they'll be the losers. If you don't believe in the future, you shouldn't be in show business."

"As moguls and writers fight over the spoils from DVD and digital-download revenue and celebrities on both coasts pound the pavement in solidarity with the scribes, there's an unintended casualty in the Great Hollywood War of 2007: independent filmmaking." Anthony Kaufman reports in the Voice.

Posted by dwhudson at November 13, 2007 12:04 PM