Spotting the Unforeseen Secondary Effects

I’ve been trying to spot the unforeseen secondary effects of a lengthy Hollywood writers strike and I finally think I’m beginning to zero in on some of them. As I noted yesterday the 1988 WGA strike had a number of secondary effects: reducing the viewership of the Big Three broadcast television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), driving viewers to cable, providing a wedge for the upstart Fox network, and serving as midwife to the “unscripted” reality TV which now occupies 35% of the primetime schedule. The present strike might further strengthen cable and Internet TV’s hands but I don’t see those as major developments.

Several secondary effects I’m beginning to wonder about are accelerating the merger of live action, animation and giving more strength to the video game industry, and further reducing the importance of live actors. Here’s my first clue:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Cartoon characters may come to the aid of striking Hollywood screenwriters if the Writers Guild of America’s two-day-old walkout turns out to be prolonged.

Most animated shows are covered by a different union from the Writers Guild and are unaffected by the WGA strike. In addition, the WGA has withdrawn objections to its members working in animation.

Some 12,000 WGA members went on strike against film and television studios on Monday, jeopardizing America’s hit TV shows including some animated programs like “The Simpsons,” which are covered under WGA contracts.

But many other animated films and TV shows are covered by a separate union whose members remain on the job, said Steven Hulett of the Animation Guild Local 839, part of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

The two guilds clashed recently when the WGA proposed a strike rule threatening members who entered a writing contract on animated features with fines and loss of membership. After protests, the WGA said the proposed rule was modified.

“Now writers can write for animated features,” Hulett said, adding that many writers are still nervous. “I suspect we’ll get more (calls) over the next few weeks, if the strike goes on for long.”

The fusion between live action motion pictures has been developing for some time. Animation has been used in special effects since the very earliest days of film. Experiments like the “Sinbad the Sailor” sequence in 1945’s Anchors Aweigh have been succeeded by the tour de force junction of animation and live action in 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In 1991’s Hook it’s rumored that Julia Roberts’s foot was occasionally redrawn because the actress was unable to point her toes. I’ve long believed that the bright line for the fusion of animation and live action would have been crossed when a deceased actor has a new role in a film made after his or her death.

This actually happened when Laurence Olivier had a major role in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which thoroughly fuses live action and animation. Since then Sin City, 300, and the upcoming Beowulf further blur the line.

I’m fully expecting not remakes but recasting of old movies sometime in the not terribly distant future.

The significance of this is that live action movies and animated features operate under different rules. And, additionally, a fully-realized animated actor never ages, dies, or gets fat (unless the producer of the film wants him or her to do so). This puts additional power into the hands of film producers and rather less into those of performers.

The other major effect may be to further tip the scale in the direction of video games. The electronic games industry is already larger than the film industry and it, too, operates under different rules. Will Hollywood writers turn to electronic games?

That’s already been happening to some extent but I think we’ll see a lot more of it.