A Striking Movement: The Writer’s and Actors Strike, and The Perceived Rebellion Required for Change

About Movement…

My eldest son is a young composer, a musician and a student of music, and one of the things that I love most is when he talks about the different movements in a piece of music. However, the mere idea of “movement” in itself evokes so many images as the instruments change tempo and intention, the mood elevates or descends and you realize that something new is being created. The former melody in your head is both celebrated, but now it is also gone.

Now, as a filmmaker, and a former dancer, one of the many ways that I identify movement is in images, pictures and words; from the timing in post production when cues and scenes change rhythmically and intentionally and also in the physicality required to keep up with the tempo, or even work in counter measure to a piece of music.

On a film set there is also a sense of movement to a production, each production has a different ebb and flow. Movement is also choreographed between actors and the lighting and camera set-ups, depending on the directing style, technique and the audience.

In directing a film, acting or even writing one you also have to understand the changes in movement of the various beats, story arcs, acts, character needs, dialogue and the inner life of your characters, and then have a great story sense as to when the story should actually begin or end and or if a sequel is necessary to continue. Characters move through a story with or without intentionality at first but with great difficulty until the end of of the story.

This is all to say that most artists are experts in movement. Calculating aperture and exposure is movement and so is the determination of your contribution to the movement of revenue, sharing your unique creative skill and input and then analyzing what needs to change.

Painters and Movement

Painters across time were experts in movement, observing their subjects intently and with a stroke of a brush capturing changes in light, mood, stillness, expression, and profound ideas. Filmmakers of all types and levels are no different.

Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia,

“An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years. Art movements were especially important in modern art, when each consecutive movement was considered a new avant-garde movement.”

What artists are making for the studios today could arguably be called “modern art”, regardless of platform and format. Moreover, the sense of a need for a new movement or drastic and experimental change in that movement, or a changing of the guard, in terms of the goals, and the philosophies around how they’re being compensated, what their contribution is worth and the types of stories that are being told and where, could be more than a perceived rebellion, but truly a positive movement that can lead to powerful and historical change.

Comparing Art to Art

“By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new style which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy (abstract art).[1]”

Filmmakers ( and yes writers are filmmakers in my book ) are faced with the changes in content needs from streaming films and tv to new forms of media, contracts and distribution, and emerging storytelling opportunities that are still yet unforeseen. As these platforms develop and grow, we are forced to grow with them, contribute in new ways and participate in those movements, however the fundamental building blocks of the story remain the same.

The writer is the “A” in the Alphabet of filmmaking. There is no “Z” or ROI, or completion of the art without the canvas and the sketches underneath the paint. Some scientists at the behest of art experts and collectors have even employed x-ray’s master paintings looking for hints of the original ideas and sketches underneath the brush strokes to determine if the master artist was at work and how. The writers of our films, plays, musicals and television series are the master artists that lay down the foundation for everything else. If Picasso or Rembrandt, or Basquiat, or Frieda didn’t paint it then the the painting loses it value because its both the idea and the execution that has to be in alignment in order for the curator to have something to show and sell.

Mozart, Ellington and Beethoven’s notes let alone their music will continue to sell and be licensed for decades because they wrote them. From John Williams, to Alan Silvestri, James Horner, Hans Zimmer and Terrance Blanchard, ( and the list continues ), the value is in the people and individual artistry.

However, we keep forgetting that this also applies to filmmaking. Studios are curating what we create and selling it for the highest value with the lowest compensation and requiring even greater output. Asking for more and offering less? This model was never sustainable. Films are not paintings, they continue to make money for the distributors into perpetuity, and so should they for the artists and creators behind them.

Moving Forward, and Looking Back

As a result, I do believe that artists will find and define the new era in filmmaking for themselves. Some will remain with traditional studios despite the final outcomes of the negotiations. Many will ban together to create new movements and artist owned platforms for distribution of their own, while others will create a form of connection with their audiences that bypasses anything that we have previously seen, known or understood. This will be the new “Avant-Garde”; a sense of self ownership and participation in all stages of production, with greater profit participation, ushered in by affordable advances in technology and the digital era. Nothing we see will be as we knew it.

No Longer A Rebellion

Some studio executives are highly adept at the art and business of filmmaking and most can offer valuable insight to many a filmmaker. The best execs in my humble opinion also bring years of hard earned experience as producers and creators themselves, however, many delivering an endless stream of creative notes, because they have to, and clearly possess a greater business acumen than a true sensibility for the actual art and craft of storytelling. This is clear in the notes given to writers in writers rooms everywhere, and the idea that the fundamental building block of storytelling can be eradicated by technology. This escalating “dollar over development” dilemma will continue to show up in their choice to explore AI as a viable solution to replace us; to butcher the storytelling process and need for human connection and mastery of craft with a conglomerate robot who follows a limited creative process birthed from a series of aggregate commands. For the perceived dollar.

However, those executives who have a heart for story, books, literature, films, art of all kinds and understand the act of creation, the fundamentals of great filmmaking and the power of movements will also understand that a new “one or many” movements will be coming for our third act, and that like all forms of art, everything and everyone faced with a seemingly insurmountable catalyst, is required to change. And thus, the new story begins.

Welcome to a new era in filmmaking.

“Also during the period of time referred to as “modern art” each movement was seen corresponding to a somewhat grandiose rethinking of all that came before it, concerning the visual arts. Generally there was a commonality of visual style linking the works and artists included in an art movement. Verbal expression and explanation of movements has come from the artists themselves, sometimes in the form of an art manifesto,[7][8] and sometimes from art critics and others who may explain their understanding of the meaning of the new art then being produced.” — Wikipedia