[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What were the conversations you were having with the writers during the strike?
Corey Mandell, Screenwriter and Screenwriting Instructor: There was a lot of darkness and fear. It was a long strike and it didn’t look good in the beginning. Let’s give a little bit of a perspective. When there’s a war, the generals will look at the last war to see what worked and they’ll replicate that and usually that’s a good idea. Sometimes that’s how empires fall.
In 2008, which was the last serious work stoppage that the writers had the writer strike, at that point reality TV was starting to grow in popularity. The whole thing about a strike, and I’m sure most of you listening to know this, what happens is when there’s a strike, it will not resolve until both sides want it to resolve. Both sides have to be in enough pain that they’re like Let’s figure out a solution. If one side wants a solution and one is like Let’s keep the strike going, it’s going to keep going.
What happened is in 2008, the networks, the powers that be said We can’t get any scripted content, so let’s just triple down on reality TV and hopefully we’ll get similar ratings. It was better than that for them, they got almost identical ratings and it’s a lot cheaper to do a reality TV. Suddenly they were like What? We like this strike. The writers in 2008 were really struggling and I was making my living as a writer back then so it’s really hard when you can’t get a paycheck. We’re like Hey Y’all, let’s talk and they’re like Nah, we’re good, you keep picketing, you go for it you spunky writers. We’re just going to do reality TV.
It got to the point where we had such little leverage…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
Corey Mandell is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ridley Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Warner Brothers, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Family, Working Title, Paramount, Live Planet, Beacon Films, Touchstone, Trilogy, Radiant and Walt Disney Pictures.
Corey teaches screenwriting via private online classes using video conferencing to allow participants to see and hear each other in real time. His highly popular classes draw students from across the US, Europe and Australia.
His students have gone on to sell or option scripts to Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Fox 2000, MGM, Universal, USA Network and Lifetime. Others have gained admission to the USC Graduate Screenwriting Program, the AFI Conservatory Screenwriting Program and Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab.
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