Nonsense. I see that he's blaming Wall street and "money" when head writers rake in million dollar deals from networks. It's hypocritical to blame "money or greed" when YOU yourself get paid in the millions, especially with HBO. and NOT ONCE did he blame politics injected into the storyline which explains why Disney AND DC movies failed at the box office.
Yes! Everything going on here was written about a hundred years ago as you know in Das Kapital. Sometimes I just pull my hair going "Dear Holywood go read Marx! Go read Wolff!"
David Simon is so right. Collective bargaining is the only way to go, because the higher-ups don't care about those below, and never will. The people who do the actual work always get paid the least. Look at people who wait tables. $2.13 an hour, because "oh, you get lots of tips". Not true. Everyone I have ever known who does that never makes enough in tips to balance things out. Never. Most people struggle every day just to get by. Unions are important, now more than ever, and the WGA and the other Unions who are fighting for their lives are showing us that. Everyone needs collective bargaining, from Starbucks to Amazon.
It's crazy how many people who are also overworked and underpaid go after the WGA writer over the billionaires that don't want to pay either them or the writers. It's a bit like when a man cheats on his wife and the wife blames the other woman instead of the husband. In 2022, Corporations in American pay just over 4% of their pre-tax profits in taxes...4%! And that's _after_ they've deducted 100% of their operating expenses, something people are not allowed to do (we're capped out at 1K a month) Even the poorest person with a job pays 7.65% taxes off the top no matter what, and that's if they are lucky enough to get a W2, if they are a "sub contractor" on a 1099, the bare minimum is 15.3%, and that's before Income Tax comes into play. It's amazing how many people actively root against their own self interest.
Do you see many people man people criticizing the writers on this issue? Serious question. At least in the few conversations I've had I don't know many people siding against WGA.
@@75aces97 yes, people call them spoiled and privileged. The person Dan is speaking about here is a writer for an award winning show who could afford to go to the award show where he was supposed to get his award, yet people ripped him saying he should just be happy with it. That's insane. The WGA has asked for a very small bump in pay relative to the overall production budget of these shows/movies, the bump is equates to about 0.5% of the total production cost yet rather than negotiating the AMPTP has been quite forthcoming and said they'll wait until writers start losing their homes and apartments before coming back to the table. Yet people still think the writers are selfish.
I hope the writers and actors know we - the American people - are on their side. The forces in control they do NOT CARE if the content sucks. Those in production PUT THEIR HEART AND THEIR SOUL into their work and we love it bc of that. Cinema is our prime storytelling medium today. It's been a love of mine since i was 5 or 6. Certainly by 7 when I saw Batman in 1989. It is one of the most culturally impactful media in history. I've always been grateful to the 1000's of pros that create this stuff and I get pissed when they get screwed.
From the studios' POV, there ARE lot of cops shows TV like the NCIS, FBI, Chicago Fire/Med/PD /911/ L & O, SVU etc etc. No one cares if it's written by AI. It couldn't be any worse and people will still watch that crap.
The Wire was certainly an anomaly. I remember thinking Hill Street Blues was such a fabulous show. Then a few years ago I tried to watch it and it seemed ridiculous.
You do know people have the ability to use AI it’s people using AI to create movie scripts not AI itself. You do know AI i ls NOT an entity so if you want AI “ to clean our ocean “ then do it figure out a way.
Bro, AI is just a set of automated tools that mimic human behavior and simplifies tasks that normally require direct human interaction. You can use it for just about any darn thing that normally requires active human input.
as much as he is disliked, this seems to have been a perfect interview to include David Sampson. he undoubtedly would've articulated HBO's counter argument very well
@@DeeRG Well said. The counterargument is that the giant companies with billions in profit every year are somehow indigent when it comes time to pay the people that make the content they are profiting from. It's ridiculous
His point is valid but I had to chuckle at Simon's derivative talk. Because he made Homicide: Life On The Street and then made The Wire. Both shows about Baltimore drug policing; even using the Xerox machine bit in both shows. No hate, both are fantastic shows, I just thought it was funny.
Hollywood's BIGGEST problem is the REALITY that there are 100 YEARS of QUALITY videos ALREADY out there that ANYONE can watch. No NEW stuff needed. More stuff then you could watch continuously for over TWENTY YEARS! Who needs Hollywood??? Hollywood has "produced" itself out of a job.
No we need Hollywood. I know it’s a taboo thing to say but new creatives are needed in this industry now more than anytime and if we just give up the studios get richer while the consumers get cheated. Part of the reason why we got to this because the industry has been lazy for the past decade, afraid to test the waters with anything new, or creative. Hollywood doesn’t need to produce it self out a job, it needs to fire their current producers and get new people to do the job. This is why people in mass are through with the industry, they just want change, a show runner who can kickstart something new and iconic for the next generation.
