HAPPY THANKS GIVING

If you've been reading this blog for over a year, you know that I stop to list my thanks for the year around this time.

I actually do it every month (okay, almost every month). I have a journal where I list, at the beginning of each month, 50 things I'm thankful for. Some months it just flows. Some months I have to really work to dig up the things I'm grateful for.

This has been a year where it's been hard to find things to say thanks about. A lot of cruddy stuff, to be honest. A lot. Maybe that makes my "thankfulness" exercise even more important.

This list here is chosen randomly from the last year's monthly "thankfulness" lists, starting with the present and going back in time. I encourage you to take time this week to do something similar.

1. Finishing up some writing that was due on deadline.
2. A friendly relationship with various other professors
3. A BBQ and "salon" at a former student's home
4. The Starbucks at USC
5. A good meeting with an actress and producer
6. Watching Cory and a friend of his from church aceing "Harry Potter Celebrity"
7. Family Camp
8. My mother's caregiver Estelle
9. "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow"
10. Liking this year's students at USC
11. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"
12. IMing with my friend Pete in Chicago
13. Sabrina having a better attitude about Vacation Bible School this year
14. Our friends Andrea and Brady's charming new house
15. Lots of reports on how helpful Cory was while volunteering at Vacation Bible School
16. No health catastrophes
17. Finishing Cory's graduation video well
18. Finding lots of uniforms that fit Sabrina at our school's used uniform sale
19. The "American Idol" finale
20. Working on the 6th grade video with producer Lisa
21. Watching movie musicals with the kids
22. All of Cory's school-year-end activities
23. Mother's Day brunch with Grandma
24. Our friend Bob joining our writers' group
25. Cory's friend Cameron praying for his school situation
26. Watching "Dancing with the Stars" with the kids
27. Sabrina's teacher calling to check up on Cory's school applications
28. Our former agent keeping tabs on us
29. A perfect Easter brunch
30. Sabrina having a wonderful time on her class trip to Sacramento
31. Praying with Lee
32. Lee working really hard to get a job (that we didn't get)
33. Being promised a class at USC for the fall
34. Two really terrific scripts written by my students
35. Spring break
36. Box seats at the Hollywood Bowl for Easter morning
37. Playing "Alchemy" on my computer
38. Deciding to throw another Easter brunch
39. Lee's good work prepping for (another job we didn't get)
40. Watching "Heroes" with the kids
41. My new cell phone
42. Sabrina enjoying Junior Winter Camp even without snow
43. Nick from "Life Without Limbs" speaking at our church
44. Re-reading "Divine Conspiracy"
45. Our friend Andrea being pregnant again
46. Hosting the Alliance of Women Directors' members' meeting
47. Getting our cars fixed
48. Seeing "Rocky Balboa"
49. Cory suddenly being all cuddly and affectionate
50. Lee giving me a new guitar for Christmas


Okay, there's the list for this year. Here's hoping the next year, it won't be so hard to compile these lists!

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving for 2007....

FROM THE MOUTHS OF CHILDREN

My daughter has been particularly concerned about the writers' strike, asking me all sorts of questions that one would not expect a girl her age to care about ("What's a force majeure?" "How are the studios and the networks related?"). Maybe just because of the extreme uncertainty it brings to her own world, she is deeply anxious for an end to this whole thing.

Nevertheless, I was quite surprised when she announced a couple of days ago that she was going to make a video to put on YouTube about the strike. How cute, I thought.

No. Not "cute" at all. She got incredibly into it. The little girl who gets in trouble for not completing her essays on time for English threw herself into writing the script for the video (after informing me that, after all, the script comes first and foremost). When I asked her if she wanted to join us watching TV, she looked up and said, "No, I think this is much too important." And when she said she was going to show her essay to her English teacher, and I commented that Dr. J. would be so glad to see her writing for fun, she said, "Mom. This is serious. It is not for 'fun.'"

The video itself will have to wait for a couple of weeks as our lives are in too much consternation at the moment. But here's the script. (Imagine it performed with all the hauteur of an indignant 11-year-old.)

THE STRIKING FACTS

My name is Sabrina. I'm making this video. to tell what is really going on in the Writers’ Strike. Now you may be asking, “What would an 11-year-old kid know about the strike?” My sources are two writers. I call them “Mom” and “Dad.”

