Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales From the New Abnormal in the Movie Business (24 page)

The talks went on for days and days. We didn’t know if the strike was ending or continuing. At first it seemed like nothing was happening. On Day One, the Moguls resubmitted their original proposal regarding online streaming (Internet downloads), which they felt had been “misunderstood.” The Writers felt deeply insulted by this. Misunderstood? Did the Moguls think they were dumb blondes? Stalemate occurred. Then there was an exciting moment when we all held our collective breath as the Moguls promised an offer would be forthcoming by the end of the day. The Writers’ reps waited until sundown; no new offer came, and they watched the last of the Moguls’ cars slip out for Chanukah. After seven days of nothing happening, the talks broke down amid great acrimony on both sides. Winter was coming, and the sky wasn’t the only thing getting darker.

FLASHBACK

I’m no biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination; I know a lot more about science than I do about religion. But I think I can date the beginning of the movie business apocalypse to when people started speaking in tongues. People who’d known each other forever suddenly stopped making sense to each other; their sentences were long-winded, illogical and determinate. They whispered in restaurants and seethed at one another. Lawyers and agents lied to clients about what they really thought, so inebriated with ideology were the clients, and so fearful was everyone. Producers sat behind the closed gates of empty lots—many for the last time—speaking against their self-interest, just like the honking teamsters who wouldn’t know a residual payment if it smashed them in the windshield. But they honked highway solidarity as they watched the last of the L.A. productions shut down and their jobs disappear.

It was the Tower of Babel. No one knew what everyone else really meant, only that “the bosses” (in the thirties sense) were greedy and must have a lot of money, because after all, they were studio heads. What were they doing inside those rooms upstairs while we were down here fretting?

We weren’t allowed to meet with Writers, or even really socialize with them. I snuck a dinner with two girlfriend-Writers in Silver Lake and spent all evening being shamed by them. Some Writers left town completely. One great Writer went to Fiji to avoid dealing with it. But Writers who didn’t support the strike weren’t allowed to say it. Producers either. There was a sense of political correctness that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. You
had
to toe the line. You
had
to honk your horn. You
had
to turn in your fellow Writers if you knew anybody who was writing. But nobody was writing. No one was even making sense.

Deadline Comments Board

Fuck the Moguls. For some reason, they have decided to destroy their businesses. It’s time for their shareholders to revolt. And just like the defiance against the Edison Trust 100 years ago, this business will change because the filmmakers, not the big corporations, decide to change it.

Comment by ReelBusy—Monday, December 24, 2007, 11:36 a.m. PST

FORCE TRÈS MAJEURE

Starting in late November and continuing through Christmas into mid-January, the studios and the networks started canceling Writers’ deals. This was legal under a clause called “force majeure,” which means having been struck an unexpected blow from above that disenables us to perform our fiduciary duties. In production, we often use this clause on insurance claims—like when the wardrobe trailer burns down while we’re shooting, or when our major star gets kicked in the head by a horse and can’t shoot for a week because she has a hole in her face, or when an earthquake or hurricane or lightning has struck down or blown away our set. In this case, force majeure was not a bolt of lightning from above, but from below: the Writers’ strike. On January 12, the date on most contracts, they would legally be able to cancel even more deals than those they canceled in late November.

Deadline Comments Board

Force majeure. They’re just stalling till they can clean house.

Comment by Unemployed—Wednesday, November 28, 2007, 8:02 a.m. PST

LOL!! I called this two weeks ago!! I said they are going to work the force majeure but they have to make it appear as if they are trying to negotiate in order for that to stick in the face of lawsuits from writers. This was all VERY obvious to everyone but the naive writers, who seem to think we’re living in a fairy-tale land where corporations give a damn about you and your feelings (“it’s all about respect and fairness—bwaaaah!” LOL). Your strategies suck. The fact that WGA leadership is scratching their heads in this negotiation, trying to figure out what’s going on, is proof of that.

