Craig Mazin: October 2007 Archives

I wish I lived in a world where this was as obvious as I think it is, but I guess I don’t.

Some people out there seem to think that I either:

a) speak for the WGA, or

b) believe I speak for the WGA

I don’t.

I speak for myself.

I am one person, the articles I post on this website express my opinions, I hold no position on the WGAw Board of Directors, I am not on the Negotiating Committee, and I represent no organization.

Various new outlets contact me through the site, because they read it. They ask for quotes or interviews, which I occasionally grant, but just as often do not. I do not identify myself in any way other than as an individual. I am, for a lack of a better phrase, a “talking head.” A commentator. An independent analyst.

Oh, and a union member.

I do not pay for publicity, nor do I retain the services of a publicist.

Okay, disclaimer done. Back to the important stuff.

Thanks, Brothers!Well, I’m pretty sure one of our commenters broke some news yesterday…the Teamsters are going to (sort of) back a possible WGA strike.

This is big news.

From Variety:

The Teamsters union — representing about 4,000 Hollywood drivers, location managers and scouts, casting directors and animal wranglers — is giving the WGA’s strike plans a major boost with a show of solidarity that could seriously disrupt local production.

The leader of Teamsters Local 399 is advising members, as long as they’re acting as individuals, that they should honor WGA picket lines. The Writers Guild of America could go strike as early as Thursday; negotiations resume today at the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

In a message posted Monday, secretary-treasurer Leo Reed said Local 399 can’t strike, picket or boycott a producer while its contract is in effect but added that those restrictions don’t apply to individuals.

“As for me as an individual, I will not cross any picket line whether it is sanctioned or not because I firmly believe that Teamsters do not cross picket lines,” Reed said in the message.

What does that mean?

Well, the Teamsters can’t honor a picket line institutionally (so yeah, Mona was wrong). However, part of their deal is that if their council sanctions, or approves, of another union’s strike, then individual Teamsters cannot be disciplined for refusing to cross a picket line.

And in a not-so-subtle message on the Hollywood Teamsters’ home page, their Division Director, Leo Reed, announced that he would be one of those individuals who wouldn’t cross a line.

The upshot?

Panic.

I was shooting on the backlot at Paramount today, and I heard that the studio is reassigning all trucks and deliveries to go off-lot, in case of a picket line. Could be rumor, could be true. Seems like smart planning to me…particularly if the companies are taking the Teamster announcement seriously, which they pretty much have to.

The strategic upshot?

This just might help avert a strike.

Finally, at long last, we’ve got a real way to enhance our strike threat. Organizing reality was an abortion, organizing animation was a boondoggle, the corporate campaigns fizzled, the attempt to disrupt product integration was naive and impotent…

…but this is for real.

The Teamsters can shut a company down faster and more completely than any other union in town.

Now that the companies have to worry about an instant shutdown if the WGA strikes, they’re going to have to do a better job of bargaining.

And if they do a better job of bargaining, our side might actually get something to work with in negotiations.

Look, if Verrone is hell-bent on striking, then none of this matters. We’re all screwed, and there’s a bad deal in our future.

But if he’s not…and all I can do is hope that he’s not…this is a terrific strategic gain. We just amped up their fear level and made the threat of a strike far more potent.

And like any supporter of gun rights, I believe that showing you have a loaded gun is a good way to avoid having to shoot a loaded gun.

Well done, leadership. This was a huge step closer to your promise of an alternative to “strike or cave.”

Some of you have wondered how I manage to do all of this while directing a movie.

Well, last week, I didn’t really manage to do this while directing a movie. And this weekend, I was just too tired to even think about blogging.

So I’m doing it now, on the way in to work (my excellent Teamster driver Fred is at the wheel while I type this on the Glendale Freeway at 6:35 AM).

What’s the latest?

I won’t bother talking about the stupid (the fight over chairs???). Instead, I’ll give you my analysis of where we are.

It’s actually not bad.

Or at least, could be worse.

The companies continued to signal a desire to avoid a strike, if not a willingness to bargain. They took some more of their regressive rollbacks off the table, although they apparently attached some unacceptable strings. Meanwhile, the WGA hasn’t officially altered their proposal at all…

…although they kind of did.

Variety published an article proclaiming that the WGA was pulling its reality demands off the table, and they included a quote from the WGA General Counsel, Tony Segall.

The WGA quickly issued a statement denying this.

Uh huh.

One of two possibilities on that one.

First, the WGA decided internally that they were going to pull reality off the table, Tony jumped the gun by talking publicly, and the guild moved to cover their ass.

Second, the entire two-step was planned, in order to signal a possible concession to the AMPTP without actualy making it.

Either way, our demand for reality is an empty, posed one. We know they don’t even have to discuss it with us, much less grant it, and we also know they’re not going to grant it…or at least, they won’t grant it in any way that’s good for us (they could use it as a Monkey’s Paw that costs us internet residuals, for instance).

