What Were Residuals, Daddy?
I don't expect a lot of popular support for the Writers Guild strike. (I don't expect most people to care one way or the other. Most people have problems of their own, and things to do, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare isn't going to play itself. (Or is it?))
Luckily, this isn't about popular support. It's collective bargaining, not a straw poll.
If we writers do want more support, though, we should probably do a better job of explaining what a residual is. (If only to demonstrate our skills as professional communicators.)
A residual is a deferred payment against the lifetime value of a script.
It's not a bonus.
That's why it's called a "residual." The word means "left over." It's the left over part of the compensation the author agrees to wait for. It's not money for nothing. The word for that is "commission."
A residual isn't a handout or an allowance or Paris Hilton's trust fund. It's not a lottery payout, or alimony, or an annuity from a slip and fall accident at a casino.
A residual is a deferred payment against the lifetime value of a script.
It's not a perk.
It's okay if you didn't know that. It's in the best interests of a lot of fairly large corporations that you don't. And it makes it easier to imagine that writers are asking for something workers don't deserve.
Here's an actual "comment" I got last week, from an actual "commenter" just like you:
"When an engineer develops a product for a company should the engineer receive compensation each time the company figures out a new market for the product or a new application for the product (?)"
This is a fair question, but it employs a truly dunderheaded example. An engineer does receive additional compensation when a company finds a new application for the product he created. This is called "owning a patent."
(I don't think even Rupert Murdoch wants to get rid of patents. Well, not yet.)
"When the product loses money for the company should the engineer give back his salary?"
Of course not. Because his product always retains its potential to create revenue. The capital gets used up. The idea isn't unthought. But now I'm nitpicking at an analogy that doesn't apply in the first place.
"When a writer is paid for work on a show for the network that not only doesn't make money for the network on the Internet but doesn't make money for the network period, should the writer give back his pay to the network (?)"
I appreciate that this is a rhetorical question. But it's ineffective, rhetorically, because the answer is no.
The writer did her part. She wrote the episode. And in doing that, she created a product with a potential value, which is infinite. (Or, in the case of Seinfeld even more than that.) Because the episode can be shown an infinite number of times. (Or in the case of Seinfeld, even more than that.)
Yes, and you're already saying, "But Seinfeld isn't your typical, run-of-the-mill sitcom. That's Two and Half Men." And I'm saying -- rudely, over you -- that I know it's not typical -- but I'm trying to explain that, technically, the potential value of a sit om -- any sitcom -- is infinite. I'm just using Seinfeld, because that's the example the New York Times would use.
(The potential number of New York Times references to Seinfeld: Another good illustration of infinity.)
An episode of a television show can produce revenue forever.
Yes, most TV shows aren't Seinfeld. But each of the 180 episodes of Seinfeld -- a show that started without bankable stars or a high concept -- will make about ten million dollars in syndication. In real economic terms, every sitcom could be Seinfeld when the writer commences work.
(Unless it has Nathan Lane in it.)
What should a writer charge, then, for a script that could make $10 million dollars?
A: I dunno. Nine million dollars? Gotta leave something for the actors.
But what's a fair price to charge up front?
A: Right now, we'll take $19,125.
If it's a hit, you can pay us the rest later. I know! We'll call it a residual!
Because writers understand that most shows aren't hits. Most shows lose all the studio's money and go straight down the toilet, like John Ridley's Barbershop.
That's why, for decades and decades, the system has been that the writers take far less than they should be paid for a hit show, because there's no way of knowing if the show will be a hit or not. This is the "residual" difference in its value. If the show doesn't succeed -- for whatever reason (Nathan Lane) -- we don't get the rest of our money.
We take far less than our labor is demonstrably potentially worth on the understanding that most shows fail. Because we like what we do.
But it's the opposite of cheating anyone.
Anyway, I'd be happy to give up my residuals. And not just for syndication and DVDs, but for downloads and streaming video, too. The studios are right; who knows if this crazy Internet thing will last? All I want, in return, is an up front payment of nine million dollars per teleplay.
Short of that, all I want is for people to understand one thing:
A residual is a deferred payment against the lifetime value of a script.
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Disclaimer:
Terrific people I idolize worked on Barbershop.
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Apology:
That crack about "commission" being for nothing. That's just a joke, Ted.
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Not a Correction, But Added Later Nonetheless:
Yes, living on this planet as I do, I understand that engineers can assign their patents to the corporations that employ them. They can also give them to strangers on the street, or mail them to fickle prostitutes like a piece of Van Gogh's ear.
Some engineers assign their patents. Some don't. Some children work in mills. That doesn't make it their place in the divine order of things. Or even their legal obligation. Except at The Gap.
