Eyeing a little more Green

The above linked article published in the Los Angeles Times talks about the great disparity in residuals between writing for live Action Vs. Writing for Animation. How great is the disparity?

CHEW on one of Hollywood's great open secrets as you try to solve this little word problem: Two screenwriters get jobs on different Mike Myers movies.

Writer One provides him with lines such as: "When you're an overweight child in a society that demands perfection, your sense of right and wrong, fair and
unfair, will always be tragically skewed."

Writer Two pens such lines as: "Donkey, you have the right to remain silent. What you lack is the capacity."

In the first instance, Myers speaks his dialogue in the guise of an obese, cannibalistic Scottish henchman named Fat Bastard, and the movie, "Austin Powers
in Goldmember," grosses $213 million theatrically, with a healthy life on video.

In the second, the comic actor wisecracks as an obese, cantankerous Scottish ogre named Shrek in "Shrek 2," which takes in $436 million, more than twice
as much as "Goldmember," becoming the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. It goes on to sell more than 20 million DVDs in North America alone.

So who earned more money, Writer One or Writer Two?

And … time. Put down your pen. Or mouse, as the case may be.

The answer: Writer One, who supplied Fat Bastard's telling observation.

Why? Because Fat Bastard, though certainly cartoonish, is not an animated character. Both of the writers were likely on equal footing when it came to salaries
and bonuses based on box office grosses. But then the films entered a lucrative afterlife on TV, video and DVD — and the "Goldmember" writer cleaned up.

Writers of live-action features get royalties when their work is repackaged and sold. But writers of animation don't. Their "ancillary profit participation,"
as it's known, is paid in multiples of zero.

It's an industry standard evolved over a decades-long debate between the writers and their employers, and in a practical sense, it means that the writers
of "Goldmember" get paid a small percentage of every sale of a video or DVD, which can add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, while the
writers of "Shrek 2" receive nothing.

Read it all
Then Read Steve Hulett's post for more info

Via: The Animation Guild Blog by way of Animated News

Reading the article, you learn why things are this way, but at the same time, the world has changed from back when this standard was set in motion. This is something that needs to change sooner rather than later.