Monthly Archives: November 2007

Here's a nice tribute…

Goulet to Be Honored on Vegas Marquees

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Robert Goulet's name appeared for years on the marquees of the Las Vegas Strip and will be there again the day of his funeral. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has asked hotel-casinos to honor the late singer and actor by featuring his name on their marquees Friday.

And if they really want to honor him, they'll make his name larger than the $2.98 Steak and Eggs Graveyard Special.

The mood out here on the picket line is good, at least among those of us traipsing back and forth across two entrances into CBS Television City in Hollywood. We carry signs (except while blogging) and wave them in thanks as about 50% of passing motorists honk their horns. So far, the only dissent I've heard is a general grumbling over reports that our negotiators have taken an increase in DVD fees "off the table.". True, even doubling what we now receive there is a matter of pennies but there would be a lot of principle in those pennies.

There are SAG and AFTRA members out here on the line with us and I'm told that during the morning picketing before I arrived, a few Teamsters made a show of not crossing our line. The news crews have been here, shot their footage and left…so I'm not entirely sure why we're still out here. Maybe it's just to show the other unions in town that we don't think we're too good to pound pavement and shoulder signs. Even if that's not it, it somehow feels right to be out here, telling the opposition that we're serious and that they should just make us the offer that will end all this gamesmanship and restore life as we know it.

More later when I don't have to type it on Billy Barty's old keyboard.

The above is not a paid ad, at least not for this site. It's something I saw on a website I just visited and I couldn't resist copying it here so we could discuss it.

I've watched Glenn Beck a few times. In fact, I tuned him in last week because I thought (wrongly) he was having Penn Jillette on his program on a certain night. I not only think Beck is kind of an on-air looney but he strikes me as being well aware of it. I sense this about a lot of on-air talk show hosts and pundits; that they're out there saying whatever they've learned will get ratings and that the thought process doesn't extend far beyond that. If they believe it at all, it's only because they've been so rewarded for saying it that it's seeped into their bloodstreams.

I once wrote a TV special with a whole bunch of wrestlers who were in what was then the World Wrestling Federation…Vince McMahon's outfit. One of them was a very smart guy and a great showman who wrestled under the name, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. He was a Bad Guy at the time but boy, was he good at it. Anyway, he said that it was often difficult to tell where the scenarios left off and reality might kick in. This is an approximate quote. He said, "You know, I'm up there in front of thousands of people and I'm kicking some guy in the crotch and bashing him over the head with a folding chair and everyone's cheering me on and I'm getting paid lots of money to do it…it's hard not to start really hating that guy."

So Glenn Beck may believe that nonsense he spouts, I don't know. What I do know is that if I were on CNN Headline News and they did that ad for me, I think I'd put in a call and ask them not to use my head as part of the word, "crap."

Dave Bittner sends a question which others have asked in various forms and which piggybacks on my previous posting…

There's a fundamental aspect of this whole writers strike that puzzles me, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. How did the whole residuals system start, and become the standard of what's considered "fair" in Hollywood? In most other industries, even creative ones, a person gets paid for doing a job, and that's it. There's no expectation of ongoing payments. If I sell my house, for example, I don't send a check to the original architect, even though his design work contributes to the ongoing value of the property.

No, but if a Harry Potter book goes into another printing, J.K. Rowling gets another check. I disagree with you that ongoing payments are not the norm in creative industries. I get payments if an issue of some comic book I wrote in the seventies is reprinted. I get payments if a song I wrote in the eighties gets played again. It is a generally-established principle that if you create something that has an ongoing value — particularly if its reuse competes with new product — additional compensation is appropriate. This is not to say it's always paid. Comic books, for a long time, didn't pay for reprints. A lot of animation work still doesn't pay for reruns. But that's because of the way the financial structure of those fields developed, with creative folks placed at an economic disadvantage and not having the clout to get reuse fees. I don't think it's because they don't deserve them.