Comment by ChuckT—Wednesday, November 28, 2007, 8:13 a.m. PST

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HOLLYWOOD!

Let’s Not Talk!

Not making an offer at Christmas during a recession was a low, ugly, smart blow, bent on dividing the unions, sowing dissension and undermining the WGA’s PR with the town. The Moguls may have been bad at PR for a time, but they keenly understood their leverage. It worked. They scared the bejeezus out of everyone during the holidays. All of Los Angeles could see that there would be no work gearing up after Christmas or in the near future. The Writers felt duped, as they were hoping to negotiate and instead were forced to wait through meaningless talks and watch their own leaders get blamed for their collapse.

While the Moguls handed out their lumps of coal, they began to suspend Writers’ deals, and any other deals they could legally suspend under the force majeure clause. The suspension of deals was saving them money and leading them toward a new business plan, one that jibed with the future and the recession and their loss
of DVD revenue. Quietly, they opened talks with the DGA, and many flew off for holiday.

FADING FEBRUARY

After Uncle Scrooge sent all the workers home hungry at Christmas, the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees—i.e., crew!) got really angry. Restaurants were empty. There were stories in the
Los Angeles Times
on the local economy starting to tank, and working Writers were getting
utzy
. Some were feeling guilty, some just liked to work and for some, the arguments just weren’t working anymore.

The party was fading in some quarters, going strong in others. It wasn’t as much fun on the picket line. It was getting older and colder, and nothing was happening. Most of all, the very powerful faction of showrunners, the writer-producers who run series on television, wanted to go back to work. They had the most at stake. If their shows went off the air for too long, they could easily be forgotten and end up canceled, especially the new shows.

On Nikki’s board, an ugly below-the-line/above-the-line war broke out between members of IATSE and of WGA about what a union was, and it was pretty demoralizing.

The working stiffs commented like this:

Deadline Comments Board

The WGA screwed up royally. All of the crew on my show supported the writers, and all of the Teamsters were going to walk. When we all arrived to work at 6:30 in the morning on day one of the strike, which was a Monday, there was no picket line to cross. The writers didn’t start picketing until 9 or 10, and that was a big
slap in the face for all of us . . . Instead of crossing a picket line, I felt like I witnessed a monthlong celebrity pizza party. For instance, one day a young woman in yoga pants and a red top was passing out popsicles to teamsters and btl [below the line] workers as they crossed the picket line . . . This strike is supposed to be supporting the “middle class” writers, but is destroying the middle class of this industry. I don’t understand. Jon Stewart is scabbing, Leno and Conan as well. I don’t understand how this can happen, and it just shows that it’s every man for themselves . . .

Sincerely, Camera Assistant who has lost $20,000 in wages and over 500 hours that go into my pension and healthcare.

Comment by KK—Thursday, January 24, 2008, 8:50 a.m. PST

Then it escalated:

We are about to lose our mortgage because my fiancée is now unemployed due to the strike. Her TV show was put on hiatus and now might not be brought back to finish shooting. She is wardrobe and a union member. The WGA is a bunch of selfish reactionaries and should not have gone on strike before thinking things through. So many people from so many departments are suffering because of greedy writers who are already making money hand over fist if they are successful. Shame on you, writers. Shame.

Comment by R. Chips—Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Someone responded thus:

To all of the BTLers who are losing their homes, struggling to feed their children and lying on their deathbeds because they don’t have medical coverage, I deliver a new concept: FINANCIAL PLANNING. If you can’t survive for two months without
losing your home, starving your kids, or dying, I suspect you probably were living beyond your means. I don’t see how that’s anyone’s problem but your own.

Comment by RJDocky—Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 8:12 a.m. PST

And then a little war broke out:

Hope you’re welcomed back with open arms by your trifling below-the-line crew. Godspeed.

