Strike that Word

Scene 1

Location:

Inside a French style Bistro lush with heavy colors in Burgundy and Gold. The Bistro is full of couples making small talk and holding hands over wine and coffee.

Action:

Lisa, mid 30’s enters the restaurant. She is a pretty and unassuming girl with brown hair. She has put herself together for the evening in a tasteful black dress. She stops momentarily and looks over the crowd a slight smile brushes across her face. She approaches the Matre de. They exchange silent words and he walks her to a small table for two in the middle of the restaurant. She smiles, he smiles and helps her with her chair. As he walks away she looks at the empty chair across from her. A young man walks up behind her. She turns her head with a large grin of anticipation. A well-dressed bus boy smiles and pours her a glass of water. He nods and her smile washes away uneasily. She watches as he walks away. She glances at the chair across from her again, then to the door and then at her glass. She reaches for the glass as if to drink, but hesitates. Nervously she takes her napkin from the table and puts it on her lap. She reaches for the glass of water. A small tear of condensation drips down its side. Her finger taps the glass. She takes a hesitant sip. She sits the glass down and picks up the menu in front of her. She opens the menu, glances at it briefly and sits it back down on the table tapping the top of the menu with her fingertips. She looks at the couple across from her. She notices their hands. She smiles tentatively brushes her hair behind her ear, takes a deep breath and crosses her hands in her lap. From beside her she hears:

Male Voice:
Excuse me.

Action: Lisa turns and smiles sweetly.

There you have it people. I don’t say that I am a fantastic writer, but did you see LISA in your head? Could you feel, at least a bit, the nervousness and uneasiness of her time at the table? And who is the VOICE?

When you read a passage from a book you run a mini movie in your head. Well guess what? So do Producers when they read a script. They read said script and then start to envision its possibilities. Once they see the script in their heads they begin to build their team. A Director, Assistant Director, additional producers, actors and everyone all the way down to the kids that stand at the copy machine making additional copies of the changes to said script. HOLD ON - BACK UP…I am getting a bit ahead of myself.

THE BEGINNING. THE SCRIPT. THAT is where it all begins. Well, kind of, but I don’t want to go into the pitch process and bore you with the story of the person that was bought out of their “story”. Wow – so many branches to this tree.

So again back to the beginning. This Issue is about the Writers. What we don’t understand, about what we see on TV and in the Movies, is that it is not only about our favorite Actor, Producer or Director; it is about the WRITER TOO. Without the writer, what do we have? The movie SUNSET BOULEVARD has a great line about how the audience thinks that the actors just show up and talk and the director films them.

Gillis:
“Audiences don't know somebody sitsdown and writes a picture. They think the actors make It up as they go along.”

And this was true until recently – Cue the Talk Show hosts. We’ve all seen how they’ve handled it. They have all tried desperately to find some type of momentum in their own humor to keep the show even sort of funny. So what did they do? Most of them quickly formed a special contract with the WGA (Writers Guild of America) so that they could get their writers back on the job so that, ironically enough, they wouldn’t sound like they were never comics or satirists to begin with.

I know that this topic is going to be OLD NEWS very soon. The Producers and the WGA are coming very close to an agreement. But what we cannot do is forget what this mess was all about and HOW it’s going to affect TV for the next year. The Writers are due their compensation for DVD and Internet sales that are well deserved. The Big pocket producers are making money hand over fist on the sale of DVDs and from the Internet.

Advertisers pay VERY big money to sponsor The TV shows that are on the Internet. Why do they pay so much money to sponsor these shows? They sponsor these shows because you, the watcher, MUST watch their commercials. Come on have you tried to fast forward past the 2 commercials within the show on the Internet? YOU CAN”T. There is a reason for that. The commercial is fast forward suspended so that you MUST watch it.