Residuals exist for a couple of reasons. One is that they are deferred compensation. Let's say you want to hire me to write your TV special and there's no WGA and no residuals and we're negotiating out in the wild. I suggest $10,000 would be a rational price. You were thinking more like $5,000. I point out to you that this is likely to be a great show that will rerun for many years to come and that you'll be able to sell it again and again and again. If we could be certain it would be, ten grand to me wouldn't seem unfair but as you point out, we can't be sure that it will have all those resales. So how do we resolve this?

Simple. We invent residuals. We agree that I'll write the show for $5000 or maybe even a little less, and that I'll receive another $5000 if you can sell it for a second run and then maybe $2000 if there's a third run and $1000 for a fourth and so on. The reuse fees are not a gift to me. They're part of the deal…and by the way, this is not all that hypothetical a scenario. I've made deals with this kind of structure for animation projects where the WGA did not have jurisdiction. Even some pretty stingy cartoon producers were glad to make them because it lessened their initial investments to have me, in effect, share a little of the risk.

(A quick aside: The other day, I was talking to Lee Mendelson, who produced all the Peanuts specials. He's making a new deal for the early ones, including A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is probably the most often-rerun TV show ever produced. Every time he sells it again, he gets paid again, often at rates comparable to what a newly-produced cartoon special would cost. The thing has made millions and millions of dollars each decade since it was produced and it continues to earn. Would someone like to look me in the eye and tell me Charles Schulz never deserved a nickel after the first run? Lee sure wouldn't make that argument.)

That's a very mature, honest way of doing business. What wouldn't be honest is if we made our deal as per the above and then you did the following. You say, "Wait a minute! I don't pay my plumber every time I flush my toilet," (a famous quote from a studio exec fighting the concept of residuals) and you try to lop off the back-end payments and just pay me the initial $5000 or so. No. The $5000 wasn't my fee for writing the show. It was more like a down payment. I wouldn't have done it for $5000 without the other part of the contract. But every so often in Hollywood, some exec gets the idea that they can maximize profits by reneging on the back end of their deals, and we have these silly, periodic battles over residuals.

Anyway, all of the above is one rationale for reuse payments. Another is a tradition — not in every circle but some — that creative folks share when their work has ongoing value. The reason we have a Patent Office in this country is that we wanted to encourage people to invent new ideas and that means giving them a structure through which they can cash in on their brainstorms and not be excluded from the ongoing exploitation of them. Residuals are one way that writers and artists avoid being excluded.

Yet another is that they are compensated when the lasting value of their work preempts new production. A situation which has occurred quite often in the cartoon business is this: You're hired to do a show and you really do a fine job on it. Everyone does. You get 40 or 65 episodes done and they're so good that when they rerun, kids are eager to see them again and again and so the ratings don't go down much. At some point, the studio says, "Hey! These shows are so strong, we don't have to spring for the cost of any more. We can just run these over and over forever!"

And they lay everyone off.

You're out of a job because you did it so well. This has happened many times and it continues to happen. Reruns narrow our opportunities to work on new product.

So if I'm writing a new show…well, I don't want to sit there and think, "Hmm, I don't want to put myself out of work. I'd better not do too good a job on this." That's not healthy for my soul and it sure isn't the ideal situation for my employer. It's far better for all of us if I have that incentive to make the show as big a hit as possible. That means I have to have an ongoing financial interest if the show turns out to have an ongoing financial value. I won't mind getting laid off if I'm sharing. I will mind if all I've done by contributing to a success is put myself out of business.

There's a lot more I could write about this but I have to get a comic book written this morning and then go picket this afternoon so this will have to do for now. The last thing I'll add is that I've been a professional writer since 1969. I've written comics and cartoons and live-action shows and screenplays and songs and stand-up comedy and commercials and books and magazine articles and…well, you name it. Sometimes, I've been excluded from the ongoing value, if any, of my work. Sometimes, I haven't. The healthiest business relationships I've had have been those where I had residuals or royalties or some other financial participation beyond my up-front paycheck — and I mean healthy for me and for the entity that was issuing those checks. Inclusion is a very wise thing for All Concerned. It puts you all on the same team, working for the same goal.

