Save The TV Scriptwriter

Invited to a series of mind jamming sessions, a piece of the freelance writer's brain is sucked dry to provide a TV network new life, and a chance for higher ratings.

No, the freelance scriptwriter is not a regular, exclusive employee, unless he has become managerial in a big TV network.

There's a lot of room for exploitation here. On TV, unless the series or work starts production, poor writer will never be paid.

The delaying backdrop is the big TV network bureaucracy, which goes from one head, to the next, revisions happen, even on conceptual stage. The executive producer will have his inputs, too. The writer readily reboots his mind, and try to fulfill the creative managers inputs, or the creative directors, or the big bosses.

He commutes everyday, for meetings, and approvals. He co-writes with the TV writing pool, spends on beer to empty the mind again, for writing can be draining, MORE SO if the inputs of the higher-ups are bad, but still, it has to be done.

No shooting or taping, no pay, remember?

Worse, it can take months, even a year, before a soap opera is given the green light to finally be made. Worst, the project is actually shelved. In this long span, competitive network has had a hit, and so programming and executives decide to change projects to keep up with the ratings game.

The freelance writer will never be paid. His endless work saga was never produced.

At least the independent film writer has his soul fed, and gets the high of seeing his work reap awards, even get to travel, if the indie movie is invited to join in international film festivals.

But poor TV writer, who has revised for the nth time, and has had too many cooks spoil the broth, didn't have his artistic soul fed, nor his overdue rent paid.

Someone has to standardize the compensation of writers, and whether a project comes to fruition or not, writing IS LABOR RENDERED, therefore, there is a MONETARY value to this labor, whether the TV task is produced or not.

Bureaucracy can kill the writer. And yes, it can even ruin his work. It can drain his brain. But for the writer to remain unpaid, even if he cooperates with the system, it's an unpardonable crime.

Lucky are the copywriters in ad agencies, whether a client approves an ad for production or not, the copywriter will get his pay every 15th and 30th of each month. He has his thinking time and meeting time paid regularly. He even has health card benefits and 13th month pay.

The ad agency knows that MANHOURS are payable, even if it means a monthly salary.

MANHOURS are measurable, with corresponding cash equivalent for charging/ billing purposes. It protects the ad agency, too, from clients who intrinsically takes time to produce an ad, research and testing time, included, which usually delays an ad's launch.

LABOR RENDERED should be LABOR PAYABLE. Meeting hours, other than writing hours are MANHOURS, too. It's basic in a capitalist economic society. And he has spent time too, eating, commuting, drinking to get the job done, even if it's never done because of the stupid and long process of approvals and revisions.

Nothing comes for free anymore these days. And definitely, writing is not for free. It comes with a fee. And a cooperative brain coupled with resilience for revision, is rare and priceless. That should never be abused. Morally, this is mental rape, and economically, criminal.