John August

Television

PayUpHollywood progress, an update from ‘Christian’

Film Industry, First Person, Follow Up, Television

Three years ago — October 8, 2019 — a writer who went by “Christian” emailed about their experience as a writer’s PA, explaining how they were expected to do the jobs of multiple support staff on a tiny salary. We discussed their email on the show, including the issue of needing to have a car.

Last week at the premiere event for The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror XXXIII (delightful, btw), I met “Christian” in person. They filled me in on what had happened in the past three years.

Some legitimate progress had been made, which Christian felt could be traced to the #PayUpHollywood movement. Their pay had gone up from minimum wage — but not necessarily to a living wage — and conversations about pay were becoming more open. That’s the good news.

Frustratingly, studios were still balking at reimbursing staff for things like assistants’ use of their own cell phones. Showrunners weren’t willing to engage on getting assistant and support staff properly compensated for their hours. It felt like the same grind for a few dollars more.

Christian ended up quitting work as a writer’s PA to focus on their writing, which had gone neglected for two years due to stress and overwork. I asked what advice they’d give to a writer who was looking at taking a coveted showrunner’s assistant job.

Honestly, do it for one show, one season. Learn everything you possibly can. Make contacts. Then get a job as a receptionist at a law firm so you can have the time to write.

This week, Christian wrote in with some follow-up thoughts.

first personI wanted to thank you for not only graciously listening to me ramble last night, but asking me how things were going. As you could probably assume from what I said, it’s been a lot of ups and downs.

I won’t bug you further with the details behind my experiences, but just want to make it known that my toxic boss and the refusal to provide pay parity or stipends for what we were legally owed was happening on essentially both the studio’s and network’s biggest drama cash cow. So there really isn’t any excuse for nickel and dime-ing the assistants, other than the fact that they can.

But really, it doesn’t matter what the budget is, there’s no excuse for screwing the lowest paid workers out of fair wages when these corporations are making billions of dollars a year. The money is there. They just don’t care.

It doesn’t help that there’s a huge line of people willing to accept things as they are because they believe getting an assistant job is a ticket to staffing. (The person who took over my desk when I left was a previously staffed writer, who had left the industry for personal reasons, and was so hell-bent on getting a foot “back inside” that they accepted the demotion to Showrunner’s Assistant on a desk that doesn’t promote up and isn’t particularly kind. So there were really no consequences to my toxic former boss or the show for behaving so poorly.)

And I’m not sure that there’s an easy solution, because even though my boss was not supportive, I know countless assistants who do have supportive bosses, and even their bosses have gotten stonewalled when trying to help their assistants get paid what they’re owed. One example: a friend’s boss actually carved out the show budget so that there would be enough to pay each assistant $20/hr (this is back in 2019 I believe, well before union negotiations), and the studio refused to allow the Showrunner to pay the assistants that because it would “start a precedent.”

Even today, I have a friend who got promoted to manager at her POD, but is still getting paid at the assistant rate AND having to cover her former boss’s desk because the studio won’t give the POD the budget for a managerial wage and a new assistant until the POD has “more projects in development.” Currently, this POD has the #1 show on its network, a spinoff in the works, and several other projects being pitched around town.

I feel as though ultimately the only solution seems to be to unionize every assistant position at every level, but that is a hefty, years-long goal filled with complications and extra financial barriers for those who are already struggling to make ends meet, or even just to break in.

And in the meantime, I think the only other thing to do is to make it really, REALLY clear that being an assistant isn’t a gateway to becoming a writer anymore. It’s purely a networking tool at this point, and you should use it to build up connections with supportive writers, then get out and find something that pays better with less hours so you can hone your craft (unless, of course, you are lucky enough to land a boss who actually will lift you up). And, just to note from my own job search over the past few months, almost everything pays better for less hours outside of the entertainment industry.

One more thing that I really think assistants need, and I wish that the WGA or even IATSE offered, was a course on financial literacy. I know this isn’t something that’s a problem specific to assistants, or even to this industry, but it’s something I think every assistant would really benefit from, and it would give them more capability to walk away from bad situations, rather than staying because they need the money.

I think the biggest takeaway I’ve gotten from becoming financially literate is that you don’t need a lot of money to learn how to better manage it. I was essentially broke when I started to understand my finances. In fact, I think it’s more important to understand money when you don’t have it. Especially if you’re also trying to pay off debt. That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot and also contemplating in the context of being an assistant.

