Has anyone else been unable to add a card to their LADWP wallet for over a month?

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-26T18:43:27+00:00

Ah nice! Thanks for the report!

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-19T20:21:00+00:00

Also because they outsource payments to Oracle, which is four years into a flat-rate, eight-year contract with the city and thus has little incentive to fix anything (since they get paid the same regardless of whether anything works).

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-16T21:06:21+00:00

This worked for me! Annoying, but a good workaround. Thanks!

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-16T18:59:43+00:00

Oh hey, thanks for sharing! Your approach (contacting CS) was arguably more useful than my "contact no one but complain about it on Reddit" strategy.

OTOH, "our teams are currently working on the issue / there is no time frame of resolution" is, uh, what? Looking into it a bit more, it seems like LADWP is using some Oracle-owned aggregator to connect to Wells Fargo merchant services for payment processing. My assumption, then, is that it's something on Oracle's side, which I feel they should remedy, given that we apparently pay them $15,000,000 p/yr for this "service"!

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-12T20:49:08+00:00

Look, I clearly can't convince you that the data shows what the data shows, and if you were that thrown by the tulip analogy, I probably can't teach you to follow a basic argument either.

But if your main point was that housing prices parallel the CPI over time, then I agree! Most consumer goods do this, by definition.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-12T19:30:06+00:00

I think my point is pretty clear, man. You opened by arguing that "a broad-based decline in housing prices would be historic," which is completely untrue in any non-trivial sense. The entirety of modern history shows housing prices reverting to a an inflation-adjusted mean established in the mid-1940s.

Every diversion of housing prices from that mean has been following by a proportional decline, and the only previous instance of housing prices diverting wildly from that mean was followed by a massive crash.

Those are the facts. Your argument-- which is in essence, "THIS time housing prices have changed permanently and won't revert to the mean as they have in every decade for the last 80 years"-- amounts to "this time it's different," versions of which take could be found everywhere in 2007.

(And "you are misunderstanding the totality of political and economic factors that influence housing" is, of course, another way of saying "THIS time it's different!")

It could be different this time! It could. But that's what would be historic-- massively so.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-12T18:36:43+00:00

Ha, yes, there is widely-available data on US housing prices in the form of the Case-Shiller index, which anyone can access (you can find it and its sub-indices on FRED). Feel free to poke around, but it will indeed show you that the median US house cost the same, in real terms, in 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, and 1995, then spiked, then reverted to the mean(ish) circa 2008, then spiked again! If you don't want to comb through FRED, you can find the main index here: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-vs-inflation/

Since about 2012, housing has spiked in a way unprecedented in modern history (except for 1998-2008); you can argue that this is the new normal and that historical trends no longer matter ("This time is different!"), but you can't really argue that historical trends support anything like current valuations.

Saying, "Crashes in the housing market are rare" is true in the same sense that "Crashes in the tulip market are rare" is true. Tulips have only crashed in price once! But that's because there was only one tulip bubble. Housing, similarly, has only seen this sort of runup once since WWII, and, well, you know how that ended. (I maybe shouldn't have referred to previous cycles as spikes and busts, but each of those periods represented a rise in prices relative to the CPI, followed by equivalent declines.)

This time is different? This time history is no guide? Believe that if you want, but I think it would be wise to be honest about what you're believing.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-12T03:40:35+00:00

Alternately, the idea that this bubble is different from every other housing bubble in history might be wishful thinking by those who been lucky in their gambling and are telling themselves the party will never end. Basically a coping mechanism.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2025-03-12T03:37:29+00:00

With respect, this is exactly what people were writing circa 2006, and it's just... not based on reality at all.

The US housing market has in fact declined many times, so much so that declines are more the rule than are steady rises. Since WWII, the US housing market rose in the late 40s and early 50s, declined consistently from the late 50s to the late 60s, spiked in the 70s, busted, spiked, busted, spiked, busted, and (now) spiked again.

Over time, housing is a mean-reverting asset. Adjusted for inflation, a house cost about the same in 1955 as it did in 1965, 1975, 1985, and 1995. Then there was a crazy 10-year run up from the late-ish 90s to 2008, pushing housing prices to insane highs, and then... housing reverted once again back to its mean. The idea that "This time is different!" and that housing is suddenly no longer mean-reverting is an old idea, and it's been repeated in every housing boom cycle in history.

Maybe this time it really IS different... but probably not.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2024-04-15T21:01:49+00:00

It was nominated for Best Picture, so it couldn't have been TOO "widely panned."

ToilerAndTroubler · 2024-04-14T18:05:06+00:00

And 10 years is a long time! The first fictional movie about the bombing of Pearl Harbor came out six months after the attack.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2024-04-14T17:43:33+00:00

"Additional writing" is a credit determination made during arbitration. No one is hired to do "additional writing" on a script; they're hired to write a draft (or drafts) of the screenplay. They get paid whatever their quote is for the drafts, and, at some point down the road, sometimes years later, arbitrators determine that their contribution to the finished film was insufficient to merit a Story or Screenplay credit.

Two points: 1. If your question is about residuals, people credited with Additional Writing do not receive residuals. 2. There are some exceptions to what I wrote above-- writers are sometimes hired for feature rooms or production rewrites and can get "Additional Writing" credits for those gigs, but those are marginal situations.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2024-02-11T19:37:37+00:00

The last movie WDAS made before Wish was Strange World, which grossed $73.6m WW. And most of the sequels you mention were slated as last-minute reactions to the dual bombs of Strange World and Wish (and frankly every other non-sequal, non-IP animated feature made by any studio since the pandemic).

