Writers worry about the aftermath
By TAYLOR VAN ARSDALE Special to the Daily Press
WESTSIDE There’s a cautious, growing optimism in Hollywood as the recent Writers Guild of America strike — a three month nightmare for anyone earning their living in the entertainment business — draws to a potential close.
However, in its wake the strike has left some writers wondering what to do next. Many television writers are temporarily jobless or simply in states of limbo and its effects have been devastating to all levels of industry players.
The strike, which began Nov. 5, centers on the issue of compensation for content offered over the Internet.
For Malibu-based producer Paul Maslansky, whose credits include the “Police Academy” films and “The Russia House” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Connery, the significance of the strike has been profound.
“I’m at a point in my career that it’s very important to keep momentum going,” Maslansky said. “It takes a great deal of work and preparation to get a single script to a potential buyer.”
Maslansky is an independent, meaning, he doesn’t have a studio deal, though he makes films for the studios. He has been working on his current project, “Coming Through Slaughter,” a novel written by Michael Ondaatje (“The English Patient”) about first king of jazz, Buddy Bolden, for close to 11 years. He had finally convinced Ondaatje he was the right producer to shepherd the project to screen when the strike hit.
“I know I’ll make it eventually,” Maslansky said wistfully, but the hold up has permitted another producer’s project about the same subject matter to gain a lead.
Eager for the strike to end, Maslansky suggested using “a negotiated fee for [the anticipated] ancillaries, whatever they may be.”
“the uncertainty involved shouldn’t preclude us from making a deal.”
Similarly, Santa Monica resident and screen and TV writer John Romano (“Intolerable Cruelty” and “Hill Street Blues”), thinks the studios are being honest when they say, “They don’t know what that business will be like,” but feels that, “You can make a deal in principal that says, ‘If I make money, you’ll make some of it’ … the studios act as though the uncertainty means there’s no deal to be made,” Romano said.
Maslansky went on further to say that he felt, that,“the model presented by the Guild for the negotiation of cyber space was not one that the public could understand.”
Romano thinks it is “unlikely that we will make the deal we deserve to make, but … there’s got to be movement sooner or later [because] there’s such a common sense fairness to the idea that we should be participating in profits from new media.”
Frustration is palpable across the board, especially when some of Hollywood’s heavies are cutting deals allowing select writers to work, further frustrating the cause.
“Why can Tom Cruise sign a contract with the WGA so he can finish his work?” Maslanksy asked. “Why can Letterman? I’m willing to sign a contract right now that states: Whatever is negotiated I’m going to abide by it.”
Romano is fortunate in that most of his writing jobs wrapped prior to the strike (although one pitch to Fox came to a grinding halt), but for many emerging writers such as Tamara Becher, not yet a guild member, the strike came at an inopportune time in her burgeoning career. Having gone through the bulk of a television network diversity program, her scheduled showrunner/mentor meetings were cut short.
“There’s a certain credibility … a diversity program gives you, and you’re hoping it makes you very attractive,” to the network execs and showrunners as they look to staff new writers,” Becher said. “It’s going to have a negative impact if there’s no pilot season this year,” says Becher, as it may not be “…as hot for me to have been in the program a year ago.”
Becher has been told meetings are to resume when the strike ends.
Becher had been working as a script coordinator for the “Sarah Connor Chronicles” and was laid off six days into the strike. She’s been diligent about supporting fellow writers on the picket lines at Warner’s Bros., but as to her day job, Becher’s doubtful as to whether she’ll resume at Fox when the strike wraps.
“Connor had a 13 episode order, they managed to get nine in the can but no one knows if Fox will say, make us the remaining four,” Becher said.
For Becher and hopeful budding writers the future is uncertain, as no one yet knows what the strike fallout will yield.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 8, 2008. Read the original PDF.