Sorry for such a novel of an email. After our conversation, I felt there was a lot I had left out that was more useful than what I had actually said, so I hope that this has been of value for your time.

The Odd Joy of the Wizard/Paladin

Film Industry, First Person, Random Advice, Television

On Scriptnotes 541, Craig and I discussed which of the classic D&D attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma) were most important for an aspiring film and TV writer. We ranked intelligence first, while acknowledging that charisma was important for the social aspects of the job. We felt wisdom was gained through experience — which it is, in the real world.

Our discussion generated a lot of listener emails. Nick Roth’s response felt like it deserved its own post. So here it is in full.

Sometimes, as a writer earlier in your career, and especially in the context of tv writing (my background is as a lower level writer on a network sitcom), it feels like you can’t just be a wizard who has maximized intelligence with secondary emphases on charisma and wisdom.

It feels like you have to multi-class as a Wizard/Paladin.

It’s a stupid multiclass. You have to approach your work like you’re on a holy quest, and everyone expects you to be a melee tank, but all you really want is to cast spells from the shadows. You have to have intelligence and charisma, and you have to have both strength and constitution to survive in a writers’ room, where you need thicker skin than mage armor can provide. And you also need to get yourself into the right place at the right time, so you can’t even take dexterity for granted, because there are barbarians out there with advantage on initiative rolls who will beat you to opportunities.

You have literally no dump stat. And, in this campaign setting, there are famously OP Backgrounds you probably don’t have access to — like having famous parents or being literally Malia Obama.

The point is it can feel impossible to roll this character. But here’s the thing: the best characters and the best campaigns aren’t made by rolling great attributes and min-maxing your abilities. They are made by figuring out the most hilarious and surprising and heartwarming ways of interpreting your critical successes and your critical fails. Okay, so you’ve insanely chosen to be a wizard-paladin and you rolled three negative modifiers. Big whoop. You can still have the best time saving the multiverse with this zany School of Police Procedurals Wizard who has taken an Oath of Musical Comedy. Maybe you fight a dragon, or maybe you reboot Cop Rock!

I feel like I lost the thread there, but you get the idea. Just like we must imagine Sisyphus happy, we have to love all the parts of being a screenwriter, no matter how absurd a multi-class it requires, even when we roll a 1 and had -3 to the check to begin with.

Uncredited writing by a script coordinator

Assistants, Television

On Scriptnotes episode 432, a listener asked what could be done when a writers room assistant or script coordinator was doing actual writing but not getting writing credit. This morning, another listener wrote in with their own tales of uncredited work and how they pushed back.

As this listener makes clear, writing credit and low assistant pay are related issues. I believe there’s an ethical way to help assistants and script coordinators gain experience without having them do unpaid writing. This letter shows why it’s so important we address this issue.

I interviewed for a position as a script coordinator on a comedy. From the start, there were many red flags:

  • The current script coordinator was leaving before production,
  • There were severe miscommunication issues, and
  • People were already telling me about their own mistreatment

But I was coming off a five-month hiatus and needed a job. So I took it.

Before I started, I was told that most of the episodes were already written. When I got there, only three episodes were done, all of which would end up being heavily re-written and there were only five writers to break and write the rest of the season.

I was encouraged to pitch, as was the writers’ assistant. I was happy for the opportunity, but as we began shooting, I stepped up even more. Our showrunner was busy, so I’d get sent to rehearsals with directors and would be trusted to implement the rehearsal rewrites with little to no supervision. When it was clear that I was capable of writing in the voice of the show, I found myself re-writing chunks of episodes and full scenes in different corners of the stage, or at 1am, as well as implementing new scenes throughout multiple scripts.

Not all of the episodes had been assigned, so I thought that my hard work would be noticed. It was not.

Eventually, I realized I’d have to ask for a credit. But before I could, we found out that the showrunner had given an episode to a writer that was not on the show, had never been on the show and was not in the room when we broke the episode. And, in the end, the episode had to be completely rewritten.

By this point, I was exhausted. I was doing the work of a script coordinator, a staff writer, and navigating the manipulative and abusive work environment that was designed to keep people in lesser positions of power from speaking out because of fear of retaliation.

When the job ended, a weight was lifted. I came home and got a new job. The showrunner asked me to go onto the next show with them as a script coordinator, but I declined.