At home when those blessed commercials show up we lovingly grab the remote and “BLIP BLIP” right through those darned annoying 30 second spots. Of course, we do watch the SUPER BOWL commercials, and that is why the sponsors pay 2.7 Mill for a 30 second spot of our game-day attention. However, on the Internet the sponsorship is given and we are held hostage to watch their commercials. WHO is getting THAT money? The Producers the Networks and all of those great people that get money “on the back end”, that’s who. (BTW-“on the back end” means that if the project makes money down the line that person gets a cut.)

Ok Class can you tell me, who is left cold? The WRITER is. The person who put this world in the Producers hand, the direction in the Directors eye and the words in the Actors mouth, that’s who. And the crazy thing is that the producers don’t want them to have a fair cut.

Can you see what that FAIR CUT has done to TV? We are being bombarded with the worst REALITY TV ever and reruns of TV shows that we did not want to see go away. The only upside is that we can catch shows that we did not get to watch in September like Moonlight, Damages, Saving Grace and, my fav, The Closer. (And in great Buffy style, I believe that Moonlight will get a cult following and will find life amongst the Undead. For some reason we love vampires.)

This blasted strike is going to affect everything we watch for the next year. 24 has already changed its season from a January beginning to sometime later this year. They only had half the season filmed when the strike occurred. And with a show like 24 you can’t take a few weeks off to let the strike end and the writers catch up. And Lost is shortening their season to accommodate the strike as well. The studios have cut the amount of Pilots for next year. And the new shows that are being piloted now are only a few episodes deep. So the September season may not happen like we are used to. We may have a summer season. Will you put down your hot-dogs long enough to watch Desperate Housewives? Even if the strike ends this week, it may take 6 to 8 weeks for production to start on our favorite shows. And I wont even get started on how this whole thing is affecting the peripheral folks in the industry; i.e. food service, laundry, prop houses, florists and all of the fantastic people that make this crazy industry run.

Writers are the roots of the industry. That’s all there is to it. They deserve more than $.03 per unit on DVD sales and they deserve a small cut of the Internet Cash Cow that is barreling down the ole Internet Super Highway. You may ask yourself why do they need the money. Why the fight? Why now?

History lesson for you here, so listen up. In 1988 the WGA went on strike over the amount of money that they were getting from the sale of VHS tapes and this new fangled thing called a DVD. They asked for only a small amount of money per unit sold because who is going to buy VHS tapes and DVDs to keep in their home. GUESS WHAT? YOU DID. Who would know that fifteen years ago the DVD would take off. Ok you just did the math (1988-2008=20 years) What I meant to say is, fifteen years ago the DVD became affordable. And before we knew it every household had hundreds of them. And the Studios, Networks, Producers and all the rest of those people “on the back end” were making money.

Where are the VHS tapes? On thrift store shelves. Gone. Remember when we thought VHS was HI-Tech. And where are those crazy LAZAR Disks? Here is the bottom line, twenty years have passed and the DVD has replaced the VHS tape and the DVD is being replaced by this new fangled thing called the Internet. That’s right people, soon enough the DVD will be gone. The Sale of DVDs has crashed, the Internet has invaded our home and affordable and easily accessible “video on demand” is right around the corner. Making sure that the writers get a bite of the last slice of the DVD pie and making sure that they get their fair share of ice cream on the Internet pie that is still bakin in the oven is what this bakeoff is all about.


Male Voice:
Excuse me.

Action: Lisa turns and smiles sweetly. A young attractive man in a white shirt and a black tie is standing beside her.

Man:
Would you like to order a drink now or wait for the rest of your party?

Lisa:
(Reluctantly, but with a smile) Oh, I’m alone tonight. This is my first night out since I lost my husband. This is our favorite place. So (with a deep breath a smile and more confidence) I think I will have our favorite cocktail. May I please have a……

See? When you think you know what the end is, the WRITER has the control. Unless you are Stephen Spielberg, Tom Cruise or one of the many juggernauts of Hollywood who feel that they can take the script and change it at whim. But that is why THEY get the bigger bucks. Folks I’m not here to give any solutions. Just to give my support.

GO WRITERS….

THIS IS BEAU TALKS, AND

AFTER THESE MESSAGES, WE’LL BE RIGHT BACK.