WGA Strike, Mini Rooms, AI, Phone Warrant in a Homicide, and California Crime Labs - 133

[00:00:00] I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the writer Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 133 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And in this episode, we're going to dive into the ongoing Writers Guild of America's Strike its impact on the entertainment industry, and will also explore the role of artificial intelligence in writing and storytelling.

And how it's poised to change the way we create and consume content. For better or worse, then we'll answer some of your writing questions, including the logistics of obtaining phone records at a homicide case, and who can use California State crime Labs. But first I wanna talk about Cop Camp. I had an absolute blast traveling to Appleton, Wisconsin to teach at the inaugural cops and Writers Interactive conference.

AKA "Cop Camp", which was held at the Fox Valley Public Safety Training Center, which is the fancy name for the [00:01:00] state-of-the-art, police and fire academy. There, author and police officer RJ Beam teamed up with my good buddy, the Sarge Patrick O'Donnell, who's also a retired police sergeant and author to put this conference together.

We did a little debrief on the Cops and Writers Podcast this week, so check that out. It's episode 123 of the Cops and Writers Podcast. It was great meeting all of the writers in attendance and the other instructors, and I cannot wait to go again next year.

Speaking of current events, the WGA strike started on May 2nd, 2023 after failing to reach a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios.

The strike has affected a ton of scripted TV and film productions, but I want to bring attention to the reasons why the Writer's Guild is on strike, because it's a lot more than just wanting more money. There are several reasons. Um, but the two big ones are better pay and fairer deals for writers who work in various media [00:02:00] industries, especially in the streaming age where residuals are lower and contracts are shorter.

To put this in perspective, the previous contract was negotiated back in 2007, I believe, before streaming was even a thing. Keep in mind, 2007 was when, uh, we were introduced to the iPhone. So that's like the stone age when we're talking about media. So if you're a writer and you write for network TV show like something on NBC or CBS, you get paid according to the scale listed in your W G A contract.

But if you're writing for a show on Netflix or Amazon or Hulu, They aren't bound by the same pay scale because they aren't a network television show. Now, if you read headline and see that a writer's going to make a hundred thousand dollars on a deal, you're probably thinking that's pretty damn good pay.

Why are they even complaining? The reality is, is that a hundred thousand dollars may end up being paid out over several years at various milestones of the project if they come to fruition after [00:03:00] hundreds or thousands of actual work hours making it so the writer is actually earning less than minimum wage.

So for details on this, I highly encourage you to start following the W G A leaders on Twitter, uh, because this may affect your future, both if you are trying to work as a screenwriter and if you're trying to option your own novels for TV or film. Now for the real biggie limits on the use of AI to create source material and write or rewrite literary material, which could threaten the creative autonomy and livelihood of writers.

That's the big one. When we're talking about this strike, I'll talk about the implementation of AI in just a minute, but I wanna share some takes on the strike that I've read from a few writers, especially as it relates to the way that writers' rooms work and how AI is threatening that.

For this first one, you've certainly heard of the Game of Thrones creator himself, George RR Martin, who posted this on his blog on May 8th, 2023 at 11:18 [00:04:00] AM.

I want to say a few words about what I think is the most important issue in the current writer strike, the so-called mini rooms that the Guild is hoping to abolish and the terrible impact they're having on writers at the start of their careers.

A look at my own career may be instructive. For the first 14 years of my career, I wrote only prose, a few novels and lots of stories for analog. OVS and various other sci-fi magazines and anthologies. Much as I enjoyed television, I never dreamt of writing for it until 1985. When CBS decided to launch a new version of The Twilight Zone.

An executive producer, Phil Deger invited me to write an episode for them, a free freelance script. That was how you began back then. I decided to give it a shot, and Phil and his team liked what I did. So much so that within days of delivery, I got an offer to come on staff. Before I quite knew what happened.

I was on my way to LA with a six week deal as a staff writer at the Guild, minimum salary Scripps against in the eighties, [00:05:00] staff writer was the lowest rung on the ladder, you could tell because it was the only job with writer in the title. What I knew about television production when I got off that plane at Burbank was, well, so minimal.

I can't think of a pithy analogy, but I learned. I learned in the writer's room from Phil himself and the amazing staff he had assembled for Twilight on Jim Crocker, RNI, s o Bannon, the incredible Alan Ben, Michael cassette, and a bevy of fantastic freelancers, and not just about dialogue and structure in the language of scripting.

