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.

Painting the Fence

“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit.”...”Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.” Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

WHITEWASHING. Brilliantly, Mark Twain had Tom Sawyer contemplating whitewashing a fence as Jim walks up to him returning from retrieving water from the town well. A theme that has been discussed debated and made public yet again. As some of you may have heard George Lopez reeled against ABC for canceling his show, “The George Lopez Show”, after its sixth season. A show that had a stable and steady following – GONE. YEP – JUST GONE. No fan fair, no big ending Series Finale – Just GONE.

George’s beef is that the show was canceled prematurely. His comment was “TV just became really, really white again,”. ABC renewed the other family sitcom, “According to Jim”. Looking back I found that George’s show was getting, on average, about the same ratings as other sitcoms on the tube, Jim included. I would love to bore you with numbers, but why. Just know that the research I did found that Lopez was pulling the same 2.0 to 2.5 ratings as was its HOMOGENIZED counterpart, “According to Jim”. (By the way, those numbers mean 2 to 2.5% of the total number of television sets that were watching that show at that particular time. Ha Ha, I told you I didn’t want to bore you, maybe some other time.)

So why was it canceled? ABC says that the show was getting too expensive and would lose money. Another speculation is; ABC has a better more lucrative show to put in its place, “Cavemen”. Yeah. “Cavemen.” A spin-off of the commercial for GEIKO. The irony in all of this is that “Cavemen” is about the social injustice of not fitting in with WHITE, i.e. normal America. However, the problem lies in the fact that these non-white characters are, all in all, WHITE. And there is the color of George’s money.

SO, WHERE IS THE COLOR? When FOX first hit the airwaves it had a very ethnic pull. You remember shows like “In Living Color” and “Martin.” FOX, the NEW network, was willing to pull on an audience that had been overlooked since the 70’s. OK OK – I know, I remember the 80’s, “The Cosby Show”, the spin-offs of TCS and “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, but even they were whitewashed versions of the family unit. However, FOX kept its roller close and painted over most of its color. (Be on the lookout, this fall FOX has added “K-Ville” to its line up, which looks to be a fantastic show.) Then there was the arrival of UPN and the WB and they took the paint bucket from FOX and put in competing line-ups of families of color. However, these networks quickly found that it is difficult enough to promote a sitcom of color, none-the- less try to push a drama. Our friends of color were just not watching. WHY? These shows were meant with THEM in mind. Due to low ratings and disastrous line-ups the fence changed directions.

Now UPN and The WB have merged into the fledgling network The CW. This network is trying quite hard to grab the brush and repaint the fence. The new network kept the underdog comedy “Everybody Hates Chris” which is another VERY funny show by Chris Rock and deserves more than what it gets in ratings. They are also introducing “THE GAME” a predominately African American cast which looks to be a very good opposition to NBC’s “Friday Night Lights”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that all of TV has turned into a bowl of whole milk and that The CW is the only network with racially diverse casting. Here is the thing; we watch all kinds of TV, everything from polygamists’ in love (which is against the law and morally you have to justify the 3 wife thing with your own morals, but it’s incredibly fascinating) to people from the future with crazy superhuman abilities. But what I am saying is this; take a moment to look around. Celebrate the fantastic work that is being done by actors of all races. The Suarez’s of “Ugly Betty” have shown that a Hispanic family comedy-drama can live in the world inside the fence.(And Congrats to Ms. Ferrera for being the first Latina to receive an Emmy Nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy.)

We see that the best friend, the lawyer, the officer, the neighbor and the lover are all guest roles that are easily filled by anyone of any color. So why does it take so much to fill all of the roles in one show the same way?

I’m not asking for answers. I am just thinking out load. “Soul Food” was fantastic, but didn’t pull enough of an audience to stick it out. George, I understand your reaction to the news of your show leaving with a whimper and not the roar it deserves, and that the color of TV is clearly not as colorblind as we would like it to be. Therefore, we need to find how to change that pattern. So George, let’s create a movement that celebrates everyone, even Cavemen.

Therefore, let’s put down the brush, sit the bucket aside and look at the beauty of the fence. The colors of the wood, the grain, the texture and the strength of what it stands for. Because without the posts there would be nothing to hold the planks together and without the planks the posts just stand alone.

My thought; “(Tom) compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.”

Let’s ENCOURAGE a future of “unwhitewashed fence”.

