Trouble in Tinseltown

Another great piece about the Writer's strike, by Philip McGrade, head writer and producer of The Craig Ferguson show. His blog is here. Also for best strike-related coverage, the only place to go is Nikki Finke.

It is 6.45 am and I am outside CBS studios in West Hollywood with a Writers Guild of America picket sign in one hand and my six year old son Gabriel’s hand in the other. “Dad” he says, matter of factly, ”will we get arrested?” This is in his mind as he’d just seen the film Across the Universe which had Vietnam protesters being dragged off the street.

It is two years to the day since I moved to Los Angeles to write for Craig Ferguson on his daily TV show. With a wife, three kids and a five bedroom house to support I have been waking up early in the morning in a panic.

Many of the cars honk their horns in sympathy, the loudest being the big rigs which have those air horns which are deafening. A number of lorry drivers refuse to cross the picket lines at various studios on principle and do this at the risk of losing their jobs.

Today is Veteran’s day, America’s Day of Remembrance, so a lot of kids are off school and my boy Gabriel is pigging out on the snacks he has found in a box by the signs. He is not so keen on the pounding the pavements for a four hour stretch, a position I sympathise with. “Are we poor now, dad?” he asks, casually, like being poor might be fun. I say not yet.

“Why are we doing this ?”. I feel that explaining the rates of pay for re-use of shows on the net and other platforms might be a bit over his head.

“You know when your big sister won’t share ?” I say, “This is because some people don’t want to share.”

He mulls this over for a bit and says, “If we need money can’t we just go to the bank?” I tried to clear this one up, having tried to live like that myself at times. Each explanation leads on to more questions.

He keeps asking me for the next few days after this, “What was that thing we were doing called?” For some reason the word picketing slips away from him. A couple of days ago he sees me scribbling in a notebook and he says, “Dad are you supposed to be writing while you’re on strike?” The honest answer to that is that I’m not sure.

On the first day a comedy writer at a different lot has his leg broken by some guy who didn’t want to wait for the pickets to clear the entrance. There is a photo on one of the blogs of his Nike under the tyre of the car.

The background to the dispute is that when video came along the studios got the writers to agree to a miserly slice of the profits claiming that they needed an introductory deal as the machines would be expensive and might not catch on. This same rate was maintained for DVDs so that when you buy a thirty dollar DVD the writer’s share is two and half cents. With new technology threatening to render DVDs as obsolete as the abacus, the rates of pay for downloads are a key issue.

I have friends who maintain that by going on strike we are playing into the hands of the producers, like turkeys voting for an early Christmas. The logic here is that after we have been out for eight weeks there is a contractual clause that allows studios to suspend deals that are proving unprofitable, so that this is a chance for them to trim the fat from their operation.

The last long strike was in 1988; it lasted for twenty-two weeks and was when the reality shows like Cops gained a foothold here, so there is also a concern that we may be eroding our own share of the market.

To middle America Hollywood writers going on strike is about as understandable as pop stars going on strike, like Duran Duran circling the stadium and refusing to play Rio unless they’re promised more money.

Yet the truth of the matter is that of the twelve thousand or so members of the guild, sixty per cent won’t make the necessary thirty thousand dollars a year that would get them health insurance for themselves and their families.

Like in the acting profession, a tiny number earn a fortune, a few make a good living and the majority cannot live off their earnings as writers and so take other jobs.

On the Friday before the Thanksgiving holiday there is a rally on Hollywood Boulevard. There are over four thousand of us marching along the walk of fame. The whole thing has a carnival feel to it, as we meander along past the Scientology buildings,’ Come in and take a free personality test today.’

I pass Spiderman or at least a guy dressed up as him, and an African American Wicked Witch of the West, green faced in the middle of it all. Hollywood Boulevard is the place where, for a negotiable fee you can have your picture taken with the movie character of your choice.

It’s not quite Disneyland, it’s a little cracky and turf wars often end in fistfights and the police having to separate Chewbacca and the Hulk then lead them off in handcuffs.

There are dogs wearing t-shirts, and an eighty-foot model pouts down at us from a huge ad which has been draped over the side of an apartment block. There are holes cut in it for the windows of the apartment where people stare down at us or take pictures.

Marching along side us are nurses, actresses, directors, cinematographers, and a blonde model like you’d see at boxing matches holding up a sign that has the number of days we’ve been out.

Outside a shop that sells collectibles from film and TV, an old guy in a beard holds a sign, “Writers, in need of cash? I pay top dollar for film and TV scripts.”

Also marching along side us are the local Teamsters, a union of big rig drivers, those monster trucks, which also bizarrely includes the casting directors. Junior agents from mega agency CAA are on hand to dole out water and scones, the Jarrow marches of the thirties it ain’t.

As we march along there is chanting, “On strike, shut ‘em down, Hollywood’s a union town!” and my own personal favourite “They wanted me to do a re-write, but I said no, no, no!”

Outside the studios of NBC whose CEO is a Mr. Zucker, they chant “Treat us fairly Mr. Zucker, we are not your two bit hooker!”

As motorcycle cops usher us forward behind our banners I see a wooden platform with a dozen photographers on it taking shots of us as we pass, this is not just a rally but also a media event, a photo op. Everyone has a camera of some sort and is taking pictures of everyone else taking pictures of them.

The first person to address the rally is the President of the Guild, Patric Verrone. Rather alarmingly for a public figure in the media age he has what I can only describe as Hitler hair, the trademark long dark side parting, though mercifully not a brown shirt or the Chaplinesque moustache, as that would be playing into the hands of the enemy.

The producers have enlisted the help of one of those ad agencies who proved that cigarettes are not bad for you to make their case, taking out full page ads in newspapers throughout the country.

While the studios insist to us that the net is too new and that it may not pay, one writer has edited together a series of clips of the studio CEOs boasting about how confident they are that they can make money from the internet.

Today is day two of three days of talks at an undisclosed location and everyone in this company town is hoping that a fair deal will be made.

A local councilor addressed our rally and tells us the Munchkins had agreed to move their award ceremony outside Mann’s Chinese theatre to accommodate our rally, so it was good to know that even the lollipop guild were behind us.

At first I thought that this was a joke until I saw the headlines the next day. After seventy years the few surviving Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz have finally been given their own star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

Even if it took a while, it was good to see those little guys getting what they deserved. I’m hoping it’s a good omen.