I learned about production as well. The moment I arrived, Phil threw me into the deep end. I wrote five scripts during my season and a half on Twilight Zone, and was deeply involved in every aspect of every one of them. I did not just write my script, turn it in and go away. I sat in on the casting sessions, I worked with the directors.

I was present at the table reads. The last defender of Camelot was the first of my scripts to go into production, and I was on set every day. I watched the stuntman rehearse the [00:06:00] climactic sword fight. In the lobby of the saint elsewhere set. As it turned out, and I was present when they shot that scene and someone zied when he should have zagged and a stunt man's nose was cut off a visceral lesson as to the kind of thing that can go wrong with Phil and Jim and Harvey f Rand, our line producer, another great guy who taught me a lot.

I watched dailies every day. After the episode was in the can, I sat in on some post-production and watched the editors work their magic. I learned from them too. There's no film school in the world that could have taught me as much about television production as I learned on the Twilight Zone during that season and a half when Twilight Zone was renewed for a second season, I was promoted from staff writer to story editor.

More money and now scripts were Plus and not against Started sitting in on freelance pitches and now I was allowed to talk and give notes. Sadly, the show was canceled halfway through the second season, but by that time, I'd learned so much that I was able to go on to further work in television. I did a couple of stories for Max Headroom, [00:07:00] but my next staff job was Beauty and the Beast.

They brought me on as Executive story editor, one bump up for my Twilight Zone rank. Over the next three years, I climbed the ladder rung by rung, co-producer, producer, co-supervising, producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer. When Beauty and the Beast finished its run, I started writing features in pitching pilots landed an overall deal at Columbia.

Created and scripted, StarPort and the survivors and Fade Out and Doorways, which we filmed for A, B, C. I was showrunner along with Jim Crocker, an executive producer on that one. That was my first 10 years in television, 1985 to 1995. More or less long before H B O and Game of Thrones, none of it would've been possible if not for the things I learned on Twilight Zone.

As a staff writer and story editor, I was the most junior of junior writers, maybe a hot ish young writer in the world of sci-fi. But in TV, I was so green that I would've been invisible [00:08:00] against a green screen, and that, in my opinion, is the most important of the things that the Guild is fighting for. The right to have that kind of career path to enable new writers, young writers, and yes prose writers to climb the same ladder.

Right now they can't. Streamers and shortened seasons have blown the ladder to splinters the way it works. Now, a show gets put in development. The showrunner assembles a mini room made up of a couple senior writers and a couple newcomers. They meet for a month or two. Beat out the season, break down the episodes, go off and write scripts, reassemble, get notes, give notes, rewrite, rinse, and repeat.

And finally turn into the scripts and the show is green lit or not. Some shows never get past the room and sent into production. The show runner and his second, maybe his second and his third, take it from there. The writer producers, the ones who already know all the things that I learned on Twilight Zone.

The junior writers, they're not there. Once they delivered their scripts and did a revision of two, they were paid and sent home. Their salary ended. They're [00:09:00] off looking for another gig. If the series gets another season, maybe they'll be brought back. Maybe they won't. Maybe they can't, since they're off in another mini room for another show.

If they do get brought back, they may get a promotion, but that's not guaranteed. I know writers who have been staff writer on half a dozen different series and others who have been writer's room assistant, which is the new entry level gig since no one buys freelance scripts anymore, three or four times, never getting off the bottom rung of the ladder, no matter how talented they are.

And when a junior writer does finally get a better title, even one that will put a P word on their I M D B credits. They still won't have any production experience. In many cases, they won't be asked to set even when the episodes they wrote are being filmed. They may be allowed on set if the showrunner and execs are cool with that, but only as a visitor with no authority, no rule, and no pay.

Of course, they may even be told they're not allowed to speak to the actors. One of the things that A M P T P put forward in their last offer to the W G A [00:10:00] is that some writers might be brought onto sets as unpaid interns to quote, shadow and quote, observe. Even that will not be an absolute right. Maybe they will be let in, maybe not.

These are the people who wrote the stories being filmed, who created the characters, who wrote the words. The actors are saying, I was way more than that in 1985, and so was every other staff writer in television at that time. The juniors may have worked for as long as half a year on the show. All of it in a room with other writers, but they won't be part of the casting.

They won't meet with the director. They won't be at the table read. No one will bring them into the editing suite so the editor can explain what he's doing. The line producer will not sit down and go over the budget with them as Harvey Fran did with me or patiently explain why they can't have nine matte paintings or that huge montage.

