It's that time again. Around once a year, either the L.A. Times, the Hollywood Reporter or Variety will run pretty much the same article about the plight of the Animation Writer, a breed that occasionally includes Yours Truly. The pieces can all be summarized pretty much as follows: Writers who work on live-action shows that fall under the Writers Guild minimum basic agreement receive residuals and much better deals, as well as certain important protections such as health insurance and credit arbitration. Most folks who write animation are up the creek, sans paddle. Some of them are covered by no union whatsoever. Others are covered by Local 839 which, we used to say, was worse than no union whatsoever. Under its current leadership, 839 has gotten much better but it's still unable to serve the unique needs of its writer members.
This year, it's the L.A. Times doing the honors and here's the article in question. While generally accurate, I often feel these do our cause more harm than good. As even the reporter admits, there are deals in animation that pay residuals. There have always been such deals here and there, and because of in-roads by the Writers Guild, there are now more than ever before. Still, for some reason, the articles are never headlined with that encouraging development. Instead, we're subjected on this annoying annual basis to the press telling us how Animation Writers don't get residuals…and in some instances, making it true or truer.
Here's a story that illustrates the point. In 1985, I wrote about a half-dozen scripts for CBS Storybreak, a Saturday morning animated anthology on Guess Which Network. I had a little clout there at the time — Dungeons and Dragons was doing well — so my agent said to them, "Either Evanier gets residuals or he doesn't do it." That's what agents are for, after all…to say such things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time, it did. The CBS guys gave in and it was written into my contract that I'd receive — and I quote: "Residuals at Writers Guild scale." Remember that phrase.
The shows I wrote ran. They ran a second time and as per the contract, CBS paid me the same rerun fee they would have paid if the show had been a live-action show produced under the WGA contract. The shows ran a third time and, again, CBS paid what the WGA said you paid a writer for a third run. The shows ran again and again and again…and each time, I received a check. The amounts diminished but they kept on coming, just as we'd agreed.
Around about the time of the tenth runs, one of the articles I'm discussing here ran in Variety. It went on and on about how Animation Writers don't receive residuals and it even quoted a high official in the Writers Guild lamenting that injustice. A staff weasel over at CBS read Variety that day and got an idea. The next time I was due a payment, I instead received a letter from CBS Business Affairs. It cited the article and noted that according to the high official, Writers Guild scale for an animation script was zero. Ergo, no check enclosed for Mark.
My agent at the time was the legendary (to his clients) Stu Robinson. Stu exploded and phoned the weasel, threatening lawsuits and bodily harm. The weasel, being a weasel, gave in and sent me money. The amounts were by now pretty trivial; certainly not worth going to court over. More relevant was that Stu also represented writers and producers on some of the top CBS prime-time shows. So he wasn't the kind of guy it was cost-effective to piss off.
Financial negotiations in show business are largely a matter of precedents. How much they pay you for a job has almost everything to do with how much others have been paid for comparable gigs. If you keep saying, "Animation Writers don't get residuals," you're telling the industry that's the norm, that's standard. In truth, more cartoon scripters than ever are sharing in the ongoing value of the shows they write, and I don't know why the WGA isn't trumpeting that fact from the highest of the Hollywood Hills.
The Times article is, unfortunately, right about the coming war over DVD money. I think this town is heading for The Mother of All Strikes as the guilds demand a better deal for home video and the studios pursue their wish-dream of sharing nuttin' with nobody. Some observers are saying, as the Times piece suggests, that union jurisdiction over cartoon writing could become an issue in upcoming negotiations. Maybe…but it's the smaller war, the one that'll be easier to drop or postpone if the WGA is going to the mat over compensation for DVDs, cable and pay-per-view. Which is why it's even more important than ever that we who write cartoons make it clear that "no residuals" is not a given.