May 20 • 38M

How Much Free Work Do Writers Do to Get Paid Work?

Colby Day on the uncomfortable realities of being a Hollywood scribe today

May 20

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Sonny Bunch

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Sonny Bunch hosts The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, featuring interviews with folks who have their finger on the pulse of the entertainment industry during this dynamic—and difficult—time.

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Colby Day (left) on the set of *The Accident.* (credit: Ahron R. Foster/IMDB)

Sonny Bunch’s Saturday pod has joined The Ankler. He’s a contributing columnist at the Washington Post, The Bulwark culture editor, and member of the Washington Area Film Critics Association.

I am pleased to be joined this week by Colby Day, screenwriter of In the Blink of an Eye and Netflix’s upcoming Spaceman, starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan, to discuss all the unpaid work that goes into getting paid work. I loved reading Colby’s diaries of annual pitch meetings and the such for 2021 and 2022, and thought I might share them, and him, with you as a way to help the broader industry understand the frustrations writers have with the current state of things and why they are striking. How many pitches does a writer have to make to land one paying gig? Why does it take an endless amount of time to get paid after drafts have been submitted? How could the strike help alleviate some of these problems? Take a listen.

For a full transcript, click here.