GRRM on the WGA Strike

[Westeros]

Major news out of Hollywood has been the strike of the Writers Guild of America after the breakdown of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers; more details can be found here. In the wake of that, news of various productions started to come out regarding how they were dealing with the strike, with variations from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s showrunners completely stopping working on their production to House of the Dragon‘s Ryan Condal remaining on set but in a strictly non-writer capacity (this apparently has caused some umbrage among WGA members, who argue that . George R.R. Martin has now weighed in on the strike, and one particular sticking point—so-called “mini-rooms” which have upended what was once a long and successful means of developing and promoting writers—and in the course of it has laid out where various Hollywood projects stand (for those who don’t want to read it all: everything Hollywood-related is on hold for him, as he’s a proud WGA member and thoroughly in agreement with the strike).

To quote him:

“(Many of you will be wondering, rightfully, about the impact of the strike on my own shows.  The second season of DARK WINDS wrapped several months ago.  Post production has been completed on five of the six episodes, and will soon be done on the last.  The show will likely air sometime this summer on AMC.  No decision on the third season will be made until after the strike.  Peacock has passed on WILD CARDS, alas.  A pity.  We will try to place it elsewhere, but not until the strike is over.  The writer’s room on A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT has closed for the duration.  Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines.  Across the ocean, the second season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON started filming April 11 and will continue in London and Wales.  The scripts for the eight s2 episodes were all finished months ago, long before the strike began,  Every episode has gone through four or five drafts and numerous rounds of revisions, to address HBO notes, my notes, budget concerns, etc.  There will be no further revisions.  The writers have done their jobs; the rest is in the hands of the directors, cast and crew… and of course the dragons).”

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[Quaithe from Asshai]

3 hours ago, Westeros said:

(this apparently has caused some umbrage among WGA members, who argue that .

@Ran seems the article is incomplete 

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

@Ran seems the article is incomplete 

Fixed:

Quote

who argue that “all” producing is “writing”, but to be honest this seems to fly in the face of their own Basic Agreement which acknowledges there are producers who are not subject to the Basic Agreement, e.g. non-writers can do production work, so why can’t writers do non-writing production work?

Obviously, the whole thing is very over-heated in some aspects, but in any case, yes, Condal is getting stick for working on the show in a strictly non-writing capacity (basically not doing any of the things that the Basic Agreement identifies as writing). 

[Schloetz]

This worries me in some ways because although the writing on HOTD Season 2 is complete, not having those writers on set might prevent it from being the best it can.

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

@Fullbuster It might appease your mind to know both Ryan Condal and Sara Hess were on set in Spain this week. Per the WGA guidelines, the hyphenated creatives (in this case producer-writer) are allowed to work on set so long as it is for their other job titles, not as writers. That's the rules officially anyway, but in practise if a scene really doesn't work and Ryan or Sara witness it they will not leave it as is.

[Ran]

Just now, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

That's the rules officially anyway, but in practise if a scene really doesn't work and Ryan or Sara witness it they will not leave it as is.

And risk getting kicked out of the WGA? Not likely. The rules also require hyphenates to provide evidence that they did no re-writing work, in the form of providing the scripts.

Realistically, I expect the idea will be that they hope the strike will wrap in a few months and that they can then rush in to fix things in editing, ADR, and/or with reshoots as necessary. It'll make the season more expensive, of course, but it seems the only proper way forward.

Tony Gilroy noted that none of the writers were on set for the first season of Andor, stating that everything you needed to get the episodes done was in the scripts and left in the hands of the directors. I suspect Condal and his writing team took a similar approach.

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

They took their time in the pre-production to organize the structure of show and review GRRM and HBO's notes on their different drafts. I should hope so they had firm complete scripts by the time they started filming (1 month or so prior to the start of the strike).

[Annara Snow]

12 hours ago, Ran said:

And risk getting kicked out of the WGA? Not likely. The rules also require hyphenates to provide evidence that they did no re-writing work, in the form of providing the scripts.

 

What if an actor improvises a line? How would anyone know from comparing the scripts to the finished product if it was because of showrunner/executive producers doing the writing job, or because of actors improvising?

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

What if an actor improvises a line? How would anyone know from comparing the scripts to the finished product if it was because of showrunner/executive producers doing the writing job, or because of actors improvising?

Improvised lines wouldn't appear in scripts, or would be added by the director or his staff to the final shooting script if they decided to keep the line but did some additional shooting. Documentation would show who was responsible for the improv or the addition, based on things like the daily rushes showing people literally coming up with a line the first time or being seen discussing it with the director, etc.

 

[Thomaerys Velaryon]

@Ran @The Dragon Demands @The Bard of Banefort @Annara Snow

Francesca Orsi (HBO's head of drama) just did an interview with Deadline. In it she confirmed HBO is prepared to have reshoot or rewrite after the strike if necessary. HBO's position is clear on the matter, there is no breach of the rules for Ryan and the other writers while the strike is still going on.

Quote

“Ryan is following all the rules — and of course pencils down — rendering services as the non-writing producer,” Orsi said. “If there is anything that needs to be rewritten or reshot, we’ll handle that after the strike, and we’ll put the resources behind revising what we need to do and reshooting what we need to do if we’ve made any mistakes along the way.”

 

Also,

1) While nothing is confirmed as of yet, it seems like the Regency Era might be on the table to be adapted afterall, we'll see.

Quote

“It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion,” Orsi said about the length of the series. “George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see.”

2) Ideally HBO wants a three season run for The Hedge Knight with each season adapting one of the three novellas. No surprise here but it still good to hear.

3) Other projects are still in discussion at HBO, including the Snow show. 

