A vertical studio's LA office meets the union's own rate card

What was announced or recorded

Two documents, read together, describe how a named vertical-drama studio and a Los Angeles union each state their own position. Crazy Maple Studio's own careers page, as retrieved on 16 September 2026, states the company "was founded in San Francisco, USA in 2017, with offices in multiple locations, including Silicon Valley and Los Angeles in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, and Beijing and Shenzhen in China." Separately, the Writers Guild of America West's own page on coverage of verticals, microdramas and low-budget streaming projects states that writing on these projects is covered by its Minimum Basic Agreement as 'original new media.'

What the documents establish

The WGA West page sets out specific terms: initial compensation is 'fully negotiable,' health, pension and paid-parental-leave contributions are required on top of it at stated percentages, and residuals for use on a subscription platform after the first 26 weeks apply only "for projects budgeted above $25,000 per minute," at a rate of "1.2% of accountable receipts." The same page states that under the guild's Working Rule 8, members may not work for non-signatory companies, and that such work carries "no protection by any MBA terms or Guild enforcement." Crazy Maple's own page names Los Angeles as one of several production offices but does not state whether the studio, or any entity within it, is a WGA signatory.

Announced versus delivered

What is delivered, in documentary terms, is a union rate card that explicitly contemplates vertical and microdrama work, and a named studio's own confirmation of a Los Angeles presence. What is not delivered by either document is a direct link between the two: no page checked for this dossier states that Crazy Maple, or any other named vertical-drama company, has signed the WGA's agreement, and the union's own coverage page is a general statement of terms rather than a list of signatory companies. The absence of that link is itself the finding, not a gap to be filled by inference.

What to watch

The single fact that would resolve this — a published WGA signatory list naming a vertical-drama studio, or a studio's own statement that it works under the guild's agreement — was not found in the pages opened for this dossier and is worth checking again as the format matures.

• Does having a Los Angeles office imply using Los Angeles union labour, or only proximity to it?
• How would a $25,000-per-minute budget threshold compare with what is publicly known about vertical-episode production costs?
• What enforcement, if any, applies to a writer working for a company outside the guild's signatory list?

Read side by side, these two pages show a union that has written specific rules for this format and a studio that has put an office in the city that union organises — a proximity, not yet a documented agreement, and the site's own rule against merging the two stands until a signatory record says otherwise.