Monday, October 31, 2005

Apparently the WGC has changed the rules on clip shows. Now, if you write a clip show, you get a percentage of the all-important Production Fee proportionate to the amount of live footage shot. So, if 50% of your show is clips, you only get 50% of the Production Fee. That can really affect your mortgage payments.

This is particularly unfortunate because clip shows are harder to write than regular shows. You have to work the clips into the episode in some way that excuses your reusing old footage, and, hopefully, sheds new light on it. So story editors usually get stuck with writing clip shows, because free lancers don't know the show well enough.

There's a good argument for the change. Under the rules, producers have to pay the production fee to anyone who wrote the clips in question, also in percentage proportionate to the amount of clip footage used. So if they had to pay the full p.f. to the writer of the ep, they'd wind up paying well over 100% of the p.f. on the ep. Which is arguably unfair.

A better solution is not to write clip shows. But that's like saying, "Don't run over schedule and over budget." 'Cause that's why you usually need a clip show. You've run out of time.

Well, now you know.

4:56 PM

2 Comments:

I am not a huge fan of clip shows. I don't think I've watched one since . . . . uh, maybe Friends' last clip show. Lost and Desperate Housewives had recap hours last year but they were completely separate from any plot on the show and they were both produced by companies that usually create commercials, which isn't quite the same.

But the WGC rule makes sense to me.

By  Peter, at 7:54 PM  

Denis wrote the CJ clip show, which was shot in Montreal several months after the first season wrapped. I'm just guessing here but I think it was about 35-40% new material, is that right, Denis? How do you feel about these new WGC rules?

By  Kelly J. Crawford, at 12:18 AM  

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