2008: The Directors and Writers Thread

[brimike]

Breakdown writer.

[Khan]

Somewhere in Heaven (hopefully), JER is laughing at those words.

Please, tell me Patrick Mulcahey was not responsible for that horrendous dialogue. It'll just break my heart (sorry, Mr. Reilly!) if he was.

ETA

Am I the only one who doesn't read Steffy's dialogue and think of the theme song from "An American Tail"? And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby/It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky...

[brimike]

That's AWESOME - how great would it have been if Steffy just broke out into song on the ledge?!

:lol:

And yeah - the Reilly contract - those don't exist anymore. Some networks are smarter than others. LOL!

[Khan]

Are you kidding?

You're kidding, right?

:-)

[Khan]

Actually, it would've been fine (for Steffy to break into song)...that is, until Constantine showed up.

[Sindacco]

Thanks, so ADW is the official title for Breakdown writer?

[brimike]

It's usually the title that comes with breakdown writers with more seniority and more money (and in some cases, a LITTLE more say in story, but not like a head writer or co-head writer).

New breakdown writers in the industry don't always get that title, but ones who have been around awhile and make higher salaries do.

[MarkH]

Errr....isn't the late James Reilly's "cycle" STILL unexpired?

[Toups]

Thankfully he wasn't. It would've been so awful to see someone so great fall that much.

Tracey Ann Kelly was listed as the script writer.

[brimike]

Yeah, there's that Reilly contract. I'm not forgetting about it. It's just that that insanity was so over the top, and so NOT the norm, and something the whole industry looks at and MOCKS Corday for (not to mention the last laugh JER took to the grave), that I just don't count it. Sheer stupidity and bad business. Trust me - nobody at ABC is getting handed those contracts by Brian Frons. I absolutely guarantee it. Say what you will about Frons, but he runs a much tighter financial ship than Corday. And he doesn't let ANY writer or actor have the upper hand. (Except maybe Guza... but even Guza must have "only" 52 week cycles.) I just know there is no way a SCRIPT writer has that kind of job security. Not in this day and age.

[Jonathan]

I agree, except that I'm sure the ROI on Rebecca Budig is negative.

[DaytimeFan]

You're absolutely right. Then again, Corday and Frons are in totally different executive positions. Frons HAS to be tough and he HAS to be good at his job, he's accountable to a board of directors and stockholders who will fire his ass if he doesn't deliver (and I, as a shareholder of Disney, have sent several letters to Bob Iger requesting just that!)...Corday, on the other hand, inherited this show and owns it, with Sony, outright. He answers to no one and does as he pleases so of course it's mismanaged to hell.

The Bells handle their talent, both on camera and behind the scenes, quite differently. Guarantees are handled differently for some actors (like Kate Linder) and writer cycles are also different (especially at B&...Janice Ferri Esser's contract stipulates that she can write for either B&B or Y&R or both, I don't know who wrote that jazzy little contract for her but it came in handy when she jumped ship from Y&R during the peak of LML's reign of terror.

[brimike]

True enough, DaytimeFan - the Bell shows and Days have always kinda run by their own set of rules. And Frons and Corday are in very different roles - I totally over-simplified in my last post by comparing them. My bad!

[baller]

Did Darren Little get a title change to co-head writer?

I was looking at some AMC Holiday party press photos, and in the caption of the photo he's in, he's listed as AMC Co-Head Writer.

[brimike]

WOAH!

Say it ain't so, Toups!

*keeps fingers crossed*