The writers’ requests are not unreasonable. Writers are getting four cents per DVD. They asked for eight cents. Because of that, studios have greedily offered to pay less than four cents. Isn’t that generous of the studios? I thought so.

Another conflict is the profit writers are getting from the Internet. Do you know how much writers are paid for the Internet downloads? Nothing! Nada! Zero! Zilch! The excuse the studios made up for this is, “The Internet is too new.” The Internet has been around for as long as I have been alive. Do I look new? Was I born yesterday? No! Thousands of thousands of people use the Internet day after day. THE INTERNET IS NOT NEW!!!

You may think the writers want to be on strike. They don’t. About 4,000 writers have had to tell their kids that they’re not having Christmas this year. Studios don’t care! They might as well be saying, “No Christmas for you. Too bad. So sad. Who cares as long as we have a good Christmas because we’re more important. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”

Many people other than writers are out of their jobs. Because of the writers’ strike, actors, cameramen, the doughnut boy, and many others are losing their jobs. If writers don’t write, new episodes can’t be shot. If new episodes aren’t shot, actors can’t act, and there’ll be nothing to shoot. If there’s nothing to shoot, cameramen are not needed, so nobody can do their job. Everything depends on the writers.

Studio executives have been caught on tape saying things like, “We are expecting an estimated $1.5 billion on this.” They later say to the writers, “Why should we pay you as much as you’re asking for? We aren’t making that much money.” I’ve heard better excuses from a non-fat half-caf mocha latte!

The strike is probably going to go on for at least two months. Why, you ask? Studios can get rid of writers’ contracts only after two months. They never stop to think how the strike will affect people other than themselves. I’d bet they couldn’t care about someone who works for them if their life depended on it!

Here’s some things you can do to support the strike. Write complaints to the executives of studios and networks. Honk your horn when you pass a picket line (many short honks; one long honk is considered rude). Join the picket line. And if you are a studio executive, here is something you can do to support the strike: You can end it, by paying the writers more for DVDs and the Internet!

Go, Sabrina!

THOUGHTS FROM THE PICKET LINE -- WEEK 2

Today was "Take-Your-Kid-to-the-Picket-Line" day here in Hollywood. (Being the official Veteran's Day, many kids were off school.)

So we trucked ourselves over to Disney, that seeming to be the best lot for a kid to picket. Sabrina was not all that interested, frankly, though she did perk up when we told her there would be snacks. "What kind of snacks?" she asked. "Unhealthy ones," we promised.

She perked up even further when the first person we met on the picket line was one of the writers for Hannah Montana. Even though she went into her "shy" mode, we did get the plot line for the next new Hannah episode to air, which should be worth something on the playground.

There were indeed quite a few kids there, ranging from babes in strollers to middle schoolers who were quite happy to grab the bullhorn and lead the chants. Our favorite kid-created chants were:

What about this don't you get?
Pay us for the Internet!

And the classic

Pay my Daddy
Four more cents!

We did have a celebrity on the line... of sorts. The collie dog from Desperate Housewives was there, and never have I seen a better behaved, better trained dog. Sabrina had a lot of fun making the dog 'talk.' And talk about your six degrees of separation: Lulu (the dog) is the sister of Lassie 9. What more could you want?

As for the unhealthy snacks... Today we were given cookies, chips, more cookies, doughnuts (from the "D-Girls" of Disney -- those are the young women in 'development,' working with writers on their scripts), some kind of high-end "stress-reducing" water dropped off by some folks from the Longshoreman's Union, more cookies, popsicles, yet more cookies, and Vitamin Water delivered by a company truck with a bullhorn. Oh, and some oranges. But I don't think anyone ate those.

The sense out there on the picket line is that we're in for a very long haul. That's very bad news indeed. It's certainly extraordinarily bad news for us personally. All the honking in the world, encouraging though it may be, won't change that.

We hear rumors that maybe possibly the powers that be might be thinking about talking to each other again. It's really up to the studio moguls at this point -- the six men who will make all the decisions here.

Pray for negotiations to resume. Pray for peace.

I DON'T KNOW BUT I'VE BEEN TOLD...