Money has always been the problem. it creates classes which feed into the unhealthiest parts of human psychology. Societies change slowly. What we are seeing now actually began back in the 1980s. it has taken that long for the changes then to completely manifest into what we now have. The paradigm that the 1980's changed came into being all the way back in the New Deal of the 1930's. Go back to the 1950s and look at classless our country was. It was the main reason why it felt like we were all in it together. it was because we were. (the mainstream culture that is)
Unpopular opinion I’m sure, but im pretty dissatisfied with the majority of writing for television and film (with notable exceptions of course, ie David Simon) these days. Part of me wants to see what would happen if the industry cleaned house with all these strikers and replaced them with a new generation of talented creatives eagerly hoping for a shot. I know it wouldn’t fix the overarching problem but maybe it would give us more original, watchable entertainment.
It wouldn't end there. If they "cleaned house," the new batch of writers would want livable situations and then they'd be cleaned out, either one at a time or wholesale, and replaced by somebody cheaper.
The advancement part relies on it gaining the ability to create something novel that is unlike anything that came before, something literally no ai has ever done, or likely will ever do, at least in our lifetimes
Who do you think is putting the sideboards on what can be written? Writers can write good stuff. The economic environment is such that they have less and less airtime to tell a good story, less and less production time to pull that story off, all while more and more money goes to useless execs and "producers."
If it’s important to you, why are you leaving things up to union lawyers and political hacks? They’re the ones that let the internet money get away. You want to fix the system? Get 5 writers together, pool some money, form a company, and make a movie. Now no one is working as a writer because they are all the bosses.
I'll answer the last question that Jennifer asked since Dave was too polite to go there: there's little support from working class civilians because they hate creative people, especially actors. People roll their eyes at us at dinner parties, nobody wants to date us, people feel okay treating us like trash. That's why I started Scribblebytes. A studio for and by actors. These actors in SAG and the writers in WGA should cut out the middleman and work for themselves. Read Das Kapital people! The recipe is already there.
Everyone should be in the union. Yes, people that build houses should get paid a portion every time that house gets sold because if he doesn’t build anymore houses, whose going to pay his health insurance and provide for them. Same with cars, people that run power to your house! They need residuals people! You can’t expect them to keep producing!
Sometimes when you play chicken, both sides lose. I think Mr. Simon is seriously underestimating the power of UA-cam and seriously overestimating the talent of WAG members as opposed to talented amateurs.
The other problem is that most of the writing is currently very bad. Why would anyone support larger amounts of bad writers? That's why there is less support from the public than you might want to see.
I don’t get it… if they are only working for a few months out of the year and they are striking because they want to be paid enough to last them for the entire year…. Like why should they expect to be payed for the part of the year where they aren’t hired by a studio? Isn’t that how a contractor works? Can’t they do other work and rely on other income streams during those parts of the year where they aren’t working for a studio? I hope someone can correct me if I’m mistaken but it sounds like contractors are striking because they want a yearly salary even if they only work a few months out of the yeah. It sounds like they just want to have a yearly salary, they work a few months of the year and then the rest of the year they either sit around or they work another job, essentially earning two salaries because they convinced their bosses to pay them extra so that they can financially float between jobs… it seems like they are just trying to eliminate the worry that goes along with contractor work, which is the ever present struggle to make sure you’re able to make enough money to last until the next job. And then if you don’t have enough to last you then you use the free time you have to do other work or other jobs. I’m struggling to find sympathy for these people but maybe I’m totally misunderstanding. Can someone at least answer me this one question please?: Hypothetically, if a studio hires a writer for a few months and then they let them go once they don’t need them to write anymore for the show that they were hired for, after the writer is let go, is it true that they would then be free to do whatever they want to make money? Like their time isn’t being taken up by the studios without being paid right? So after they finish the writing job they were hired for, they can then get hired by another studio or they could start working doing whatever they feel like? Is that how it works? If that is how it works then What reason so they have that makes them believe they should be paid for the whole year if the studio only needs the writer to work for them for a few months? It seems like these writers just want more money without having to do anything. Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding something It’s like an actor saying they want to be paid for the whole year even though they were only needed for a fee months of work. What sense does that make? That seems kind of deceptive, right?
Not sure I understand the AI point. How can you both say that AI can’t produce quality content, and then also be so adamant in limiting its uses? David Simon has spent his career mocking the vast majority of cop shows/soap operas that employed full writing staffs, and now he’s advocating for their jobs.
AI isn't great at spawning original content. Unlike...a person. It uses algorithms to see patterns and make alterations to existing content. Per human instructions or input.
What the hell is "end stage capitalism?" It's just capitalism... it has its good and bad features. If we want to make a difference, we quit watching that content that was made without ethical care.
Time to go back to the old school MGM studio days when the writers didn't do "gig work" and claim to be partners. Time to go back when the studios hired writers and the writers were not so-called partners but employees of the studio. The studios can pay the employee writers a good middle class pay for California and on top of that the writer employees can earn bonuses if the product draws a lot of viewership. Gone will be the days of dramatic and exciting 15,000-25,000 an episode on a network sitcoms and residuals wont exist because the employee writers will always get a mundane and boring biweekly pay check just like middle America!