So consider reality off the table…if not already, then soon enough. If Tony really was just talking out of his butt (which would be highly uncharacteristic), and the WGA leadership really thinks we should all strike over reality, then they’re high.

It’s an interesting scenario. We strike over reality…while the work that continues to undermine our strike is performed by…why…reality employees! Neat trick. Ain’t gonna happen.

Still, I said things could be worse. The two sides are talking now. I hear sidebars and huddled discussions are picking up, which is great news. The presence of a federal mediator is pretty much a “who cares?”, as it’s a perfunctory development when things get as dicey as they are now.

It’s possible…not probable at this point, but certainly possible…that over the next two days, both sides shed all of their fat demands and get down to arguing over the meat and potatoes.

The problem for the WGA is that the AMPTP’s proposals are all fat. The companies’ single biggest failure in negotiations to date has been their refusal to provide anything real. They’re going to have to get serious and offer substance before the WGA backs off their empty proposals like DVD hikes and animation jurisdiction (as if that were something the AMPTP hadn’t already conceded to another union).

Both sides are working under their own Sword of Damocles.

The AMPTP is facing the prospect of the November 1 strike (or November 15…or pick a date…it will hurt them either way).

The WGA is facing the prospect of an early deal by the DGA.

I recently reported on the very supportive letter SAG issued to its membership (of which I’m about to become a part).

I got a much different letter from the DGA.

The DGA made it very clear to their members that if they have a valid contract, they must show up to work, regardless of a potential WGA picket line. They made it just as clear that if you did not have a writing contract at the time of the strike, you were free to perform A-H exceptions (that ought to definitively settle an argument that was brewing in the comments section). Then they said that if you were a WGA and DGA member, and the WGA disciplined you for crossing a line to perform your DGA duties, the companies had to indemnify you per the DGA agreement.

As far as letters go, it was as hostile to the WGA as it could have been…without being hostile, if you dig.

Lastly, the DGA signalled that they are ready and willing to negotiate right now.

They’re going to wait until this WGA-AMPTP story comes to a resolution. They won’t stop us from bargaining, but if we strike, I expect them to jump in.

Okay…almost at work.

So one last thought.

Some people have been wondering why I’m doing this (and Patric Verrone’s recent letter to the WGA membership takes a swipe at “blogs”).

I’m doing it because I love my union. I’m doing it because I believe that leadership should be held accountable. I’m doing it because I believe that free exchange of information is a good thing. And I’m doing it because no matter how good the intentions of powerful people who lead institutions are, when they have total control of the message, they tend to abuse the control.

Call it the libertarian in me. I just can’t stand it when the ministers of information tell me to just trust them and not listen to anyone else…particularly when they’re predictably delivering stale, canned, guarded form letters.

The Guild, like the government, has the right to confidentiality in order to get things done. What they don’t have the right to is impunity from criticism or critique or accountability.

Neither does the AMPTP.

People can judge for themselves.

I take a pretty good beating in the comments. Good. All part of the free market of ideas here. My opinion is only as good as you think it is.

But for those of you wondering what my motive is, I’ll try and be clear.

I want the Guild to do better.

If you don’t believe me, well…you know what to do.

Hang around and criticize me.

Works for me.

Could work for you.

How it must end…in the endFor the last week, I’ve been getting what I’ve begun to dub “The Call.” It comes from a producer, then an agent, then a studio executive, then a studio chairman, the president of production here, a fellow writer, a director…

“So…are you guys gonna strike or what?”

And of course, I have to say “I don’t know.”

But since everyone’s asked, I suppose I could offer my plan for avoiding a strike.

I had hoped that my union would have acted smartly by now and responded to last week’s signal from the AMPTP. The removal of their regressive residuals proposal wasn’t just an empty gesture. Think of it as the equivalent of Senator Craig tapping his foot under that bathroom stall.

It was a question.

“Wanna negotiate?”

The WGA’s silence has been deafening and no doubt has confirmed for the AMPTP that we do not want to negotiate, but are instead hell bent on a strike.

And yet…I don’t think that’s true.

I just think the WGA is bad at playing the signals game (and at this point, we must leave the Senator Craig analogy behind, before the rest of this article devolves into hand-waving and anonymous man-on-man bathroom action, Minneapolis style).

So I turn to you men and women of the AMPTP.

Wanna avoid a strike?

Here’s what you do.

Drop your proposals to gut separated rights. Drop your proposals to drop publicity for credited writers. Drop your proposals to apply residuals against other payments. Indeed, drop all of your rollback proposals, because they’re regressive and punitive.

And who are you punishing?

Patric Verrone?

Hey, go for it. Smart guy, but definitely a bit nuts, and I can’t blame you for feeling frustrated.

On the other hand, Patric Verrone’s not the one you’re talking about here. Hell, Patric usually works in animation, which doesn’t have most of the stuff you’re talking about rolling back anyway!

You’re punishing me. Your proposals are a gut-shot to the working screen and television writers who supply you with hit movies and hit hour-longs and hit half-hours.

So give us a break.

