《经济学人》双语：好莱坞编剧大罢工？

原文标题：
Hollywood
Lights, camera, industrial action
Making movies and television is not all it’s cracked up to be
好莱坞
灯光、摄像机、工业行动
制作电影和电视并没有想象中那么容易

Hollywood’s writers go on strike
好莱坞编剧们大罢工

Editor’s note (May 2nd 2023): On May 1st the Writers Guild of America chose to go ahead with the strike after late talks with American film studios broke down.
编者注（2023年5月2日）：5月1日，与美国电影公司的后期谈判破裂后，美国编剧工会选择继续罢工。

[Paragraph 1]

ONE HUNDRED years ago, the hills above Los Angeles got a facelift.A giant sign was erected to advertise a new property development. Its 13 letters, each 43 feet tall, spelled “HOLLYWOODLAND” (“land” was later dropped).

100年前，洛杉矶上方的山丘焕然一新。竖了一个巨大的标志来宣传新的房地产开发项目。它的有13 个字母拼写为“HOLLYWOODLAND”（“LAND”后来被清除），每个字母高 43 英尺。

The modern movie business was forming at around the same time, as Warner Brothers consolidated power and Walt Disney left Kansas City for Los Angeles.

现代电影业大约也在同一时间形成，华纳兄弟公司巩固了权力，沃尔特.迪斯尼离开堪萨斯城前往洛杉矶。

Yet instead of celebrating its centenary, Hollywood faces upheaval: screenwriters are striking for the first time in 15 years.

然而，好莱坞非但没有庆祝其百年诞辰，反而面临剧变：编剧们 15 年来首次罢工。

[Paragraph 2]
Every three years the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the trade group for the studios, negotiates a new contract with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the writers’ union.
电影和电视制片人联盟（电影公司的贸易团体）每3年就会与美国编剧工会谈判签一次新合同。

This year talks soured as studios and writers grappled with how streaming has upended their business models and working conditions.
今年，由于电影公司和编剧们在谈论流媒体如何颠覆他们的商业模式和工作条件时，双方谈判不太顺利。

The WGA voted to strike if negotiations failed. On May 2nd, hours after their contract expired, they downed pens.
如果谈判失败，编剧工会将投票决定罢工。5月2日，在合同到期数小时后，编剧们放下了手中的笔。

Writers wearing matching blue T-shirts and carrying signs with snarky messages (“My pronouns are pay/me”) picketed in front of studios across LA and in New York City.
他们穿着蓝色T恤，手上举着尖刻的标语（"我要涨薪"），在洛杉矶和纽约市的电影公司前游行示威。

[Paragraph 3]
Writers’ complaints boil down to two issues. First is the amount of work on offer.
编剧们的不满可归结为2个问题。首先是工作量问题。

There were nearly 600 original scripted television shows in 2022, more than ever before. But in the age of streaming, more content does not necessarily mean more work.
2022年有近600部原创剧本电视节目，比以往任何时候都多。但在流媒体时代，更多的内容并不一定意味着更多的工作。

Many writers’ rooms—where scribes try to wrangle ideas into scripts—last for fewer weeks and employ fewer writers than in the past.
许多编剧室（编剧讨论并将创意转为剧本的地方）的工作时间比过去少，雇佣的编剧也比过去少。

Inspiring particular ire are “mini rooms”, where a few writers map out several episodes before a show even gets the green light.
令人特别愤怒的是“迷你房间”，几个编剧在节目获得批准之前就已经在房间里规划好了数集。

“I do think it’s a cost-cutting measure,” says Sean Collins-Smith, a writer on NBC’s cop drama “Chicago PD”.
NBC警匪剧《芝加哥警署》的编剧肖恩.科林斯.史密斯说："我认为这是一种削减成本的措施。"

[Paragraph 4]
The second problem lies with “residuals”—what a writer gets paid each time an episode or film they worked on is rebroadcast.
第二个问题是 "剩余报酬"--编剧每次在他们参与的剧集或电影被重播时得到的报酬。

In the Netflix era, films and TV shows can be rebroadcast on demand.
在网飞时代，影视剧可以按需重播。

Writers argue that the industry has not yet found a way to equitably adjust their payment system to account for this huge change.
编剧们认为，影视行业尚未找到一种方法来公平调整其支付系统，以应对这一巨大变化。

[Paragraph 5]
A writers’ strike is felt across Hollywood. When shows stop production, camera people, costume designers and others are also out of work. Late-night talk shows are the first to go dark.
整个好莱坞都受到编剧罢工的影响。当节目停止制作时，摄像师、服装设计师和其他人员也会失业。深夜脱口秀节目首先停播。

The Milken Institute, a think-tank in Santa Monica, reckons the previous strike in 2007 and 2008 cost California’s economy $2.1bn.
位于圣莫尼卡的智囊团“米尔肯研究所”估计，2007年和2008年的罢工给加州造成了 21 亿美元的经济损失。

[Paragraph 6]
Striking screenwriters may inspire less sympathy than factory workers who down tools, or even the cash-strapped graduate students who went on strike across California last year.
比起那些放下工具的工厂工人，甚至是与去年在加州各地罢工的手头拮据的研究生相比，罢工的编剧可能不太会引起人们的同情。