Even with the writers working most shows were crap... how many CSI's can they produce with the same formula? Most writers have gotten lazy and now AI can do their job. The truly creative writers are out there but few of them remain and most are afraid to push the envelope in fear of getting cancelled.
Nobody really feels pity for these Hollywood types and its understandable. An industry that promotes and thrives off of an image of glitz, glamour and excess is never going to be viewed as anything close to working class. Even if the truth is that the vast majority of workers in Hollywood now barely make a living wage, that image is hard to remove in the minds of the masses who'll simply refuse to empathize.
At the top yeah it’s glitz and glam but that’s 5% the cameraman ,staff writers extras , non a list actors aren’t just doing their jobs and not making 20 million a movie
@@M_A_R_K_23 As soon as they get what they want from the Big Studios, they won't care about public support anymore. These Hollywood types are cutthroat and elitist. They think they're better than the rest of us mortals: from the a$$h0le lead actor, down to the bum sweeping the soundstage. So NO, they get ZERO empathy from me.
Actors are considered glitzy and glamorous. Camera operators, editors, stunt people, writers, and a lot of other people necessary to make a show are not typically photographed on the red carpet.
@@75aces97 And that needs to change! When you have visibility then you can plead your case successfully. If you're gonna remain behind the scenes no one knows you exist, but that's how Hollywood works right? In many ways Hollywood is getting in its own way when it comes to these labour issues because of its own culture.
If AI does a better job than you then you either weren’t that good to start with or you’re just being exposed to the realities that working class / blue collar workers have faced for generations. Obsolescence.
The strike needs to end and pedicuring continues I get others are still but we need more any people ok why target Hollywood not others if different strike it’s like a s long rob episode squid on strike
Honestly? Have you missed any TV shows? Movies? The Truth? I haven’t. What with everything from UA-cam to Turner Classic Movies? I seen a huge number of domestic and foreign TV and Movies. Made by Adults, with Adult stories and dialogue, crafted specifically for Adults. All “Pre-Woke.” I hope what passes for TV and Movies today never comes back. “Popular Culture?” Bravo Sierra. Besides, putting Trump away is the real show to watch, anyway.
LOL They got a $50 bump when something goes to the internet. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. Simon is blaming the studios for his destroying the agents who protected him and the other writers is hilarious. It's ironic he still works for HBO who is ATT and perhaps the worst of the worst. I have so much to say, but this is brutal and he's an egomaniac.
David Simon is a great writer. With that being said, no one cares because the writers of today are horrible and have basically destroyed everything they touch.
Screw the WGA. I hope the strike lasts forever and both the Hollywood studios and the writers fail. These unions just get in the way of films being made. Films should be msde union free and an alternative to the Hollywood system needs to rise up. I really hopes these strikes cause Hollywood to implode and something else takes its place. Something union free.
@@jaredthomas4663 You probably don't have the IQ to understand this, but just because you hate one side doesn't mean you support the other. I hope both sides crumble and something else takes its place, free of greedy unions and Hollywood CEOs
i have no sympathy here, the industry had years to take into consideration what was coming (AI,STREAMING) and yet the whole industry ignored it because they were making profit at the time, now that lack of prep caught up to and surpassed the industry. you fel asleep at the wheel and your car ran off the road as a result, and the response is its everyone else's fault that they didnt keep you awake at the wheel
To be honest the derivitive cop show is written by writers therefore would A.I. make a difference. Add to that the fact that so called " woke " shows have people turning off that appears to be the fault of producers and writers. Yes there are lots of poor quality movies and T.V. shows being made and yes that has always been the case but the number of high quality shows and films has collapsed
@@spartacusforlife1508 How do you plan on supporting that assertion? What does 'woke'ness have to do with that, and how do you plan on supporting THAT?
