Striking Hollywood Writers Vent Online

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 | 11:51 a.m.

You can put Hollywood writers on strike, but you can't take the keyboard out of their hands.

While Writers Guild of America members continue to picket outside film and television studios in Los Angeles and New York, writers are under guidelines from the Guild to withhold their storytelling and joke-writing talents.

But many of the writers are using their skills to get out the message and creatively explain the WGA's case. Compare the mightiness of the pen to corporate largesse if you wish. While writers freeze out TV, they are instead taking to the Web to express themselves.

One of the WGA's largest soap boxes is its newly added channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/wgaamerica. As of Tuesday, 22 videos have been posted, most of them featuring writers venting from the picket lines.

The biggest hit has easily been a video posted on Nov. 6 titled "The Office is Closed," which has been viewed over 400,000 times. In it, several of the writers and actors from "The Office" discuss the peculiarity of producers' claims that online material is merely promotional.

"Do you know what my favorite 'promotion' is?," asks Michael Schur, co-executive producer of "The Office." Then he answers: "Lost."

In other videos, "Grey's Anatomy" stars like Patrick Dempsey and Sandra Oh explain their support for the writers, while "Reno 911!" stars Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant picket in costume.

United Hollywood is a thorough blog of strike goings-on from the writers' perspective: http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com. It was started by several strike "captains" and contains the slogan: "We're all on the same page."

Many others have sought to document their experience on strike. "Daily Show" writer Rachel Axler recently wrote a hilarious account for the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com), which also on Sunday ran an op-ed from "Lost" co-creator and head writer Damon Lindelof.

Peter Tolan, co-creator of "Rescue Me," has blogged for the Los Angles Times (http://www.latimes.com). Author and screenwriter Neal Pollack has detailed his experience as a new member of the WGA at Slate.com.

Variety.com has hosted numerous blogs, including open letters from Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and who was to begin production on a new Fox series, "Dollhouse."

The Huffington Post has also herded many voices from the strike, including "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/hollywood-strike.

The strike is primarily over revenue from new media, particularly the Web. Writers don't currently receive residuals when material they've written for television is transmitted again online, (where money is again made by advertising, whether embedded in the video or surrounding it).

The studios claim the Internet is too new of a platform to allot even a small percentage of profit to the writers. That the writers are flocking online to spread their message, though, would seem to suggest the Internet is a dominant medium for Hollywood writers - or anyone else.

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK: More Radiohead Online

Radiohead increasingly seems like a virtual band. After releasing their seventh studio album "In Rainbows" for download on their Web site with optional pricing, Radiohead has been holding live webcasts performing songs from the new album. Though you had to be watching when the webcasts were live on http://www.Radiohead.tv, some of the performances have been captured and posted on video-sharing sites. YouTube clips of the band performing several covers as well as their gorgeous new track "Reckoner" can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/ateaseweb.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - What's your favorite Web site? E-mail AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle at fcoyle(at)ap.org