Arbitration

Sorry, another reading assignment. Check out this blog post about screenwriting arbitration by Doug Richardson. Doug is a screenwriter and writes one of my favorite blogs - he posts once a week and it's always a great (and usually painful) Hollywood story.

This one was given a shout out by Deadline Hollywood and I'm mentioning it for two reasons. 1) I went through arbitration on "In the Mix", and it was hell. And 2) An odd coincidence happened today. After reading Doug's post, specifically this portion of it:

"I can, though, tell you what I think drives way too many writers into wrangling for undeserved onscreen recognition. 

Money. 

The most obvious of motives are the hefty residuals that can be banked after a hit movie and also the potential for later employment by studios who generally prefer to hire writers with successful track records."

My mail arrived. I went downstairs and lo and behold, there was a green envelope waiting for me. The WGA sends out residual checks in green envelopes. Excitedly, I tore it open. And this is what was inside. 

Hefty residuals!