@@Zoroasterisk by looking at viewing figures and cancellation of shows or box office failure. Look at the panic at Disney, netflix and amazon. Do you think they're not reacting to the failure of their " woke " product and do you honestly think they haven't seen what happened to Bud lite. Look at shows like the witcher or star trek and the backlash received from the fan base. You know what they say, "People vote with their feet" well that is increasing and it is obviously now being noted by shareholders because in the end it is a business and losing money is bad business
@@spartacusforlife1508 I'm noticing you're not citing any particular numbers or actual facts w/r/t numbers of shows cancelled or movies flopped. Getting a very "I live in an information silo" vibe here. So here's the thing with Dylan Mulvaney/Bud Light. The far right needs a marginalized group to kick down at for its room-temperature-IQ base to feel like they're making progress, because progress to them (you) is when someone else's life gets worse, not when their (your) lives get better. If you disagree, try to think of a policy that literally any Republican politician has proposed or a law that they've actually passed that will make your life better in a meaningful way. Then, try to think of a time they've stirred up some culture war BS to generate hate clicks. Count each occurrence in both categories, and let me know which one wins. Also, There's nothing inherently wrong with LGTBQ people endorsing products, unless (oops!) we're talking about a group of people that are taught to hate them just for existing. Also, just going to throw it out there that the whole GROOMER! thing is the same ~but the children~ excuse the right has used as cover for its hateful ideology going back decades. Anita Bryant, for example, used the exact same tactics to terrorize gays in the 70's. History will look at everyone that demonized Mulvaney recently the same way it looks at Bryant now. It's only a matter of time. Love wins, baby RE: The Witcher - Cavil's quitting for the same reason fans like myself are done with the show, which has more to do with the showrunner and writers deviating from the source material in ways that that don't improve the finished product. The books and games are very much anti-colonialism, which is pretty freaking woke to me. Humans are Spanish/English/French imperialists, and the Elves/supernatural creatures are natives. It's not remotely subtle about it. It's not subtext. It's just text. RE: ST - Picard (at least seasons 1 & 2) is being rejected by similar reasons as the Witcher, but here's the thing - Star Trek has literally always been woke. Just a few examples - TOS - "The Cloud Minders" is explicitly pro-labor and anti-capital. TNG episode The Outcast could be read as either pro-gay or pro-trans, but either way, woke AF. The Trill are an entire RACE of trans folks. DS9 episode Past Tense, about riots that started due to how society treats the underprivileged, riots that were explicitly necessary to create the utopian future the show is set in. Hell, the setting of the Star Trek universe itself is a communist utopia where capitalism has been abandoned in favor of a more enlightened policy, where billionaires don't exist, and neither does homelessness. Old Trek was every bit as woke as new Trek is, it was just better written back then, so you didn't feel like it beat you over the head over it, at least most of the time. So to recap, you have no idea what you're talking about on pretty much every single specific you just raised. You're just mad at what you're told to be mad at, because you're not smart enough to figure out when you're being manipulated by your betters. Demand more of your representatives than mindless culture war wedge issues. The American people deserve better
Simon is so well spoken and simply a nice voice to listen to. Such a great communicator.
Nonsense. I see that he's blaming Wall street and "money" when head writers rake in million dollar deals from networks. It's hypocritical to blame "money or greed" when YOU yourself get paid in the millions, especially with HBO. and NOT ONCE did he blame politics injected into the storyline which explains why Disney AND DC movies failed at the box office.
Plot Against America is a must-watch -- especially now
I’m literally watching the wire right now as I work…it’s in my rotation I probably rewatch this show twice a year
Incredible show. Have you watched some of David Simon's other shows? I recommend them too.
If you've streamed this episode, the actors are only getting pennies on the dollar for those episodes.
It's the best tv show ever made...
@@TheRighteousInquiries Homicide is better, even with the limitations placed on being a network show.
If you love The Wire, watch Andor, Severance and The Bear. Three best shows of 2022.
Great interview, and one of the more fully-formed discussions about the writer’s strike that I’ve come across 👏 What a legend.
I'm so happy he mentioned late-stage capitalism
Because you’re corny
Yes! Everything going on here was written about a hundred years ago as you know in Das Kapital. Sometimes I just pull my hair going "Dear Holywood go read Marx! Go read Wolff!"
Toute ma solidarité avec David Simon, l'un des plus grands artistes américains contemporains. Honte à HBO!
Bien sur
Wow. He does hit the high points of the debate. End the end - it’s really the consumer who has to demand better, written material.
We did.
What we got was people saying we have to enjoy what's put out.
Thank Mr. Simon for “Homicide: Life on the Streets.” 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
Heroic Dude.
great interview
David Simon is so right. Collective bargaining is the only way to go, because the higher-ups don't care about those below, and never will. The people who do the actual work always get paid the least. Look at people who wait tables. $2.13 an hour, because "oh, you get lots of tips". Not true. Everyone I have ever known who does that never makes enough in tips to balance things out. Never. Most people struggle every day just to get by. Unions are important, now more than ever, and the WGA and the other Unions who are fighting for their lives are showing us that. Everyone needs collective bargaining, from Starbucks to Amazon.
If you don’t make the non tip minimum wage with your 2.13 + tips the employer is required to make up the difference.
Supposedly. I know many people who don't get that difference, even though they're supposed to. @@TNMJAD
Why is Dan's favorite thing cutting off people before they finish a sentence lol
Ya, to gaslight them by repeatedly saying what angry people they are.
This is best prounion clip out here right now.
EXCELLENT
It's crazy how many people who are also overworked and underpaid go after the WGA writer over the billionaires that don't want to pay either them or the writers. It's a bit like when a man cheats on his wife and the wife blames the other woman instead of the husband.
