Writers Guild Members Look to Internet Distribution

stevedcc writes "The Guardian is running an article about members of the Writer's Guild, still on strike, creating their own ventures to deliver content over the internet. The intention is to get their work to consumers while bypassing the movie studios. Their effort will include actors and directors, and it is not the first step they have taken to expand their interests during the strike. One particular project is said to include A-list talent, and will be released in roughly 50 daily segments before going to DVD. This is also relevant to the strike because, as the article states, 'at the core of the current dispute is the question of how to reimburse writers for work that is distributed on the internet.'"

Comments

The internet and control

[stevedcc]

"The internet is a place where they can't maintain control," he said. "They are trying to introduce an old-school control-orientated way of thinking into a system that rejects and repels that tradition of control."

Thank god this writer understands - the studios really donät seem to

Re:The internet and control

[Original Replica]

The idea that they have a union is absurd

Perhaps the idea that the writers wouldn't get the same percentage of compensation for an internet release of their work as they would get for a DVD release of their work, is absurd. You would have never heard about this, except that they do have a union. People who know that their company is heavily dependent on them and yet do not feel treated well at that company, and talk about "screw this I'm gonna go somewhere else" in the breakroom but never do it; they are absurd. One singular worker thinking that their protest march of one is going to change the bottom line hunting of dozens of executive level managers; that is absurd.
That you think that an industry halting is "ludicrous" and that this is something that the studio heads "allow" tells me that you are either: a)wealthy and powerful enough that you actually consider yourself better that those who work for you. b)operate under such a surf's mentality that you think it is wrong to publicly disobey Master.

Re:The internet and control

[fictionpuss]

Like Radiohead? Seriously though, back up your claims!

Re:The internet and control

[hedwards]

I hate unions, I think they're by and large full of selfish, greedy people that don't give a damn about anybody not in a union. But in this case the union is pretty much dead on. So no, it isn't just "leftist Hollywood limo-liberal crowd" or even mostly, it is just people that believe that doing an honest days work should come with some sort of benefit. I'm sorry if your brand of "conservativism" is lacking in compassion; I'll be sure to lend you some of mine.

The belief that they shouldn't be compensated for any use of their work for which their bosses are being paid is just absurd. The average screen writer makes very little money in the first place, then to deny them any of the profits from redistribution in a digital form on the internet is just stealing.

The media conglomerates make such a big deal about how people distributing copyright works without paying are hurting the artists but guess what, the writers are some of the artists, and the suggestion that I shouldn't download a movie so that the corporations can steal from the writers instead of me is just plain ludicrous.

The average screenwriter makes so little anyways, I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that they'll get a piece of any additional revenues that are made just because they felt like writing for the movies/TV or whatever. Because it's awfully hard to come up with quality programming if nobody writes it. I for one would not want to watch only improv and reality programming all day everyday, I'd cancel my satellite, sell my tv and never watch the idiot box again.

Re:The internet and control

[Orange Crush]

Perhaps the idea that the writers wouldn't get any percentage of compensation for an internet release of their work as they would get for a DVD release of their work, is absurd.

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:The internet and control

[Anspen]

Good post but this caught my eye:

I hate unions, I think they're by and large full of selfish, greedy people that don't give a damn about anybody not in a union.

This preception, which I've seem among more posters, is a big problem in keeping the big companies in their place. I can understand the sentiment, I was quite perplexed when someone explained the concept of "closed shop" to me. But Unions in general doen't have to be like that and many aren't. And even if they where at least they do help the employees who are in the union.

Re:The internet and control

[lgw]

Can't the Writers Guild and the Producers Guild just settle this on the PvP server like gentlemen? Nothing worse than guild drama ...

Re:The internet and control

[ravenshrike]

Unless, of course, you live in Chicago. In which case it's almost mandated.

Re:The internet and control

[hedwards]

Yes, but they don't seem to care at all about the non union employees that are working at the same job site. Of course, my point of view may very well be skewed, but I've noticed a tendency for unions to spit on contracts which most other people would be grateful to have.

In this case I have yet to hear about the union helping out the employees that work in non union jobs, that is jobs that don't even have a union to belong to, who are out of work because of the strike. I can understand that they have to keep the solidarity up, but there are positions on the shows that are being disrupted which don't even have a union to represent them. It isn't even a matter of the workers not opting into one. I have heard that Jay Leno, who is I guess wanting to break the line eventually, express concern for his non WGA employees who don't have any income right now.

I do understand that unions are necessary right now for workers rights, but I also recognize that unions frequently give off the impression that non unionized employees are scum. If it were just scabs, that would be understandable, but when it's employees in non unionized professions, that looks awfully bad.

The frustration I have is that unions don't have to behave like that, in fact I would suggest that they would have much better support if they could look into helping out the other workers that are harmed by their strikes. I mean it certainly does look bad, and contributes to the pressure for them to cave.

A closed shop or a union shop depending upon the specific contractual arrangements is vital to a union keeping its clout, but it doesn't generally apply to anybody that is working in a specialty which doesn't have a union at all. The Ranier brewery here had a special arrangement where the Teamsters weren't working in the brewery, but were in charge of the trucking. They would have to take the beer halfway through a skybridge from which a union card carrying teamster would take the beer and load it onto the union trucks. Kind of convoluted, but it was how that union kept its power during negotiations. Without that kind of thing nobody would give them any sort of deal.

And all this from somebody that's more or less pro labor. ;)

Re:The internet and control

[sydbarrett74]

Yes, but they don't seem to care at all about the non union employees that are working at the same job site. Of course, my point of view may very well be skewed, but I've noticed a tendency for unions to spit on contracts which most other people would be grateful to have. My only personal experience with unions is when I was an extra on the set of Iron Jawed Angels back in '02. SAG members treated us non-SAGgers like shit, for example insisting that during meals we only get the leftovers. They would go through the buffet queues piling their plates with food and then ostentatiously tipping most of it into the wastebins. Please someone tell me most SAG members (and union members as a whole) aren't as boorish.

Re:The internet and control

[iluvcapra]

The frustration I have is that unions don't have to behave like that, in fact I would suggest that they would have much better support if they could look into helping out the other workers that are harmed by their strikes. I mean it certainly does look bad, and contributes to the pressure for them to cave.

It's a contentious issue in the US labor movement in general, the "organize more people and trades" group (with Change to Win and the SEIU) against the more defensive "lobby for better labor laws and get better bennies" group (with the remaining AFL-CIO unions).

The main problem with most entertainment shops is that the labor organizations are split: there's the more militant SAG/AFTRA, WGA and maybe DGA, which are happy to strike over benefits and are willing to cause a huge fuss, because they know their roster of talent is ultimately indispensable, and then there's the humungous IATSE and NABET unions that rep all of the below the line talent, and they only strike against individual productions one at a time in order to get the individual productions to go Union. They never strike if the company is already union, and NEVER support the strikes of SAG or the WGA. The IATSE basic agreement actually has non-strike clauses that require all IA members to show up for work when there's a SAG or WGA picket line.

Yes, I am a member of an IATSE union (Local 700, Motion Picture Editor's Guild).

Re:The internet and control

[Wombat]

Not entirely true that IATSE only strikes against individual productions: see this fall's IATSE strike against Broadway.

Re:The internet and control

[Vellmont]

The average screen writer makes very little money in the first place, then to deny them any of the profits from redistribution in a digital form on the internet is just stealing.

Actually from what I understand, the average writer for television, movies, or cable makes a LOT of money when they're working. But the work is usually not steady, with large periods of unemployment. I'd bet residuals help pay the bills during those times of unemployment. (Which makes them all the more important)

Re:The internet and control

[SD-Arcadia]

"I hate unions, I think they're by and large full of selfish, greedy people that don't give a damn about anybody not in a union." Even if that were true, that would put them on par with what.. management and owners? If you are a worker and you think solidarity with your fellow workers is "greed", pls learn better fast. We are one person weaker without you.

Re:The internet and control

[ultranova]

I hate unions, I think they're by and large full of selfish, greedy people that don't give a damn about anybody not in a union.

So they're like every other corporate entity, then ?

Just think of the unions as companies specializing in providing manpower.

Re:The internet and control

[dwarfking]

This is a true statement, and one of the issues I see with unions, particularly ones like the writers guild. In these cases, the unions end up forcing higher pay even for no-talents just because they are in the union. The talented people don't need the unions as they could get work because of their talent. Unions in this case are there for the benefit of the below-line talents.

So what ends up happening is all costs go up because the union places a strangle hold on an industry.

Today's market does not need unions. There is sufficient competition across the board that there is no real need for union protection of employees. If the shop you work in is a sweat shop with bad management, leave and work at a competitor that isn't a sweat shop. Eventually the company goes out of business or changes its business practices. In the early part of the 1900's that wasn't possible as there were less options, but today things are different.

So now, unions exist to prop up the mediocre, raising costs and causing problems for everyone else.

Straw poll: how many /.'ers are members of a programmer's union?

Re:The internet and control

[kalirion]

The average screen writer makes very little money in the first place, then to deny them any of the profits from redistribution in a digital form on the internet is just stealing.

You're not going to win lots of support on slashdot with a view that distribution of any content on the internet can be equated to stealing.

Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

Hmm, so all the writers need is actors, stagehands, a set, and all the other stuff required to produce a movie and they can make it and distribute it online. Maybe they could organize all these things together and call it a "production company". Thatll show those studios!

This isnt the end of studios, those amatuerish videos on YouTube may be entertaining but you will still need large organizations to produce anything complex. The only thing that will change is that some of the marketing and sales may be different.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[UbuntuDupe]

Well, writers could feasibly bypass the studios by doing Red-vs-Blue type movies (forget the name for that type of animation). Presumably there's a software package more specifically tailored for this kind of movie-making so you don't have to use all kinds of workarounds?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[bahwi]

You are 100% correct. But the new studios will not have the ownership, perception of power, and complacency of the old studios. Or at least not as great.

Lots of small indie films that have hit it big have been from small studios or even just groups of people coming together to do it(still takes 10-50 people) but it's doable and has been done before.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Rie Beam]

The thing is, though, is that while all of those people are necessary for the production of a high-quality product, they are all offshots of the kernel that is the writer's idea. A producer crafts it, the crew helps create it, and distributors help get it out to others, but without that original idea to bloom off of, you're essentially churning out a fake product.

Mind you, this hasn't stopped studios from producing this crap, but still, writers are the heart of the industry. The whole point of this strike is reimbursement for what it is they actually do, whereas the studios apparently seem to feel that, despite being little more than the shiny wrapping for the actual product, the writer's cut isn't as significant.

This is a battle over content versus packaging. I'm not saying that a writer alone can produce something we'd change the channel or file into the theater to see, but that without their help, there's really no chance we'd end up there, anyway.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[wizardforce]

but you will still need large organizations to produce anything complex.

nonsense. the only thing big companies are capable of doing is creating a movie that costs 200 million to produce, that doesn't mean it's any more "complex" or even "good" all it means is that it is "expensive." granted most of the videos on you tube are crude to say the least but there are also a good number that are at or better than a lot of what hollywood and big studios produce [which as of late isnt all that hard]

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[The Master Control P]

You mean machinima?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

Yes, and if you ask the actors guild they will give a line about how their contribution is the most important to a film. If you ask the special effects guys they will say the same thing about how important theirs is. And so on and so forth. At the end of the day if you have X number of dollars to produce a movie you have to divide it up somehow between the different parties. If the writers come along and say they think their effort is worth several times what they are currently paid you either have to get more money to make your movie or reduce someone else's compensation. And dont kid youself, even if you assume the movie profit margins get reduced to zero to pay everyone thats not enough to cover substantial increases in cost across the board.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

You cant produce something like Lord of the Rings with a webcam and a youtube account. As long as people are willing to pay 7 bucks for a ticket to see movies like Lord of the Rings there will be a reason for large production companies to exist.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Rie Beam]

You honestly expect me to believe that the issue here is that the studios aren't make enough money?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

That isnt what I said at all. I said that it costs X number of dollars to produce a movie. You cannot substantially increase everyone's pay without going above X. Therefore you either have to reduce someone else's compensation in order to give someone (the writers) a raise or pass the cost onto consumers. (raise ticket prices) Believe it or not studios do not enjoy massive profit margins that they could use to double everyone's compensation if they wanted to. (as an example viacom enjoys a 13% profit margin, although that is the average across their entire business)

If you support the writers and you want them to make more money thats fine, but understand that over the long term that means some combination of less money for other people who produce the film and higher costs for consumers. Thats just basic economics/arithmetic.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Oligonicella]

I write. Not screen plays, but stories. There is a butt-load more writing to do in a story that is to be delivered in print form than in a screen-play, which is really no more than a guideline for the director. The dialogue, scenes and action can and will change before it's committed. Even event sequences change. Given all that, the screen play writer is no more important than anyone else for a movie.

If you doubt me, pull one up online. There are plenty out there. Read it and then compare to the movie.

And as for your concept that the others simply support the idea of the writer, you are wrong. Most movies come from writers, but many come from a producer or director who hires a writer to flesh out an idea.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably there's a software package more specifically tailored for this kind of movie-making so you don't have to use all kinds of workarounds? Yea, it's called "let the game studio do all the CGI animation work for you, so you just have to write the plot and do the voice acting." Also known as Machinima.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[UbuntuDupe]

Ah yes, that. Now, the name of the open source software package that's as easy to use as Halo for showing people moving around, but much more extensible?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[wizardforce]

You cant produce something like Lord of the Rings with a webcam and a youtube account

I dont care how much money they throw at the problem, if their storyline/plot are bad the movie is BAD. no amount of eye candy and pretty shots are going to fix it. LOTR did well because of the plot not so much because of the effects. take the plot away and you've got a mediocre movie that really isnt worth watching. that being said, money can improve a plot but it can not in its self make a good movie. then there's the motivation for creating the film in the first place, when your loyalty is to the almighty dollar sign, its that much easier to create boat loads of half baked movies.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[SW6]

You are 100% correct. But the new studios will not have the ownership, perception of power, and complacency of the old studios. Or at least not as great.

You appear to have misspelt "Or at least not yet" there. Power corrupts.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[easyTree]

Hmm, so all the writers need is actors, stagehands, a set, and all the other stuff required to produce a movie and they can make it and distribute it online. Maybe they could organize all these things together and call it a "production company". Thatll show those studios!

This isnt the end of studios, those amatuerish videos on YouTube may be entertaining but you will still need large organizations to produce anything complex. The only thing that will change is that some of the marketing and sales may be different.

You miss the point. This is about (not that I've read the article) a shift in power. Rather than the talentless middlemen making all the money, why can't it be the writers?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[TheMCP]

This isnt the end of studios, those amatuerish videos on YouTube may be entertaining but you will still need large organizations to produce anything complex. The only thing that will change is that some of the marketing and sales may be different.

I agree, but I think some additional considerations need to be made.

The barrier to entry is much lower today. It used to be that just the cost of a couple cameras and a darkroom and film and chemicals was prohibitive. Now you can get all you need to film a pro quality movie digitally for a few grand, and edit it on a desktop computer.

Special effects still take a lot of time and money, but they're also done on ordinary computers now, so if you limit the scope of the effects you could have a special effect or two in a cheap movie.

Another important aspect is to consider that these people could choose to organize differently than the existing studios. The existing studios were all organized on the model of a rich guy with a bunch of money hiring a bunch of people to make movies... so the studio pays the workers, and then the studio gets the profit from the movie. (Yes, we know that over time royalties have evolved, but nonetheless the studio gets the biggest cut and a lot of people still get no cut.) Now, these people could get together and start their own new studio that's employee owned, with profit sharing, so when they make a movie they also make the profits. It might not attract big stars who want to get absurdly large percentages, but it might result in some real art.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[dave562]

You miss the point. This is about (not that I've read the article) a shift in power. Rather than the talentless middlemen making all the money, why can't it be the writers?

Because those "talentless middle men" bring EVERYONE ELSE together. Productions are FREAKING HUGE operations. Do you live in Los Angeles by any chance? Have you ever seen what is involved with a production? I work in downtown Los Angeles at a building with a loading dock on Lower Grand Avenue. Lower Grand Avenue is in so many productions it is ridiculous. You might notice these two off the top of my head... Die Hard 4, Robocop. The studios just got done shooting a pretty serious scene for the upcoming Eagle Eye there on Lower Grand. Those guys were camped out there for the better part of TWO WEEKS. I never saw any of the filming, but I'm guessing that it was pretty special effects intensive given the large numbers of destroyed cars around there. When movies are shot it requires an entire village of people. They even bring in their own cops.

So sure, a writer can come up with a script, gee whiz, great. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Now who is going to go find all of the locations that the writer envisioned so that the script can be shot? Take a look at the Bourne Ultimatium. That was a pretty damn good movie based on a well written book. It also happened to take place in some pretty big cities and rather crowded PUBLIC places. Do you think it's easy to secure access to shoot in those kind of places? Maybe the writer can just go down there with a bull horn and say, "Excuse me people! I'm trying to shoot a movie here. Would you all kindly just ignore all of the camera equipment and microphones and MAJOR INCONVENIENCE to your life while we shoot this thing?" And trust me, dealing with Hollywood when they are shooting a movie is a major inconvenience. Those bastards think that they own the place, and to a certain extent, they do because they've paid large sums of money to whatever city and private businesses that they are taking over for as long as it takes to get the shot.

I can't speak for everyone involved in the productions. I'm sure that most of them would like to see the writers get a "fair deal". But the fact of the matter is that the writers strike is influencing more than just "the studios" and "talentless middle men." There are thousands of people who aren't working right now because productions are being put on hold. Those thousands of people require organization to get them together and focused on getting the job done. Until I actually saw first hand what goes into even shooting a single scene, I never understood how massive it was. As a brief example, Hallie Berry (or however you spell her name) shot a Revlon commercial where I work. There were about thirty people there for about a day and a half. When I finally saw the commercial on television, the scene that they shot at my work was about 2-3 seconds worth of the commercial. Thirty people over a day and a half to get 2-3 seconds worth of footage?! That doesn't even include the time it took the editor and all of the post production people to put it together. And the commercial itself was about 10-15 seconds. They were probably shooting that stupid thing for a good month or two.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[chromatic]

First Life?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[IamTheRealMike]

If you did LotR without the graphics, painted scenery, costumes, epic music and special effects you'd have theatre. There's a reason cinema is way more popular than theatre - these things matter and can really take a story to the next level.

