This is from someone named Arturo8…
I don't understand something about your post on the WGA and Animation. On the net today I am reading many pieces about it and they all say the Writers Guild does not cover animation writing. You say they sometimes do. What is the explanation here?
I usually cringe when people talk like this but the answer is that they're wrong and I'm right. The Writers Guild of America covers some animation projects. As I mentioned, the Simpsons Movie was written under a WGA contract. [Correction] The Simpsons TV show is written under a WGA contract. King of the Hill, Futurama and Family Guy are written under WGA contracts. I have written animation projects under WGA contracts. Quite a few shows and movies have been written under WGA contracts. I just received an e-mail from Neil Gaiman informing me that he and Roger Avary wrote the animated feature, Beowulf, under a WGA contract.
To repeat for emphasis: There are some animation projects that are covered by the WGA. There are some that are covered by The Animation Guild, which is a local of I.A.T.S.E. There are also animation projects produced that are covered by no union at all…and I should add one other category, lest folks get confused: There are projects where the WGA represents the writers and The Animation Guild represents the animators and other artists. The Simpsons would be the best example of this.
While I'm at it, let me clarify another piece of misinformation going around. As we all know, the networks buy a lot of so-called "reality shows" that claim not to employ writers. And as we also know, there isn't as much "reality" in those shows as they claim, and there are writers but they're disguised under other names to try and keep the show out of WGA jurisdiction.
The misinformation is that "reality shows" were invented to circumvent the WGA and the misinformer sometimes cites as the first two examples, Real People and That's Incredible! This is wrong. First of all, Real People and That's Incredible! were WGA-covered shows…and some other shows that fall under the category of "reality" have been WGA shows. Secondly, there have always been TV shows, including prime time shows, that tried to get by without employing WGA scribes…and even succeeded. Many game shows, including (I think) all the Goodson-Todman shows like What's My Line? and I've Got A Secret were non-WGA. They sometimes had writers disguised under other credits…but this is not a new trick and it's also one that only goes so far. It is essential to the health of the networks to have plenty of the other kind of programming, the kind that requires WGA writers.
There are a couple of key issues in the current labor negotiation, one being the issue of sharing revenues from new technologies. Perhaps equally important is the question of jurisdiction. The WGA covers most but not all TV and movie writing. For obvious reasons, the union would like to cover more and the Producers would like them to cover less. You'll be hearing more about this…but don't listen to anyone who tells you the WGA doesn't cover animation…or that reality shows like Real People were invented as a trick to get around the Writers Guild.