Screenwriters are back at work after the 148-day Writers Guild of America strike came to an end last week thanks to a new three-year deal with Hollywood studios. The strike lasted from May 2 to Sept. 27.
"I think the writers are coming out of it feeling good. They got bumps across the board in terms of pays for film, pays for development, pays for TV, number of people in the writing room, protections with AI, a little bump in pension and health," said Maui-based filmmaker Stefan Schaefer.
"So I think everyone's pretty happy for the next three years and I think the big sort of existential question with AI is something that's going to be continued to be negotiated," he added.
Schaefer wrote and directed the 2020 feature film "Aloha Surf Hotel." As a member of the WGA, he participated in the strike and this week voted to approve the new deal.
The major studios agreed to use writers for screenplays, not material generated by or incorporated by artificial intelligence. But AI is not entirely prohibited from the filmmaking process.
"What the determination was and what they resolved was AI can be used in the development process as long as all parties know that it's being used, but that no scripts that are generated from AI would ever have the WGA stamp," Schaefer said.
"This is obviously a much bigger question, in terms of all sorts of creatives and everyone's work. But it does feel good that at least they tackled it head-on, and the studios seem to at least acknowledge that we can't be obsolete quite yet."
And for the first time, streaming companies such as Netflix promised to be transparent about their viewership data. Successful shows would generate bonuses for writers.
"If you look at the profitability graphs on some of the streamers, you see that, you know, they've sort of gone exponentially up over the last decade. And then if you look at what the writers have yielded, how it's trickled down to us, it hasn't matched that sort of growth. So that was a real strong stance that the guild was taking, and the streamers were very reluctant to budge on that," Schaefer told The Conversation.
SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, continues its strike with further negotiations scheduled Friday. They have been on strike since July 14.
Schaefer said the terms of the new WGA deal could set a precedent for those negotiations and help bring an end to that strike.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Oct. 5, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