In 2022, Corporations in American pay just over 4% of their pre-tax profits in taxes...4%! And that's _after_ they've deducted 100% of their operating expenses, something people are not allowed to do (we're capped out at 1K a month) Even the poorest person with a job pays 7.65% taxes off the top no matter what, and that's if they are lucky enough to get a W2, if they are a "sub contractor" on a 1099, the bare minimum is 15.3%, and that's before Income Tax comes into play.
It's amazing how many people actively root against their own self interest.
Do you see many people man people criticizing the writers on this issue? Serious question. At least in the few conversations I've had I don't know many people siding against WGA.
@@75aces97 yes, people call them spoiled and privileged.
The person Dan is speaking about here is a writer for an award winning show who could afford to go to the award show where he was supposed to get his award, yet people ripped him saying he should just be happy with it. That's insane.
The WGA has asked for a very small bump in pay relative to the overall production budget of these shows/movies, the bump is equates to about 0.5% of the total production cost yet rather than negotiating the AMPTP has been quite forthcoming and said they'll wait until writers start losing their homes and apartments before coming back to the table. Yet people still think the writers are selfish.
Truth is, A.I. will replace THESE "creative writers". Especially, any writer who joined the WGA within the last ten years!!
While not Game of Thrones level bad, i didn't find The Wire to end that well. Great show up unil the march to the end of the final season.
Agreed. I never seem to be able to finish the final season. The first two are absolute canon however
@@rosed2955 They wrote McNulty to be kinda rogue. Had him making up crimes. Either way, the end wasn't as stellar as the beginning.
I hope the writers and actors know we - the American people - are on their side. The forces in control they do NOT CARE if the content sucks.
Those in production PUT THEIR HEART AND THEIR SOUL into their work and we love it bc of that. Cinema is our prime storytelling medium today. It's been a love of mine since i was 5 or 6. Certainly by 7 when I saw Batman in 1989. It is one of the most culturally impactful media in history.
I've always been grateful to the 1000's of pros that create this stuff and I get pissed when they get screwed.
This American is not.
From the studios' POV, there ARE lot of cops shows TV like the NCIS, FBI, Chicago Fire/Med/PD /911/ L & O, SVU etc etc. No one cares if it's written by AI. It couldn't be any worse and people will still watch that crap.
The Wire was certainly an anomaly. I remember thinking Hill Street Blues was such a fabulous show. Then a few years ago I tried to watch it and it seemed ridiculous.
AI needs to be cleaning our oceans and evaluating ways to fix our broken systems, not writing movie scripts
You do know people have the ability to use AI it’s people using AI to create movie scripts not AI itself. You do know AI i ls NOT an entity so if you want AI “ to clean our ocean “ then do it figure out a way.
Lol. The crap they put out today is probably already written by AI
Bro, AI is just a set of automated tools that mimic human behavior and simplifies tasks that normally require direct human interaction.
You can use it for just about any darn thing that normally requires active human input.
The right thing is to stay in business and not lose money.
Can we not get celebrities to chime in? Two percent doesn’t seem like a dealbreaker, from the outside looking in.
well you clearly don't understand David Sampson work to make comment like that
Supermob written by Gus Russo explains how strikes can be broken or rather ameliorated by certain powers that be.
AI should not be replacing workers. It should be replacing CEOs and billionaires.
Jess’ q, right on the f money.
We need more working class solidarity.
as much as he is disliked, this seems to have been a perfect interview to include David Sampson. he undoubtedly would've articulated HBO's counter argument very well
They now have scripted shows with Sampson as the villain. Send him on assignment to interview MBS and we'll see if he makes it back.
@@DeeRG Well said. The counterargument is that the giant companies with billions in profit every year are somehow indigent when it comes time to pay the people that make the content they are profiting from. It's ridiculous
How many us read it wrong as David Sampson at first
His point is valid but I had to chuckle at Simon's derivative talk. Because he made Homicide: Life On The Street and then made The Wire. Both shows about Baltimore drug policing; even using the Xerox machine bit in both shows. No hate, both are fantastic shows, I just thought it was funny.
Hear, hear. I’d only add that the amazing scenario would be if he wove the use of a Xerox into The Plot Against America.
Not exactly surprised. That he was suspended for joining the picket line. Studio really didn't have a choice.
Hollyweird is done. Will tell stories of insolvent unions
My wife just said Dan looks like a bootleg George R.R. Martin 😂😅
Has your wife actually ever seen what Martin looks like? This guys a young cutie next to him.
David Simon's Net Worth is $15 million. He is an American journalist, author and producer/writer of television series.
It's only getting worse sweat shops are coming back like they had in the 20s
Television is not a grown up medium, it is mindless entertainment to a lot of people
Hollywood's BIGGEST problem is the REALITY that there are 100 YEARS of QUALITY videos ALREADY out there that ANYONE can watch. No NEW stuff needed. More stuff then you could watch continuously for over TWENTY YEARS! Who needs Hollywood???
Hollywood has "produced" itself out of a job.