All that writing energy has to go somewhere... And some of it has gone toward writing chants for the picket lines.

I thought I'd share some of my favorites...

We write 'Lost' and we write 'Heroes'
Download them and we get zeroes

For sheer simplicity and staying on message, you can't beat:

Four More Cents!

This is a little 'inside baseball,' but all you screenwriters reading this will get it:

Exterior. Street.
Writers on strike!

Even a little shoutout to the Creator:

In the beginning is the word
Cheating writers is absurd!

There are those chants specific to the heads of the companies they run (Les Moonves is CBS, Peter Chernin is Fox, Alan Horn is Warner Bros.):

More money!
Less Moonves!

What *you* earning,
Peter Chernin?

Hey hey, Alan Horn,
The Internet's not just for porn!

Here's the one that's gotten the most press:

Network bosses, rich and rude,
We don't like your attitude!

One of the best crafted (and again, specific to a studio, Paramount, where Sumner Redstone is the honcho in charge):

I don't know but I been told
Sumner Redstone's made of gold
Makes his money off our sweat
Won't pay us for Internet!

I don't know but some folks say
Paramount is late to pay
Why we marching at this gate?
We got screwed in '88!

More clean, economical simplicity:

We write!
They wrong!

On the less simple side, we have this call and answer that was a big hit at Universal this week:

Caller: Battlestar Galactica!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!
Caller: Bionic Woman!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!
Caller: Law and Order!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!
Caller: Carpoolers!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!
Caller: Untitled Zombie Movie!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!
Caller: Spec half hour pilot about a neurotic tax collector that was almost sold!
Everyone: WE WROTE THAT!

(Maybe you have to be a screenwriter to fully appreciate that one.)

Okay, back to the more traditional chant form:

This won't make you overjoyed
Without us you're unemployed!

If writers don't come through that gate,
You'll be selling real estate!

And finally, my personal favorite:

If you think our rhymes all suck--
They were written by scabs.

Kudos to all the writers who wrote those chants! Maybe I'll pick up some more on Monday. It's Veteran's Day, so lots of kids are off school. I hear there will a picket line of writers' kids at Disney (where else would kids picket, right?). I'm taking Sabrina (and oh, wouldn't it make her day, her year, her life, if Miley Cyrus should choose to join the line!)...

Hmmmm. Wonder what rhymes with "Disney"?...

DAY FOUR OF THE WRITERS STRIKE

A couple more resources for those of you interested in following the Writers' Strike.

First, here's a quick flash video a writer did to explain to his friends and family what was going on.

(Unfortunately the original version on the writer's blog isn't available anymore -- maybe due to overload of visitors? It was better because it used The Who's "Won't Be Fooled Again" as the soundtrack -- the theme song for this strike!)

Also worth checking out is Nikki Finke's blog. She is the only reporter out there who isn't skewed toward the producers' side (since the producers - duh - own most of the media outlets reporting on the strike). I have been told by several people in the know that she is absolutely accurate.

Tomorrow is a huge rally at Fox (we'll be late, but we'll be there). Monday, with many kids off school for Veteran's Day, there's talk of taking the kids to strike with us and having them set up lemonade stands where they'd sell cups of lemonade for... four cents.

I'll be back with more reports from the line tomorrow, including some of the better chants being used...

TALES FROM THE LINE

So I'm sitting there in Starbucks yesterday, just off the picket line, wearing my bright red Writers Guild t-shirt. The WGA logo, the words "Writers Guild of America," and smaller, "United we stand."

And there's a homeless guy working his way through the shop. Dreadlocks, ratty old clothes. His hand out, quite polite. He gets a dollar from the girl at the next table and heads for me.

Before I can even open my mouth to acknowledge him, he glimpses my shirt. "Sister! You on strike!" he says. "I ain't asking you for a thing!"

And as he moves on to the next table, he pumps a clenched fist at me and says, "Hang tough, sister. You're gonna be all right."

...United we stand, indeed.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM THE PICKET LINE

Four hours on the picket line this morning. There was a mixture of sobriety (as we all realized how serious this action is) and enthusiasm (for one another).

