6/23/2023 0 Comments Best web editor![]() The issue is whether the descendants of ChatGPT will become tools to enhance writers’ contributions or replace them. Creative industries have typically been less vulnerable to technological advances than other sectors (personal computers certainly didn’t put screenwriters out of work). The recent strides in generative artificial intelligence technology have made writers understandably worried that the studios will try to use automation to displace jobs of humans. Not to be left unmentioned is the AI question, about which I hope to write more thoughtfully in the coming weeks. But there are signs that the different guilds, facing similar issues, are more united this time around. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios in labor dealings, is surely hoping a deal with the DGA will give it leverage against the typically more militant writers, in a repeat of what happened during the 2007-08 strike. Negotiations begin Wednesday between the studios and another crucial union, the Directors Guild of America. Martin said the writers room for HBO’s upcoming “Game of Thrones” prequel had paused work, with the author going on the record with his “full and complete and unequivocal support” of the guild. The Duffer brothers announced the delay of production on Netflix’s “ Stranger Things,” saying, “Writing does not stop when filming begins.” George R.R. The MTV Movie & TV Awards essentially went into clip-show mode, reminiscent of live programs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Behind the scenes, the companies are trying to keep the pipeline open by demanding that producers with dual roles (writer-showrunners) continue to perform their managerial duties during the strike. ![]() Netflix, where much of the WGA ire is focused, has a particularly well stocked cupboard of programming and a diverse slate of international productions. Studio chiefs are openly saying they think they have enough finished material to make it so that viewers won’t notice the strike for awhile. And if the first week of the ongoing writers’ strike is any indication, neither side is going to crack soon and the dispute will get uglier as it progresses beyond the early burst of enthusiasm from the picket lines. So it’s no surprise that members of a long-dismissed profession have been girding for battle with their employers and are ready to dig in to get a better deal. Almost stings worse than Tina Fey’s immortal writers’ room burn as “30 Rock’s” Liz Lemon (“Boy, we, as a group, might not smell great”). “You don’t need any talent - the last thing you want is talent,” Parker, who helped write 1937’s “A Star is Born” and penned numerous forgettable films, once said of the art of the screenplay. And no one could be more scathing in their scorn of screenwriting and its practitioners than the great authors themselves.
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