No we need Hollywood. I know it’s a taboo thing to say but new creatives are needed in this industry now more than anytime and if we just give up the studios get richer while the consumers get cheated. Part of the reason why we got to this because the industry has been lazy for the past decade, afraid to test the waters with anything new, or creative. Hollywood doesn’t need to produce it self out a job, it needs to fire their current producers and get new people to do the job. This is why people in mass are through with the industry, they just want change, a show runner who can kickstart something new and iconic for the next generation.
Money has always been the problem. it creates classes which feed into the unhealthiest parts of human psychology. Societies change slowly. What we are seeing now actually began back in the 1980s. it has taken that long for the changes then to completely manifest into what we now have. The paradigm that the 1980's changed came into being all the way back in the New Deal of the 1930's. Go back to the 1950s and look at classless our country was. It was the main reason why it felt like we were all in it together. it was because we were. (the mainstream culture that is)
it is not money but the love of money ie greed.
Unpopular opinion I’m sure, but im pretty dissatisfied with the majority of writing for television and film (with notable exceptions of course, ie David Simon) these days. Part of me wants to see what would happen if the industry cleaned house with all these strikers and replaced them with a new generation of talented creatives eagerly hoping for a shot. I know it wouldn’t fix the overarching problem but maybe it would give us more original, watchable entertainment.
It wouldn't end there. If they "cleaned house," the new batch of writers would want livable situations and then they'd be cleaned out, either one at a time or wholesale, and replaced by somebody cheaper.
I wouldn't say AI is completely derivative at all, particularly the more it advances...but I prefer humans in general. Mad support for this strike.
The advancement part relies on it gaining the ability to create something novel that is unlike anything that came before, something literally no ai has ever done, or likely will ever do, at least in our lifetimes
Large Language Models are derivative by definition
Did he just say he doesn't go to the set because if he hears music, he's going to dance?
No I heard him say he doesn't go to the set because there's no way he can abstain from involvement in the script.
If the writer's could put out good content I'd iagree they deserve more. The problem is the shows absolutely suck now.
Well! Lets make you work for not the money that you schould have and se if you are feeling the same thing
Who do you think is putting the sideboards on what can be written?
Writers can write good stuff. The economic environment is such that they have less and less airtime to tell a good story, less and less production time to pull that story off, all while more and more money goes to useless execs and "producers."
👍🏼👍🏼
If it’s important to you, why are you leaving things up to union lawyers and political hacks? They’re the ones that let the internet money get away.
You want to fix the system? Get 5 writers together, pool some money, form a company, and make a movie. Now no one is working as a writer because they are all the bosses.
Thank all that is holy that Sampson’s not there!!! Welcome Back Fun!!!
I'll answer the last question that Jennifer asked since Dave was too polite to go there: there's little support from working class civilians because they hate creative people, especially actors. People roll their eyes at us at dinner parties, nobody wants to date us, people feel okay treating us like trash. That's why I started Scribblebytes. A studio for and by actors. These actors in SAG and the writers in WGA should cut out the middleman and work for themselves. Read Das Kapital people! The recipe is already there.
Not every project they made are titanic level that endure through time...get a descent everyday job, movie+tv is not a source of livestock.
Everyone should be in the union. Yes, people that build houses should get paid a portion every time that house gets sold because if he doesn’t build anymore houses, whose going to pay his health insurance and provide for them. Same with cars, people that run power to your house! They need residuals people! You can’t expect them to keep producing!
What a joke
All unions should be busted. I'll happily be a scab and take a union worker's job
Sometimes when you play chicken, both sides lose. I think Mr. Simon is seriously underestimating the power of UA-cam and seriously overestimating the talent of WAG members as opposed to talented amateurs.
I think writers should get a paid based off performance of the show or movie. Higher gross, higher pay. Less gross, less pay.
You juke the stats and majors become colonels.
The other problem is that most of the writing is currently very bad. Why would anyone support larger amounts of bad writers? That's why there is less support from the public than you might want to see.
I don’t get it… if they are only working for a few months out of the year and they are striking because they want to be paid enough to last them for the entire year…. Like why should they expect to be payed for the part of the year where they aren’t hired by a studio? Isn’t that how a contractor works? Can’t they do other work and rely on other income streams during those parts of the year where they aren’t working for a studio?
I hope someone can correct me if I’m mistaken but it sounds like contractors are striking because they want a yearly salary even if they only work a few months out of the yeah. It sounds like they just want to have a yearly salary, they work a few months of the year and then the rest of the year they either sit around or they work another job, essentially earning two salaries because they convinced their bosses to pay them extra so that they can financially float between jobs… it seems like they are just trying to eliminate the worry that goes along with contractor work, which is the ever present struggle to make sure you’re able to make enough money to last until the next job. And then if you don’t have enough to last you then you use the free time you have to do other work or other jobs. I’m struggling to find sympathy for these people but maybe I’m totally misunderstanding.