They won't be sharing lunch with the stars if a stunt man's nose is cut off. They will need to read about it in variety since they will be off in another room on another show. Many rooms are abominations and the [00:11:00] refusal of the A M P T P to pay writers to stay with their shows through production as part of the job for which they need to be paid.

Not as a tourist is not only wrong. It's incredibly shortsighted. If the story editors of 2023 are not allowed to get any production experience, where do the studios think the showrunners of 2033 are going to come from? If nothing else, the W G A needs to win that on that issue, no matter how long it may take.

Thank you for that insight, Mr. Martin. And to echo that, I read the following series of tweets by WGA writer Sierra Ornelas, who tweeted the following about the ever shrinking writers rooms. And you can find all of this by going to twitter.com/sierraornelas

Gather around the fire. Aunti Sierra's gonna tell you about network TV in 2010.

I'd never been in a writer's room. I was a dirt ball state school grad with little to no connections, but by some miracle, I staffed as the Disney Fellow on a new show called Happy Endings Season one. We had 17 writers [00:12:00] including me. There were seven staff writers. Seven, a seasoned writer called the Show, America's Next Top staff writer, but I didn't care.

I was in baby on the Paramount lot, eating free food and living my dream. Yes, I made peanuts as a free writer, a k a below minimum, but I was in a room with folks who'd worked on big shows. Conan Will and Grace Veronica's Closet. This is not a joke. I fucking loved all TV and couldn't believe my luck. He also worked on Bette Bet.

I believe it was every staff writer's first major job and I was green as hell. I was the most unfunny I've ever been. Just sweaty and weird. Everyone was trained to be funny. Seal Team six. Funny. I was terrified, quiet and could quickly tell. It was kind of bumming everyone out. I went to the only other writer of color, it was 2010.

Apprentice Penny who gave me great advice. The showrunner is the painter and we are the paint. Figure out your color and when they need it. Be that color. Don't try to be someone else's color. [00:13:00] Also, you gotta start talking. So I did what he said. I willed myself to talk and to find my strengths. I learned from everyone on that staff.

Happy endings was my grad school. I was able to visit set before and after the room started. When I got an episode, I went to every meeting. I learned through doing. Did I make mistakes? Yes. Did I co-write an episode where Max becomes an actual bear? Yes, I did. But I also stayed on for all three seasons.

Skipping the hell. Most diversity writers experience repeating levels over three seasons. Happy endings had 23 writers, if you count assistants. 21 of us became showrunners, 21. In that room, writers were given a runway to learn and grow and become our bosses. So obviously this would never happen today.

There are no rooms where half the writers are lower level. Well, I can think of one. My first show, Rutherford Falls. I wanted to make a room like the one I'd been afforded. So we pulled writers from everywhere, Instagram, standup podcasts, et cetera. And as the seasoned [00:14:00] writer, I got to share every, everything I knew about how to make TV crazily in the same building where we made happy endings on the paramount lot, eating free food and living my dream.

I know people think minimum staff sizes are dumb, but they aren't. The WGA is fighting for the ability to cultivate tomorrow's showrunners. There's power in passing your knowledge to future generations. There's power in giving new writers a chance to learn, so eventually they will have a chance to teach.

This is a homemade business as much as outside forces try to disrupt it and ruin it. So let's keep giving these companies hell because we know how to do this better than anybody. #WGAStrong

Now as for the AI issue, I absolutely believe that we are at a precipice. AI will fundamentally change the way the world works over the next decade, whether we like it or not.

It's one of those jump on the bandwagon before it runs you down kind of things. I fully believe that businesses that fail to implement AI into their processes will cease to [00:15:00] exist in the next 10 to 20 years. It will be standard operating procedure to use and or consult with AI. As I record this in 2023, AI is still in its infancy, but given the exponential learning growth, it's about to encounter, it won't be long before.

It will be a necessity in daily life, and it's going to get messy because we're gonna be living through its teenage years, if you will. We'll have to teach it, correct it, and perhaps even punish it, or dare I say, eventually send it to therapy. I'm kidding on the square here. But it is coming. I fully anticipate detectives at crime scenes feeding case information to an AI specialized in criminal investigations to develop leads and probabilities based upon the information of all of the previous cases the AI has access to in coming up with.

Best practice tasks for the case that they're working on now, think of it like AI creating a smart checklist tailored specifically to the case at hand, but I got off track getting back to the W [00:16:00] G A strike. The time is now to establish the limits on where we will allow AI to intrude on the workspace and what happens when AI, using the world's knowledge, knows what we want out of our art.

