Writer's Strike Thread

[Sylph]

I'd like a Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon. If I may choose.

[Noel]

Well, I do have aquired tastes, but in case there are those who don't do the tequila or champagne, I'll be more than happy to bring this wonderful chocolate cordial for all you wonderful peeps...

I could make you all a delicious Whity Flight Chocolate Martini! My recipe....

[Sylph]

Oooh, I know Godiva, I do.

If you don't have the Don, Bacardi will do.  Bacardi is not a champagne, though.

[dragonflies]

I'm not a drinker, but heck I'll toast the end of the strike

[Sylph]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/business...agewanted=print



February 14, 2008

So, What Were We Writing About Again?

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Facing his writing staff on Wednesday for the first time since the end of a 100-day strike, Shane Brennan, the co-executive producer of the CBS drama “NCIS,” asked a question that drew blank stares. “Can anyone remember what we were working on three months ago?”

Similar scenes played out in dozens of writers’ conference rooms in New York and the Los Angeles area as the entertainment industry — particularly the television business — returned to work and sought to jump-start production.

The strike, which was formally called off Tuesday night by the Writers Guild of America, had halted production of 46 dramas and 17 comedies.

Mr. Brennan, whose show is watched by about 18 million viewers each week, instructed the nine writers seated around a large table to forget the various plots they had been working on before the strike.

“All we’re going to do is waste a day trying to remember it,” he said. He added with a chuckle, “While I sound like I know what I’m talking about, and that I have a plan, I really am making this up as I go.”

For many writers, returning to work brought an emotion akin to what they remembered experiencing on their first day of high school. There was the giddy mood accompanying the start of something new and fresh — and the pit of anxiety in their stomachs as they made the transition from mostly idle days to a daunting workload. And who was that guy in the corner? “I almost didn’t recognize you with that new beard,” said Mr. Brennan to Greg Weidman, a production assistant.

On the Warner Brothers lot, Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the co-creators of “Gossip Girl,” the teenage soap opera on CW network, likened reopening their offices to starting up a summer camp after the winter. “Nobody had been cleaning and there was crime scene tape across the door,” Ms. Savage said. Walking into her office, she said, “And somehow I remembered my office being much nicer.”

Mr. Schwartz, who will resume work on his other series, NBC’s “Chuck,” in a few weeks, tried to cheer her up. “There are still tumbleweeds blowing through half the office. It’s going to take a little time to feel normal again.”

Upstairs, in the “Gossip Girl” writers’ room, Ms. Savage started a discussion with five writers about possible story lines for the show, which focuses on a group of privileged high school students in New York. One writer mentioned college visits as a possibility, while another talked about a new love triangle. But the writers, all good friends, kept breaking off to catch up on their own gossip. “O.K., is anybody watching ‘Celebrity Rehab’ on VH1?” asked Mr. Schwartz.

In New York, Warren Leight, the show runner on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” was tucking into a delivered lunch along with a bustling office filled with writers, producers and researchers. The “Criminal Intent” crew had no scripts banked when work stopped on Nov. 5, so on Wednesday they were just beginning to map out story lines for the next five episodes.

“It’s like putting a harness back on,” he said. “Actually, like putting 10 harnesses back on.”

Chatter on both coasts centered on how relieved everyone was that the strike was finally over. “As I drove into work today, I just thought, ‘Thank God people are going to be able to come back to work and support their families and get on with their lives,’ ” said Glenn Gordon Caron, the creator of “Medium,” the NBC drama starring Patricia Arquette as a mother with psychic powers.

“I’m really, really, really, really happy to be back,” he said. “Wait. I want to add another ‘really’ to that.”

With the writers back, hustle and bustle returned to the studio lots in Los Angeles and Burbank. Teamsters who had refused to cross picket lines, snarling the transport of movie sets during the strike, smiled and waved at guards as they drove through the wrought-iron gates of Paramount Pictures. Studio cafeterias cooked more food. And casting directors, waiting around for new scripts to fill with guest stars, started working the phones.

The strike may officially be over, but the dust will not settle any time soon. In the coming days, writers must vote on the tentative contract that was reached between studio executives and guild leaders in recent weeks.

Although approval is expected — union leaders characterized portions involving payment for the streaming of programs on the Web as a “huge victory” — many guild members said they would retain raw feelings about the strike.

Many writers found themselves with no jobs waiting after the strike. Some shows, like “Big Shots” on ABC, were canceled during the walkout because of low ratings. Others, like “Heroes” on NBC, are experiencing delays, forcing some writers to wait several more months before production can resume.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County officials were still working to tabulate what the strike had cost the local economy. About $3.2 billion was the latest guess from Jack Kyser, the chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

Mr. Kyser said writers and production workers had lost $772 million in wages. The strike also led to $981 million in lost revenue at businesses that serve the industry, Mr. Kyser said.

People at the Smoke House, a restaurant across from the Warner Brothers lot, are happy the strike is over. The restaurant, whose red Naugahyde booths have been a favorite of stars like Judy Garland and George Clooney (who named his production company for it), experienced a revenue slide of 17 percent in recent months, according to Lee Spencer, the owner. Taking a particular toll was the lack of so-called wrap parties, informal gatherings after a production.