Can someone at least answer me this one question please?:
Hypothetically, if a studio hires a writer for a few months and then they let them go once they don’t need them to write anymore for the show that they were hired for, after the writer is let go, is it true that they would then be free to do whatever they want to make money? Like their time isn’t being taken up by the studios without being paid right? So after they finish the writing job they were hired for, they can then get hired by another studio or they could start working doing whatever they feel like?
Is that how it works?
If that is how it works then What reason so they have that makes them believe they should be paid for the whole year if the studio only needs the writer to work for them for a few months? It seems like these writers just want more money without having to do anything.
Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding something
It’s like an actor saying they want to be paid for the whole year even though they were only needed for a fee months of work. What sense does that make? That seems kind of deceptive, right?
This is not why they are striking. Their are a lot more that the are fighting about.
Not sure I understand the AI point. How can you both say that AI can’t produce quality content, and then also be so adamant in limiting its uses?
David Simon has spent his career mocking the vast majority of cop shows/soap operas that employed full writing staffs, and now he’s advocating for their jobs.
Because AI is cheap, and enough of an audience will settle for poor quality content written for free.
@@softballhumanoid but why would Simon care, he’s been saying those people don’t work hard for years.
AI isn't great at spawning original content. Unlike...a person.
It uses algorithms to see patterns and make alterations to existing content. Per human instructions or input.
What the hell is "end stage capitalism?" It's just capitalism... it has its good and bad features. If we want to make a difference, we quit watching that content that was made without ethical care.
your name is "dan the bastard ?????"
Time to go back to the old school MGM studio days when the writers didn't do "gig work" and claim to be partners. Time to go back when the studios hired writers and the writers were not so-called partners but employees of the studio. The studios can pay the employee writers a good middle class pay for California and on top of that the writer employees can earn bonuses if the product draws a lot of viewership. Gone will be the days of dramatic and exciting 15,000-25,000 an episode on a network sitcoms and residuals wont exist because the employee writers will always get a mundane and boring biweekly pay check just like middle America!
Art has turned to Fart!
Even with the writers working most shows were crap... how many CSI's can they produce with the same formula? Most writers have gotten lazy and now AI can do their job. The truly creative writers are out there but few of them remain and most are afraid to push the envelope in fear of getting cancelled.
Most writers seem to find themselves a bit too precious, especially when they have no leverage in this negotiation
So the story is someone went on strike and didn’t get paid? Yeah I know…
So glad these people are helping accelerate AI and soon we will get to write our own shows! Woot!
Nobody really feels pity for these Hollywood types and its understandable. An industry that promotes and thrives off of an image of glitz, glamour and excess is never going to be viewed as anything close to working class. Even if the truth is that the vast majority of workers in Hollywood now barely make a living wage, that image is hard to remove in the minds of the masses who'll simply refuse to empathize.
At the top yeah it’s glitz and glam but that’s 5% the cameraman ,staff writers extras , non a list actors aren’t just doing their jobs and not making 20 million a movie
@@M_A_R_K_23 As soon as they get what they want from the Big Studios, they won't care about public support anymore. These Hollywood types are cutthroat and elitist. They think they're better than the rest of us mortals: from the a$$h0le lead actor, down to the bum sweeping the soundstage. So NO, they get ZERO empathy from me.
Actors are considered glitzy and glamorous. Camera operators, editors, stunt people, writers, and a lot of other people necessary to make a show are not typically photographed on the red carpet.
@@75aces97 And that needs to change! When you have visibility then you can plead your case successfully. If you're gonna remain behind the scenes no one knows you exist, but that's how Hollywood works right? In many ways Hollywood is getting in its own way when it comes to these labour issues because of its own culture.
If AI does a better job than you then you either weren’t that good to start with or you’re just being exposed to the realities that working class / blue collar workers have faced for generations. Obsolescence.
The messed up thing is that artificial intelligence can make the same c*** that people rewrite scripts into
The strike needs to end and pedicuring continues I get others are still but we need more any people ok why target Hollywood not others if different strike it’s like a s long rob episode squid on strike
Honestly? Have you missed any TV shows? Movies? The Truth? I haven’t. What with everything from UA-cam to Turner Classic Movies? I seen a huge number of domestic and foreign TV and Movies. Made by Adults, with Adult stories and dialogue, crafted specifically for Adults. All “Pre-Woke.”
I hope what passes for TV and Movies today never comes back. “Popular Culture?” Bravo Sierra.
Besides, putting Trump away is the real show to watch, anyway.
A rewrite is not really needed most of the time
Have you never heard of first, second, third drafts? Did you just always turn in your first draft of papers?
LOL They got a $50 bump when something goes to the internet. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. Simon is blaming the studios for his destroying the agents who protected him and the other writers is hilarious. It's ironic he still works for HBO who is ATT and perhaps the worst of the worst. I have so much to say, but this is brutal and he's an egomaniac.