A few random thoughts on Day 1 of the Writers Strike:

--It is astonishing how encouraged we were by the people driving by and honking. I've honked for picketers and protesters before, and wondered if it was actually stupid to do. It's not. We loved it. We especially loved the big trucks with their big horns, and the police car that honked for us.

--Even more encouraging were the people who showed up from inside the lot (I was picketing at Sony Studios) to show support. One show still shooting on the lot (their showrunner was on the picket line) sent out a variety of goodies from their craft services (i.e., snack) table. Someone came out from the lot with a cooler of chilled drinks. And the best was the electrician who came out to hold a sign and walk on his lunch hour.

--If you tuck your picket sign into the front pocket of your jeans, your arms are much happier.

--We felt very blue collar all of a sudden. Maybe this was because many of the people honking for us were driving very old cars. The BMWs were, somehow, less willing to show their support.

--I am very very blessed to work at a job where I can sit and think all day. I don't think I could be a hamster (walking in a circle all the time).

--Someone needs to bring a pedometer to the line. 50 feet, turn, 50 feet, turn and wait for the light to change, 50 feet, turn... for four straight hours... So how far did we walk, anyway?

--If you have to walk a picket line, do it with a group of writers. The jokes will be better than anywhere else.

...But really, the only thing that matters is that both sides sit back down at the negotiating table, and that the producers become willing to talk about the only issue that matters. (The writers have pulled virtually all our issues off the table. But as of today, the producers still refuse to discuss the internet in any meaningful way.)

I have tomorrow off because I'm at USC all day. (Maybe I'll invite my students to join their future colleagues on the line!) And then it's back to walking.

As we keep walking, please you keep praying....

PENCILS DOWN

Time to get out the sunscreen and the walking shoes. Because less than 24 hours from now, I will be on a picket line.

What is it all about, people have been asking me. Why do Hollywood writers who, as everyone knows, make a fortune and live like kings, have to go on strike?

Okay. You asked. Here's the answer.

Pare away all the chaff, and here's what the writers are asking for.

1) DVDs aren't the biggest issue, but probably the simplest to understand, so let's start there with DVD residuals.

What's a residual, you ask.

When I write a movie, I get paid upfront by the studio for the right to make a movie out of my screenplay. Just like, say, an author writing a book. The author gets some upfront money to deliver the manuscript. And when the book sells well, the author gets royalties; that is, the author gets paid a small percentage of what the publishing company makes. Fair, right? After all, the book wouldn't exist at all without the author's imagination and hard work. And if the book sells well enough, the author can end up richer than the Queen of England.

So when I write a movie is made, and the studio makes a gazillion dollars off its showing in the theatres, how much of that do I get?....

Zero.

But that's okay, because a movie has more lives than a book does. A movie gets shown on pay-per-view, it goes shown on TV, it gets shown on airplanes, it gets shown on cable, it gets sold as a DVD, it gets sold overseas...

And then I get a tiny (veeeeeerrrry tiny) bit of what the studio makes. Those are called residuals, but you can think of them as royalties, just like the royalties a book's author receives (In fact, I declare them on my taxes as royalties).

When the studios pay me this way, they're actually getting a win/win deal. If they didn't pay me on the back end like this, through my residual checks, they'd have to pay me a lot more up front. And not just me -- they'd have to pay actors a lot more, too. (And there are a lot more actors to pay than writers!) That would make movies much more expensive to make. This way, if our movie is a hit, we share in the success. If it's not, well, we share in the failure.

Residuals are even more important for actors, by the way. Actors often get paid what's called a "day rate" for their work. This can range for $100 a day to (I think) $716 (for stunt performers). Not bad for a day's work, you think? But remember, that actor likely auditioned for 30 days (for no pay) to get that one day of paying work. How can someone live on $100 to $716 per month?

Because of residuals, that's how. Because if an actor makes, say, $268 for one day of work on a low-budget movie, he might make $3000 later in residuals, over time. Many an actor (and writer) has survived dry spells thanks to what we call "green envelope days" -- the days residuals arrive.

(And by the way, about those rich Hollywood writers? The median annual income for a Writers Guild member is $5000. That's because over half our membership are out of work in any given year. Of those who are working, the average annual income is $37,700. Not poverty. But certainly not riches either.)

