Take the promo for "Trenches" as an example of Stage 9′s work.  Andrew Wallenstein calls it "pretty remarkable as low-budget recreations of intergalactic warfare go; believe it or not, it was shot in a quarry in Virginia."  Granted, a 60-second preview can’t say too much about the writing, acting, and so on, yet "Trenches" certainly looks cool enough.

Unfortunately, Wallenstein states, "Disney’s ABC has indefinitely postponed the debut of a unit charged with launching original online series. . . .  Disney isn’t saying why Stage 9 is being put on the back burner, but sources indicate the parent company does not want to risk inflaming the guilds with a venture intended to grab digital revenue – a sore point in strike negotiations."

This article will in no way turn into a criticism of the writers’ strike – it is what it is, and its effects are what they are.  Still, it’s interesting to note that the strike is having a negative impact on Stage 9′s online content, when so many onlookers predicted that online videos would flourish as a result.

This development could even alter predictions that the writers’ strike will boost online advertising.

Up until now, discussions usually centered on Google, the death of print, or returns on investment.  Or the effects, and never mind the causes, of online ads doing well – like some sort of "it’ll be okay" mantra backed up by statistics.

Yet Josh Catone notes, "As the strike drags on, and original primetime TV content dries up, advertisers may begin to jump ship for other mediums.  Chrysler, the third-largest automaker in the US, already has, choosing to run ads on sports and the Internet instead of primetime television."

Admittedly, Chrysler hasn’t been much of a trendsetter in recent years (and since it was bought by Cerberus, nobody’s sure what’s going on).  Still, it seems like a logical conclusion that other companies will follow, and that a recession will hit Web advertising less hard than many other segments.

Of course, there’s still a glimmer of a chance that a recession won’t come at all, but that’s looking extraordinarily unlikely at this point.

And now the Writers Guild of America finally means it. They’re bringing in the big guns. Er, pens.

Today is the deadline for “Strike TV” proposals. And what is Strike TV? It will be an online video channel featuring professional WGA scripts.

This is a step in the right direction for the strike, especially if they can quickly show that they can make profits from their content on the Internet by cutting out the middleman. Then, if online video viewing increases (and TV viewership decreases), then I think even Andy and I will buy the connection—and more importantly, so will the AMPTP.

However, we all know that there’s more to succeeding online than throwing a lot of content at the viewers to see what sticks. But it sounds like they’ll be doing quite a bit of that. According to the Strike TV MySpace profile (oh, doesn’t that feel official), any show of any quality, featuring any “actors,” could be accepted and aired. If you’ve ever wondered how many shows are unsuccessfully pitched each season, this could be your chance to find out.

So, while the dialogue may be better than your average YouTube fare, the production quality and acting might not. However, it’s highly likely that many WGA members have enough friends in high places (and actors who have nothing to do now that their sitcoms are out of scripts) to create slick, professional-quality content direct to the web. (Hooray for us!) At an informational meeting last week, “nearly 400 writers, DPs, camera operators, directors, actors, editors, casting directors and craftsmen” came, so the writers definitely have some support that could crank out good video.

The WGA does acknowledge that some of the shows may be successful, in which case, the owners of the show (ie its writers) are free to take it wherever they need to, including to other online channels (but probably not back onto television until the strike’s over).

Ultimately, though, the WGA isn’t framing Strike TV as the potential straw to break the camel’s back. It describes the effort as “an Internet fundraiser.” The shows, which will be up to 40 minutes long, will be ad-supported, with revenue from the ads going toward others affected by the strike, “including IATSE [stage hands et al.] and Teamsters.” While I certainly appreciate this gesture, I think the WGA is selling themselves short here—or maybe just hedging their bets.

Comments

As primetime continues its downward spiral, leaving us with the same old recycled (non)reality content and Stephen Colbert is reduced to lip-synching Prince songs for half his show, disgruntled writers are taking matters into their own hands.

Aaron Mendelsohn, whose breakout films were Air Bud and Air Bud: Golden Receiver (no comment, Disney I’m sure paid him fairly), and a group of TV and film A-listers are forming a new company called Virtual Artists.

They’re pegging Silicon Valley for funding to the tune of $30 million in startup capital, and insiders seem to think they can get that. Virtual Artists doesn’t plan to do high-budget films just yet, because of the risk, but will be focusing on low-budget content on a level of Napoleon Dynamite (level of cost, not necessarily quality).

And the good news for those aspiring, Mendelsohn says scripts from newcomers are welcome.

It’s good to see them having the gumption to compete head-to-head with the networks and studios that don’t seem to want to give them a fair cut. 
 

The BBC has data from Nielsen Online and Pew Internet Project which points to an unusual jump in online video viewing in the past two months.

The on-going writers’ strike has meant that many popular programs are currently off-air in the US and, according to Nielsen Online, this has seen Americans turn in large numbers to online alternatives.

Its figures show that YouTube’s audience was up 18% in the two months after the strike started, and newer video-sharing sites such as Crackle have also experienced unprecedented growth.

I just don’t get it. The writers’ strike means that we’ve lost a lot of quality TV shows, so why would we fill the void with the kind of junk that gets posted to the web? Don’t get me wrong, I love watching online video content, but not as a replacement to quality TV programming.

There are plenty of other reasons why web watching has increased–maybe it’s all of the presidential election coverage that’s online. Until I see numbers that show a direct correlation between increased online video viewing during prime time hours–7 pm to 10 pm–I’ll be unconvinced of the connection.

What do you think?