“There’s a notion out there of the spoiled, entitled, glitz-and-glam lifestyle of Hollywood writers,” admits Mr Collins-Smith. But “I know people who, when they got out of their last room, immediately started driving for Uber.”
柯林斯.史密斯承认：“有一种观念认为好莱坞编剧过着被宠坏的、自命不凡的、浮华的生活。但是，我认识一些人，当他们离开编剧室时，立即开始跑优步。”

[Paragraph 7]
Los Angeles is the fourth-most-expensive city in the world, according to an annual cost-of-living survey from EIU, The Economist’s sister company.
根据经济学人的姐妹公司“经济学人智库”的年度生活成本调查，洛杉矶是世界上第4大生活成本最高的城市。

“You come to LA for the land of opportunity,” says Jake Lawler, a 24-year-old writer who moonlights as a stuntman to make ends meet. “But the peace-of-mind tax is way higher than anywhere else in the country.”
24岁的编剧杰克.劳勒兼职做特技演员以维持生计，他说："你来洛杉矶是为了寻找机会，但这里的安心税收比国内任何地方都要高得多"。

[Paragraph 8]
For studios, the question is whether the film industry can make money.
对于电影公司来说，问题的关键是电影业是否能赚钱。

Before covid-19 shuttered cinemas, theatrical releases accounted for about 45% of a studio’s revenues for a big-budget film, according to FTI Consulting.
根据FTI咨询公司的数据，在疫情关闭电影院之前，影院票房约占制片厂大制作电影收入的 45%。

Americans are again going to the movies, but not in pre-pandemic numbers.
美国人又开始去看电影了，但没有疫情前的人多。

The streamers are also hunting for profits. Netflix laid off hundreds of workers in 2022 after it lost subscribers for the first time since 2011, and the firm recently said it would restructure its film department to focus on fewer, better flicks.
流媒体公司也在寻找利润。自2011年以来首次用户数量下降后，网飞在2022年解雇了数百名员工，该公司最近表示，它将重组其电影部门，专注于少而美的电影。

“There’s going to be a precipitous drop in investments in movies in general, because it’s just hard to make a profit,” warns Howard Suber, who taught film at the University of California, Los Angeles for 45 years.
在加州大学洛杉矶分校教了45年电影的霍华德.苏伯警告说：“总体而言，电影方面的投资将会急剧下降，因为它很难盈利。”

[Paragraph 9]
In some ways, the writers’ strike and the business-model woes are what Hollywood is accustomed to.
在某些方面，编剧们罢工和商业模式困境是好莱坞习以为常的事情。

“Every five to ten years there’s some kind of crisis, going back to the introduction of sound,” says Mr Suber with a chuckle.
苏伯笑着说："每隔五到十年就会出现某种危机，这一现象甚至可以追溯到引入电影声音的时代。”

Hollywood is celebrating its century the only way it knows how: chaotically.
好莱坞在庆祝它的百年历史，唯一的方式就是混乱地庆祝。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量797左右）
原文出自：2023年5月6日《The Economist》United States版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
电影和电视制片商联盟（Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers，简称AMPTP）是一个贸易组织，代表主要的电影和电视制片商与娱乐业工会进行谈判。该组织于1982年由电影制片商协会和电视制片商协会合并而成。集体谈判主要是工资、劳动条件、版税以及医疗保险福利等问题进行。此外，该组织还倡导亲业界的立法，并在知识产权保护和为电影和电视制作提供税收优惠等方面代表其成员进行游说。

美国编剧工会（The Writers Guild of America，缩写为WGA）是一个代表美国电影、电视、广播和新媒体编剧的工会。该工会成立于1933年，旨在保护编剧的权益和利益。WGA负责与制片商进行集体谈判，以确保编剧们获得合理的收入和权益，例如版税、奖金、退休金、保险等。该工会还通过行业研究和统计数据来支持编剧们的利益，同时还鼓励和促进创作自由和艺术创新。在历史上，WGA曾多次组织编剧罢工，以争取更好的工作条件和收入。这些罢工期间，许多电影和电视制作项目遭到延迟或取消。尽管如此，WGA仍然是一个强大的工会，它为成员争取权益和保护编剧创意自由做出了巨大贡献。

剩余报酬Residuals，是指电影、电视节目或其他媒体作品的创作者在制作公司以及其他收入来源获得的经济补偿。这些补偿通常是为了支付剧本编写人员、导演、演员和其他创作人员在作品播出后的再次使用权。通常，residuals的数额是基于作品的利润进行计算的。例如，如果一部电影赚了100万美元的净利润，那么编剧可能会从制片方拿到0.3%-1.5%的residuals。这些数字通常需要通过谈判和协议来确定，并且与不同类型的创作人员有所不同。

【重点句子】（3个）
Yet instead of celebrating its centenary, Hollywood faces upheaval: screenwriters are striking for the first time in 15 years.
然而，好莱坞非但没有庆祝其百年诞辰，反而面临剧变：编剧们 15 年来首次罢工。

The second problem lies with “residuals”—what a writer gets paid each time an episode or film they worked on is rebroadcast.
第二个问题是 "剩余报酬"--编剧每次在他们参与的剧集或电影被重播时得到的报酬。

Striking screenwriters may inspire less sympathy than factory workers who down tools, or even the cash-strapped graduate students who went on strike across California last year.
比起那些放下工具的工厂工人，甚至是与去年在加州各地罢工的手头拮据的研究生相比，罢工的编剧可能不太会引起人们的同情。