With a few months off from work, a host of Saturday Night Live cast members and friends decided they wanted to put on a show, so they made a serial film about waiting in line for 11 days in front of a movie theater. The idea was born out of waiting in a different sort of line, when the writers guild went on strike last fall and writers, actors, and supporters picketed for several months until an agreement was reached with producers about how content creators would be compensated for online material. That's when SNL cast member Bill Hader and writer Simon Rich came up with the idea about enthusiastic fans waiting in line 11 days for the premiere of the faux science fiction film "Future Space," according to The New York Times. The result was "The Line"––a short film split into seven distinct episodes that mines the cult-like culture of line inhabitants who camp out days before a movie premiere for laughs. The experience is not without its challenges. One of the line waiters gets a visit from his fed-up girlfriend who breaks up with him (based on something Hader actually witnessed in 1999 while waiting to see "The Phantom Menace.") There are also hard and fast rules when it comes to retaining one's space in line; any absence from your spot for more than five consecutive minutes means one has surrendered it. "The Line" is not the only online content that sprung from the minds of bored writers and performers with nothing but free time on their hands during the writers guild strike. Joss Whedon, the writer-producer of the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," assembled a small cast of actors to produce "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," a three-part musical starring Neil Patrick Harris as a wannabe super-villain with a crush on a girl, a super-hero nemesis, and a blog.