THIS IS BEAU TALKS

AND AFTER THESE MESSAGES WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK.

UP FRONT AND PERSONAL

With August around the corner my mind reels at the thought of new prospects, new adventures, new people to meet, new places to go and, of course, new cop shows. And there will be a few – TRUST ME. However, with the August Fall Preview Issue of TV GUIDE in mind I found something even more exciting, THE UP-FRONTS. This is the HUGE Media convention in NYC for the Networks to show off their goods, both the old and the new.

Now don’t get me wrong here. This is not just a narcissistic show of accomplishments for the big wigs to strut their stuff. NOOOOO. It is a narcissistic show of accomplishments for those big wigs to entice the Advertisers into buying commercial ad time on their Network. The Nets are showing their goods Up Front and the Advertisers are able to purchase commercial time Up Front. The later is where the term actually comes from.

So here lies the problem. Or is it a problem? I think it is in the big picture, but not in the small. I’m getting ahead of myself. This convention is to entice the advertisers into unloading Millions of dollars into their networks programming. QUESTION –what are YOU doing during the commercials? Listening to the blip blip of your TIVO’s™ fast forward, hitting the FF on your VCR, going to the bathroom or making a run to the fridge. ME? I pick “E” all of the above.

With the invention of the DVR, and like products, the Advertisers are in a bit of a pickle. Like Fox’s “DRIVE” no one is watching commercials, or at least not as much. (Sorry Fox, don’t mean to pick on you, but no one watched, really they didn’t. Sorry readers, I got off track for a sec. I’m back now.) However, the problem is watchers are not watching the thing that makes the Nets money, commercials. Have you noticed that the bottom third advertising has risen in the past few years? You know what I am talking about, the junk that interrupts your viewing pleasure across the bottom of the screen. This “bottom third” advertising is the basic response to the problem. The Nets are able to make you watch mini-commercials about their shows but not about products. So what are the Advertisers to do? And will this affect the production value of our favorite shows? If the Advertisers don’t put out as much money, then the trickle down effect could be great. And we would hate to see NBC’s Bionic Women only have one bionic leg and just a couple of fingers.

So what is a Network to do? Think about it. It is the dilemma that both sides are facing. So I figure that they are going to get a bit creative. Remember the days of TV when the show was “brought to you by the caring people at…” drop in product name here. Another option is product placement. The “SCRUBS” finale dropped the “TRAVELOCITY” bomb in the middle of their show. You may start to hear Allison Dubois of NBC’s “Medium” ask her husband to “pass the Tide” or tell one of her daughters “Don’t forget to grab your Jansport backpack with your homework in it”.

Boom crash Bam – did you hear that? That is the unmistakable sound of “name dropping”. The movie industry has been doing it for years. So why shouldn’t the Nets follow suit. Who does it hurt? Not us. So, if it gets money into the hands of our favorite shows and Bionic Woman’s Jamie Sommers can have all of her Bionic parts, I’m happy.

Therefore, Blip Blip – Blip Blip……

This is BEAU TALKS

AND AFTER THESE MESSAGES WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK

LET THE FINALES BEGIN!

Let the Finales Begin!

Finale – Root: FINAL – but are they REALLY final? Not anymore. We have episode finales, mid-season finales and end of season finales. With all of these finales, how and when do we know when it is really over? And worse, when will it come back? You know, back in the day I would, and actually still do, look forward to the TV GUIDE Fall Preview issue that would come out in or around August. There are pictures of the casts of new shows, with synopses of course, and quick reviews of the returning shows. We could count on a “SEASON” to start in the fall and end about the time school let out for the summer. But now, the lines have been blurred to a point of non-existence. And the “SEASON” as we know it, where did that go? Now there are new seasons of shows popping up all the time.

Today the biggest difference in the Major Networks and the Cable Networks is the “SEASON”. As we have grown to find out the Cable Nets reduce their season to 8 to 13 Episodes and the Major Networks shoot for 18 to 24. And if you are a movie channel that produces your own programming – it could be as few as 6 for the series. Didn’t we call those Mini-Series? Heck, The Thorn Birds, Roots and Beulah Land (look it up) would be regular TV shows and not the Special TV Event that they were in the day. However, I digress.