In all those creative fields, I've never encountered any employer or producer or publisher who thought I, or others doing my job, didn't deserve that continuing share. I've met a number who thought they could get by without paying it and sometimes, they can. But since they get paid for the rerun of the TV show or the resale of the movie or whatever, they certainly understand and embrace the concept of getting paid when a piece of work has enduring value. It's just that some of them want to keep it all for themselves.

Kevin Boury writes to ask…

Why is it that people keep telling me that the writers in the WGA are all overpaid, pampered and ungrateful individuals who should be thankful for the high wages and great working conditions that they have? What's the real story?

The real story is that those people don't know the real story.

The first thing to point out is that "the writers in the WGA" do not all work and that they sometimes go long stretches without pay, writing things that do not sell for a many years or at all. I know the job may look sparkling from afar, and I'm not about to suggest it's a bad one. Obviously, I pick my profession willingly and enjoy it. But the screenwriter who's wiping his butt with currency is the rare exception. Each year, the WGA knocks hundreds of members off its Active roster because even though at one point they had jobs that earned them membership, it's been a long time since they got one of those jobs or grossed even a modest amount in their profession.

If you read the stats, you'll discover that the average screenwriter makes something like $5,000 a year, which wouldn't qualify as "overpaid" in anyone's book. But the situation is really worse than that because there are people who get a million or three per screenplay. And when you have a couple of those guys around, it means there are an awful lot of people making less than $5K for it to average out the way it does.

As for the ones who do work often…

Overpaid? That's a relative term. We make a vital contribution to a very profitable industry and in the grand scheme of that industry, our pay is a teensy fraction. Or to look at it another way, there are people who have a lot less to do with the success of a TV show or a movie than its writers but who make a lot more money off it. When our wages are cut — and every WGA strike of my career has in one way or another been about wanting to cut our wages — the money we'd lose would not go to widows and orphans. Really, the Producers are not out to correct some horrendous financial injustice by slashing our incomes. They just want to pay less for something, the same way they'd pay less for light bulbs and film and Evian water if they could. (And by the way, I don't think any of the folks who pay us think we're all overpaid, perhaps because if anyone's overpaid, it's them.)

Pampered? Obviously, some of us don't think so. For whatever it's worth, I've never had a writing job where I felt particularly pampered, and that includes the good jobs. Someone please explain to me how I've been pampered because it sounds wonderful and I'd hate to think that was happening and I didn't know it.

Ungrateful? To whom should we be particularly grateful? To the studios that are now trying to cut our compensation and get out of funding the health plan to which they long ago agreed? We get hired because we provide a service that someone needs and they pay us for it. I don't see why we should be any more grateful to them for hiring us than they should be to us for delivering the work.

I don't mean to cry poverty here…just misrepresentation of the norm. Some writers do receive staggering sums of cash. This is generally because they contribute to something that makes even more staggering sums of cash. No one is expecting you to feel sorry for them but don't pretend we're all in that tax bracket. Besides, very little of the current contract dispute pertains to them, at least on a monetary level. The contract is all about setting minimums and the really rich writers didn't get that way working for minimums.

I can explain this better with the actors. The average actor is not Leonardo DiCaprio, considering which of his $15 million dollar offers he'll take next. The average actor is more like Herman Krellman, waiting tables at night and hustling to get auditions by day, hoping to land a two line part on some show every so often. Next year, when the Screen Actors Guild contract is up for renewal and the Producers try to lower costs there, they'll point to Leonardo and say, "Look how overpaid these actors are!" And then they'll (a) push for contract terms that will not significantly affect Mr. DiCaprio's income but will lower Herman's pay the next time he gets a job…and (b) offer Leonardo $25 million for his next movie.

Today's Video Link is actually an Audio Link but it's one of my all-time favorite Bob and Ray routines. I believe this recording of it is from one of their two Broadway shows.

No comparison to the current labor situation in Hollywood is intended or should be inferred. I'm only linking to it because I think it's funny.

They're saying now that talks have broken down. This is obviously not good news but it's still better than if there had never been talks at all. Some progress, after all, is better than none.

