blog entry

If Bloggers Wrote the Oscars

by Ginger

Last time the writers went on strike, Reality Television was born. No actors, no script, no need for (striking) writers. Not being a very big consumer of television -- reality or fantasy -- the birth of Reality TV didn’t affect my viewing habits much, but I did quickly tire of hearing about Survivors and Bachelorettes.

 

This time, the writer’s strike, which is going on three months, looks like it  will be giving birth to indy companies that will bring professional content directly to viewers via the Internet, bypassing the big studios altogether (see LA Times story at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-webwriters17dec17,1,299083.story?ctrack=1&cset=true). I find this kind of ironic since the writers are fighting the studios over a bigger take of the revenue generated when their content is distributed over the Internet in the first place (or on ipods, iphones, MP3 players, etc.) Now the writers will engage in contracts with venture capitalists -- most of whom will now be their own partners -- and they will pretty much be writing in their own terms and considerations for a fair share of these online revenues. But if, make that when, online viewing of content becomes bigger than any of us can imagine (and I believe it will -- just look at what your kids will put up with in terms of 1) screen size -- one-inch cellphones; 2) content -- self-generated, old 70s TV shows, and 3) graphics -- rudimentary -- and imagine now they will be able to access brand-new, professionally-written dramas and comedies to stream over their handheld devices. So, when this takes off beyond even the imaginations of the best screen writers of our time, the writers will have no one to sue for a bigger piece of the e-pie but ... themselves.

I think there’s a sitcom in there somewhere.

What if all of us bloggers and message board junkies and online community members -- who already write directly for our audiences, no middle man, no agents and no salaries, in many cases -- what if we went to these same venture capitalists and low-balled the professional writers (because, after all, what they are asking for has got to be more than what we would ask for, right?) and what if we provided hilarious sketches, real-life drama, fictional stories and prime-time family soap operas  -- all of which shows up on our blogs on a regular basis anyway. And since we’re all in this brotherhood of wordsmiths anyway, what if we offered the screen writers top billing right alongside us? They wouldn’t even have to get out of their pjs. 

 

I mean, I woulda been willing to write the script continuity for the Golden Globes; and I’d still be glad to pen the transitional quips and pre-envelope banter for the Oscars. All at a very reasonable cost that no studio would balk at. Let’s see, I’m getting one dollar to write a blog a day for Skirt, plus all the adoration and admiration I can stand from my friends, my familyand my publisher, so I would charge the Oscars -- a six hour show, 60 presenters, 120 one-liners -- I dunno, about 10 cents? That seems about right. And I would be honored to give my fellow writers -- say, a team of two of us, so we could bounce jokes off of each other -- a full nickel. What do you think?

 

To make up for this lack of dough, there are some other sure-fire ways to cash in. I would reach out to my audience -- there are at least a dozen of you, not counting my mom’s mah jongg group -- and I would offer to reduce the Oscars from six hours to, say, two, if I could raise, say, $100. Send in your dollars, dahlings!

Now, I would have to make some tough decisions to get it down to an 8PM to 10PM timeslot -- the writers of the scores would not be able to sing their own nominated songs -- but those one or two people who really want to hear why they are songwriters and not singers could stream it on their iPods or MP3s. There would be no musical dance interpretation of the nominees for Best Animated Film.  People would have to go -- where else?-- online to find out who won for Best Foreign Film Documentary Written in A Third-World Country But Filmed in Arkansas, and other edge-of-your-seat winners, but I think we could all suffer just a little, if only to show support for our fellow writers.

 

 I would increase the cost of purchasing Oscar ads by approximately 600 percent because there would be significantly fewer of them (supply and demand, baby) and I would raffle off the actual torn envelopes on ebay, complete with the letterhead of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that has coordinated the Oscar vote for the last 73 years (and there has never, ever been a leak).

We could create a membership site where members could write in their own quips and banter suggestions for the show -- none copywritable, by the way, or we’ll find ourselves in yet another legal battle. And at the very end, we could podcast an interactive live auction over VOIP (sounds cool, huh?) for one of those Oscar goodie bags filled with S.W.A.G. (”stuff we all get”) and people could text in their bids over their cell phones, just like American Idol.

 

A virtual blend of online technologies that brings the Oscars to even your smallest screen, written by us -- your friendly neighborhood bloggers.

 

See you at the Kodak.  Bodyguards optional.