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

@Ran @The Dragon Demands @The Bard of Banefort @Annara Snow

Francesca Orsi (HBO's head of drama) just did an interview with Deadline. In it she confirmed HBO is prepared to have reshoot or rewrite after the strike if necessary. HBO's position is clear on the matter, there is no breach of the rules for Ryan and the other writers while the strike is still going on.

 

Also,

1) While nothing is confirmed as of yet, it seems like the Regency Era might be on the table to be adapted afterall, we'll see.

2) Ideally HBO wants a three season run for The Hedge Knight with each season adapting one of the three novellas. No surprise here but it still good to hear.

3) Other projects are still in discussion at HBO, including the Snow show. 

She said, however, they would love if GRRM writes more novellas in the meantime so they get material for more seasons than 3.

My personal preference would be that they only focus on the Dance and then something like a really long or double episode finale to show the aftermath in the first couple of years (basically "The Hooded Hand" chapter, which feels like an epilogue to the Dance in some ways, plus a couple more things from later chapters like seeing Nettles in the Mountains of the Moon  and the Aegon/Viserys reunion, without going fully into new storylines of power struggle during Aegon III... 

but Ryan Condal has said before, IIRC, that he'd like the show to be about the Targaryen dynasty and not just the Dance? So he may have other ideas. Maybe they even keep going on with Aegon III, Daeron I, Baeor I, Viserys II and Aegon IV and the Blackfyre rebellions.. if the audience is still there at that point for more stories like this, even without dragons. 

Some people think they will go back to the Conquest, but that would be really awkward to do in the same show, jumping back and forth in time. They could just make another spinoff at that point. I like the idea someone had on Twitter that they could do it a miniseries showing Aegon's, Maegor's and some of Jaehaerys I's reign but as a story about Rhaena Targaryen and from her perspective.

Edited May 26, 2023 by Annara Snow

[The Bard of Banefort]

Sounds like they only want to adapt stories that are already written, which is understandable enough. That’s probably the best incentive for George to write more novellas. I may be in the minority, but at this point I’d rather he focused on DnE rather than on Winds anyway.

The article also says that the scripts were starting to “tread water” when they were writing ten instead of eight. If they needed to pad out ten episodes, then I don’t think they’ll have a problem getting to the fall of KL this season. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by The Bard of Banefort

[jennaofthevale]

It was Extremely dumb for Sara to be pictured by anyone. She already has a ton of heat. Someone clearly was not thinking.

[The Dragon Demands]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:29 PM, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

@Ran @The Dragon Demands @The Bard of Banefort @Annara Snow

Francesca Orsi (HBO's head of drama) just did an interview with Deadline. In it she confirmed HBO is prepared to have reshoot or rewrite after the strike if necessary. HBO's position is clear on the matter, there is no breach of the rules for Ryan and the other writers while the strike is still going on.

 

Also,

1) While nothing is confirmed as of yet, it seems like the Regency Era might be on the table to be adapted afterall, we'll see.

2) Ideally HBO wants a three season run for The Hedge Knight with each season adapting one of the three novellas. No surprise here but it still good to hear.

3) Other projects are still in discussion at HBO, including the Snow show. 

Everything’s turning up dragons…

[The Bard of Banefort]

On 5/26/2023 at 9:16 PM, jennaofthevale said:

It was Extremely dumb for Sara to be pictured by anyone. She already has a ton of heat. Someone clearly was not thinking.

I doubt she planned it. Regardless, Targ Nation will hate her forever for saying that she doesn’t think Daemon is #relationshipgoals. She could single-handedly negotiate a new contract for the writers guild and that wouldn’t change. 

It sounds like HBO is applying the pressure to keep production rolling. Maybe that’s just how you run a business, but it’s not the best look either. And unfortunately, it’s the showrunners who are receiving the brunt of the blame for it.

[Werthead]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:12 PM, Annara Snow said:

What if an actor improvises a line? How would anyone know from comparing the scripts to the finished product if it was because of showrunner/executive producers doing the writing job, or because of actors improvising?

I believe actors and directors have a little leeway to improvise as long as they were not members of the WGA as well (i.e. actor-writers or director-writers), but they have the issue there that the producers can't approve any writing changes until the strike is over. So if someone improvises a really cool line and they keep it in, that line cannot be used if the strike is still going on when the final edit is locked, presumably a year or so from now.

They are mega strict on it. Ryan Reynolds is a member of the WGA, which means that he is 100% prohibited from improvising on the set of Deadpool 3, which is a major limitation considering how much improvisation he did for Deadpool 1 and 2.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

They are mega strict on it. Ryan Reynolds is a member of the WGA, which means that he is 100% prohibited from improvising on the set of Deadpool 3, which is a major limitation considering how much improvisation he did for Deadpool 1 and 2.

I imagine it would be quite difficult to monitor every single fragment of every single movie and TV show.

[Ran]

10 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I imagine it would be quite difficult to monitor every single fragment of every single movie and TV show.

They depend largely on anonymous tips, which you'll find plenty of in a town that's sympathetic to the guild as Hollywood's unions and other guilds generally are. Combine that with the aforementioned requirement for hyphenates to present documentation, they have in the past thrown people out of the guild. Not sure if anyone was bounced in the 2007-2008 strike, but apparently a number of writer-producers got kicked out in the strike in the 80s. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I imagine it would be quite difficult to monitor every single fragment of every single movie and TV show.

A copy of the script is lodged with the WGA before the strike begins, they know the filming dates, they can compare to the finished movie and they can also compare to any rewrites and reshoots from after when the strike is over.

There's been multiple writers' strikes in Hollywood in the 1960s (twice), 1980s, 2000s and now, so they've worked out processes to ensure nobody breaks ranks.