When the WGA reached out to confirm what other writers had told them about the showrunner’s behavior and the writing credits, I gave them the information they were looking for but declined to take anything further. I regret this now. I should have asked for credit; I should have spoken up for myself afterward and I should have never let it get as bad as it did.

But this industry is a dumpster fire that feeds off the lowest on the totem pole and tricks you into thinking that you deserve nothing. It’s a lie. I deserved to get credit for my contributions.

The show I’m currently on is a better environment, yet the same thing almost happened. The only difference this time was that I was annoyingly persistent and several writers had my back. It took weeks of convincing the showrunner to give me credit for an episode that I pitched to a room full of writers who all agreed that it was mine.

What it really comes down to is if you, as a showrunner, don’t want to give someone credit for their work, don’t let them contribute and certainly don’t take their ideas.

Yes, we’re apprentices, but apprentices work with the intention of moving up. It’s so hard to go from script coordinator or writers’ assistant to writer because the system feeds off free labor.

A showrunner once said to me that an assistant’s need for credit is purely driven by their want of compensation. Yes, money is important. But we’re trying to be writers. To be staffed. To turn this into a career.

That’s not going to happen if our work is never credited and we’re never seen as anything more than free labor. And, clearly, if we’re good enough to have you use our jokes and our ideas, we’re good enough to be staff writers. The problem is that we’re cheaper and taught to keep our mouths shut for fear of losing our job.

Fuck that. Ask for the credit. And don’t delete your emails.

Writers PA left to pick up the tab

Assistants, Television

Our mailbox keeps overflowing with new tales of assistant-dom. Producer Megana Rao reads every one and sorts them for future episodes. She also forwards a handful to me. This one, from a writers room production assistant (WPA), felt like one that should be read in its entirety, so I got the author’s permission to publish it here.

I was in my early 30’s when I finally landed a Writers PA gig on a comedy. We had a toddler so just to take the job, I had to work weekends waiting tables to pay for the childcare during the week. (Which is another issue entirely.)

The WPA job destroyed my soul. I was invisible to the writers except when they needed something or when I wasn’t at their immediate disposal for an errand. They would leave the room at the end of the day with their plates and cups and half-eaten meals on the table for me to clean up after them. One writer even told me when I asked if she would please throw out her food that “it was my job to clean things.”

I took it in all in stride. Lunch was brutal. (ed: Most TV writers rooms order in lunch. It’s a big part of a WPA’s job.) They were incredulous about the studio-imposed dollar limit, and at me for trying to enforce it. If they went over, some paid, others refused. It’s only a few bucks — who would notice – be creative with the numbers they’d say. They would become so enraged when I’d let them know they went over that I simply stopped asking to be paid back.

A few writers sent me on special snack runs and told me to charge it through. When accounting told me I had to get reimbursed by the writers, these writers would instruct me to tell accounting where they could shove it. Accounting would get angry and respond in kind. This would go back and forth and the whole time, the lunch overages and snack-run tab grew and grew. Eventually [the show] got cancelled and everybody split. Accounting told me I would be blacklisted if I didn’t pay the tab. So… I paid. It was almost $500. And I never told anyone.

If you’re wondering why I paid or why I I didn’t stand up for myself, then you don’t understand what it’s like to be a writer trying to break in. How working writers see you — writers who might be in a position to hire you one day — is critical. And I know this because one time I did stand up for myself and it came back to bite me.

Towards the end of our run, one writer who would often tell me how he had “paid his dues the hard way and that’s just how it is when you’re an assistant,” told me to go on a bakery run and charge it through. I told him that accounting had reprimanded me that morning for the millionth time regarding yet another sketchy charge for the writing staff and I simply couldn’t do it.

This was a mid-level writer who I could tell was on his way up…but I’d had enough and said no. I was respectful. Later that day after an all-writing-staff meeting, the higher ups left and this writer turned to me and very publicly kicked me out of the room making it clear I was no longer welcome when it wasn’t food-related.

When you’re support staff and you speak up, regardless of the reason or how polite you are, there are consequences.

I could have told the showrunner about this. I could have told him about the $500 tab. He would have paid. He would have brought me back in the room to be a fly in the wall —- but he was a kind and sweet person who was in over his head running his first show and I wanted to get staffed one day.

I’m no longer a PA or an assistant and I’d never do it again. I believe that forgiveness, of others and yourself, along with letting things go. It’s an essential part of being a healthy person. But for some reason, these experiences still upset me to this day.

I deeply appreciate you shining a light in this issue. It means a lot to all of us.