By FRANK SWERTLOW
Staff Reporter
In a large office overlooking a busy shopping center on Fairfax Avenue, a group of clerks sits behind computers, printing out hundreds of checks each day. It could be an insurance company or a bank, but it’s not. It’s a union hall.
Specifically, it is the residual department for the Writers Guild of America, West Inc., where more than $150 million in residual payments will be made out this year alone.
“Residuals are the way a writer shares in the success of a production,” said Chuck Slocum, the guild’s director of special projects. “It’s planned cash flow, so a writer gets his or her money later in their careers in this off-again, on-again business.”
Residuals are paid for the reuse of the writer’s work, whether for television a series, special or movie or for a theatrical film that ends up on TV or cable or in a videocassette box.
“As a writer, you have no way to keep track of all the deals here and abroad,” said one veteran sitcom writer. “The guild is the only way. You can’t rely on your friends calling you up and saying they saw your show in Iowa or South Africa.”
Residuals are paid for both domestic and foreign runs. The guild expects to cut some 220,000 checks in 1998, up from 215,000 in 1997. The average check is for $700.
Calculating residuals for some 11,000 WGA members nationwide isn’t easy. Computers are a big help, specifically a data system that reports what will be on TV nationwide. The WGA uses a similar electronic guide in London that covers the European and Asian markets.
Production companies and studios, which are signatories to union contracts, also are obliged to report residual payments to the WGA. The guild double checks these payments against the TV logs its residual staff scrutinizes. The guild also has access to studio and production company books and uses auditors to comb records.
“Historically, there were seven studios and three networks and you could police them very efficiently,” said Lionel Chetwynd, a veteran screenwriter whose credits include “Hanoi Hilton.” “Today, you don’t know who you are dealing with.”
Television and film residuals are calculated according to a set of rules and formulas. Most writers earn $26,000 for one-hour dramas shown on ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. A half-hour comedy commands about $17,000.
The first residual for a rerun is based on the “applicable” minimum. For a one-hour drama, that’s about $17,000. A sitcom writer would get about $9,000.
When the series is sold to syndication, another set of formulas kick in, beginning with a 40 percent payment of the “applicable” minimums $6,800 for the drama, $3,600 for the sitcom and gradually decreasing to 5 percent for the 13th rerun and thereafter.
Foreign residuals and basic cable involve still other formulas. “It’s a patchwork of formulas that has emerged over the last 50 years,” Slocum said.
Once a residual check is received by the guild, it takes about two weeks to process the payment to a writer.
The big headaches generally don’t come from the major studios, but from small independents that might produce just one or two films or perhaps an unsuccessful TV series and then disappear.
“It isn’t so much out-and-out fraud,” Slocum said. “It’s that they either have gone bankrupt or they forgot they had to pay residuals or they put the money into their next production. They just don’t have the cash.”
Then there are some sneaks, like a rogue TV station that made a deal to show a series for just six runs, but then added an additional one, hoping that nobody was watching.
That’s where the WGA often steps in. “If they believe someone is cheating you, the union fights hard for you,” said a veteran writer who specializes in one-hour dramas. “The WGA doesn’t fool around.”