AT&T sold the Warner assets to Discovery over a year ago, and he doesn't know what he's talking about?
David Simon is a great writer. With that being said, no one cares because the writers of today are horrible and have basically destroyed everything they touch.
Screw the WGA. I hope the strike lasts forever and both the Hollywood studios and the writers fail. These unions just get in the way of films being made. Films should be msde union free and an alternative to the Hollywood system needs to rise up. I really hopes these strikes cause Hollywood to implode and something else takes its place. Something union free.
Fascism much?
Sounds like you're siding with the greedy CEOs, man
@@jaredthomas4663 You probably don't have the IQ to understand this, but just because you hate one side doesn't mean you support the other. I hope both sides crumble and something else takes its place, free of greedy unions and Hollywood CEOs
i have no sympathy here, the industry had years to take into consideration what was coming (AI,STREAMING) and yet the whole industry ignored it because they were making profit at the time, now that lack of prep caught up to and surpassed the industry. you fel asleep at the wheel and your car ran off the road as a result, and the response is its everyone else's fault that they didnt keep you awake at the wheel
To be honest the derivitive cop show is written by writers therefore would A.I. make a difference. Add to that the fact that so called " woke " shows have people turning off that appears to be the fault of producers and writers. Yes there are lots of poor quality movies and T.V. shows being made and yes that has always been the case but the number of high quality shows and films has collapsed
The Wire is woke AF, and widely regarded as one of the best (if not THE best) shows ever made. You are categorically wrong
@@Zoroasterisk last episode of the wire was 2008. The quality of shows has nosedived since then
@@spartacusforlife1508 How do you plan on supporting that assertion? What does 'woke'ness have to do with that, and how do you plan on supporting THAT?
@@Zoroasterisk by looking at viewing figures and cancellation of shows or box office failure. Look at the panic at Disney, netflix and amazon. Do you think they're not reacting to the failure of their " woke " product and do you honestly think they haven't seen what happened to Bud lite. Look at shows like the witcher or star trek and the backlash received from the fan base. You know what they say, "People vote with their feet" well that is increasing and it is obviously now being noted by shareholders because in the end it is a business and losing money is bad business
@@spartacusforlife1508 I'm noticing you're not citing any particular numbers or actual facts w/r/t numbers of shows cancelled or movies flopped. Getting a very "I live in an information silo" vibe here.
So here's the thing with Dylan Mulvaney/Bud Light. The far right needs a marginalized group to kick down at for its room-temperature-IQ base to feel like they're making progress, because progress to them (you) is when someone else's life gets worse, not when their (your) lives get better. If you disagree, try to think of a policy that literally any Republican politician has proposed or a law that they've actually passed that will make your life better in a meaningful way. Then, try to think of a time they've stirred up some culture war BS to generate hate clicks. Count each occurrence in both categories, and let me know which one wins.
Also, There's nothing inherently wrong with LGTBQ people endorsing products, unless (oops!) we're talking about a group of people that are taught to hate them just for existing. Also, just going to throw it out there that the whole GROOMER! thing is the same ~but the children~ excuse the right has used as cover for its hateful ideology going back decades. Anita Bryant, for example, used the exact same tactics to terrorize gays in the 70's. History will look at everyone that demonized Mulvaney recently the same way it looks at Bryant now. It's only a matter of time. Love wins, baby
RE: The Witcher - Cavil's quitting for the same reason fans like myself are done with the show, which has more to do with the showrunner and writers deviating from the source material in ways that that don't improve the finished product. The books and games are very much anti-colonialism, which is pretty freaking woke to me. Humans are Spanish/English/French imperialists, and the Elves/supernatural creatures are natives. It's not remotely subtle about it. It's not subtext. It's just text.
RE: ST - Picard (at least seasons 1 & 2) is being rejected by similar reasons as the Witcher, but here's the thing - Star Trek has literally always been woke. Just a few examples - TOS - "The Cloud Minders" is explicitly pro-labor and anti-capital. TNG episode The Outcast could be read as either pro-gay or pro-trans, but either way, woke AF. The Trill are an entire RACE of trans folks. DS9 episode Past Tense, about riots that started due to how society treats the underprivileged, riots that were explicitly necessary to create the utopian future the show is set in.
Hell, the setting of the Star Trek universe itself is a communist utopia where capitalism has been abandoned in favor of a more enlightened policy, where billionaires don't exist, and neither does homelessness. Old Trek was every bit as woke as new Trek is, it was just better written back then, so you didn't feel like it beat you over the head over it, at least most of the time.
So to recap, you have no idea what you're talking about on pretty much every single specific you just raised. You're just mad at what you're told to be mad at, because you're not smart enough to figure out when you're being manipulated by your betters. Demand more of your representatives than mindless culture war wedge issues. The American people deserve better
Simon is a lot of things . Reasonable isn't one of them.
Thats Mr.Simon to you
I blame The Wire for the shitty quality of cocaine in America. Great show, though
Lol what?!