Now, some 20 years ago, when videotapes were in their infancy, the studios begged the Writers Guild for some leniency in paying residuals on videotape sales. It's so expensive to make a videotape, they argued! We don't know how this new business model is going to work! We might lose our shirts!

So, on a temporary basis, the Writers Guild agreed to a temporary discount. Yes, we all agreed, we should make 2.5% of the sale. But, because the studios' expenses are so high, because it's a new technology, because it's a new business model, we agreed to 2.5% of 20% of the sale (or, if you do the math, 1/2 of 1%, of the total.

Fast forward. DVDs replace videocassettes. Production costs go waaay down. The business model is in place. In fact, studios generally make more off the DVD sales of a movie than they do off the theatrical run. But that "temporary" pay cut we agreed to? It's still in place.

In hard numbers: A DVD retails for approximately $20. Of that, about $12 is pure profit. And how much does the writer get?

Four cents.

We are asking for eight cents. I'm sure we'd be happy to split the difference.

So ultimately, a good chunk of this strike is based on the studios/networks' unwillingness to pay out approximately two cents (out of 1200 cents of profit). Given that failed executives regularly get golden parachutes in the hundreds of millions of dollars, I'm thinking they have room to flex a couple of pennies.

But DVS aren't the big issue. The big issue is:

2) The Internet. We want to be paid for our work when it's distributed via the internet. That means (a) work written originally for TV and the movies, then re-broadcast on the internet, as well as (b) work written directly for the internet (that is, written for companies that have a deal with the Writers Guild of America and distributed via the internet; it does not, obviously, apply to writing such as, say, this blog).

Let's look at 2(a) first.

TV episodes are already being sold on the internet. Movies won't be far behind. And what do the studios/networks want to pay the writers for those sales?

Zero.

The studios claim (to the writers) the internet is too new, they don't know where the revenue is coming from. (Sound familiar?) All while they claim (to their stockholders) that they're making hundreds of millions of dollars on the net already, with more to come.

And what about 2(b), material written directly for the internet (again, written for those companies that are signatory to the Writers Guild)? Well, that's already happening, too. TV shows are asked to produce "promotional" material for the web. Material written by writers, acted by actors, shot and edited by the various crew folks. And what are people getting paid for that work?

Zero.

We all know the future is the internet. In a matter of years, DVDs will be as hard to find as VHS tapes are today. And a few years after that, they'll be gone.

Most of the writers I know feel that the internet is the only issue that really counts in the entire negotiation. It's the whole ball of wax.

The Writers Guild has asked for, I believe, 2.5% of internet sales. (And if there's no revenue, as some studios claim, then 2.5% of zero is zero.) In earlier negotiations, the figure 1.2% was bandied around. Hey, I could live with 1.2%

The studios/networks' response? They refuse to discuss the internet at all. It's our number one issue, and they refuse to even allow it on the table.

And that's why we're striking.

Do I want to strike? No. Absolutely not. I don't know a single Writers Guild member who wants to strike. But do I want to get paid for my work? Of course. Don't you?

If you're a praying person, please pray for a quick and equitable end to this strike. For the studios/networks to even be willing to discuss the single most important issue (that should be) on the table.

In the meantime, as of midnight tonight, it's "pencils down" for all writers. And tomorrow morning, we are, sadly and with great somberness, walking the line.

STRIKE ONE

It's official. The Writers Guild of America is going on strike on Monday.

Is this the right thing to do? I think so, given all the choices that were made (by both the writers and the producers) up until this moment. (Were all those choices the right choices? Probably not. But we are where we are.)

This means no writer in Hollywood can work for any studio, network, major production company, etc. (There will be writers who are not Guild members who will keep working. They're not part of the Hollywood equation here.)

Late night TV will shut down first. Daytime soaps will be close behind. Scripted network TV will be a month or two out. And you'll see the effect in movies in 2009.

But we'll all feel the effect here right away. No writing means no paychecks. Production shutting down means people getting laid off (one major agency has already announced it's withholding a week's pay from its assistants). It means less traffic at restaurants, car washes, dry cleaners... The trickle down starts now.

People are saying this will be a 6-month strike. But today is a day for doom-saying, and I'm hoping that will not be the case. Please join me in praying that will not be the case.

More on what the Guild is asking for tomorrow (or soon).

It's a sad day.