Take that crap off the table. We all know you don’t mean it anyway.

It’s payback, right? You’re still pissed at the WGA for that flop of a reality campaign. Granted, you found it obnoxious and meddlesome…but guys…you won, okay? The campaign failed. It failed big.

Or maybe you’re pissed at the WGA for asking for more DVD money. But look…we’ve asked for more DVD money every three frickin’ years since 1985. Why should this year be any different? And let’s face it…the result won’t be any different either.

So get over it. Okay? Get over the shot to your pride, get over Patric (who is just one of a lot of people in that room, many…if not most…of whom are more moderate than he), get over David Young, get over the public insults and the immoderate speeches.

You think writers are children?

Fine.

Then act like the adults you think you are.

The children are obviously holding their breath right now, but if your kids turn blue, you’re going to suffer as well.

To avoid a strike, take away all the rollbacks and offer to bargain seriously over a rate for internet downloads.

If the Guild fails to respond, then you’ll finally know that Patric would have gone on strike no matter what…for guts or glory or God-knows-what…and you can sleep well knowing that you honestly tried.

Of course, if you’re not interested in avoiding a strike, then stick with the current plan. It’s working.

Either way, it looks like you have the burden of adulthood.

You know.

Responsibility.

Be smart, AMPTP. Please. There’s still a way out.

Quick newsflash in between setups over here.

SAG has sent a mass email out to its membership regarding the possibility of an upcoming WGA strike. They write:

Negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are ongoing, and the expiration of their contract is not until October 31. We continue to be hopeful that an amicable and equitable conclusion to their negotiations will occur. However, now that the results of the WGA Strike Authorization ballot are in and an overwhelming majority of the WGA membership has voted the authority to call a strike if the talks fail to produce a deal, it is appropriate that we discuss with you what the ramifications of a work stoppage would mean to you, the members of Screen Actors Guild, and your continuing to work if a strike becomes a reality.

In the event of a strike by the Writers Guild of America it is important to remember that the Screen Actors Guild’s support of the Writers Guild is steadfast and will remain so. That said, it is also important for you as a member to understand what you can and cannot do in regard to working under our contracts and supporting the WGA during a strike.

If you are contracted to work on a show that continues to produce episodes you are obligated by your personal service agreement and the “No Strike” clause in our collective bargaining agreements to go to work.

You can continue to audition for work.

We encourage you, on your own time, to walk any picket line that has been set up by the Writers Guild to show your support of their effort.

You will continue to get updates from Screen Actors Guild on any job action that the WGA has undertaken.

You should also visit the WGA website for the latest updates and information.

This is a good message for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s responsible. Unlike some people (including a few of my more cockeyed commenters), SAG gets that you can’t choose to “not cross a picket line” simply because you feel like honoring a strike. If you have a contract, you have to work, and the union can’t support any action preventing you from working.

Second, the tone is very friendly to the WGA. The inroads that have been made between the two unions is a good thing. I’m not sure it will matter much in the long run if the WGA strikes now, because SAG can’t flex its considerable muscle for us until the summer. That’s one reason I hate the idea of an early strike…when it comes to SAG and the WGA, our strike threat is weaker, simply because we can’t shut production down instantly, and maybe also because we don’t have a collection of the most famous faces in America to help promote our position.

Nonetheless, SAG sounds very supportive, and that’s something to be thankful for. I give current leadership credit for creating a relationship there when there was almost none to speak of before

Someone sent me a link to a site called Writers Bloc Comix, which is dedicated to “The Strength and Solidarity of the WGA.”

Well, that’s cool, except it’s pretty lame.

And kind of insulting to actors, who we sort of need to support us in a huge way right now.

These things don’t upset me in any real way. Obviously, the creators of the site have their hearts in the right place. My reaction is more one of embarrassment.

Putting relative issues of quality aside (although honestly, shouldn’t we be going to our best and brightest for the creation of propaganda?), I think what this type of stuff tweaks in me is my general distaste for organized religion.

I’m an agnostic (I think…I can’t prove God’s not real, but I’m pretty certain that knowledge of anything even approaching the description of “God” is far beyond the grasp of humans). More importantly, I detest group think. I hate rallying cries, I don’t like slogans or buzzwords, I get sweaty around culty thinking or “movements,” and in general, I get rashy around mobs, be they literate or otherwise.

I don’t march.

There are no parades for guys like me.

So when I see this sort of stuff, which is marked more by a naive sense of jingoism than any real critical thinking, I get squeamish. It’s not that it’s bad. I think stuff like this is probably useful (perhaps moreso if done better).

On the other hand, if it all feels empty and cultish, then I don’t think it should be out there at all. Writers may be stereotyped in negative ways by some, but everyone probably agrees that we’re pretty good at sniffing out bullshit.

This stuff feels like bullshit.

I guess what I’m saying is…it’s not that we need less propaganda at a time like this.

We just need better propaganda at a time like this.

The view
from hereThings are getting murky.

