Academy Award winner Tom Schulman is on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America.

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When it comes to telling the hero’s journey, Nashville native Tom Schulman is a master craftsman. The Vanderbilt graduate won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with Dead Poets Society (1989), a fictionalized account of his days at Montgomery Bell Academy.

Nowadays, Schulman, 72, is helping write a different sort of Hollywood journey, one filled with plot twists in which the final act has yet to be written. He is one of two dozen members named to the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee for ongoing strike talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

In an exclusive interview with the Nashville Ledger, Schulman shares his thoughts on everything from major issues facing screenwriters to walking the picket line, from how long the strike might last to why this is as important to Nashville’s growing film community as it is to those in Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Schulman says three main issues for the WGA East and WGA West members are wages, fair deals and concerns about artificial intelligence as a writing tool.

“We’re also concerned about residuals and streaming. But I would say that the biggest issues just the center around the fact that writers are not getting paid enough and they’re not working long enough,” says Schulman, whose credits include Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, What About Bob?, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Medicine Man and Holy Man, among others.

“The structure and the culture of the way television is made has changed. And it left writers in a situation where they can’t make a living, can’t afford to raise a family. Can’t afford to live in L.A. or New York where they’re employed,” he adds. “It’s led us to the situation where the companies have refused to bend on this, and now we’re out on strike.”

Schulman hopes Tennessee screenwriters understand the issues and how their journeys in the business could be impacted.

“For years, I think it was a given that if you were a screenwriter, you could make a living at it. And that’s just not the case anymore,” Schulman says. “It really has become a situation that is pretty dire. There are so many writers now that are also working a second job – not industry-related – just because the job of being a writer didn’t pay the bills. So this is a critical time for the writing profession.

“The Guild will welcome the support of the Tennessee screenwriters. We obviously hope that no one will cross our picket lines, either real lines or imaginary,” he says. “If we all pull together, we can get this over with pretty quickly, get a reasonable deal and get back to work.”

The last writers’ strike was in 2007-08, and Schulman served on the WGA West board during that 99-day stoppage. How long will this one last? That’s up to the studios, he says.

“We’re certainly not going to sign a contract that doesn’t give us the money we need to live,” Schulman says bluntly. “Their last offer was inadequate and when they come to their senses, I know that they’ll give us something (that’s fair).

“But it’s obviously just going to take time. I don’t know. I cannot unlock the mystery of what goes on inside the executive suite.”

Since this is a screenwriting story, let’s examine the 2023 WGA writer’s strike from the classic three-act structure:

First act: The setup

About 75% of the Guild members write for television or streaming programming, Schulman says. And that’s where the biggest changes have occurred for writers.

“In the old days, when there were just the three or four networks, they’d make 22 shows on average a season. So writers would be employed for 30-40 weeks to make a television show,” he explains. “Now, with shorter orders that come along with the streamers like Netflix and Max, they’re making 6, 8, 10 episodes per season. Writers just aren’t getting employed for long enough.

“Plus, there’s a phenomenon called mini-rooms where these companies will hire four or five writers for a very short period of time, and they will break down the whole season. They’ll write all the episodes and then they’re fired,” Schulman continues. “And then if they decide to make the series, they’ll hire, usually, just the showrunner back to supervise the production and postproduction of all those shows. … It’s a killer job, too hard for any one person.”

Second act: Conflict

Schulman says the WGA spent weeks trying to negotiate a settlement but have not met with the studio executives since they went on strike May 1. He called those initial negotiations “intense but amicable.”

He’s been on the picket line with fellow writers at 10 L.A. studios and says there is widespread support throughout the industry, unlike the 2007-08 strike.

“The unions are aligned this time. They weren’t so much with our last strike. But this time we’re getting support from every union and we’ve gotten lots of productions where actors are refusing to cross picket lines,” Schulman says. “So it’s having an immediate effect in a way that it didn’t during the last strike.”

How long the strike lasts could depend on how many projects the studios backlogged.

“When they smelled the possibility of a Writers Guild strike, they started stockpiling scripts. They have enough scripts to make products for a while, but probably not more than about two to three months,” Schulman says.

Third act: Resolution

Things could be settled quickly if/when the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America authorize strikes. Schulman says both are in contract negotiations and could go on strike July 1 if no settlements are reached.

“We’ve shut down quite a number of shows already, and there’s more to come. “They’re not able to put product in the pipeline while this is happening,” Schulman says. “And if the Screen Actors Guild and DGA strike, then everything will grind to a complete halt immediately.”

Schulman says having all three unions on strike at the same time would be historic.

“The last time any two unions struck, and I could be wrong, was 1960. The Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild struck at the same time and that’s when we got residuals and a pension and health plan.

“It’s hard to figure out what (the studios’) business model is, such that they don’t want product for a while. The stuff we make is what is what keeps them afloat. So it doesn’t make any sense,” he adds. “It doesn’t seem like a good business plan but they have their reasons, I guess. And all we can do is do what we have to do to get what we need.”

Epilogue: Support in Tennessee

Screenwriter Bob Saenz, who moved to Tennessee from California three years ago, and Tennessee Screenwriting Association president Jeff Chase, say they support the WGA strike. Saenz, a SAG member who has had 19 produced films, thinks the strike could last six months.

“I’m in complete support of what they’re doing, but it’s not just affecting WGA productions. And that’s what people need to know,” says Saenz, who has joined the Nashville-based screenwriting group since moving here. “Between them and SAG, it is affecting all productions everywhere.

“I can’t say what’s going to happen, but it’s pretty much put me out of business. I hope it doesn’t go six months. My fear is that it will. My hope is that it doesn’t.”

Both screenwriters have other projects in the works.

Saenz has a novel coming out in June called “Jessica’s Vampire Diary,” and he describes it as “kind of a combination of Nancy Drew and Stephen King. And a little Monty Python thrown in. The editor says that she hasn’t laughed out loud at a book in a decade as much as she did with this one, so I’m pretty happy.”

Schulman is developing a podcast with screenwriter Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise and Nashville), her husband – musician and producer T Bone Burnett – and comedian Trae Crowder, a native of Celina who lives in L.A.

“The four of us have cooked up this idea that we’ll be doing as a comedic podcast,” he says. “We’ll probably spend about half the time writing it out here in L.A. and the other half in Nashville. To me, any opportunity to get back is fun.”

Tom Wood is an author and member of the Tennessee Screenwriting Association