Oh, also I don't agree that if the story is bad a film can't be successful. Look at the first Star Wars movie. The plot was derivative, predictable crap. It was an amazing success because it just had that magical something to it, and awesome special effects.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[chromatic]

You cannot substantially increase everyone's pay without going above X. Therefore you either have to reduce someone else's compensation in order to give someone (the writers) a raise or pass the cost onto consumers.

... or find new markets or sources of income, such as DVD sales and Internet distribution.

This raises three questions. First, if (as the argument goes) a DVD boxed set with commentary from the writers and producers and showrunner is worth more than a DVD boxed set without that commentary, why does the studio ask the writers and producers and showrunner to contribute their work in making that commentary for free?

Second, if Internet distribution really isn't making any money, why are the studios doing it?

Third, if Internet distribution is an investment which the studios hope will make money, what's the harm in giving writers residuals as a percentage of revenue? If it doesn't work, the studios aren't out anything. If it does work, it's the same recompense system as any other form of distribution: small screen, rentals, DVD sales, big screen, syndication, etc.

The problem is that there's now a system in which creators can bypass all of the middlemen (studios, distributors) and reach their audiences directly. The studios don't like that and want to bypass everyone else (creators, distributors).

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Wombat]

I think your comment that there is a "butt-load" more writing to do on a story than a screenplay, while perhaps accurate from your point of view, is phrased in an inflammatory way that simplifies the truth.

Screenwriting and playwriting are inherently collaborative arts; what is on the written page is not the finished product, but it is a finished product. The changes made during shooting or rehearsals are akin, I feel, to the work of a series of editors, but in no way diminish the screenwriter's initial work or contribution.

The final movie may differ considerably from the initial screenplay, but the first writer most likely worked just as hard as you do on a story, through dozens of drafts, to get something tight enough to become a movie. There's a certain amount of letting go, however, once it passes out of the creator's hands. Other people may tamper with the writing, may change it to something that doesn't reflect at all what someone originally wrote.

Directors of plays, while keeping the essential text, can sometimes change the meaning entirely through staging.

These are things that writers for the stage and screen accept as givens. If they wanted total control, they would write novels or stories as you do. But simply because it's a collaborative art does not mean that writers are not entitled to fair compensation for their contribution.

We've all got to make a living.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Redbaran]

money can improve a plot but it can not in its self make a good movie

I agree with you 100% on that point, but I would also point out that a lack of money could also take away from a plot. Try to imagine what some of your favorite movies would have been like with out the capital required for many of the special effects that were integral to the plot.

Technology and the various forms of special effects in a movie walk a fine line, too much and it distracts from the plot and too little prevents the viewer from seeing the plot correctly, but, just the right amount enables a movie to tell a story. If you see a movie with terrible production quality, you'll likely sit in your seat more focused on the terrible effects rather than the story.

I would summarize by saying that all that money is there to support the story/plot, so you need both money and a story. Some movies certainly require more support/money than others because of their nature, so I don't think we can completely discount the role of big production studios.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[ducomputergeek]

The Studios (TM), meaning those who control production and distribution are becoming obsolete. Production studios (What you mean) aren't. However, there are facilities that you can rent out for several thousand dollars per day/month that have all the equipment. All you have to provide are the actors. Hell, "The Studios(TM)" even rent out spaces from such facilities anymore.

I think Sin City only had most of the actors on stage for 1 or 2 days. I forget the total amount of time they actual shot principle photography. But I IIRC it was just a few days. If you have a tight script and good director and spend a few months planning in advanced...

Hiring a good PR/Advertising firm and going to digital downloads may be the future.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[RobertLTux]

big hint time to play "Will it Blend??" you need
1 a target
2 ????
3 a Camera

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[kaizokuace]

getting together a production company isnt as difficult or costly as one might think. If you just walk on a set you will see the amount of waste going on. Actors dont have to be treated better than anyone on set and have gophers at their every beck and call. If you are frugal about it a film can be made rather cheaply (relative to current production costs). Also every movie doesnt have to be an insane blockbuster. If there is some good writing a movie can be carried on its character interaction alone. But it seems that the industry as a whole cant think of anything new so they just remake old movies/tv shows/books/comics etc. A group that just gets back to the basics of film making, I think, can really make a difference in the way things are done.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

I always hear people say things like "running a company that does xyz isnt that hard and could be done a hundred times more efficiently". If you really believe that this is the case why dont you go do it and become a bazillionaire? After all our economic system is structured in such a way that if there actually is a better way to run a company you are free to go do it and reap the rewards.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Scrameustache]

I dont care how much money they throw at the problem, if their storyline/plot are bad the movie is BAD. no amount of eye candy and pretty shots are going to fix it. LOTR did well Except that Transformer is nothing but eye candy, and Transformer did well, too.
There's no business like show business. And they know the formula: Throw in pretty people with car chases and explosions, and the teenagers will come and give you money.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[kaizokuace]

Yea but you forget, some people don't wanna make a movie. I didn't say it was gonna make the movie making process any easier. I am speaking from a financial waste position. So much money could be saved and in turn could be used to pay people(writers) more adequately.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Rie Beam]

"You cannot substantially increase everyone's pay without going above X. Therefore you either have to reduce someone else's compensation in order to give someone (the writers) a raise or pass the cost onto consumers. (raise ticket prices)"

You completely ignore my primary point, though -- that writers are inherently more important to the process than anyone else. 13% profit of hundreds of millions is still a nice chunk of change, regardless of how its measured. I would gladly sack compensation in lesser fields, such as special effects and "studio overhead" for the sake of paying writers better.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[Rie Beam]

Again, though, everything is coming -out- of the original script. No matter how much it may change, or who sparked the original idea, working without a script is still a laughable thought -- you can't change the script if it isn't there, and obviously there's something going on if the "fleshing out" process is something the producer cannot handle himself.

Not every script is a masterpiece, or even readable stand-alone. But unless you're shooting guerrilla footage, improv or the like, a script is still going to be spine of a film, holding it up.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[WilliamSChips]

Wait, by "first" do you mean episode I or IV?

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[wizardforce]

if you did LOTR without a plot it would be fscking awful and you know this. I would rather have a good plot and few effects than a fscking awful plot that was scribbled on a napkin 5 mins prior to shooting the film with awsesome effects and I bet a lot of people would agree. enough in fact that ignoring them is a huge mistake.

Oh, also I don't agree that if the story is bad a film can't be successful. Look at the first Star Wars movie. The plot was derivative, predictable crap. It was an amazing success because it had a significant fan base.

there fixed that for you. like you said, episode one [I assume that's what you meant] had a pretty poor plot, the effects were good but what really mattered was the fact that starwars as a series has a huge number of devoted fans who regardless of the terrible state of the first plot will go dsee it anyway because it is starwars. in other words, it was bad but not bad enough to drive them away. now let me direct your attention to a set of series where good special effects and enormous amounts of money thrown at it were not enough to save them... Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Enterprise.. true that they weren't movie theatre productions but they did fail because of horrible plot lines.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[jorghis]

"So -- Viacom could enjoy at 12% profit margin (still better than retail!) and meet the writers demands of 0.6% on DVD and Internet revenues (3 cents on each $5, wow that's really ball-busting the studios)."

But here is the thing, all the other people who work on the movies get residuals too. (actors, directors, etc.) If you give the writers their .6% everyone else is going to expect their residuals to go up too. So that 12% profit margin will turn into a negative number very quickly if they start tripling and quadrupling employee's residuals.

"I think the real contention comes from the issue of writers wanting a cut of revenues instead of profits -- as the studios for ages have used their corrupt and contorted accounting ..."

Not likely, these kinds of contracts have always been based on revenues rather than profits and the studios arent contesting that at all. Your speculation is incorrect.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[NealokNYU]

While the costs of conventional movie-making are certainly prohibitive, you'd be surprised at possibilities available to a modern filmmaker.

Obviously, the major studios care a LOT about the theatrical box office. Even though the after-market (i.e. DVD, digital, HBO et alii, and on-demand ) has grown into a more powerful earner than the multiplex, the success of the former is conventionally seen as directly proportional to the latter. Every now and then a hiccup occurs like Stephen Soderbergh's Bubble, which was released on DVD and in theaters on the same day. But Bubble was a low-profile exception. Ocean's Thirteen would have been a far more interesting test. To date, no studio has released a tentpole project to market scrutiny across simultaneous media. Sub-studio production houses are even more scared to risk using the after-market as a primary market because they have less money to lose; Think Films risks more releasing Half-Nelson to DVD and theaters at the same time than Sony has to lose by offering Spider-Man 4 HD on the PS3 on the same day it's released in theaters. Studios are taking baby steps with adventures in digital/direct distribution-- cf. the recent Slashdot article about iTunes killing Netflix and Blockbuster as the studios obviate the middleman-- but in terms of initial releases, the studios are scared to try something novel with one of their otherwise sure things.