Following the successful SAV, the Guild returns to the negotiating table with the AMPTP. Right now, the Guild appears to have momentum. The AMPTP took their residuals revamp off the table, the Guild got a good turnout and a good result for the SAV, and while the companies aren’t completely flat-footed, it’s safe to say that the Guild pulled a bit of a Crazy Ivan on them, and that’s enough to rattle any opponent.

But how will this translate?

At this point, I really don’t know anymore.

I think the lack of visibility plays to the Guild’s favor.

Right now, the possible scenarios as I see them are…

1. The Guild strikes on November 1st, and the companies turn to the DGA to try and make a deal.

2. The Guild strikes on November 1st, the DGA tells the companies they won’t deal while the Guild is on strike, so the companies try and back-channel a deal to end the strike.

3. The Guild works past the deadline for a few weeks, then strikes in mid-to-late November, with the same DGA variables as above.

4. The Guild doesn’t strike at all, but keeps working past the deadline, because potentially fruitful negotiations are beginning.

5. The Guild doesn’t strike at all, because the DGA steps in right away on November 1st to announce the frameworks of a deal, and the WGA takes a wait-and-see attitude, which leads to a DGA deal, followed by a WGA deal.

There’s probably a few other scenarios here, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. As you can see, SAG doesn’t figure into any of these, because in my mind, they’re very unlikely to bargain early with the companies. For SAG, the WGA has to be a bit of a godsend right now. We can be their canary in a coalmine.

The DGA is the big question mark. I’ve heard rumors ranging from “The DGA won’t even talk to the companies if the WGA is on strike, because the AFL-CIO won’t let them” to “The DGA already has a deal in place, and they’re just finalizing the details with the companies.”

Who the hell knows?

We’ve entered the fog. If I had to guess, I suppose the smart money is now on a strike…probably a very early one. November 1st.

I suspect that the fog will lift in about seven days. One week from now, I think the future of this negotiation will be pretty clear.

For the sake of everyone who works in this business, l hope things turn around quickly.

Quick newsflash.

The SAV passed.

The stats.

5,507 votes 4,974 Yes (90.3%) 533 No (9.7%)

That’s a decent result for the Guild. The turnout was higher than most turnouts, but lower than ideal. The 90% is right at the border of what you hope for in a SAV.

That 533 number is a bit worrisome.

Either way, it’s a victory for the Guild in terms of leverage.

If they use this as impetus for a strike, then it’s a loss for us all. Perhaps a necessary one, perhaps not. The next few weeks will tell.

The WGA is watchingI received a very disturbing email yesterday.

As most of you know, I’m directing a movie right now, so I sneak away during big lighting changes to write these entries when I can. And I’ve been pretty sick for the last week as well (two kids with croup = me with bronchitis). As such, even though I’m publicly on record supporting a YES vote for the Strike Authorization, I didn’t fill out my ballot. Just kept putting it off.

But that’s okay…I knew I didn’t have to send the ballot in. A few days ago, someone told me you could do a proxy vote online at the WGAw website, so that’s what I was planning to do.

And then I got the email.

It was from a member who I shall not name. She’s my “strike captain.” And she told me that the Guild had informed her that I had not yet voted, and she urged me to vote.

What…

…the…

……hell????

For as long as I’ve been a member of this union (12 years and counting now), every single vote we’ve ever taken has been a secret ballot. No one knows who votes or who doesn’t vote, and no one shares that information with other members. Furthermore, there was absolutely no indication in the voting materials that this ballot would be handled in any different way than any ballots before it.

Secret ballotting is, in my opinion, a fundamental requirement for a properly functioning democratic election.

Let’s think about this.

Someone on the Guild staff is collecting ballots and checking off who votes and who doesn’t.

The “you didn’t vote” group gets sorted into a…lazy pile?

Or perhaps a “disloyal” pile?

And who is supervising this election? An independent 3rd party, as we normally have?

Certainly doesn’t seem like it, since this sort of thing never happened in any of the other votes I’ve been a part of.

Now that they have their “you didn’t vote” list, then they share that information with other members. The good, loyal ones.

Those members then pressure the non-voters to vote.

In principle, I support a high turnout, and I was absolutely intending to vote. And of all the members in the union, I’m probably one of a dozen who have taken a widely public stance in support of a “yes.”

But now I’m not voting.

I will not be coerced by my union to vote. Nor will I support any union election that violates the privilege of a secret ballot. If the staff is tallying who voted, then what’s stopping them from seeing who voted how?

Will they make a list of the “no” voters?

And if they do, any guesses as to how long that list gets leaked?

Are you now, or have you ever been against the strike?

Why haven’t you cast your ballot in support of Your Leaders, dear citizen-member?

What they’re doing isn’t illegal. It’s just unethical and immoral and wrong, and I’m disgusted with leadership for daring to be so bold, and for abandoning such an obvious and necessary prerequisite for a fair and decent democratic referendum.

I call upon the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, west to repudiate this policy, and to state clearly that all votes of the general membership be adminstered solely by an independent third party, that all voting information be held in the strictest of confidence, and that no members should be privy to other members’ voting records in any way.

