Sometimes you get to choose to make a core memory.
It was December 2009. I had finished high school, finished HSC, and had decided to make the very silly decision to pursue media studies at university. I wasn't quite sure what I was thinking. I will say my first choice was something like International Studies + something else that necessitated a 95 ATAR or something that I'm not sure I believed I could achieve. But all my uni degree choices down the line were screen and media-related.
I wasn't quite sure what I expected to do with these studies. But one day, my mum and I went to the movies, and I watched one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.
It was brilliant. Ambitious. Romantic. I was fully swept away.
Leaving the theatre, I knew something momentous had happened to me. So I turned to my mum and said, I want to write films like that one day.
Some part of me was taking notes for the future. I wasn't exactly sure how or where, but I knew I wanted to be able to tell this moment - maybe at the Oscars, or in a late night interview, or maybe just in an email - when I was a screenwriter. I wanted to say, this is the film1 that made me want to write for screen.
These days, I say this more frequently. I will immediately rewatch a tv series, a movie, one well-crafted scene and go this!!! I want to write things like this! Did you see what they did? Let's watch it again.
You might think learning more about how film would make might ruin the mystique, but it's the opposite. Even my relatively little film set knowledge means I know just enough to understand what an absolute miracle it is that anything gets made. Film-making is an impossible, Olympian team sport. There are so many cogs turning, and a piece of grit in any department can make everything grind to a halt. Somehow, though, films get made. Reset camera. Take two. The show must go on.
I love film. I love TV. I love stories. And all these things are only made possible by the blood, sweat and tears of people, crew, cast, the person who brings everyone coffee and the person making a last minute prop run and background extra #7- all of them working to make the same impossible dream happen. There's no film without them.
It’s kind of a ridiculous thing to want to be a screen writer. Even before I knew anything about how the film industry work, I knew that wanting to be a working screenwriter was a pipe dream. People don’t respect writers. Writing is a hobby. It’s not a job. Not a real job.
This is what I used to think, anyway. And it’s what executives for companies like Netflix and Disney and other major companies and broadcast networks in the AMPTP (The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ) would like us all to think. Because they don’t respect writers. They don’t respect actors. They might think they respect film and TV because they’re part of the pipeline, but they definitely don’t respect the people who make it.
The WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) has now been on strike for 12 weeks. SAG-AFTRA (The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) have officially joined the picket line. They’re striking for fair pay and compensation and the future of the industry. Which to be honest, feels like an impossible task. It often makes me really despondent, remembering how little people respect writers.
But for right now, I feel hopeful. Because making a movie is also an impossible task, and people make it happen all the time. These things only happen because workers come together.
Solidarity forever.
Love,
A (hopefully) future WGA member
Thanks for reading! Have a treat:
Have you heard of the Crab Museum? 🦀 I have never been there, but I do own merch from them because they are cool as heck. I learned about them earlier this year, but since it’s Cancer season, it feels like a good time to remember how great crabs are. If I have any reason to want to visit England, it’ll be to visit the Crab museum. 🦀🦀🦀
Today’s treat is from their very good Instagram:
What film was it? Well, if I meet you in person I’ll tell you, but while this newsletter has very little influence, I’m still not gonna promote any movies while folks are on strike - even if they are from 2009.