Patric Verrone '81 (Writer, Producer, & Former President of the Writers Guild of America, FUTURAMA)

By Anthony Cistaro A.R.T. '97

As a follow up to Harvardwood’s “Brave New Media” Panel discussion, Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone '81 recently shared additional thoughts with us on how WGA writers are shaping the future of internet content.

Once upon a time, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his fellow novelists were lured out to Hollywood to write for the studios. They largely fell to drink and despair upon discovering they had traded in their artistic autonomy for the role of the well-paid but underestimated lackey.

Not so in the world of new media, according to Patric Verrone, President of the Writers Guild of America West. In the aftermath of the WGA’s 100-day strike last year against the studio conglomerates, Verrone has continued to deliver on his promise that “every piece of media with a moving image on a screen or a recorded voice must have a writer, and every writer must have a WGA contract.”

Out of necessity, the writers forged into the wilderness of the internet. During the walkout, the writers launched STRIKE TV. They successfully countered the studios’ traditional media propaganda juggernaut by creating and distributing their own online content.

And while the studios are still trying to figure out how to turn a profit from clips of the kid jumping on a trampoline or Mentos/Coke bottle explosions, the writers are setting up shop online with some promising successes. Joss Whedon’s DR. HORRIBLE’S SING-ALONG BLOG and Seth MacFarlane’s CAVALCADE OF CARTOON COMEDY celebrate the writer as the brand.

“New media seems to be shaping itself into a TV-like production system,” says Verrone, “in television, the writer is the auteur – it is the writer who produces and shapes the direction of the material – as opposed to films where the director tends to be the auteur.”

An interesting example is a recent contract agreement forged between the WGA and Machinima, a gaming site. Union writers will deliver fifteen comedies using videogame assets: computer graphics, animation, puppetry, motion capture. Unlike traditional animation which can take months, the Machinima platform – with animated characters interacting in the environment as the content is being captured – allows for near real-time delivery.

The writers will each draft 22 minutes of content broken into 5 webisodes, which then can be reassembled and sold as television pilots.

Advertisers are also migrating away from traditional media and towards the internet. “Even YouTube now has click-through advertising,” said Verrone, “and in a down economy, the efficiency of click-through is the advertiser’s choice.”

For Verrone, these developments show great promise.

“First, the direction of successful content on new platforms – what it looks like, and how the payment structures are going to be – is being determined by the writers themselves.”

Verrone also notes a change in how writers expect to be compensated in new media, “Historically, the writer enjoyed the bulk of his salary up front with some residual revenue further downstream. Now creators are willing to take less up front if they can enjoy more creative control and participate in profits on the back end.”

“Additionally, we’re seeing an upstream incubation period, where product developed for the internet will migrate backwards to cable and network programming. Why are we sure of this? The studios simply are not developing as many pilot scripts. They still have to fill the same number of slots. So either the studios have to be very lucky with what they select, or they will have to look to the internet as a proving ground of sorts.”

In the interim, the studios are seeking what’s beneficial to them in both ways – compress the up front profits and withhold the back end profits by suggesting that the future is too complicated to predict.

“But for the studios,” said Verrone, “there’s ultimately no route into the revenue stream without talent.”

When asked about recent studio efforts to sidestep the WGA and directly attract talented unknowns, Verrone recalled his own beginnings, “I know when I started out as a writer that there were many things I didn’t think about. Like someday I’d probably have to support a wife and children and adequately prepare for my future. That means you will need health benefits, you’ll need a pension, and ultimately you’ll need an entity to police the contracts you work under to protect what you’ve negotiated.”

“Going forward, the opportunities for writers to create and distribute independent productions in new media are leading us down limitless pathways,” said Verrone, “but it is also important to have the protection from exploitation that a union provides.”

Veritas.