The Major Nets tried to do what the Cable Nets do and shorten their Fall and Spring season for impact purposes; shorter fall season, a big cliffhanger in November or December and then return in February or March to railroad you into an even bigger cliffhanger in the spring. It works for the Cablies, why not? Well, they were wrong. The big boys on the block; Lost, Desperate Housewives, Heroes and even ER found that the SPLIT season sent viewers to the other side of the Island. We are finding that the Cablies are taking the opportunity to start their new shows when the Majors are deciding to take a few months off. Even ER, which started its season with a big bang by adding the ever-popular John Stamos to its cast, was trying to resurrect its lost viewers after a 7-week break.

The Majors are taking these breaks, in hopes, to lessen the amount of reruns during its normal season. That way you get 3 months of almost consistently new shows back to back. Then, they can commercially push the show to entice even more viewers to watch. But this doesn’t always work. Look at HEROES. It left for 7-weeks, it had a huge media push “Are you on the List” and came back with 3 million less viewers. 3 MILLION. That is more than the population of the City of Chicago. Mind Blowing.

So now, like 24, the Majors are looking into the quickie season. Start in January end in the spring. Give them a quick and hard season with very few reruns and knock it out of the park. OOOPS – wrong again. 24 is down this season too. Maybe the season starting almost 8 months later isn’t the answer either. But, I know other shows are already looking into this format.

So, what do they do? How do the Nets bring you back? The spring has shown lower viewership across the board. It is actually down by about 2.5 Million viewers. One problem may be the invent of the DVR/TIVO. The Nets and the ratings Gods don’t know how to track this miracle of modern science. They say that they will be able to track the show you are watching on your DVR/TIVO if you watch it within one day of its original broadcast. Now if you are anything like me - that NEVER happens. So, my vote isn’t counted. Hello???? We’re out here watching – WE PROMISE!!!!

In this SEASON of finales, don’t treat it as a time to move on and forget who your friends are. They will be returning SOON, we hope. Just because there is a new SUMMER season right around the corner doesn’t mean “out with the old and in with the new.” Try to spread the love. Keep the Majors striving to make you laugh, cry and wonder. I am not saying that the Cable Nets should not have your attention, because The Closer starts soon and Kyra Sedgwick has my attention any day.

THIS IS BEAU TALKS, AND

AFTER THESE MESSAGES, WE’LL BE RIGHT BACK.

THE BOOB TUBE

TV. The Boob Tube. I don’t understand why it gets such a bum wrap. They say it’s mindless. Well, if it is, then why are we so obsessed with it? For 22 to 48 minutes we loose ourselves in other people’s lives. These people make us laugh, cry, get excited, get angry and, most of all, fall in love. What’s not to be obsessed over? Great movies are few and far between. Great TV is not. Every week we can watch doctors save a life, lawyer’s fight cases, firefighters rescuing their burning souls, actors behind the scenes, a beautifully unattractive girl help fight the injustice of vanity, house frau’s desperately holding their families together and OPRAH.

The next time you watch TV; listen and look a little closer. Listen to the words and look at the eyes of the actors. Behind the big sets and great camera work is what matters most, the actor. Why do you think that the people we consider “Movie Stars” are flocking to be in your home each week. Movies with real meaning are few and far between. Most are plagued by low budgets and studio mishandlings. Only a few get the backing that is really needed to put your butt in a theatre seat, especially when you are paying good money to be there. And quite frankly, if it isn’t a big blockbuster, our butts won’t be in the seats anyway.

The real art is how The BOOB TUBE can move you, teach you and simply get you thinking. Read please. I don’t think that we should put our lives on hold every night to see what the monster might be, or who the dreamy-est doctor is going to do, or if one of the many incarnations of the initialized cop shows might NOT actually solve the case within the hour.

TV is good entertainment. That’s it. It isn’t made to change Your life, but if you learn a life lesson while watching a starship trying to find home, then GREAT. Keep watching, it’s changed My life – Give in to it, just a bit. You will realize how MINDLESS it really isn’t.

Stay tuned for my outlook and ideas about Entertainment, life and of course TV. And who wouldn’t want to hear me rant and rave about something SO mindless. And who knows I may even branch out and give some helpful tips on life, love and pursuit of, oh hell, who am I trying to fool. I will write what I feel. And have a little fun.

THIS IS BEAU TALKS, AND

AFTER THESE MESSAGES WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK.