Why Protecting the Writers Room Is Good for Studios’ Bottom Line

“I’ve heard showrunners give me the same advice over and over: when you’re in this seat, you got to learn to delegate. But that only works if there’s someone to delegate to.”

From The Hollywood Reporter:

As the WGA strike crosses the 100-day mark, the “Eastside Warrior” explains why studios should want to agree to room-size minimums: “Many brains made for better product.” And, crucially, cheaper product.

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Cutting the writers room and not sending writers to set might look like a good idea on paper, which is all a business affairs exec thinks about. But reality is another question. In that room, we game out countless plots, have thousands of arguments (philosophical, practical, bizarre), come up with good ideas, bad ideas, and crazy ideas. We talk about our lives, our beliefs, our dreams. Out of all that a good show can emerge. Collaborative social intelligence is not only a real thing, it’s why our species clawed its way to the top of the food chain.

Of course, it’s naïve to expect quality to count for anything in this town. It should, and it does in the long run, but “should” and “the long run” rarely win a business argument in our ADHD era. However, if one can somehow get past the quarterly earnings–obsessed blinders of the CEOs, there’s also a clear business reason to protect the writers room: dollars and cents.

In the age of peak TV, budgets have exploded exponentially (although not, curiously, writer budgets.) While there are a million reasons why, there’s one thing that always costs too much money: re-shoots. Sometimes it’s inevitable, but truth be told, sometimes it’s ’cause of fuck ups. The kind of inevitable fuck-ups that come from not enough eyes on the ball and the temptation to “fix” said fuck-ups in post with costly VFX.

Which is just a variation on that same theme: asking one writer or two to oversee the crazy Rube-Goldberg machine that is a show.*** Shit tends to happen when those who helped draw up the battle plan (i.e. the scripts) aren’t around for the battle. That’s not to mention the cheapest way to fix unforeseen problems — and all shows have unforeseen problems — is to keep hands on deck to rewrite quickly. A piece of paper costs nothing compared to a standing set.

***Before you say the words “Mike White,” I’m pretty sure he’d be happy to have a couple hands on hand to bounce ideas off of. Aaron Sorkin was famous for wanting to write everything himself, and he still had a writers room.

For context, check out the recent bit of AMPTP psyops in which a Variety reporter “spoke with seven writers with varying levels of experience — including several current or former showrunners — who were willing to explain their opposition on the condition of anonymity.”

These anonymous writers have their rationale against mandatory staffing minimums, but that doesn’t negate the primary point of this Guild proposal: To save the existence of writers rooms. This in the face of C-suite tech-heads who fantasize about TV series being created by a showrunner and an AI assistant. Now that’s optimization!

As the Eastside Warrior argues, it’s actually more cost-effective for the companies to pay for adequate writers rooms and support them going to set to follow episodes through post.

To read the rest of The Hollywood Reporter article, go here.

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