The statement released by Nick Counter, representing the Producers, included this line: "We made an attempt at meeting them in a number of their key areas including Internet streaming and jurisdiction in New Media." This is the same Nick Counter who said they would never give an inch on Internet streaming. So if they did, that's something.

I'm picketing CBS tomorrow, I think. I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to blog while picketing.

The "buzz" seems to be that producer-writer (and former WGA President) John Wells is now in the mix, talking to the power brokers on both sides, trying to get them close enough to avoid the strike. This is an old, cherished tradition in Hollywood labor negotiations. Years ago, the legendary super-agent Lew Wasserman would end strikes. Everyone would stake out their hardass, "I'm not budging" positions and then Uncle Lew would make his calls and work out ways they could climb down from their mountains without losing too much face…and a deal would emerge. Since Wasserman went to that big ten-percentery in the sky, others have filled this role.

Wells is an odd choice…or maybe not. His regime at the WGA was peaceful but many felt that too much of his heart was on the producing side of his life. Neither he nor his shows suffered any hardships because of the policies he invoked, which is not necessarily a bad thing but it can raise red flags of concern. I suspect a lot of members are leery of his involvement — more so than if the person filling that position was, like Lew Wasserman, inarguably on the side of Management. Still, a lot more of our members are eager to see the Producers come across with enough in the areas of DVD and Direct Delivery that we can avoid a strike, or at least a long one. The AMPTP has taken such a firm position against movement in those areas that it's probably necessary for a third party to massage things and give everyone an out.

If John Wells can be that person and break that logjam, good for him. Whether he succeeds or not, it may be a good sign that these conversations are even occurring. Because that probably means the logjam is breakable.

Ezra Klein on why health care in America is a whole lot worse than it oughta be.

Universal is soon to release the complete second season of Saturday Night Live on DVD and you know what that means: Huge profits for Universal and NBC, a few dimes (if that much) to the folks who wrote those shows. But never mind that for the moment.

TV Shows on DVD is reporting that the set will include the 1977 SNL prime-time special done from the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. You remember that? It was a broadcast widely hailed, especially by those involved in it, as a fiasco…at the time, the worst disaster ever in that fine city. Because of the crowds and tech problems, and also the fact that the cast and crew did a bit too much partying instead of prepping, darn near nothing went right. They had Randy Newman at a concert hall somewhere singing songs and they kept cutting to him for an extra number because the comedy sketches, which were being performed at various locations around town, weren't functional.

It was said that Lorne Michaels would never allow the show to be rebroadcast in any way…not that there was any clamor from the network to reair it. But ninth-generation tapes have made been seen on the trading circuit so there is some interest, and now it's apparently being included on this forthcoming set. You can order a copy here, though if the inclusion of that special will make a difference to you, you might want to wait for official confirmation that it'll be in there. Even without it, there's plenty of great material in that year.

I should mention a few places on the Internet where one can find information about the WGA Strike. The two biggies are the websites of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East. The info there is, of course, solid. Any hour now, they'll begin posting information on picketing and where to show up if you want to support the WGA position.

(Whoops! Just checked and the East already has such information available. Tomorrow, they'll be hiking around Rockefeller Center all day. Wish we had a great place like that to picket out here.)

I'm not entirely sure who's behind it but United Hollywood is a good, pro-WGA weblog full of useful and credible information. Go there often.

Moving a notch downwards on the reliability scale, the L.A. Times has set up a blog for strike news. You also have Nikki Finke over in the L.A. Weekly and she's been getting pretty accurate news and getting it before almost anyone else.

Then you have Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. The trade papers have an unfortunate tendency to be ultra-impressed by statements from studio heads. It's like the more powerful you are in the industry at the moment, the more credibility you have. Or maybe it has something to do with not pissing off powerful people, especially the kind who might someday hire you and/or who buy a lot of advertising.

For general opinion and discussion, the Huffington Post has this section. Pay special attention to anything written by Bob Elisberg or Howard Rodman. They know of what they write.