Why is all this? Because making movies is expensive. I recently worked on a student film shoot that cost a total of approximately $1000 in labor. It was shot on a Panavision Gold II with Super-35mm film. It looks gorgeous, but the producers and director got what they paid for: this 20 minute short cost $45,000. Had they paid for labor or had they not had academic insurance, that cost could have easily doubled or even tripled. For a 20 minute short. To be fair, they were shooting in New York, NY, which boosts every cost across the board.

But the newest iteration of technology boggles the mind. The cost of film and development can be swallowed by the new equipment. Consider, for example, the immediate availability of HD. While you would be hard-pressed to film a studio feature on the Panasonic HVX-200, the quality is still remarkable, and the tricks available to a clever cinematographer with a 35mm lens adapter such as the PS Teknik further extend the range of a filmmaker's visual options. The HVX uses proprietary "P2" cards which fit into any PCMCIA slot. Any movies made never need to see a conventional film format. The Panasonic HVX-200 can be purchased (not even rented!) on ebay for $5,000.

Go up another echelon. The much-ballyhooed Red. The body of the camera can be purchased for $17,000. While this seems like a lot, it's CONSIDERABLY cheaper than the conventional Super-35 route, and renting a Red can be reasonably expected to run cheaper than renting a Panavision Genesis. (The digital camera used to film, among others, Superman Returns.) The Red's capability to awe audiences with its visuals is yet to be seen, but Peter Jackson is very excited, and concerned parties will be watching Wanted--filmed with the Red-- very carefully.

So that's the camera. You pay union rates for teamsters, G&E, sound, etc. These drive up the cost. A lot. Still, if your overall budget is low enough, these costs are commensurately low. Micro-budget, ultra-low budget, and low-budget all command different rates from different unions.

Then you pay more for insurance. This also drives up the cost.

Locations are an x-factor. Depending on where you shoot, they can lower or raise the movie's price tag considerably, especially if you consider tax issues from state to state or country to country. Ditto grants and funds available for foreign investors with the same considerations. It's no accident that so many movies are shot in Sydney and Prague.

Art assets don't come cheaply at all. In the democratized film environment I'm describing, the biggest cutback will be the

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[easyTree]

Yah, I accept your points that planning for location shoots involves large amounts of time and effort. But... 'at the end of the day', at it's core, this planning is a well-understood mechanistic process whose purpose is to enable delivery of the writers' vision. One can specify a list of required skills needed to plan a location shoot and hire the appropriate people to carry it out. When I say one, I mean the writers.

What the writers offer is far less mechanistic or indicidental. Of course you can't measure its importance in terms of numbers of people or budget and so it's easy to dismiss it as incidental but take it away and what have you got?

What you've got is hollywood today, where the focus is on how much money can be spent, how many people are involved, how many locations, explosions, car chases etc. etc. etc. The public have been coached for a number of years on the importance of the budget, with slick (greasy) movie-reviewers rattling on about the numbers with no mention of quality of the content.

This phenomenon is paralleled in the games industry where the games-buying public has for years been trained to consider number of polygons per second rendered an indicator of the quality of the game.

In both cases, the industries have neatly drawn their customers' eyes away from what matters but is difficult to quantify towards something which is incidental but easy to quantify.

Anyway, this is getting off-topic. I'm simply saying that writing is core, that the creators of the writing should be in overall control and hire everyone else to perform the incidental but necessary tasks.

 

There were about thirty people there for about a day and a half. When I finally saw the commercial on television, the scene that they shot at my work was about 2-3 seconds worth of the commercial. Thirty people over a day and a half to get 2-3 seconds worth of footage?! That doesn't even include the time it took the editor and all of the post production people to put it together. And the commercial itself was about 10-15 seconds. They were probably shooting that stupid thing for a good month or two.

If you express a desire to shovel money into a hole, you'd be amazed how deep a hole I can dig.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[ppanon]

Your thesis is quite borne out in certain markets. For a decade, Pixar's movie revenues kicked the arse of most of their competitors including the 800 lb gorilla, Disney, in a medium where the influence by actors is more limited, animation. Why? Because they focused on interesting stories involving engaging characters whereas their competitors had focused on soulless formulaic repetition.

Yeah, interpretation of that story, whether by actors or by animators, can make or break a movie, but even great actors can't save a rotten script.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[elrous0]

Whatever it takes to get the "According to Jim" writers working again is just fine by me. A day without their genius wit is like a day in Hell.

Re:Studios arent obsolete

[elrous0]

If you think for a SECOND that the writers, director's, actors, production designers, wardrobe designers, etc, don't have a HUGE hand in creating a film too, you're nuts. On a major production, a screenwriter may be important, but he is hardly the "be all, end all" of the film. In fact, the script itself is just a guideline or starting point for many, particularly artistic, filmmakers (think Kubrick, David Lynch, Tim Burton, et. al.).

Let's not overinflate the value of a screenwriter. Their heads are already big enough as it is.

good

[superwiz]

This is how it's supposed to work. If they don't like the business terms offered to them, they should work on their own terms.

Net neutrality

[Presto Vivace]

They can control the Internet all right, they just have to dump this pesky net neutrality thingy.

Hollywood learns from Agrentina

[RevWaldo]

If you can't get an agreement with the bosses, just take over the damn factory and run it yourself! http://www.thetake.org/index.cfm?page_name=synopsis It looks like the strike will be settled one deal at a time, like they just did with David Letterman. ( http://gothamist.com/2007/12/29/wga_update_real.php ). The power of the AMPTP has been seriously underminded. The writers will get deals eventually. After all, without writers, how will they make reality TV shows?

amatuerish videos on YouTube

[Presto Vivace]

beats reruns

Re:You mean we can publish our own shit?

[Oligonicella]

Now. Pull up a screen play on the internet, read it and get back to us if it's entertaining or shallow writing.

Real writers need not apply

[pla]

I have no problem with the WGA sticking it to the studios - If the "rights"-holders have no one to write Rocky LVXII, perhaps they won't subject us to it.

I don't care about A-list actors - In most cases, I prefer second-string actors, for whom "hunger" still keeps "ego" in check.

I love the idea of distribution outside MPAA control, for reasons obvious to any Slashdotter.

But... Going back to my Rocky LVXII, I also have little sympathy for the hacks who keep trying to feed us the same trite watered-down simplistic plots week after week after week and summer after summer.



So in all this mess, I don't worry about the actual "writers". I'll buy their books, and perhaps someday go see how badly Hollywood butchers them. But when rehashed All In The Family episodes (which already borrowed extensively from the long-dead classic authors) dominate the tube, with a black lesbian thrown in here and a Jewish skinhead there just to make it seem "new", I fail to see why these people deserve more than token compensation.

I can only imagine applying that to my own profession - "Look! I wrote a hello world program where an animated stoned cat spells it out using poop! Pay me forever for the online distribution rights!"

Re:Real writers need not apply

[Monkeyman334]

They've been giving us shit for years and now they're claiming that they're the victims. I haven't owned a tv in 4 years. Really, I would be better off if cable went away, because then I wouldn't have to hear gossip about tv at work.

Re:Real writers need not apply

[andphi]

As with anything else, according to Sturgeon's Law, most of what is written for TV, Movies, and internet-direct distribution is crap. We mostly notice the 90%, and wonder why writers deserve more money. However, the current deal seems to give the short end of the stick to the 10% of writers who do their jobs well. Note also, that your 10% of quality and my 10% of quality may be entirely different.

The best way to make sure the good stay in the market is for the Studioes to give them their fair share of the people's opinion of them and then let them sink or swim on their own merits. Bad series and bad writers will fall by the way while the good series and good writers will be able to thrive more easily and produce better quality material.

I mostly side with the writers, though the plight of the New York / Hollywood IATSE motion picture techies is worrisome and an unfortunate consequence of the Writers' attempt to get their fair share.

See?!

[jrwr00]

Now if its down well, even with DRM, and was cheap (like 15$ a movie cheap) i would prolly use it, because i know for a fact that they did all the work, with almost no backing :)

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Adambomb]

The writers of content are not the ones held responsible for the closed captioning of their transcripts. Don't you notice those message saying "Closed captioning by: ". If they wish to move a significant amount of their content, once it begins in earnest they would have to find a solution to not having standardized CC or face this exact issue.

It's just not in the realm of their focus until theres a significant portion releasing their creations via the internet. I'm not saying it makes your point incorrect that this makes internet solutions near useless for your situation, just that its a matter of what distribution maintains a "mainstream" status.

Do it old school

[sokoban]

You know, the writers could always go back to doing what writers did before the advent of movie studios, TV networks, and the like. There are these things called "Books" and "Plays" which are considerably easier and less costly to form into a finished product than movies and TV shows are.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

I have 5 out from the local library right now, and have that very book on hold -- they refused to give it to me when the computer told me it had arrived for me to pick up (4 times in a row, sheesh, one email was enough!) - but we'll see. (What's up with the "we won't give you your book yet" thing anyway? I've never had them conveniently tell me it was an "error" before).

The fact that I watch TV (and that the few shows I watch are all rerunning the same shit I've already seen) doesn't mean at all that I don't have other hobbies. I LOVE to read. Especially with a cold glass of chocolate milk at hand.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

Actually, the law REQUIRES that you have captions on your show. You can farm out the job or have someone else pay for it, but the law says that it has to be there. The mechanism to show them has had to be built into all TVs 13" or larger since 1991 (and smaller sets can have it if they want; Mom's kitchen TV at her house has a caption decoder that shows really, really small captions. I think it's cute).