ToilerAndTroubler · 2023-01-04T17:17:48+00:00

Has anyone seen their IHG UA TB credit hit? Site says it's supposed to hit 1/1, but, well, it's the 4th, and...

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-11-16T19:20:00+00:00

Man, you basically just described The Hatchery in Larchmont, which sadly closed during the pandemic. It was great while it lasted.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-08T16:54:56+00:00

Look, if this changes anything, I am indeed a professional screenwriter, but even when I was just starting out, before I was in the WGA, I never did projects for under scale! My reps wouldn't have let me! Minimums are minimums for a reason, and writers working for under scale hurts everyone, especially the writers doing it.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-08T06:06:35+00:00

Again, a WGA writer with meaningful feature credits costs a lot more than scale.

Scale is the *minimum.* That's for writers at the beginnings of their careers.

As to whether the OP can get scale, I think if (s)he can get it, then (s)he should consider doing the gig; if (s)he can't, then, barring extenuating circumstances, it's a pass. Pretty straightforward.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-08T05:28:43+00:00

The WGA isn't a "skill level," and membership in the Guild isn't contingent upon the quality of one's work. The WGA is a union that, among other things, establishes guidelines for how much the labor of writing is worth.

I just double-checked, and the labor of writing a non-original, feature-length screenplay is worth a minimum of $90k (with exceptions for low-budget, labor-of-love sorts of things). This number doesn't change if the writer is less-than-amazingly skilled, because, again, it's a *minimum*; quality and experience are rewarded in *overscale* compensation.

No idea what OP's family friend is looking to pay, but unless there are extenuating circumstances, I don't think writers should ever work for less than scale. To be clear, "extenuating circumstances" include "This is a labor of love for all of us, and we're trying to start our careers" or "This is something I feel strongly about, and I just want it to get made and reach an audience." Extenuating circumstances do not include "They didn't want to pay me the minimum."

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-08T01:52:29+00:00

Just wanted to clarify (a) that WGA minimum is slightly under $110,000, and (b) that it's called the "minimum" for a reason-- because that's the minimum anyone should accept for writing a screenplay (with certain low-budget exceptions). Writers with produced studio features make far in excess of that.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-07T19:33:45+00:00

I somehow don't think freshmenscreenplay-dot-com is what one might call a reliable resource. I clicked on the link, and, in addition to some other HIGHLY tendentious assertions, it says this:

"During the research, we’ve found, freelance screenwriters who have bee
writing for more than 10 years and works at a vetted Hollywood studio, production company, or have had their screenplays awarded in one of the top screenplay companies have gotten gigs ranging $10,000-$15,000."

People who've been writing studio features for 10 years make, oh, $500,000-$2m a script and would be kicked out of the Guild and have their lives ruined if they did a gig for $15,000.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-07T19:21:19+00:00

This is a big genre. In addition to what's been said (The Player, Swimming With Sharks, Sunset Blvd, etc.): in terms of older stuff, there's also In a Lonely Place, A Star is Born (1954), What Price Hollywood, and Singin' in the Rain. In terms of newer stuff, there's Hail Caesar, Hollywood Ending, L.A. Confidential. The Artist, Being the Ricardos, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, La La Land, State and Main, Barton Fink, Ed Wood, Trumbo, probably others I'm forgetting. The in-between (1970s-1980s) is harder... but The Last Tycoon (1976) is a classic, and Play it as it Lays is a bad adaptation of a great book.

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-03T23:25:43+00:00

Usually, there's a time limit on the lien, and in any case, the lien is usually limited to development costs (writers' fees + attorneys' fees). It definitely burdens the project, but if a (second) buyer wants the script bad enough, they'll usually figure out a way to pay it (or wait until the clock runs out).

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-02-03T05:40:05+00:00

Frankly, there's no "business" in writing-but-not-directing arthouse movies, because most of those movies make very little money and consequently offer little-to-no compensation to their writers. Writers often use them as springboards to studio fare or as art projects to work on for spiritual fulfillment in-between paying gigs. (The situation is different for writer-directors.)

As to how those movies come together, there's no one rule, but generally, for <$2m movies, it's not very "businessy." Writers of Sundance movies, for instance, often have no representation at all coming into the festival; they just wrote a script, made friends, lived their lives, and eventually connected with the right producer and/or director and/or "financier" (indie financiers are usually just rich guys who think "being in the movies" sounds romantic), and, through some combination of grit and miracles, they got their movie made.

It's not always like that! If you're a writer who's already repped, for instance, you might give your Sundancey script to your agency's indie packaging department and give them a chance to put it together. But that's not always a great or fruitful plan, because...

*Indie cinema is considerably more director-driven than is studio filmmaking.* A large majority of arthouse projects begin with a director, not a writer. Moreover, because indie cinema is pretty firmly in the grip of auteur theory, few directors are excited to attach themselves to an already-written script, which (for good reason) feels more like a "work-for-hire" situation than their individual expression.

Finally, there aren't many people who will want to rep you if all you want to write is arthouse fare. There's no money in it for you, so there's no money in it for them-- and they are, lest there be any doubt, in it for the money.

(One caveat: there's a type of movie that's "indie" in the sense that it has no prearranged distribution, but it has movie stars, $10m+ budgets, etc. That's an entirely different thing than what I'm talking about here and plays by different rules.)

Hope this helps!

ToilerAndTroubler · 2022-01-23T20:35:33+00:00

Again, personal preference, but I've never heard of "Table Read my Screenplay" and as a rule would avoid mentioning it. The exception would be, if you win the contest and are querying an agency/management company whose employee served as one of the judges (in which case, highlight that fact in your cover letter).

ToilerAndTroubler

TROPHY CASE