“A whole cast and crew might come over and drop $5,000 to $10,000 on somebody’s black American Express,” Mr. Lee said. “It’s the cream puff stuff like that we need to run a healthy business.” Mr. Lee said he had to cut the hours of employees, including those of Irene and Phil, the lounge’s singer-and-keyboardist duo. Mr. Lee, like many other business owners interviewed, said the reservation line started ringing with more frequency as soon as rumors started to spread that writers were getting close to a deal. “Bam! Right back to normal,” he said.

Despite the outsize shadow it casts on Los Angeles, the entertainment industry employs only about 250,000 in the area, out of about 4.17 million total jobs, not counting farming. So the city hardly ground to a halt, despite the dire predictions of some studio executives and news media outlets. Many visitors to Los Angeles, along with a large swath of the local population, were untouched, Mr. Kyser said.

Some establishments might actually see a reverse effect now that the strike has been resolved. At Raffles L’Ermitage, a luxury hotel that operates a popular industry watering hole called the Writers Bar, revenue climbed 20 percent during the strike, according to Jack Naderkhani, the general manager.

“Many in the industry considered the bar to be neutral territory,” he said. Or, as a hotel spokeswoman wondered in an e-mail message, “maybe there’s some comfort in hanging out in a place with your name on it” when you are out of work.

Brian Stelter contributed reporting from New York.

[Sylph]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/arts/tel...agewanted=print



February 13, 2008

No Pause Button: TV Studios and Writers Play Catch-Up After Strike

By BILL CARTER


With writers expected to return to their posts on the television-production assembly line first thing on Wednesday morning, the enormous machinery that generates episodes of series will get a huge restart, and it is expected to go full tilt for months.

The first show back on the air since the strike by the Writers Guild of America was expected to end on Tuesday, after three months, will probably be the NBC series “Saturday Night Live,” which returns on Feb. 23. (Tina Fey will be the host that night; Ellen Page of the film “Juno” is committed for March 1.) That NBC late-night production missed nine shows during the strike and will try to replace a number of those between now and May.

“SNL” plans to produce shows for four straight weeks. That is highly unusual for the series, which rarely runs for more than three weeks without a break. But Ben Silverman, the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, said: “It’s a political year, so we want to jam it with ‘SNL.’ We hope to have as many as six or eight more this season.”

Production schedules will dictate how soon new episodes of prime-time network series will be seen. None are likely until mid-March, and only a few, like the popular CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” will be back that soon. Mid-April is the target date for most shows. NBC’s hit comedy “The Office,” for example, will not return with new episodes until April 10.

That means “Men” will be able to produce more episodes in the remainder of this season than “The Office.” The reason: “Men” is a three-camera show shot on tape, which is much faster to complete than a single-camera film show like “The Office.”

The creators of several hit television series said in interviews on Tuesday that they intended to push as hard as possible to give networks as many episodes as they could to make up for lost time — and money. One incentive, several producers said, was to generate maximum work in a short amount of time to help compensate for the financial losses suffered by the nonwriting members of their staffs.

“Our first priority is to put on a good show,” said Chuck Lorre, creator of “Two and a Half Men” as well as of “The Big Bang Theory,” a new comedy that was emerging as a potential hit before the strike. “The next thing is to put people back to work as much as possible.”

Mr. Lorre said he intended to “work seven days a week, night and weekends” through the end of May and hoped to send CBS nine episodes of both of his comedies.

Greg Daniels, executive producer of “The Office,” said, “We’re going to do another six,” though he added, “We might be able to squeeze in seven if NBC asks for them.”

“The Office” had a script ready to shoot the week the strike began, and that will be the first one the show produces. A second script was going to be the Christmas show. “We’re going to throw that one out,” Mr. Daniels said. He added that the writing team would discuss this week how to advance the show’s story lines.

“I’m tempted to just leap ahead to where we would have been,” Mr. Daniels said.

For some series the immediate question will be whether they have any future beyond this season. Several series got hints this week when the networks handed out hurry-up orders for new episodes. For shows not on that list, questions about survival will remain unanswered until May, when the networks announce fall lineups. Among those on the questionable list were “Cane” and “Shark” on CBS, “Big Shots” and “Boston Legal” on ABC, and “Bionic Woman” and “Journeyman” on NBC.

But NBC will have to make much quicker decisions on two of its long-running series, “Scrubs” and “ER,” because writers for both shows would plan finales if they knew the series would be ending. That had been expected at the start of the season, but yesterday Mr. Silverman said NBC had been reconsidering its plans for both shows.

He said that the network planned to continue “ER” for another season if a financial deal could be struck with the show’s studio, Warner Brothers. The situation is more complicated with “Scrubs,” which is owned by the Disney television studio, sister company of the NBC competitor ABC. Mr. Silverman said NBC would decide soon if it would order three to five episodes to wrap up the series, which had been the desire of the show’s creator, Bill Lawrence.

