One down and two more to go. The Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) came to a contract agreement late Thursday stopping any possibility for a strike by the directors. Most now think this will turn up the pressure on the striking members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) to loosen their hold on some of the demands they want. The WGA, however, plans on sticking to its guns. The strike is in its 10th week.
The Directors Guild wanted some things similar to those the WGA is requesting for its 12,000 members, most important was a compensation package for new media. Somehow, the DGA and AMPTP were able to come to terms with that issue while the WGA and producers are still far apart. Insiders are saying the new DGA deal will ensure that its 13,000 members will be paid double the current rate for Internet downloads. No official word yet on the DVD compensation.
“Two words describe this agreement — groundbreaking and substantial,” said Gil Cates, chairman of the Directors Guild’s negotiating committee.
“The gains in this contract for directors and their teams are extraordinary — and there are no rollbacks of any kind.”
One has to wonder that if the AMPTP was able to meet the desires of the directors, why it is so difficult for them to give the writers what they want for new media. Their demands are quite reasonable by comparison. Many industry people believe that since the DGA was able to negotiate such a positive contract in their favor that talks can begin again very soon between the WGA and AMPTP.
WGA leaders are happy for the DGA but insist that they will not allow those successful negotiations force them into a less than satisfactory arrangement with producers.
I’m very worried by this. If the Directors were able to reach an agreement so quickly, there’s a very real possibility that the DGA have negotiated a deal that will benefit them solely and leave the writers out in the cold.
I wonder how they were able to reach a deal so soon. Are directors more valued by producers than writers are? Did the DGA have such low demands? Did the WGA have such high demands demands?