On a frigid early morning in Chicago last week, screenwriter Michael Gilio bundled into a car in the city's West Side with other writers and made his way to Cinespace studios, located in an industrial zone.
Gilio, a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America, heard that Showtime's coming-of-age drama "The Chi" was planning to resume filming its sixth season at 4 a.m.
So he and his colleagues sprang into action. They fired off emails to other guild members in the area, hoping some might turn out in the early hours. They needed two picketers at each of the three studio gates to form official picket lines. By 3 a.m., more than 15 writers showed up, including "The Matrix" co-writer and co-director Lilly Wachowski.