The technology to do the same with digital films has been in existence for at least 5 years, and yet almost no one uses it even though captions were very very widespread even before their existence was mandated and before every TV had to include the function.

These people know that Internet distribution is never captioned, yet they are using it anyway. If you work in the TV industry you know how important captions are, and yet they're leaving us high and dry anyway. In other industries where the jobs in question didn't directly deal with TV every day, I could accept the fact that they might not know about the problem, but TV/movie studios? It's THEIR JOBS to know.

I meant it when I said that they need to be held responsible for this and directly asked what they have to say to the deaf/hard of hearing community. (in an interview reprinted online and shown on a captioned news broadcast, of course).

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[UbuntuDupe]

There are always going to be holes in catering to those with disabilities. Someone's always going to be e.g. deaf and blind. For my part, various medical difficulties make it so I can't feasibly sit through a movie (though luckily those problems are getting corrected).

The good news is that voice recognition is improving every day, to the point that closed-captioning could be automated. Also, I wonder what the barriers are to crowdsourcing it? Let bored/low-wage people all over the world transcribe the dialogue, it can't be that hard, right?

Re:You mean we can publish our own shit?

[Punto]

what's your point? that "internet fanfiction" is never going to be good enough as the work of "real writers"? it will be once writers start exploring the medium themselves, this guys are taking the first step.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

Good luck - I hope whatever they're doing works. Unfortunately my problem is dead nerve cells in my cochlea caused by prenatal rubella (not listening to an ipod too loud or anything) and is going to require stem cell therapy to fix and the research is still ongoing (I know; some of it is going on at the medical school where I work).

Unfortunately, I have no faith in crowdsourcing -- if you want it done in a timely fashion (the appeal of episodic TV is gone if you miss a show and can't see it before the next one runs. YOu've missed the story, you can't follow the plot. It has to be done on the spot.

Live captioning is still done using modified stenography machines. You still need a typist to do it. Voice recognition isn't god enough yet.

No, this has to be done at the source. Just like for TV and movies.

This is not about the Internet.

[SanityInAnarchy]

There are MANY subtitle formats, and MANY container formats. As for "getting paid enough", you obviously haven't been following the story. It's not that they're not getting paid enough, it's that they're not getting paid fairly. This is an industry where individual actors can be paid millions of dollars, so there is absolutely no excuse to cut the writers out. But your credibility goes away when we remember that the writers are "whining" about not getting paid, and you're whining about not being entertained -- I wonder which is more important? But back to the issue at hand... I can put SRT, SSA, ASS, even VOBSUB, combined with pretty much any audio/video format (personal favorite is h.264 for video, and one of vorbis/aac/ac3 or even FLAC for audio), into a Matroska (MKV) file. Or, I can download any container format, even an AVI, if someone is willing to distribute subtitles with it -- I've currently been watching Battlestar Galactica in XVid and AC3 in an AVI container, and I hear well enough not to need subtitles, but it also came with Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish subtiles, all in separate SRT files. There's also the stupid fansubs which embed subtitles in the video itself, but the reason I mention these other formats is, they allow subtitles to be easily distributed with every file. No one's going to bother to strip subtitles out of the mkv, which means that even if 99% of us don't turn them on, you'll be able to, no matter where you get the file from. So, if you're going to complain about a lack of closed-captioning, don't do it here on Slashdot. Take it to the projects which are planning to do this online distribution. Tell them about formats like Matroska, or at least SRT. But to pretend that the Internet is less "accessible" just because most people are lazy and only throw things on YouTube is a bit insulting to anyone who works on these formats.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[Buran]

If someone is going to do something that doesn't accomodate the disabled, and I've ALREADY SAID that I know the technology exists, but I also said that it never gets used, don't tell me where I can and can't talk about it. The fact that I'm talking about it here doesn't mean I might not have brought up the topic elsewhere. Ignoring the disabled is a SERIOUS issue.

I also don't care if you don't think my argument has any credibility to it. I'd love to see you laugh off the problem of disability access to those of us who depend on the ADA and other similar laws including the TDCA to get the basic services we need to do the same things that "normal" people enjoy.

If you think my argument is bullshit, rebut it with actual information such as a plan to ensure that these internet-distributed shows will indeed actually carry subtitles.

I didn't think so.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you think my argument is bullshit, rebut it with actual information such as a plan to ensure that these internet-distributed shows will indeed actually carry subtitles.

Then present your argument better. You started off railing about how there won't be subtitles, then clarified with something like "Oh, but they can do subtitles, but I just know they won't."

As such, it seemed fairly luddite and absurd.

Now, your argument seems to be more along the lines of "I want some assurance that they'll do subtitles." And yes, but don't approach that as either being anti-Internet or specifically targeting Internet legislation. I'd look more for some option to get subtitles on any video, anywhere. Something like Captel might be a start.

Oh, by the way: This production seems to have quite a few subtitles, including English. They're fansubs, but they are in SRT format. They also seem to have Windows Media and Quicktime, which I assume means WMV9/VC1 and h.264, which also means (if you care) that you could probably play these all on Linux, using entirely native codecs.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[Buran]

I should not have to pay for captions. Let me hammer that in again: For a medium that is supposed to replace a widely-accessible medium, captions should already be in place. It is an insult and a slap in the face to the millions of viewers who literally depend on those subtitles. A replacement solution needs to be in place, and it cannot be a windows-only solution. It cannot have a fee. TV doesn't have a fee beyond any cable/sat charges, wheelchair users aren't charged for ramps, elevators, etc., so why should I have to pay any charges over what normal-hearing people would pay?

And it's nice that some random fan production has captions. But we're not talking about captions. We're talking about moving shows from TV to the Internet. Those shows are captioned now. They NEED to be captioned in the future when they move online. Throwing me a total red herring that I have no interest in does not solve the problem.

I'd still also like someone to show me the plans for making sure these offerings are accessible.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[Buran]

Whoops -- meant to say "we're not talking about some random no-name fan production, no matter how slick the site or movie looks".

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I should not have to pay for captions.

Did I say you should have to? No, actually, I said:

Something like Captel might be a start.

Now, from the Captioned Telephone website, we have:

In many states, CapTel equipment is provided free or at a reduced rate to people with hearing loss.

In other words, get the government to pay for it.

it cannot be a windows-only solution.

Agreed. All of the technologies I listed will work on VLC and mplayer, on Linux and Mac, and on Windows, if you insist.

wheelchair users aren't charged for ramps, elevators, etc.

But not all buildings are wheelchair accessible.

And it's nice that some random fan production has captions.

Erm, look again. It is an A-list team, making a production exclusively (so far) for the Internet -- probably a direct result of the writer's strike. There are multiple fan groups making subtitles for this show. (Not full captioning, I'd assume, as in, no sound effects as text, but speech at least -- and in at least five or six languages so far.)

To be absolutely clear: The show is commercial, professional quality. The subs are done by fans -- fansubs, if you will.

Throwing me a total red herring that I have no interest in does not solve the problem.

Well, obviously not enough interest to even read the website. Sorry to have wasted your ridiculously precious time.

Try not being so bitter. It helps.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[Buran]

I'd be stunned if the government did anything to fix the web-media-doesn't-have-captions problem in anything less than a decade, by which time the target technology will be something else... I also honestly fail to see how a telephone captioning service can put captions on a video screen.

You'd be bitter too if you've had to cope with years and years of bad advice, no matter how well-intentioned, and constantly finding that designers of new technologies failed to consider the deaf in their designs.

Such as, there's no way to transmit closed caption data over HDMI so those of us who can't hear who want to use new digital video equipment are probably out of luck. I can't connect an HDMI upscaling DVD player to my HDTV and expect to see captions because of this lovely piece of stupidity, for example.

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'd be stunned if the government did anything to fix the web-media-doesn't-have-captions problem in anything less than a decade

That is the fault of the government, then, not the web media.

I also honestly fail to see how a telephone captioning service can put captions on a video screen.

It was an example of how the government can help with this sort of thing.

Such as, there's no way to transmit closed caption data over HDMI

So your TV won't be able to do the subtitles directly, but I don't really see the point of that. Games and movies have their own subtitles long before it hits the HDMI link.

I can't connect an HDMI upscaling DVD player to my HDTV and expect to see captions because of this lovely piece of stupidity, for example.

Out of curiosity, how is closed captioning done on DVDs, other than through subtitle tracks? (And more importantly, why are they done other than through subtitle tracks?)

Re:This is not about the Internet.

[Buran]

Closed captions. Which actually work through RCA and S-Video and sometimes component, but not through HDMI or DVI. And I can't find any info about HD players that create the captions on their side (the way the tivo series 3 I have now does) to bypass this problem.

I realize it's a government problem, but how often does the government act to actually sere its citizens? It's only fast when it's serving itself.

And those of us who need that help just can't wait that long.

Whoops, reposting with paragraphs.

[SanityInAnarchy]

There are MANY subtitle formats, and MANY container formats.

As for "getting paid enough", you obviously haven't been following the story. It's not that they're not getting paid enough, it's that they're not getting paid fairly. This is an industry where individual actors can be paid millions of dollars, so there is absolutely no excuse to cut the writers out. But your credibility goes away when we remember that the writers are "whining" about not getting paid, and you're whining about not being entertained -- I wonder which is more important?