If they fail to enact this policy, then I’ll go over their heads. I’ll go to the membership with a petition to amend the Constitution so that I know this never happens again.

I support a “yes” vote. But I also support the right of any member to vote “no” or to abstain from voting as they choose with total privacy and complete freedom from accusation, pressure, intimidation or recrimination.

The Guild should be ashamed.

Addendum

I almost always post my comments along with everyone else’s, but I wasn’t clear enough in this main post, and the comments below reflect some of that, so I want to set the record straight.

Of course there has to be a record that individuals voted. I’ve been voting in this union since 1995. Every time I’ve voted, I’ve had to sign and print my name on the envelope carrying my ballot.

It’s not like I suddenly got amnesia and forgot about that.

The difference between all those other votes and the current one is simply this: those envelopes were sent to an independent election supervision entity, where they were compared to membership rolls and tallied by independent parties who did not work for the Guild, nor were members of the Guild, nor have ever been members of the Guild.

The counting of ballots and verification of voter eligibility is an essential task that must be performed by disinterested third parties.

Not by the Guild itself.

This is obvious and fundamental. It’s so obvious and fundamental, it’s the way the union has conducted every single election I’ve been a part of…until now.

Thus, it’s painfully obvious to me that the change in procedure is not a lapse or a coincidence, but an intentional one designed to bring about precisely the kind of voting interference that I experienced yesterday.

Furthermore, the intentional sharing of such information with other voting members is a crass and blatant violation of my voting privacy.

That’s all. The conversation continues below…

Today, the AMPTP announced it was taking its residuals revamp proposal off the table.

Well done, AMPTP.

(By the way, how awesome was my timing? I put up an article, and boom! This happens! Total coincidence, of course, but it beats being a day late)

Now, I assume the rest of their odious proposals are still out there, but how can anyone not see this as at least the semblance of an olive branch?

They’ve made a move in the right direction.

If my guild’s leadership is smart, they will respond in kind. Maybe we take away one of our crazier demands (I have some thoughts on that, but I won’t get in their way on this). Then the AMPTP takes away another nutty demand, and so do we…and on it goes until there’s one issue left.

You know.

The one that matters.

Time to step up, WGA. You got the other side to blink. Reward that. Get past the bluster, and get down to business. There are tens of thousands of working people hoping that a deal can be found.

The least we can do is try and find a way to deal.

I’m a union guy. I was raised in a union household (my parents were public school teachers), I’m currently a dues-paying member of three unions (WGAw, DGA, IATSE), and if I do one more featured voice-over role, I’ll join SAG as well.

I believe in unions.

And I love my unions.

But my first love, my greatest love, will always be the WGAw. I’d like to think that I’ll keep directing films, but they have to be written first. I’ll always write first, and I’ll always be a writer first.

I want to be clear that when I criticize the leadership of my union, it’s because I love my union. I want our union to succeed. And there’s only one thing that makes me angrier than bad union tactics or poor union strategy or union corruption or union stupidity.

And that’s greedy management.

Thus, I thought I’d take a little time today to swivel the barrel of my gun toward the AMPTP. Say what you will about Verrone and David Young (and I do), but the bottom line is that I share their goals.

The AMPTP, however, has been acting atrociously. For those of you who don’t know, the proposal they currently have on the table isn’t just bad.

It’s immoral.

The first offense is their suggestion that residuals be tied to profit. I’ve already eviscerated that nonsense in another article, so I’ll simply refer you to that. If you want the executive summary, it goes like this: residuals are for the reuse of the fruits of our authorship. They must forever be tied to authorship. They are not a reward for the proper or improper work of the cast, the director, the producer, the editor or the marketing department. Period, the end, strike to the death over this if we must.

The second offense is the notion that residuals could be applied against up front money. In other words, if you’re paid more than scale, the company could attempt to “recoup” residuals out of your fee for writing.

Hell no.

Once again, residuals are not labor fees, they are reuse fees. It doesn’t matter how much you earn. That’s why we all get the same residual rate, regardless of how much we make up front. If the companies are serious about this redefinition, then they will need to stop using the word “residual” and start using the word “bullshit.”

Because that’s what this proposal is. And again…strike to the death.

Third offense—the elimination of separated rights. Our separated rights are already an impoverished version of the rights all American non-work-for-hire authors retain. They were fought for and won in the past, and they are absolutely worth fighting for today. Even if Hollywood weren’t currently attempting to turn every feature film release into a musical (thus triggering separated rights for screenwriters of original works), this would be a non-starter.

If they’re serious about this…then I’m gonna have to go with…

…strike to the death.

Fourth offense—a proposal that would eliminate the requirement to include the writers’ names in advertising, even in situations where the director or producer is included.

Strike.

To.

The.

Death.

But here’s the thing. All of that stuff is prologue to the big one. Internet.

Forget jurisdiction over animation, DVD residuals, creative rights (sadly), and everything else that the WGA wants to argue about. The only one that matters right now is finding good reuse formulae for the internet.