Our writing, our stories, be it novels, TV shows, movies, animation, video games only for AI to then learn to optimize those patterns and stories to give us more and perhaps a deeper meaning to the very human trait of sharing knowledge and insight through storytelling. We, myself included, feel that storytelling is a human art form.

The reality of our consuming nature is that much of our writing is a commercial product, and whether we like it or not, AI is going to fundamentally change all aspects of the marketplace to include the stories we consume. Change is coming and like the way water flows, it takes the path of least resistance.

So when it comes to the wga strike, the battle lines for the future. AI versus human war is being drawn. Now when it comes to storytelling. Now before we get to our first question, [00:17:00] I have something really important to mention. Um, while still on the topic of cautionary tales in the future, I highly encourage you to not risk your future writing career by entering into any scab writing gigs for the studios during the strike, because doing so will very likely lead to you being barred.

For life from ever becoming a W G A writer. So don't shut future doors on a short term gig, just the word of caution, because I want to see you succeed beyond your wildest expectations. And taking the shortcut is the opposite of the way. This is the way.

Our first question comes from Mary Desh who posted this in the Facebook group. Questions for those in the know. Portland, Oregon homicide detectives immediately seek the phone records on a decedent who looks like he's been stabbed and shoved to a 10 story fall. About how long before the records [00:18:00] are in the detective's hands now, Jesse Ryan, one of the law enforcement experts in the group answered.

That's a realistic turnaround. The best I've ever gotten was four hours, but that required multiple phone calls and sweet talking. Someone at T-Mobile's legal department, I'd say 24 hours is realistic in exited circumstances with one to four weeks being a more realistic response time. Now, Jesse is absolutely right in that one to four week response time.

And to be honest, I don't know that an exigent circumstance request will suffice in this case, and I know what you're thinking. But we're working a homicide here. I know because I've made that call to the 24 hour phone line to the legal department that is already knee deep in homicide related records requests.

So what's more important or more accurately, more exigent than a homicide case? The preservation of life, someone that's alive and suicidal and on the way to the place they want to off themselves takes priority. The kidnapping of a woman by your ex-husband takes priority. The abduction of a child by a non-custodial [00:19:00] parent takes priority.

So as Jessie said, unless you can sweet talk someone at the phone company, your homicide case has to get in line behind all the other homicide cases before it. But as a storyteller, if you're looking for where to inject real emotion into a story, Try having some phone company rep be the stonewall that the detective can't get beyond.

It's a great and very real progressive complication that your detective has to deal with, which puts them onto other tasks related to the case while they have to learn the virtue of patience and calming their temper, while absolutely fuming in the process.

This next question comes from Christopher Craftman who asked, does the division of investigations, the investigative agency for the California Department of Consumer Affairs have access to its own forensics unit, or do they borrow the [00:20:00] forensics unit from the respective jurisdiction such as the. I A P D S I D unit.

So within the California Department of Justice is the BFS, the Bureau of Forensic Sciences and BFS operates 10 regional crime laboratories for which forensic scientists collect, analyze, interpret, and compare physical evidence from suspected crimes. And DNA casework analysis is performed at seven.

Of those 10 BFS laboratories, any local or state law enforcement agency within California could submit their evidence to their regional crime lab for analysis, most larger local agencies will have their own in-house crime labs, but in your case, Christopher DCA, the California Department of Consumer Affairs, would use one of these BFS crime labs and their crime analysts.

I'll put a link in the show notes to the BFS website where you can learn more and see specifics as to each of the labs in California. And the link to the show notes is [00:21:00] writersdetective.com/133.

Now for the time for the acronym game. Lightning round. See if you can follow along to answer this real quick: if the DCA DOI had a DOA, they'd submit DNA to the DOJ BFS. And if they aren't SOL, they'll put out a BOL for their POI. Did you catch that?

So thanks for checking out this episode. What are your questions? Send them to me no matter how small they are. By going to writersdetective.com/ask A-S-K. I'd also like to thank my Patreon patrons for sponsoring this episode, especially my Gold Shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com.

CC Jameson from CCjameson.com. Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli. Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com. Marco Carocari of marcocarocari.com. Rob Kearns of knightsfallpress.com. Robert Mendenhall of robertjmendenhall.com, and Kayleigh for their support, along with my silver cuff link and coffee club patrons.

You can find links to all of the patrons supporting this episode in the show notes [00:22:00] writersdetective.com/133. Thanks again for checking out this episode. Write well.