But back to the issue at hand... I can put SRT, SSA, ASS, even VOBSUB, combined with pretty much any audio/video format (personal favorite is h.264 for video, and one of vorbis/aac/ac3 or even FLAC for audio), into a Matroska (MKV) file. Or, I can download any container format, even an AVI, if someone is willing to distribute subtitles with it -- I've currently been watching Battlestar Galactica in XVid and AC3 in an AVI container, and I hear well enough not to need subtitles, but it also came with Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish subtiles, all in separate SRT files.

There's also the stupid fansubs which embed subtitles in the video itself, but the reason I mention these other formats is, they allow subtitles to be easily distributed with every file. No one's going to bother to strip subtitles out of the mkv, which means that even if 99% of us don't turn them on, you'll be able to, no matter where you get the file from.

So, if you're going to complain about a lack of closed-captioning, don't do it here on Slashdot. Take it to the projects which are planning to do this online distribution. Tell them about formats like Matroska, or at least SRT. But to pretend that the Internet is less "accessible" just because most people are lazy and only throw things on YouTube is a bit insulting to anyone who works on these formats.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[91degrees]

You're going to be out of luck for a bit. Sorry. You're a fairly small, slightly more expensive segment of the market.

You (or rather the lobby groups representing you) are going to have to go through all the hassle of getting the same rights all over again.

Re-Runs ad nauseum

[Migraineman]

I recently had a conversation about the writers' strike. My co-worker was completely oblivious. She had noticed that there seemed to be more re-runs on recently, but otherwise the TV programming seemed pretty normal. Makes me wonder if Joe Sixpack would ever notice if the broadcasters just played re-runs from now on. It'd certainly cut production costs ...

I still fail to see why this particular industry *needs* a union. The whole sense of entitlement astonishes me.

XKCD on writers strike

[Cyberax]

http://xkcd.com/360/ - insightful and funny as usual.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Adambomb]

Look, I know I cannot understand the frustrations you deal with not being hearing impaired myself. But you're blaming the wrong dog.

Closed captioning allows persons with hearing disabilities to have access to television programming by displaying the audio portion of a television program as text on the television screen. Beginning in July 1993, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required all analog television receivers with screens 13 inches or larger sold or manufactured in the United States to contain built-in decoder circuitry to display closed captioning. Beginning July 1, 2002, the FCC also required that digital television (DTV) receivers include closed captioning display capability.

In 1996, Congress required video programming distributors (cable operators, broadcasters, satellite distributors, and other multi-channel video programming distributors) to close caption their television programs. In 1997, the FCC set a transition schedule requiring distributors to provide an increasing amount of captioned programming, as summarized below. If the FCC had put the onus on the CREATORS of the content from the start, then there would be a reason to expect them to have their changes follow suit when releasing content directly to the internet. The problem is the onus has been on the DISTRIBUTORS not the creators of the content to have them closed captions.

Source: http://ftp.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/closedcaption.html

You're right to be angry, but i just think you're angry at the wrong people.

Maybe sometimes?

[Junta]

I've watched a fair share of CC, and even on non-live programs, I have to wonder if sometimes some dictation software was used then edited. I can hear and can tell when things are omitted, or off base. Sometimes *really* off base. Examples:
"Seeing my family is very important to me" was what was said.
"Seeing my family is very porn" was the CC.
"Miss Universe" was the audio, CCed as: "Miss Urine Verse"

Or it could have been a person who wanted to slip some humor in...

Re:Maybe sometimes?

[Buran]

Those are live-caption shows where a stenography machine was used. Those work on phonetics which is why you see strange errors like the last one you listed. "Universe" is a less common word than the two that replaced it so the software defaulted to the strange error -- it's a computer, so it doesn't know any better. The operator can override the mistake on the fly, so perhaps you may have seen it corrected later on in the broadcast.

These sorts of things are less likely to happen if the operator has time to prepare and knows whether any unusual terminology will be used as part of the broadcast.

Another sign of live captions is that they scroll slowly across the screen word by word rather than appear all at once, and sometimes new paragraphs begin with a >>> mark.

I prefer the pre-written sort because the scrolling and errors drive me crazy but live captions are better than none.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

The end result is the same however and it's the creator's job to ensure that captions are put in. The distributor's job is just to get the finished product to the end customer. I think the actual implementation of the rule (and thank you for the link - I had forgotten that the rollover for 75% of captioning being required is next week) winds up being that distributors will refuse to air shows that don't have captioning, so that they can meet the requirement, so producers are forced to put the captions in if they want their programming to be seen by the public.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[forkazoo]

I'm partly deaf. Require captions to watch TV and movies. These Internet films never have captions even when the viewers can handle it (I know Quicktime Player can, I think WM Player can too, iTunes has a menu item for it).

Sadly, none of the American TV I download ever has subs/captions. I don't need them, but I can see how they would be useful. OTOH, there is a ton of Japanese stuff that naturally comes with English language subtitles when you download it. You may not be able to find something you like, but it is probably worth a look if you are bored and looking for some novel video content.

As far as support, I know ogg, mkv, and QuickTime movies all support test tracks. I don't think AVI does at all, except burned into the image, and I have no idea about WMV, so I wouldn't be surprised if Windows Media Player has pretty poor support. You'll probably never see 100% of Internet content with captions, but one of the good things about the Internet is the relative ease of interaction between creator and audience. Hopefully, you and others in your situation will be able to convince a large number of producers of the value of including text tracks. If nothing else, it'll expand the international appeal of content because it is a hell of a lot easier to translate something for yourself when you see it written down than when you are going, "I wonder what the hell that guy just said."

Animal Farm anyone?

[EdIII]

Maybe I have just got so cynical over the years.. but the first thing I thought of when I heard this was the book by Orwell, Animal Farm. The writers are going to BECOME what they hate. They now have the impetus to form their own distribution channels. They are not bypassing the Movie Studios. They are BECOMING the Movie Studios. If they do actually pull it off, maybe they will have better compensation packages for the writers in the long term. I am still reminded though, that power corrupts and that the *new* Movie Studios may start abusing some other principal in the long chain of people and companies getting such fine works to our collective eyeballs. I hope that is just my cynicism acting up. Maybe if the writers were compensated more they would come up with better programming.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

Where do you live? I'd be curious to know if your location has any kind of requirement like we do to caption public TV. It's implemented such that you don't see it if you don't want to so it-s a win-win for everyone. I know that I once saw a Macgyver episode in Greece, open-subtitled in Greek, that I couldn't watch because I can't read Greek and I need captions ... very frustrating! The only reason I could follow the story at all was because I had seen the episode before.

Re:Abstractness Overload

[TaoPhoenix]

Dear AC,

You must be preferring this:

"Hey man. To you and all the other sour posters up there, you should see how they trash the scripts we try to deliver. But that's irrelevant from us making enough to pay the rent, you know? So, try to separate your unhappiness from my occupation".

Law of Unintended Consequences

[PRR]

My gut feeling is that this whole thing will probably resolve fairly plainly, with the writers getting an incremental increase in pay and digital/web rights or whatever.

However, it is interesting to think of the "Unintended Consequences" angle... that this strike really forced writers and tech impresarios to get together in a way unlike before. Who knows the result?

Maybe this really will be the beginning of a significant snowball to switch over from the old "TV centric" way of watching to a "Net centric" way... which in turn might be yet another thing helping push for fatter pipes, denser screen resolutions, faster processing, etc.

Re:So, the WGA writers do write FUD, huh?

[AusIV]

First off, if the internet were a desirable business model for the traditional 22-48 minutes TV program, someone would already have monetized it.

That reminds me of the quote by 1899 patent commissioner Charles H. Duell "everything that can be invented has been invented." Just because something could be a viable business model doesn't mean it already is. Plus, there's never been a better time for Web based programming: the major networks have lost their writers and have been reduced to showing reruns. Now is the perfect time to compete with them.

Second, if the writers could pull their shit together and own their own studios and then sell the product to the major networks, all of this would be moot.

Historically, this has never been a good business model. Historically it has made more sense for the writers to work directly for the networks. Only very recently has bandwidth gotten cheap enough for the web to be a viable distribution outlet for video, so it's the first time in history that the studios can exist without the networks.

Third, the networks are owned by serious people with serious attorneys. They're not going to bow to some moronic argument made up by some dipshit who decides he's gonna take his football and go home.

The writers contracts have expired, and they're refusing to renew until they get a better deal. It's the networks' own faults that the contracts expired mid-season, and you can't force someone to sign a contract if they're willing not to work for you. If the networks' lawyers could prevent the writers from quitting or going to do something else, they'd have done it by now.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[UbuntuDupe]

I find it hard to believe that, given the right software, a fan of a tv show (or even someone just fluent in the language) couldn't transcribe it. Also, I find it hard to believe they would require more than $30 per hour of programming. Why must they be transcribing in coordination with the production crew? I don't see any errors that would result, assuming they have e.g. character names.

$30/hour of transcription (hour is more like 42 minutes) is above the wage typically awarded on mturk, but a drop in the bucket in terms of a typical show's budget. Probably a fraction of a drop. My guess is it has more to do with the possibility of them pirating it (even though it's already easy to pirate...)