Naturally, the AMPTP proposal for the internet stinks. It’s horrid.

So…strike to the death?

No.

Here’s my basic principle.

I’m a moderate kind of guy. So if I think a proposal is worth the Strike Of Death™, then I’m going to presume that the AMPTP surely isn’t serious about it.

And yeah, I called them Shirley.

I think all of the above is hateful, unnecessary, intentionally provocative crap…except the internet proposal, which I hope is just a crappy starting point toward a good, fair-minded, let’s-end-this-25-year-war deal.

Now, I’ve tried to get my union to concentrate on The One Issue That Binds Us, because I think the other issues are distractions.

So now here’s my special little note to the AMPTP (and Ms. Brogliatti, hey…I hope you still love me, cuz I believe in you too…gotta be some more level heads like ours on each side of that table, right?)

AMPTP…drop your proposals. Get serious. Bargain in good faith. Silence the fringe voices on your side, and maybe you’ll find that the fringe voices on our side start to recede.

If not, you’re going to lose the moderates. There’s a lot of us. We’re active, and we vote. Right now, we’re watching and hoping.

But don’t mistake our even tempers for acceptance or an inclination to appease.

If you’re not serious about your proposals, then please get serious in a useful way.

If you are serious…

…then I’ll see you on the picket line.

There’s a really nice profile of The Artful Writer in the Wall Street Journal today. I think I can declare victory if I get away with calling the AMPTP’s proposals “nuts” and still get a nice quote from their spokesperson.

Getting dubbed “Hollywood’s Must-See” ain’t bad either, and it’s probably the first and last time I’ll earn that moniker.

I did want to add a slight bit of context to one quote. I said:

When it comes to union matters, I am the only game in town on this right now…

That’s mostly true. WriterAction is also out there, but they’re WGA-members-only, so in terms of public blogs, I’m the only game in town for this stuff.

At least, the only one I know of. Apologies to anyone else doing any serious coverage of this stuff. If you are, I’d love to know about it (and possibly offer a link).

Meanwhile, here’s the latest.

Things are getting worse.

The WGA rhetoric has now turned toward DVD residuals, which is utter nonsense. Everyone in the negotiating room knows that DVD residuals are the epitome of a sailed ship. Harping on doubling that rate is as pointless and absurd as the companies’ proposal to tie residuals to profit.

The fact that we seem to be moving backwards in terms of the seriousness of rhetoric is deeply disturbing. With weeks to go, tensions have steeply mounted. Furthermore, the companies have essentially initiated a lockout on feature writers. They’re not spending any more money on feature writing (so we hear) until a deal is struck.

I am growing quickly impatient with our side’s inability to knuckle down on the only topic that matters. DVDs, jurisdiction over animation and reality, product integration…all of it should be pushed aside. We’re beyond the point where red herrings and posturing are at all valuable.

If the AMPTP won’t grow up and talk like adults to us, then it’s incumbent upon us to claim the high ground. If we won’t, then saying “well they were acting like asses too” will serve as cold comfort on the picket line.

More to come.

Keep his
identity secret!(Ed. Note: There’s nothing good to report on the state of our contract—and by “good” I mean both “interesting” and “positive”—and as I’m pretty busy shooting the movie, I’m turning the blog over to a long-time friend and pro writer, Jacob Sager Weinstein, who most notably wrote for The Dennis Miller Show back when it aired on HBO, and is now an author. Sadly, unlike Dennis, Jacob’s a big lefty, but I still love him. Here’s his essay on his experiences working as a cross-platform writer.)

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “I really don’t want to know about the serious labor unrest that could change the face of the entertainment industry. No, what I really want to know is, how does writing a radio script for the BBC compare to co-writing a series of tongue-in-cheek government manuals?”

Well, today is your lucky day, If you’re reading this, it means Craig has finally decided that paying attention to his stewardship of a gazillion-dollar movie franchise is maybe a little more important than posting updates on his blog, and he’s temporarily handed over the reigns of the Artful Writer to his buddies.

Unlike some of the other guest posters he’s lined up, I can’t tell you how to be phenomenally successful in any one kind of writing. But while I’ve never been a Ted-Elliott-level success in any single field, I’ve nonetheless managed to break into a lot of them. I’ve been a staff writer for a TV show, I’ve sold a film script, I’ve co-authored three published books, I’ve been on staff at a (non-fiction) magazine, and I’ve done some freelaance writing for various humor magazines as well. So if I can’t tell you a vast amount about any one of those fields, I can, at least, tell you a little about each.

Having tried my hand in all these fields, the one general rule I’ve been able to deduce is this:

The more money is at stake, the more nervous people get. And the more nervous people get, the less they trust the writer.

With that in mind, let’s move from most-money-at-stake to least.

