This starts week six of the fall semester's first class module. It's early still on Monday morning as I'm writing this and I should already be starting on classwork for the week, but here I am trying to force some kind of graduate student, family- and work-life balance. Honestly, I should be pushing for more of a focus on my work considering how little attention it's been getting since starting my MBA. With that in mind, here are a few hot takes from recently.
Huge news came out last night about a tentative deal being reached concerning the WGA strike. The New York Times reports that the screenwriters guild reached a deal with studios and that they got most of what they wanted.
“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee said in an email to members.
Conspicuously not doing a victory lap was the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios. “The W.G.A. and A.M.P.T.P. have reached a tentative agreement” was its only comment. - nytimes.com
While this is great news, the industry is still being impacted by the SAG-AFTRA strike and there's not much happening on that front.
On a personal level, I can't point specifically to how these strikes have hit me directly, but by simply being in the industry I know they have. Friends of mine are on those picket lines in New York and Los Angeles, and the impact on the crew that haven't been working during this time has been rough. I had a phone call a couple weeks ago with the CPA we still work with in New York and he mentioned how this has been a terrible, terrible year for his clients in the entertainment and production industry – me and my family included.
Tying this nonsense back to my MBA work, I'm six weeks deep into a Negotiations course. We've yet to discuss these entertainment industry strikes, but I'm hoping our professor at least mentions it in tonight's class. My other class this module has focused on Marketing Management. That class in particular has been busting my chops about how little attention I've been giving to the customer-facing aspects of my own small business efforts. So with that in mind...
A couple weeks ago I snuck off to the Skate the Plaza event here in Oklahoma City. I'll mention upfront how it's obviously low-hanging fruit to snag photos at events like this. There were tons of people there and probably as many photogs as skaters all hoping to do something interesting and impress the right people. Still, super stoked about the few images I did make in the process. Again, I've been insanely focused on grad school knowing it'll help me on the business end of my creative work, but in doing so I've unfortunately neglected the actual creative work itself. At this point, I'm just happy to get some time in behind a camera.
The last hot take for this post is a documentary series on street photographers released this week, Wrong Side of the Lens. I actually reached out to the series creator, Josh Ethan Johnson, almost immediately after just seeing the trailer. Later that night St. Anne the Wife and I watched nearly the entire series and realized just how much bigger of a deal it is than I first expected.
Super excited to see a project like this, especially in how it was released on YouTube instead of one of the major streaming platforms considering how good it is. It's got my mashup of creative passions, fierce independence, and business school superpowers going nuts and hopeful for the future.
Updated: Jan. 31, 2024
Bit of an update on Wrong Side of the Lens. I've had a chance to connect with Josh Ethan Johnson on his project several times over the last few months and he seems like a good dude doing some interesting work. He's launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise some production capital for future seasons of the project that I'd certainly love to see. Here's his fundraising video and that GoFundMe link so you can help support the art kids making the work you enjoy.