banzai

I do watch anime, but it’s rare I find something I like enough to bump the man over on the couch and take over the remote - between the internet and inlicenced anime, my own large collection that I still need to catch up on, and my friends’ large collections that THEY need to catch up on, again, not actually an issue for us.

I find it a bit sad how unnoticable the strike was from the consumer stand point, aside from the news blurbs about it. Between the news, reality shows, and re-runs (which the public is pretty used to over certain timeframes, like summer) the current span of negotiations really didn’t/doesn’t feel “real.” Then again, I haven’t been following it like a hawk, and I’m not a TV junkie to begin with. Perhaps people who are actually glued to it regularly had a different experience.

Anyway Jami: I think on animation and reality, they were members they were hoping to gain because those folks *are* writers for t.v. and film, but they needed to prioritize their current memberships needs first. It was a bargaining chip they could afford to sacrifice this time around, and they *needed* to be able to sacrifice some things because they were coming from a highly disadvantageous previous contract. They’ve never had animation writers as members because of, well, Disney, way back in the day. Reality is new, and would *still* be hard to enforce because the companies already pull shit like calling writers on those shows “managing supervisor” or a myriad of other titles.

As far as the set crew goes, some of them already have unions who were set up to help them in case of a different guild stopping work. The ones who don’t have unions, the WGA *did* set up quite a few charity runs and the like to help out (especially for writers’ assistants). And some of the wealthier writers paid their crews out of pocket during the strike.

Can you tell I’ve been reading about the strike since day 1?