Film: There’s no way I could come up with any broad insight about film that Craig and/or Ted haven’t already expressed with vastly more eloquence and authority. But speaking from a strictly personal point of view, the most significant thing about film is how slow a process it is, and how much of it is out of the writer’s hands. In 2004, I was hired to do three drafts of a screenplay adaptation. From the time I signed the contract to the time I handed in my third draft, the process took about two years—an average of eight months per draft. Yet it only takes me about one month to write a draft. So what was going on the other seven months? Well, I was off working on other projects while the producer got notes from the director, got notes from his financiers, thought about his own notes, and arranged a time when he, the director and I could all sit down and discuss everybody’s notes. Plus he was no doubt doing other producery stuff, like chasing down financing.

On the one hand, that two-year process gave us all a lot of time to think about how to best turn the novel into a workable screenplay. On the other hand,it could also have given everybody time for a lot of second-guessing and over-thinking. (Fortunately, from the very beginning, there’s been a respected and strong-willed director attached to the project, so I haven’t had to contend with a dozen competing artistic visions.)

TV: The good news is, TV is much faster than film.

The bad news is, TV is much faster than film.

It’s good news because you can write something on Wednesday and have it shot on Thursday. And it’s good news because the fast turnaround gives non-writers much less time to muck around with your work. Oh, you will get rewritten, but it will be by the showrunner—a fellow writer, and quite possibly the guy who created the show in the first place. And you’ll probably be in the room when it happens. All this makes you feel much more like a driving force, and much less like a tiny cog in a vast machine.

But the speed of TV is bad news because it gives you much less time for polishing. If you write something on Wednesday and shoot it on Thursday, and then on Friday think of a much funnier punchline… Well, it’s too damn late. You’re already on to the next episode.

Radio: This one takes some explanation. In America, radio is reserved for talk shows and for music. But the UK still makes sitcoms and dramas—what we in the US would call “old-time radio shows.”

As you can imagine, it’s much cheaper to make a radio show than a TV show. So the BBC often uses its radio stations as a lab to try out ideas that may or may not become TV shows. This video clip, for example, comes from a TV show called “That Mitchell & Webb Look,” which started off as a radio show called “That Mitchell & Webb Sound.”

I wish this path existed in the US—a radio show is much cheaper to produce than a TV show, which makes everybody less nervous about taking creative risks. The radio show I sold to the BBC, for example, was a Dickensian sitcom, which is not the kind of thing you regularly see on primetime. I originally pitched it as a TV series, but it was quirky enough that they wanted to try it as a radio show, first. That wasn’t what I had hoped for when I pitched to them—but it was far better than an outright pass.

The other advantage of radio is that all special effects cost the same amount, which means my pilot script could feature start with an instance of spontaneous human combustion and end with an avalanche, all without breaking the bank.

The disadvantage of radio? There’s just not much money in it. I had to work just as hard crafting the characters and storylines of my radio pilot as I would have for a TV pilot, but for much less money.

Books: We’re now at the very bottom of the cost spectrum. Publishers don’t have to hire actors or sound technicians, and they don’t have to pay sets. They also don’t have to pay writers too much; generally speaking, an advance of about $10,000 would be fairly typical for an unknown first-time book author. That’s a fraction of WGA minimum for a script sale.

And you’re writing for a smaller audience, too. There are currently more than 80,000 copies of my books in print, which is a decent number for a print author. Yet it’s about a tenth of the viewership figures of the lowest-rated primetime TV show.

So why write books?

Because with much less money at stake, people get much less nervous. And that makes them much more willing to trust the writer.

Which means that once you sell your book, you’ll have all the time you need to write and revise it, with very little interference. (In fact, some authors feel they don’t get enough interference; Maxwell Perkins-style hands-on editor are rare nowadays.) You don’t have to navigate notes from a half-dozen different sources. You have no fear of being replaced, no need to delete your best scenes because you couldn’t get a location. Your ideas and your words just ride a river of paper straight into your readers’ brains.

And there’s one other thing that must make writing books look especially attractive to my fellow Guild members nowadays:

You never have to go on strike.

….and voteSo, I’m a long-standing critic of the Verrone Administration, I think Patric and David Young have been strike-happy from the start, I think they’ve mismanaged our negotiating strategy since it began, I know that the last strike that they attempted (America’s Next Top Model) was an unmitigated disaster, and I’m not particularly impressed with their statements-to-deeds truth ratio.

But I’m going to vote “yes” for a strike authorization.

Wha-huh?

Have I fallen for the party line?

Not really.

The party line says that a 99% strike authorization may help us avoid a strike, because it would give the union a potent weapon in negotiations—one that could precipitate a strike-negating deal.

Of course, that party line presumes that leadership doesn’t want a strike. And I’m not ready to presume that.

If one presumes that leadership does want a strike, then the strike authorization vote is just an obligatory precursor to war…tarted up as a strike-avoidance tactic.

And everyone voting “yes” is just a sucker.

There’s precedent to think the latter could be true. For instance, current WGAw VP David Weiss made it clear in the election of 2004 that Writers United had no intention to fire John McLean. A couple of days after the WU sweep, McLean was out on his ass. Similarly, WU ran under the banner of “finding an alternative to strike or cave,” and here they are, asking us for a strike authorization vote.