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Read more thoughts about the strike on Huffington Post's writers' strike opinion page
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Since most of the blogs here on the subject seem to be written by members of the writer's guild, here is an opinion for all you that might be interested in a non-Hollywood writer's perspective of the strike
http://www.celebitchy.com/7299/predicted_consequences_of_the_writers_strike/
The two words that capitalists(you know, the 6% who control 80% of the wealth and 100% of the political power) fear more than anything except possibly communist revolution are "general strike". Now I'm not suggesting that everyone in the country stay home tomorrow from work, although that would be fun and a wonderful lesson to the media moguls I am suggesting that if every person connected to the mass media didn't cross picket lines the strike would be resolved very quickly. Imagine every camera person, makeup artist, teamster, janitor, news anchor, home cable installer, editor, game show host, "reality" television "star", receptionist, gaffer and best boy supported the strike.(I know, I know, I didn't list everyone who could participate in this fun event but you get the idea) While it may be hard for "regular" people to identify with professional writers as fellow wage earners imagine a world where plumbers, truck drivers, wait staff, dentists and grocery checkers had to wait for "residuals" as part of their payment. It could go something like this;"Great job Mr. House Painter! Here's $10.00 now and I'll send you a dime every time someone comes to the house and enjoys your work." Or how about this one; "I can't thank you enough Ms. Plumber so here's $10.00 now and we'll mail you a dime every time someone takes a crap." The fact that engineers and inventors get abused by their corporate masters with pre-hire patent agreements doesn't mean we should accept it as the only possible reality. Support the strike!
The sad part about this episode is that we should all be with you. All the rest of us working stiffs out here who punch a clock everyday and spend our time and our life's energy working hard to fill the pockets of some guy who is already rich.
More power to you! Show Americans what Unions are for and how well they work for the average working man. Then write about it!
Robert Reich said that conservatives are always ready to point at progressives and accuse them of class-warfare. The problem is that we're already at war and the rich are winning!
It's killing me that I will miss the Colbert Report, but stick to your guns! Writers deserve residuals for new media.
I only wish I could be a writer. In many ways, I envy you guys (and ladies of course) and your' craft.
I see no reason why you shouldn't get paid for DVD sales or money from internet streams.
Good Luck.
Besides, the studios can afford it.
I loved Fred Armisted on SNL. "I don't have $200,000...I have $20 million".
The fact that they're showing reruns should show how important you guys are.
Right on, Chris. It's all in the name, really. The record companies knew this when they called it "royalties". Now that was a coup for the music industry at the time. By the way, the King is dead. As well as his one-time industry. Maybe there is such a thing as karma.
People react poorly to the strike at times, or to articles like yours, because they imagine that because they can type, they can write just as well as paid writers, and therefore, why should paid writers (who already get paid far more than the average commenter, nerve!) get any kind of consideration that others do not?
It's ludicrous and ignorant, and writers are still terribly underrated in context of a film or television show. But asking these types of commenters to understand that is asking them to cast aside the very framing we are given in the West for so long, that skin and face means everything, and the internal and ethereal essence that propels and informs that shell is negligible. It's an offshoot of the dullness of the Americanized (or an unimaginative?) mind that cannot see past the price of the playactor to the power of the pen.
A writer should get paid for the value of his work.
Value in TV land is based, not on critical acclaim, but on future advertising revenues.
This is easily quantifiable and a good union can help protect the writer
from exploitation.
it's the writing.
remember what "Friends" and "Seinfeld" actors did without clever people thinking up things for them to say.
but prepare to get reamed in the marketplace, did you hear about the blonde so dumb she slept w a screenwriter?....
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I forgot about actors who often get residuals too, although buyouts are being used more frequently these days. Forgetting the actors is easy to do...
What's truly dunderheaded is the rebut to the commenter who used the example of the engineer. Typically an engineer works for a company, and as long as he does so anything he invents (and the subsequent patents) belong to that company, not the engineer. To use only the most obvious example, this is how the light bulb was "invented" - not by Edison but by his engineers, although Edison held the patents because his company funded the research. What the engineers do is considered "work for hire", a term you're probably familiar with.
Everyone employed in the entertainment business is paid as work for hire, including creative professions like director, costumer, set designer, editor, makeup, etc. The only exception is writers. Along with producers they're the only ones who continue to get paid after a project is completed, although unlike producers they bear no risk.
so now that my house is worth another $100,000 more than I paid for it, you're saying I should send my Realtor an additional $7000?
Good luck, Chris. You writers are demanding nothing more than is your fair due.
What the anti-writers guild faction is applying is a version of the so-called hindsight bias. That with the benefit of hindsight, you should be able to know what a script is worth when you write it (and should therefore be suitably compensated on Day 1).
It's as brainless as it sounds, and the "residual" solution your industry applies has comparisons in other walks of life.
European soccer players - especially young, very promising talent - often tranfer between clubs at a discount to their market value, but with an agreement to provide the original seller with a percentage of the future transfer value of the player.
Exactly the same principle at work, potential worth - or the lifetime value of a player - being reasonably shared between deserving parties. Hang in there, the big-shots cannot function without you. (Not sure about Mr Ridley, however)
Excellent and persuasive post. But factually wrong in this point: Engineers employed by corporations do not own the patents on the works they invent for their employers. (There may be rare exceptions, but I don't know of any.) The patents will list their names as inventors, but the ownership of the patent is assigned to the corporation. Suggest you read up on "work for hire." Wikipedia has a clear article on the concept.
Finally...someone steps up and explains in dollars and cents...thank you
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