Comments

Number one: According to the BBC, Nielsen says that traffic to some online video sites has doubled since the Hollywood writers’ strike in October turned the TV into a wasteland of reruns and unfunny late-night talk shows (although it may be stretching things to call the Nielsen figure a data point, since I can’t find a report that has those numbers in it).

The second data point is a report from the Pew Internet Research project, a reliable and independent research group, indicates that almost 50 per cent of those surveyed had been to video-sharing sites such as YouTube (up from 38 per cent last year) and daily traffic to such sites has doubled in the past year. The number of people who said they had been to such a site within a day of being asked almost doubled to 15 per cent.

Ever since the strike began, there has been a debate about how much of a benefit online video might get as the fresh content on television became more and more scarce. Some have argued that most online video is crap, and therefore the boost would likely be minimal. Others argue that much of what is on TV is also crap, although the production values might be slightly higher, and that the strike might help to push some content creators to remake the industry in Silicon Valley’s image.

I don’t know where things will end up, but I do know one thing: I am hearing from more and more “average” people — i.e., not geeks — that they are watching more video online, and that they are finding things there they can’t on television. The writers’ strike may be one of the forces that are pushing people to do that, but it’s not the only one. Increasingly, the boundaries between TV and online are blurring.

Comments

Many have wondered how the strike would affect the proliferation of online content, and in this case, the connection couldn’t be clearer; a release states, "Contrafilm is not taking any chances."  KushTV.com (and its mobile and digital arms) will be used to distribute fresh content from new writers, actors, and directors.

Past Contrafilm productions include "Requiem for a Dream" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," so there may be quite a lot to look forward to in that respect.  The business aspects of the deal also seem solid – the Los Angeles Times reports, "After ContraFilm recovers its costs, it will split any additional advertising and other proceeds with those who created the material."

Production and release dates have not been made known, so it may be some time before we see anything come of this development.  KushTV and Contrafilm appear to have made a smart move, though; even if the writers’ strike is quickly resolved, online content is becoming increasingly popular and profitable.

No official link between those two events has been made; we cite them as they happened chronologically. However, we have noticed CBS pulling a little sleight of hand with this unhappy change.

On December 14th, the former production team posted this message on StarTrek.com’s News section:

Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team

Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately.

We don’t know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years.

If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com – we hope someone at CBS will read them.

Thank you for your loyal fandom over the years. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

When we contacted CBS for a comment about this change, we received a statement about the changes being planned within StarTrek.com by CBS Interactive. The text of the statement also appears on StarTrek.com at this link.

The URL from that link is the same URL that contained the farewell message from the production team, the message we reproduced earlier. That earlier post has been cached in Yahoo’s search engine, and we have kept a copy too.

CBS Interactive has full rights to do as it wishes with its site and its employees. The right to do something doesn’t always fully consider the wisdom of doing so.

It’s obvious from the earlier post the entire team had been fired on short notice. Was Strike Trek the catalyst for this change?

People tend to not burn bridges in Hollywood, so we’ll likely never know. Unless they post something in the comments below (hint hint).

follow me on Twitter

As the writers’ strike drags on in Hollywood, it now looks as though some of the striking scribes may in turn strike out on their own.

Writers for movies and television aren’t going to wait to turn back the clock with their Hollywood relationships. The Los Angeles Times reported at least seven groups formed from Guild members plan to construct businesses that cater to the online audience.

Discussions between writers and the people who could provide the necessary capital to get their efforts going have been taking place for a few weeks. This includes not just venture capitalists, but advertisers keen on having their messages placed with high-quality content.

This shift in power seemed inevitable when I chatted with KFWB‘s Sharon Katchen earlier this month, and obviously had been taking place for some time. Some writers have immensely valuable contacts; Tony Gilroy’s ‘Michael Clayton’ became a reality thanks to his.

Such contacts are portable, and the writers who have the best ones among Hollywood’s stars look like they will be the people who will find financial backing quickly and get to work on their scripts. 2008 should be an interesting year for video on the Internet.

The writers who craft screenplays for studios may be seeing today as the time to explore the Internet’s potential. Los Angeles Times scribe Patrick Goldstein called this dawning future the time of the writer-entrepreneur.

He cited some of the biggest names in film – George Lucas, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, John Lasseter – as people who built filmmaking companies around themselves and their visions. Hollywood screenwriters could be the people who follow in those footsteps, as their strike continues.

One of those writers, Tony Gilroy, may be at the vanguard of those progressing from walking the picket lines to working as Writer Studio Inc. Goldstein cited Gilroy’s nod to the Internet as a way for writers to free themselves:

Gilroy is now a convert. “The studios have got to be hoping that this idea about being entrepreneurs doesn’t sweep over the TV show runners, because once you start seeing really good production values on the Internet, I mean, what does Larry David really need HBO for? This is all everybody is talking about on the line. They’re not talking about healthcare. They’re going, ‘Wow, is there a different way to get our movies and TV shows made?’ “

Before you, the aspiring screenwriter, go to your boss’s office and tell him you’re off to pursue your cinema dreams, keep in mind Gilroy has what you probably don’t: family contacts, a string of big name film credits (Gilroy penned the Bourne movies that star Matt Damon), and George Clooney’s phone number.

It could be the big names like Gilroy, writers who make six-figures for scripts, who crack Hollywood open like a steamed clam with the help of the Internet. Once they do it, and deliver suitable returns for their investors as Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton” seems likely to do, that’s when more investors will look for writers with ideas that will light up Cannes and Sundance like a marquee.

Then it will be ok to tell the boss to take a hike. Just don’t do it until the financing has been delivered.

follow me on Twitter