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Adambomb]

yeah the end result IS the same.

keep this in mind too though, the internet is global, and as we've mentioned repeatedly on /. the USA doesn't legislate to the ENTIRE world yet. Although i see this as a good thing in general, it does also mean that the good ideas aren't universal either.

Plus there could be lobbyists. One thing the industry might fear would be an inversion of the current process where many copyrighted internet broadcasts are only available to American subnets, but not to the wider world. If captioning internet broadcast was legislated, they would have to be able to enforce having non-captioned material on foreign servers from playing to American IPs. Which would be seen as censorship, because technically it would be.

man, humanity makes my head hurt.

Writers Union?

[houghi]

And here I was buying things on DVD and over the Internet, because the MPAA told me I was otherwise stealing from the writers and such.

I am confused now.

Salaried professionals

[markjhood2003]

It's my understanding that these writers are on staff, earning regular salaries. How are they in principal different from professional software developers working for Silicon Valley companies? If their pay is miserably low, sure, striking for better pay is reasonable, but why should they get paid residuals every time the product of their work brings in income for their employers?

Re:Salaried professionals

[Wombat]

Some television writers are on staff, others are freelance: WGA covers them all.

A motion picture screen writer is generally freelance, and has very few screenplays that actually become movies; they'll write for years to come up with a story that a studio will even think about investing in, much less turn into a film.

If he or she an unknown screenwriter, the studio might buy a script for $40,000 (or less) then go on to make millions. It seems to me that if the studio continues to make money off that property for decades, the author who invested 3 years of his/her life into it deserves a bit more that one year of middle class income.

Re:Salaried professionals

[xMilkmanDanx]

Maybe salary, maybe for tv series. And then only if it is a particularly long running tv series. For movie writers, much like authors, there's one decent check every 1-4 years. The residuals are what keep them afloat while writing their next piece and trying to get someone to produce it.

Re:Salaried professionals

[Ken_g6]

It's my understanding that these professional software developers are on staff, earning only regular salaries. How are they in principal different from writers working for the media companies? If their pay is extremely high, sure, striking for better pay is unreasonable, but why shouldn't they get paid residuals every time the product of their work brings in income for their employers?

That's what we'd be saying if we had a software developers' union. It's all just a matter of perspective.

Re:Salaried professionals

[njen]

Well then the writer should have sold it for more. The fact that a studio will make $100,000 or $100,000,000 is of no matter if the writer sold the story for a set price. If the writer thought the script was a money maker, they should have negotiated better, like the rest of us. Do they need their hands held?

Re:Salaried professionals

[Asic Eng]

[...] they should have negotiated better [...] Do they need their hands held?

That's what they are doing just now: they are negotiating. Striking is just a part of the negotiation process. Apparently they don't need help with that.

Re:Salaried professionals

[Asic Eng]

[...] why should they get paid residuals every time the product of their work brings in income for their employers?

As an engineer I typically get a salary and stock options, in some companies I get a bonus, too. I guess it would be just as reasonable to get a higher salary and no bonus or stock options. But that's merely a contractual detail - it's open to negotiation, just as anything else. So why should the writers not get paid residuals in addition to a salary? If that's the way they want to get paid, they are free to negotiate for these conditions.

Re:Salaried professionals

[njen]

Striking isn't negotiating. I mean their personal negotiations. I don't strike when I negotiate my contracts...sigh

Re:Salaried professionals

[Asic Eng]

Striking isn't negotiating.

I'm not sure how you want to support that notion. If you go to your boss and say "I'm going to quit unless I get a raise", or if you talk to a new company and say "I'm not going to work for you unless you give me $amount" - then you are negotiating.

I mean their personal negotiations. I don't strike when I negotiate my contracts...sigh

That's your personal choice - they made a different one.

Re:Salaried professionals

[Wombat]

But often they're not negotiating from a position of strength: the writer needs to eat, the stakes aren't as high for the studio.

And this why we have unions, to give individuals more power when dealing with larger, better funded entities.

Collective bargaining sets precedent so that individuals don't have to reinvent the wheel every time a contract is signed.

Re:Salaried professionals

[njen]

No employee generally bargains from a position of power, in almost every industry in the world. And everyone else needs to eat too, but they all seem to get on with it. I work contractually, and I have been for the last 10 years. Sometimes I can negotiate a car for the duration of my contract, sometimes an apartment and a car, and sometimes none. And that's my point, the writers should be negotiating themselves if they want more. If the studio thinks the offer is too much, they pass it over. If the writer thinks the offer is too little, they pass it over. If the studios pass over a certain writer, and they get someone cheaper and the project turns out to be a dog and tanks (ie: doesn't make them any money), they will learn and renegotiate with those better writers. I've never been in any guild or union, and I have gotten by just fine. Because I learnt from an early age to not rely on anyone or any organisation, and to learn to negotiate myself.

Re:Salaried professionals

[Wombat]

I appreciate your take that the individual should take responsibility for his or her own welfare. I think most writers would agree. Entertainment contracts, I believe, tend to be so complicated that as a group they want to ensure a certain baseline that lawyers can expect before they delve into the rest. It's not that individual writers don't negotiate for more, they do. And they have lawyers and agents who sift through all that stuff to get the best deal. This overall negotiation isn't about figuring out the most that writers can get, it's about re-tooling the minimum fair wages for a piece of work.

I work as an independent contractor and, like you, negotiate contracts individually, though often there's not much negotiating from my part. As I tend to work for Non-profit theatres, their initial offer is generally what they can afford to pay me.

Some day I hope to join the United Scenic Artists, the union for my profession. They won't be bargaining every contract for me, but membership would give me guaranteed minimums on every design at theatres included in their collective bargaining agreement. And, more importantly, access to group health insurance.

I think you're right that people need to step up in terms of personal responsibility, but I think that can happen in conjunction with union activities.

Aleph One

[Tangent128]

Aleph One is a GPL'd descendent of Halo's precursor, Marathon. Close enough?

How far in the future?

[tepples]

Hiring a good PR/Advertising firm and going to digital downloads may be the future. The distant future. As of 2008, there is still a digital divide, and the major studios control the distribution and promotion to the have-nots.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

You would think, indeed, but I haven't heard of it having been done. Please do let me know if such a thing exists!

So how do I add captions on YouTube?

[tepples]

These Internet films never have captions even when the viewers can handle it My Google-fu is failing me. If I am about to upload a video to YouTube or other similar sites, what's the recommended way for me to add captions that the user can turn on or off? Or should I force captions to obscure the action even for hearing viewers?

Re:So how do I add captions on YouTube?

[Buran]

Two different versions of the video, since I think YouTube flattens the video (I've never tried to upload), one with subtitles and one without, is how I'd do it. Also, make sure to make your subtitles white with black backgrounds to be most easily readable against any background color.

You could look in Flash instruction guides, but I've heard enough gripes about how Youtube screws up submissions that I wouldn't be surprised if an additional layer containing captions got lost at upload.

I hope that helps but I don't know enough about Flash authoring yet to be much use.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

Not if the law said that it only applied to American-produced or distributed content meant for American audiences. And don't the networks block non-US addresses from viewing shows already? (I've never looked at their services but I remember reading about such blocks).

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Adambomb]

thats exactly what i mean, except it'd be the inverse. That'd work fine as legislation, how would they keep all the content for non-american audiences that is just as accessible on a foreign server from being as prevalent as it now. I don't have anything to back this up as its just conjecture, but i think in terms of internet content that would make for a drop in the bucket.

out of curiousity, do you happen to know if video content purchased through itunes carries closed captioning data by default?

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

I haven't tried to buy anything from the itunes store, but I've been meaning to try a preview to see if the previews have it. If you try it, do let us know.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Adambomb]

Diggity.

I'm actually rather curious now as to whether this is already the case in some respects heh.

Here.. here?

[zippthorne]

Well, except for the vulgarities.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in the "The writers have legitimate grievances, which the production companies should address, but they should probably hire scabs to replace most of the writers, anyway." camp.

Oh my I fear I have soiled my heros words.

[wilec]

Naw I don't think such is evidence that you have gotten cynical, not at all. I think you have simply managed to absorb, retain and apply some important ideals presented by a truly great writer. The observation you make most certainly applies here. If I would have had mod points you would have gotten some. Since I don't have any my mind started playing with you observation and I expounded upon it somewhat, just for fun of course. :)

Ahh but alas some writers will surely end being more equal than others. I am sure there are many among this lot who do not yet know they are greedy pigs but will find it out when the time comes. The less equal will strike in revolt and the whole process starts again. Then there will be new heroes, new villains and of course new sacrifices from the less equal among them.

Meanwhile in the pretense of setting things right the political equivalents of two fat little men agree to have a battle, but never have one. Ask not though for whom the laws of copyright, first sale or fair use applies, as it applies everyone yet to no one at all. How can that be you ask, how can the law apply to things in two different ways? The question is, which is to be master of the law, that's all. They've a temper, some of them, particularly them ideals, they're the proudest of all, pragmatisms we can deal with, but not ideals. However we manage the whole lot with simple impenetrability, that's what we say!

And so it goes....

