Ken Levine: Yes I do. It’s very important, with new delivery systems, a lot of which we don’t even know the extent of yet, that the writers get in on the ground floor.

20 years ago we gave up [residuals on] DVDs. The studios said, “We don’t know if there’s going to be a market for this, so why don’t we make a settlement now and you basically get nothing, and if DVDs start becoming really profitable, we’ll revisit this and make it more equitable.” And then they never did. So when they were saying basically the exact same thing this time, writers weren’t buying it. We felt we needed to get a good deal in place now.

TI: The thing I found surprising and refreshing was that, especially given the state most unions are in right now, there seemed to be an incredible amount of support for the WGA.

KL: I think it was such a matter of greed on one side, and the public could see that. The writers were not trying to hold up the producers; it’s not like we put a gun to their heads. All we wanted was a fair share of [the profits], and I think that’s what the public responded to.

TI: Do you think that this has initiated a paradigm shift in negotiations between writers and studios? Will negotiations go more smoothly the next time?

KL: I think they’re going to go more smoothly, because the studios underestimated the Writers Guild’s resolve. That stems from past strikes, where the writers were not very unified and strikes weren’t very organized, so studios were able to make better deals. Plus, the next Writer’s Guild contract will end months before the Screen Actors’ contract ends. One thing we certainly learned from this strike was that there’s strength in solidarity. So if SAG and the WGA go out on strike together, that’s very formidable.

I don’t think the studios anticipated the public outcry, I don’t think they anticipated the amount of information writers were able to get out through the Internet to present their side to the public; I don’t think they expected we would shut down the Golden Globes. As a result of that, there’s a greater respect for the writers, and when it comes time to negotiate again, we can bypass a lot of this and get a deal made.

TI: You wrote a really great post on your blog about the things you’re going to miss about the strike. In spite of the anxiety, was it kind of a good experience? Do you think it brought the guild together?

KL: Oh, I definitely do. It was also a nice bonding experience. It made you proud to be a writer and a guild member. It gave me a chance to reconnect with people. Part of the problem with writing is, for the most part, you either go off and do it by yourself or you’re in a room locked away in a studio; you don’t really have a chance to see people. That said, I’m glad it’s over. I’ve caught up enough.

TI: What’s the next technological field where there will be a battle for residuals?

KL: I think it will somehow be Internet related. It seems to me that six or seven years from now, the entire landscape of television is going to change. And you’ll have all these menus, and you’ll click on the show you want to see on your computer, and you’ll see it on your big-screen plasma TV. I think the whole idea of networks and time slots is going to be really altered.

The old foundation of broadcast television, and before that in radio, was all sponsor driven. Now with Tivo and all these other options, that’s really changing, and networks are going to have to find new revenue streams. I think there’s going to be more product placement in shows. Top to bottom, people are reexamining the way they did business for 60 years. There will be seismic changes. Exactly what those changes will be, I don’t know.

TI: Do you think these new technological developments will change the very nature of content in film and television?

KL: I think it will change the nature of content in that there won’t necessarily be hour shows and half-hour shows. With the internet, we’re seeing people watching ten-minute YouTube shorts and things like that. I think [content] will be less restrictive. But again, this is just the opinion of one guy who doesn’t have a crystal ball.

TI: Do you think we might see new formats of programming?

KL: I do. In terms of television situation comedy, I think there will be a form of it, but I think it might be fractured in some way. It may become a hybrid of forms. When you see shows like The Office, which are kind of documentary style, you see that people are looking for different ways of telling stories. But the bottom line is, people always crave comedy in some form; it’s just a question of what that form is.

TI: You wrote on your blog that you think that television episodes written after the will be better because the writers will get fewer notes. Could you explain that?

KL: The way it has evolved, networks have a lot more say [about] the content. Whereas in the old days – and by old days I mean the mid-90s – we would come up with stories, and when we were happy with the stories, we would assign them to writers, the scripts would get written and rewritten, and that would be the shooting script. Now there are network interventions every step of the way. With the end of the strike, and the networks craving new product quickly, I think there’s going to be less of that, simply because there isn’t the time. The networks would rather have more shows, even if they don’t have as much input. Left to their own devices, the producers, writers and show runners will do just as well, if not a better.

TI: The other post I really liked on your blog was the one that discussed how there’s no middle ground in movies; you said there’s only There Will Be Blood and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Do you think that in the future we’re going to get more middle-ground movies and what will they be like?

KL: I’m not sure. Somebody on my blog made an interesting comment, which was that the two highest grossing movies of all time also won the Oscar for Best Picture. Hopefully there will be more of that, but it’s all dollar-driven. If you said to a studio, “you could have the Best Picture or the biggest summer blockbuster that’s going to make $400 million and spawn eight sequels,” I think they would opt for the megahit.

TI: There seems to be a bigger divide now between major studio pictures and independent features, which seem to be the movies that don’t make a lot of money but win the awards.

KL: And those [studio films] are the movies where there’s interference from film studios, with notes on drafts, editing and casting. They tend to be more formulaic. If you look at a movie like Juno, I can’t imagine that being made by a major studio. And if it was, they probably would have taken Diablo Cody’s script and given it to some A-list punch-up people to change it. And they’d say, “We need a scene with Juno and her mother shopping. And we need a scene of her and the guy holding hands”

They’d ask, “Who do we cast it with?” And they’d probably go, “Can we get Mandy Moore? Lindsay Lohan? Miley Cyrus?” What you’re then left with is one of these bastardized formula movies, as opposed to what Juno was, which was a very clear vision. They took a really good script, a director who understood it, cast the best possible people, and did it in the tone they felt was best for that picture. And it will end up making a lot more money – considering the cost – than the other four [Oscar] nominees.

The truth of the matter is, last year -- and I checked it -- Norbit had a bigger box office than the Best Picture of the year. There’s something wrong there.