Lastly, in the spirit of fairness, here's a link to the website of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (i.e., "the other side"). Oddly enough, they link to a number of newspaper and magazine articles that cite statistics that would seem to be in conflict with their public posturings. I wonder why that is.

We love Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. Here they are with Mr. Carson on The Tonight Show from February 13, 1981 where they performed two routines that were probably written by Tom Koch. The opening of the first one is chopped off but it starts with Ray introducing Bob as the winner of the Most Beautiful Face Contest. Then they go over to the couch and do another funny bit from there. Take note of Bob's answer when Johnny asks him if any of his kids are showing signs of heading into show business.

As far as I know, there isn't any. A number of 'net sources are reporting rumors this morning…or maybe they'd more accurately be called rumors of rumors. The "buzz" is that something's happening that will avert the WGA Strike, which at this moment is still on for one minute after Midnight tonight. It would be nice to think that's possible but right now, better to take one of those "I'll believe it when I see it" attitudes. One way in which a strike wears on you is through the constant lifting and dropping of your hopes as rumor after rumor jerks them about. If you disbelieve everything that comes without a solid source affixed, you'll be right at least 95% of the time, which ain't a bad average.

A couple of aspiring screenwriters seem to be using the Internet to advertise that they're available for scabbing. I say "seem" because a few that I've seen are so over-the-top pathetic that you wonder if they aren't clumsy satires. Or maybe they're clumsy satires but the folks doing them are holding out the hopes that they'll lead to some sort of offer to write clumsy satires. I'd hate to think they're legit because, well, I don't like the idea of anyone trying to undermine any strike (especially mine) and I also feel sorry for the wanna-be scabs. I suppose there are exceptions but if your career is predicated on that kind of "break," it usually doesn't turn out well. Even those who might be desperate enough to hire you don't have a lot of respect for you, your work or — especially — your personal integrity. Offering to scab is like admitting you're second-rate and you know you can't compete when the first-string people are available. Once the strike is over, those who do the hiring not only won't want to use you, most of them won't want to admit they ever knew you. And of course, once the strike is over, a lot of the hiring will be done by those who were out, those whose strike you sought to sabotage. All in all, it's a great way to make nobody like you.

My e-mailbox this morning actually has more messages about the strike than it does offers for penis enlargement. Not that those two subjects are always unrelated. It's important, methinks, to keep the following in mind: All the negotiating, picketing, striking, public statements, etc., all have but one valid purpose…to make a deal and get everyone back to work. Writers and those in Management frequently have issues of respect, power, ego and other personal flashpoints which underscore all interactions and bubble to the surface in time of war. Understood. But the point of it all is still to make a deal. And the more we can leave the emotional baggage out in the hallway, the faster we can get to that deal.

When I get a moment, I'll write something here about how I think the key to that may be trying to unwrap our brains from the concept of Winning and Losing. Rarely does either side "win" a strike in the sense of getting everything they want in the way they want; not without paying a terrible price for it. Most strikes are not wars where one side crushes the other. They're drastic ways of arriving at an agreement to work together in the future. If we don't arrive at that, nobody wins.

I haven't bitched about this kind of thing in a while…

A couple of folks on the East Coast have e-mailed me or phoned to suggest I watch/TiVo Saturday Night Live in a few hours. They say it's a pretty good episode and that I will be especially interested in a Weekend Update bit about the WGA strike. Okay, so I go to set my TiVo accordingly and I happen to be in the "Browse by Time" section so I look for 11:30 PM, which is when I thought SNL started.

But it isn't in there. No Saturday Night Live at 11:30. Why? Because it doesn't start at 11:30 and run until 1 AM, like you'd expect. It starts at 11:29 PM and runs until 1:01 AM! That's just silly…and of course, it screws up the show I wanted to record that starts at 1 AM unless I go in and manually tell TiVo to not record the last minute of SNL.

Attention, Writers Guild Negotiating Committee: I have a new demand. Let's forget this nonsense about being compensated when our work is exhibited. Let's just insist that the networks stop trying to make a profit off squeezing minutes in and out of the schedule.