Comment by Safety Pass—Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 1:38 a.m. PST

You creative-type writers need to agree to a deal. There are a lot of pissed-off crew people waiting to set up your chairs, hang huge rigs over your heads, or watch your cars. Your WGA leaders may have convinced you that striking is great, but they are idiots. You’re not going to get everything you want. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Neither does anyone else in the business. Thanks for screwing all of us.

Comment by Grip—Monday, February 4, 2008

The group of exhausted Writers I came to call the Mensheviks and the television showrunners were horrified by this class war among collaborators. It sped things up, toward a deal. The Mensheviks, Excited in the Ardent Fall but Flagging in February, sounded like this:

Deadline Comments Board

Okay, I’m still out there—not every day, not for three hours at a time, but I still go because I still largely believe in what we’re fighting for.

But . . . every single person I’ve talked to on the line is ready for this to be OVER. We’re not going to get everything we want.
I’m not willing to sit out for another six months to get a slightly better percentage than what we’re being offered now. It’s the diehards that are posting on here, and it’s the diehards that are willing to stick this out until the entire town goes to hell. The rest of us, the WORKING writers, know that we’re getting fucked. But if we’re gonna get fucked anyway, let’s get fucked now and get it over with. Me, I just want to get back to work; enough is enough.

Comment by Seriously?—Thursday, February 7, 2008

This was not a feature writer’s problem. As Marc Norman says, “If it were up to feature writers, we could have stayed out for a year.” Interestingly, feature writers had no skin in the Internet game, as the Net had not yet been monetized for the medium. But showrunners like Shonda Rhimes (
Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice
), who would be among the earliest recipients of online streaming profits should negotiations succeed, were under pressure. They have large crews who are like family and themselves have families. They have been working together for years, and keeping them in work is an enormous responsibility. All of these people were now out of work, and that was a huge burden weighing down all the showrunners. Feature writers are singletons, as Norman says, and make decisions that affect only themselves. So after Christmas, the pressure was on from the showrunners, as well as from other forces.

The DGA had begun quiet conversations with the Moguls in December, which is likely one of the reasons that the Moguls had broken off talks. The Moguls had felt all along that they would have a better time talking turkey with the directors. Their numbers on what online streaming profits could someday be were far from those projected by the WGA, and little could be done to reconcile them. The chemistry and trust between the two teams started badly and never improved. As a very smart neocon feature writer pointed out to me, there may have been some actual value
or truth in the Moguls’ point of view—in
this
negotiation—but they had so squandered their moral authority through years of systemic lying (see, for example, the Art Buchwald case
²
, or creative accounting with Writers’ net points
³
) that none of his colleagues believed
anything
the Moguls said.

According to Marc Norman, the Moguls told the WGA in 1988, “People have to go out and buy a DVD player! Nobody’s going to do that! We don’t know whether there’s revenue here, so let’s just put it on hold, and if it works down the road, we’ll figure something out.”

I can hear them now. “DVD, ShmeeVD!” In the meantime, the market accrued huge profits that accounted for a profit margin the studios would never relinquish. (And we now know why!) Thus, the appropriately dubious response from the Writers. And this well-earned skepticism led to wacky posts like this:

Deadline Comments Board

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Internet ad revenues are $40 billion this year and expected to double in three years. Writers know this too.

Comment by PJ—Writer—Monday, February 4, 2008, 7:35 p.m. PST

The Bolshevik/Let’s Stay Out ’til June and Menshevik/Let’s Make a Deal factions started to split around mid-January, after the holiday vacation. It was hard to keep up the energy unless picketing was your job, being on the committee was your job or you were
an angry person with union issues (or just issues). Younger Writers were looking for leadership.

There was a faction of successful working Writers on the negotiating committee—the aforementioned Let’s Stay Out ’til June faction—who could afford to stay out, and they were spokesmen and leaders of the committee. They wanted to take a strong, roosterlike line, protecting the younger chickens, if I can extend the metaphor without insult. Ironically, many of them were feature writers who as yet had nothing to gain in the Internet game, but who did understand the power game.