If one were skeptical (and you all know I am), it would be hard to ignore the emerging pattern. The WU group has repeatedly insisted that they’re not strike-happy (as critics painted them), and yet they’ve pretty much followed the playbook for a strike-happy leadership.

Walks like a duck, and all that.

Still, game theory must apply.

In this circumstance, I have to trust people that I don’t want to trust, because failing to trust them now will certainly hurt any chance we have as a union to get a decent deal, whereas trusting them might hurt my chance.

If the authorization vote is defeated or passes with less than flying colors, the WGA is permanently hamstrung. This is why I wish they hadn’t called for this vote at this time. This is why I wish they weren’t skipping the “big meeting” where everyone can get together in a big room, get super religious about everything and vote “yes” in massive waves.

But that’s a woulda-coulda-shoulda, I’m not in leadership, and this is the decision they’ve stuck us with (and by the way, despite their communication that this choice was a “unanimous” one, I’m hearing that it “became” unanimous once it was clear that it was going to pass, i.e. there’s still dissent and debate in the room, which is a heartening thing).

If the vote passes in a big way, there’s a chance that leadership will pull the trigger in a burst of Norma Rae exuberance, thereby dooming us to a premature, lengthy and probably ineffective strike. However, there’s also a chance that it might help in the negotiating room.

Certainly the execrable behavior of the companies has complicated matters for us moderates. Their initial proposal was so horrifying in scope and tone, it’s hard to legitimately sue for peace when it seems like the other side is girding for war. Yes, it may all be a reaction to a WGA leadership they despise, but some of the nastiness has an old ring to it, like this absurd notion that residuals should be tied to profit, rather than authorship.

Since a rejection of the authorization vote results in an absolutely bad outcome, and the approval of the authorization vote results in a possibly bad, possibly good, possibly neutral outcome, I’m afraid I see no legitimate option other than holding my nose, investing faith in the hitherto unreliable…

…and voting “yes.”

Strike? Anyone?Okay, so here’s a deviation from the narrative.

Even though this post is up at 1 PM, I got tipped off to this one yesterday (and wrote this last night). As such, I’m not reacting directly to Patric’s communication with the membership, but I know the basic gist.

The WGA is asking its membership for a strike authorization vote.

The SAV is essentially a green light for leadership to declare a strike. Once we give it, they can call it (well, they can call it the second our current deal expires, which is on Halloween).

Of course, they don’t have to call it.

And therein we find the rub.

There are two reasons to call an SAV at a time like this, with a deeply stalemated negotiation.

First, you call an SAV so that you can get your membership out on the picket line immediately following the deal’s expiration. Call this the “I’m taking my gun out of the holster because I plan on shooting you” reason.

Second, you call an SAV as a strategy, in the hope that the added pressure and (presumed) show of support from the rank-and-file will turn the heat up on the other side, forcing them to come across the gap to try in good faith to make a deal. Call this the “I’m taking my gun out of the holster to show you that I have a gun” reason.

So which is it this time?

And should you vote yes?

I’m deeply conflicted on this.

If I had to guess, I’d say this move is a tactic rather than a required step leading to a fait accompli. If the vote comes back strong, it really does embolden the union, and it should certainly rattle the AMPTP. Destabilization is required to break a stalemate.

However, it is my deeply held belief that some in WGA leadership (and perhaps many) not only want to strike, but have always wanted to strike, have been praying for a strike for years, and have constructed the political equivalent of a long con in order to get the strike they believe our union requires in order to reclaim some sense of identity, purpose and efficacy.

I would like to vote “yes” and give the moderates whatever strategic tool they require to make a deal.

I would like to vote “no” to keep the militants’ fingers off the big red button.

As one screenwriter I know put it (and I paraphrase): “There’s a reason Sheriff Andy wouldn’t let Barney Fife put bullets in his gun.”

Indeed.

Then there’s this to consider: even if the request is for tactical purposes, is this the right tactic?

Let’s presume that the vote comes back strongly in favor of the authorization. Okay. And let’s say the companies don’t budge.

Now what?

Do we just sit on that authorization? Feels like a public declaration of impotence to me. I worry that Chekhov’s Gun applies. Once you can, you pretty much have to at some point, or you’ve invalidated that tactic permanently.

Let’s say the vote comes back, and it’s tepid (and for these things, anything less than 90% is probably going to be considered tepid). Even worse. Now you’ve managed to publicly embarrass yourself and show a weak hand to the other side.

Here’s the bigger issue.

Why? Why are we still pretending that we matter?

The studios are far more frightened of SAG and the DGA than us. Why don’t we just keep driving through the middle without forcing our own hand? Soften the beaches however we can for the big guns?

Regardless, the die has been cast. Let’s see how the votes go. I expect a higher turnout for this than the election. If the turnout is low, that’s also disastrous.

When I decide how I’m going to vote, I’ll let you all know.