Mr. Silverman said that NBC hoped to have five additional episodes of the comedy “30 Rock,” depending on the availability of the star Alec Baldwin, who is scheduled to start work on a movie.

Entertainment shows on cable were also affected by the strike, and the raft of shows that made so much impact last summer will return a bit later than planned. TNT’s successful dramas “The Closer” and “Saving Grace” are three weeks behind schedule and will have their premieres later in June.

HBO has slid back the schedules of two returning series that had been considered for summer runs: “Entourage” and “Big Love.” “Entourage” will appear in the fall, and “Big Love” probably later in the year.

“Army Wives,” a Lifetime hit last summer, was originally set to return in April, with a second mini-season in June. Now, said Susanne Daniels, president of entertainment at Lifetime, the show will have a run in June, and then a second season beginning in December. “We had planned on a cliffhanger for the spring episodes and we can’t really do that now,” Ms. Daniels said. “But we think we can do a holiday theme for the other season now.”

The changes may force some altered plotlines on “Army Wives,” Ms. Daniels said, a circumstance that may affect numerous serialized dramas all over television.

On Fox’s “House,” for example, the planned story arc for the second half of the season “is pretty much being thrown out,” David Shore, the show’s executive producer, said. “We have to see how much we can salvage.”

The series, among the most popular on television, is not likely to broadcast new episodes until late April or early May, Mr. Shore said.

But “House,” like several other hits, may stay in catch-up mode through the early summer. “I think we’re just going to keep on producing episodes now that we’re back in production,” he said. “We’ll start working on next season.”

[Khan]

ETA: I hope Snark (of "Snark Weighs In") doesn't mind my passing along these items. (I first saw them linked on his blog.) If you do, Snark, I apologize!

From the “As God is my witness, I will never have my hair done at Supercuts again!” Department, an article from OLTL Writer Elizabeth Page:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/t..._again_a-2.html

And here, also for your perusal, are selected excerpts from SOD’s Elaine G. Flores’ response:

http://www.soapoperadigest.com/opinions/021408/

“It's not that many women are no longer at home during the day. It's not that people stopped watching because O.J.'s trial interrupted programming for so long. It's not cable giving so many options. You know what it is? A genre that is meant to appeal to America's heartland is totally out of touch with reality.

“At a time when the nation is facing an absolutely terrifying recession, it seems like we are all in danger of getting pink-slipped, families struggle to put food on the table, maybe — just maybe — scribes who write about family drama in a town like Llanview, which has a history of featuring working-class folks, need to get to know some "real" people.”

[Khan]

Well ... I get the high heels part. But, the rest of that stuff? Seriously, does that sound like anyone currently on soaps?

You know ...

My father is a telephone man, and my mother, until she retired, worked as a "cafeteria lady" at my elementary school alma mater. Our family did...okay. We weren't in the poorhouse, but we were never in the penthouse, either.

Yet, despite their salaries, and the fact that they had (and still have) a (second) mortgage to pay, along with water, gas (natural, and car), telephone, electricity and heat, car payment, car and house insurance, medical expenses - not to mention, credit card debt and everything else that comes with raising two boys in the suburbs - despite all that, they still manage to put away a little something every now and then for rainy days; and we managed to have a wonderful (and blessed) Christmas every year, too.

Not making any points, mind you. Just an observation.

God forbid, you actually had to spend quality time together as a family in your own house!

Fantastic Sam's. $9.99. That's all I'm saying.

From her mother's curtains, no doubt.

(Seriously, what was wrong with telling her to wear something she already had in her closet?)

You mean, exercise? Oy!

Better tell that to Marina Alburger and Lynsey DuFour before they put in applications at Nordstroms.

'Tis a pity Ms. Scarlett Page didn't go Fi-Core. She could've spared herself all this agony.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Maybe she'll be designing Erika Slezak's dress to this year's Daytime Emmys then...

[Sylph]

Remember people that I told you that Lizzie is ATWT's worst scriptwriter. I really disliked her dialogue.

She's now at OLTL, isn't she?

[Sylph]

And, BTW, her article shows she's good at writing bad (or/and inexistent) drama!

[Khan]

^ Either that, or she has a really screwed-up sense of irony.

[kzinlove06]

Kind of off-topic but I have a question about the fallout from the writers strike.

I know that the WGA decided to recind nominations for those writers that went fi-core, but will this effect the Daytime Emmys? Will shows not want to nominate episodes/storylines that involved fi-core writers? Will actors who submit performances written by fi-core writers be wasting their time?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It doesn't affect the Emmy's, since the Emmy's aren't a WGA award show. NATAS (who is responsible for the Emmy's) can receive criticism from the WGA and its supporters for nominating Fi-Core writers, but it's really meaningless.

[brimike]

True, it doesn't technically affect the Emmys. But since other writers vote for who gets nominated in the writing category, I can't help but think it will be a factor. It shouldn't be - it should be based on merit. But feelings are hurt, and emotions are bound to get in the way.