The Razor featurettes

Source: RDM

Just so there’s no confusion, I’d like to make the distinctions clear between the two minute “featurettes” (or whatever we’re calling them these days) from “Razor” and last year’s “Resistance” webisodes that preceded the Season Three launch. I’ve given several interviews regarding the history of the webisodes and how the studio initially wanted to call them promotional material and not pay anyone, then finally relented on payment, only to refuse to provide credits in the end and forcing me to post them on my blog at SciFi.com.

The distinction between the two is that webisodes were new material created specifically for the internet, while the featurettes are really little more than deleted scenes from “Razor.” In the first instance, we were being asked to write and produce new material without compensation or credit, while in the second we simply repurposed existing material that would otherwise end up on the cutting room floor. That’s not to say that the featurettes weren’t subject to a great deal of haggling and negotiation with the studio over issues of reuse and credits -- they were. But in the end, I agreed to go with the featurettes while still refusing to produce more webisodes because I felt that using existing scenes in this format was different than creating new stories. Hopefully, the new contract that gets hammered out between the studios and the writers’ guild will clear up all of this and provide enough clarity so that showrunners like myself won’t have to be in the position of making these calls on a case by case basis.