Members of The Writer's Guild are currently voting on four proposals. Actually, the ballots are already out and I suspect most members have already marked and returned theirs, as I have. Nevertheless, the arguments continue, growing ever louder and more emotional. This is the norm for WGA balloting, where discussions often seem to have little to do with the actual issues at hand.
In this case, the real issues have to do with how screen credits on movies are determined. A committee has proposed four changes in the WGA Credits Manual. If you're really interested in reading the precise text of the proposals — and I don't recommend doing this — you can download a PDF file (Acrobat format) by clicking here. Or you can save your sanity and trust me to summarize.
Proposal #1 changes the rules of movie credit arbitrations so that the arbitrators are anonymous, as is the practice in arbitrations of TV credits. Proposal #2 says basically that the screen credits will be arranged with the writer who made the greatest contribution coming first. Proposal #3 states that in arbitrations of movies that are adaptations, the arbitrators will give more weight to each writer's choice and arrangement of elements of the source material, rather than to assess the use of basic story elements which any adapter would include. And Proposal #4 will allow for more disclosure to writers when a "production executive" (that primarily means a producer or director) does a rewrite, and it would also make it easier for that production executive to receive screen credit.
There is almost no argument against #1, and very little against #2. #3 seems to be double-talk, and I don't get that anyone knows for sure what it would do or why it is necessary. And there is no real opposition to the "disclosure" part of the fourth proposal. It is the last half of that fourth Proposal #4 that has prompted 95% of the yelling. For reasons I outlined here, I think that change is a bad idea and have cast my vote against it.
I suspect the fourth proposal will not pass and further suspect that it may take the three less controversial proposals down to defeat with it. That is, many members will just vote "no" on the entire ballot out of protest and disgust at #4 and/or at any attempt to change the rules. A lot of our members seem to believe that the system is flawed but at the same time, they're suspicious of any attempt to change anything. The "nays" on the first three propositions will be interpreted, probably correctly, as the votes of that faction. If it turns out there are enough of them, we probably won't see any further attempt to rewrite the rulebook for a long time.