Now I ask you how many of my favorite dead authors fix their dark gaze upon my soul tonight for this sin worse than simple plagiarism? For extra points who are they, for even more credit what characters words did I so hideously paraphrase in some cases. :)

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

The other side...

[njen]

Ok, I'm going to play the opposite side here...

First of all, an increase of costs (writers fees) will do either one or both of the following: increase prices of content and decrease the budget of other areas of production. You can damn well guarantee that even if the Studios and the writers do make a deal, that extra money is definitely not coming out of the Studios' pockets.

Second, the average writer in the WGA makes about US$200,000 (I don't have a link to back it up, though I heard this figure from a big expose on the WGA). These striking writers are forcing many crew (cameramen, makeup artists, set construction, actors, assistant, etc) out of work. None of these other crew get royalties, and the writers are striking to get *more* royalties. Sure you can say that without writers, you won't get a show. But without everyone else you won't get a show either, it's all a big chain. These writers are acting selfishly by essentially screwing over everyone else that relies on week to week paychecks. Do the writers actually think that the crew they work with are in support of their strike? The crew will get nothing out of it but late fees on their bills.

Third, all unions eventually turn into a self serving, bloated, top heavy organisations, much like...movie studios! The unions want their members to strike, to show their members that the union is important. While the writers are not working and not getting paid, you can be damn sure those union bosses are sitting pretty on union fees, maintaining their extravagant lifestyle.

Fourth, relating to my first point, I work in the VFX industry. If the writing part of the budget increases, this may reduce the amount of budget that gets allocated to the work I do, creating less work for lot's of people, and I certainly don't live on US$200,000 a year.

So remember, if the writers get their deal, you *will* pay more. Sure people should get recompensed for what they produce, but keep in mind the negative effects this strike is causing. I certainly do not support this strike, because it's seeing my work pool dry up.

Re:The other side...

[spellcheckur]

As someone close to the situation, I'll bite:

First of all, an increase of costs (writers fees) will do either one or both of the following: increase prices of content and decrease the budget of other areas of production. You can damn well guarantee that even if the Studios and the writers do make a deal, that extra money is definitely not coming out of the Studios' pockets.

Well, this is silly. If the studios have the capability to magically cut production costs or increase the prices to consumers, why have they not already? They are in the business of making money; it would seem that either or both of these would be in their best interests, whether or not the writers get a new contract. Since the last writers' contract, which gave them an (albeit much smaller) increase in compensation, production companies profits have gone UP, not DOWN. The overall cost of television and film has increased, and yet the price of movies on DVD and Video (studios' primary source of income) has dropped.

Second, the average writer in the WGA makes about US$200,000 (I don't have a link to back it up, though I heard this figure from a big expose on the WGA). These striking writers are forcing many crew (cameramen, makeup artists, set construction, actors, assistant, etc) out of work. None of these other crew get royalties, and the writers are striking to get *more* royalties. Sure you can say that without writers, you won't get a show. But without everyone else you won't get a show either, it's all a big chain. These writers are acting selfishly by essentially screwing over everyone else that relies on week to week paychecks. Do the writers actually think that the crew they work with are in support of their strike? The crew will get nothing out of it but late fees on their bills.

This is one of the most offensive inaccuracies stated by the studios. The average working writer, extrapolating their salary to an annualized figure would make more than $200,000. The problem is this: the "average" writer spends most of his/her time not working. It is the nature of the industry that, at any given time, only about 40% of WGA members are working. The rest of the time, they are hustling for work, or doing non-writing employment so they can make ends meet. For those whose primary source of income is writing, the annual figure is much closer to $60,000. For a skilled job, in a city like Los Angeles, that's not exactly gluttony.

Secondly, as to the issue of the writers "screwing" the rest of the crew:

• IATSE, who represents grips (people that move things) and gaffers (electricians), receives 4.5 times the amount of residuals as the writers. It is paid directly into their health and pension fund.
• SAG (representing the actors) receives 3x the amount, and
• The DGA (who represent the Directors and Assistant Directors) get the same as the writers do.

Clearly, your assertion that the writers are the only ones who receive residuals is a lie. But it's also beside the point. Every one of these crew members is also a member of a union. They also have the right to strike. Many have used it. To say that the writers are "screwing over" these people is simply misguided. In such a heavily unionized industry, the writers are exercising their rights, just like any of the other (as you call them "screwed") unions would if they were not offered a reasonable contract.

Third, all unions eventually turn into a self serving, bloated, top heavy organisations, much like...movie studios! The unions want their members to strike, to show their members that the union is important. While the writers are not working and not getting paid, you can be damn sure those union bosses are sitting pretty on union fees, maintaining their extravagant lifestyle.

Wrong. While many members of the WGA Board of Directors or the Negotiating Committee are wealthy due to professional succe

Good for them

[randyjg]

I really don't see what the fuss is about, The Internet and the World Wide Web has obviously changed distribution channels significantly. Many TV shows are now distributed at web sites within hours of their broadcast, legally.

There is no particular reason to believe that distribution function requires special entertainment skills anymore, and thus is highly devalued in terms of what portion of the revenue stream the distribution companies are entitled to.

This means that the production side of the business has a larger revenue stream which enables some new business models. One can easily envision a community based approach to studios, which is something like this:

Take a standard FOSS product like Drupal, and use one of the many "prediction market" modules (it seems like every college student writes one as a class project) to set up a site for a proposed movie and solicit internet "stock" to pay for creating it. In other words, the public "prevotes" the popularity of the movie. If the site doesn't raise enough capital to finance the movie, well, it probably woudl not have done well at the Box Office anyhow. For those traditional entertainment investors who like more risk, they could easily purchase more stock in a movie they think would exceed expectations.

If enough money is raised, the movie is produced, and everyone who bought the stock gets signon to see the movie at the site (Again, you could do this with Drupal modules. I have always wanted to do an Asset Management module for Internet multimedia distribution). Anyone ELSE who wants the movie has to buy access at the site to see it, and the money generated is distributed to the stock holders. Add in shares of the revenue stream from merchandise and advertising, and you have the potential of a VERY viable business model where studios are no longer necessary. DRM is minimal, and, in case, since potential pirates are also shareholders, why would they hurt their own revenue streams? ANyone still pirating at that price point would never have contributed to the revenue stream anyhow.

This really isn't very different from how movies are produced now, especially indies. The only real difference is that the risk of a badly performing movie is minimized, since the stock now has activist shareholders who are also the consumer market for the end product. Nothing gets green lighted unless the markets has already been precommited. The other difference is that, since the risk is minimized, the risk premium is also, and more value is returned to the small investors and the production staff.

I mean, how many Joss Whedon fans out there would not commit to say, $5 to finance another Firefly movie, especially if it guaranteed them free access to it when it came out? (Not that that would be a good thing, Firefly was his worst effort, in my opinion. I am waiting for Joss to remake "I Dream of Jeannie" as a BTVS prequel. Now THAT would be a movie I would invest in, if just to see how Joss pulled it off.)

There is plenty of great writers out there, the ones behind "Chuck" and "Joan of Arcadia" come to mind. There are a lot of people who would feel more comfortable investing in that then in some stock just because a CNBC elf promoted it.

And it is not just writers. You can use this method to securitize any large community base. One can easily see, say, popular right or left wing website s easily producing movies to fit their readership's interests. I mean, Fox News has a whole business model based on just that, and they do not even have good production values (or any kind of values, for that matter of fact).

We know that you can tap some real money from the internet, look at the US presidential campaign candidate funding, for example. And, judging by the voter turnout, a lot less people care about who is the next president than about the next Salma Hayek or Will Smith movie.

WGA Strike - Best Thing To Ever Happen To America?

[Bones3D_mac]

You know... when you get right down to it, maybe this strike isn't so bad. For a lot of us, we're finally being driven to use the "off" button on our tv remotes and start looking at other aspects of our lives that have long since become neglected. Whether it's socializing, exercising or picking up on our old hobbies, it's all a damned site better than the mindless drek we've been staring at aimlessly all these years.

It's almost like waking up after a night of binge drinking, only to find that your one-night-stand isn't nearly as attractive as they were when you were still drunk off your ass.

So yeah... maybe it's for the best once you realize that not everyone *needs* to love Raymond, have friends or be a family guy. Perhaps, maybe we just need to be ourselves within the scope of our real lives instead.

Re:WGA Strike - Best Thing To Ever Happen To Ameri

[kalirion]

Yes, I've found myself averaging more hours of computer games per day than I have since my college days.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[forkazoo]

Where do you live? I'd be curious to know if your location has any kind of requirement like we do to caption public TV. It's implemented such that you don't see it if you don't want to so it-s a win-win for everyone. I know that I once saw a Macgyver episode in Greece, open-subtitled in Greek, that I couldn't watch because I can't read Greek and I need captions ... very frustrating! The only reason I could follow the story at all was because I had seen the episode before.

I'm in America, which does require captioning for broadcast. I don't personally need captions except for foreign programming. I just think it would be beneficial to world harmony and awesomeness if captions were included as a matter of course in the stuff I download. All the TV I watch is generally from downloaded pirate sources, rather than broadcast.

Re:But what about those of us who can't hear?

[Buran]

I'm honest, and don't download shows (aside from the captioning problem), but I agree, since solving your problem would solve mine.

Sorry -- thought you were in Europe or something. I'm also in the US.