John August

Search Results for: residuals

Writers need actors

Film Industry, Strike, Television

A few readers have asked whether I’ll weigh in on the SAG situation. I won’t, except to relate an interesting conversation I had with a TV showrunner a month or two ago.

He said his casting people were having a hard time finding actors of a certain age, especially minorities, for episodic parts. These are the “day players” — roles in which an actor might have a scene or two in a given episode, never to return. Shows like Law & Order or C.S.I. require a bunch of these: witnesses, specialists, etc. The nanny who discovers her employer impaled on an icicle — that’s a day player.

Day players aren’t extras. There is actual acting required. Casting directors will bring in a few candidates to read for the part, and the producers/director will pick. A good day player can really elevate a scene. A bad day player is a disaster. ((One anecdote: We shot my first show mostly at stages in Toronto. We quickly learned to check any dialogue to be spoken by a Canadian day player to avoid the ooo problem, and beyond that, we found most of our day players to be terrific. Except for one. She had two lines of dialogue with Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and no force on heaven or Earth could get her to say them properly. It turned out she was drunk. Because she was nervous. Because she had a crush on Mark-Paul Gosselaar. The truth was charming, but she was recast on the spot.))

In Los Angeles or New York, if you’re trying to cast a day player in their 20s (say, a car wash attendant), it’s easy. You’ve got thousands of people to choose from. Even if you need a specific characteristic — say, Russian-speaking — you’re going to have great candidates.

But what if you need an intimidating Chinese woman in her 60’s? Or a really, really old man you can believe is from Nigeria?

Well, you hope they’re out there. And increasingly, they’re not. (At least, according to this showrunner, and two others who concurred.)

So what’s going on?

At the risk of getting [Freakonomics](http://freakonomics.com), it appears there’s a point at which it’s not economically viable to remain a day player.

Consider the career arc of an actor. In one’s 20s, almost anyone can afford to be an actor, by waiting tables or doing other piecemeal work in order to buy ramen and pay for headshots. At some point in one’s 30s, that lifestyle becomes less possible. Actors get married, have kids, or have other responsibilities that require a more steady paycheck. Which means getting a traditional job. At a certain point, you find many actors have become plumbers or teachers or dog trainers just to keep their kids in school and family in health insurance. ((Obviously, you could substitute “screenwriter” for actor in this thought experiment. But it’s not a perfect analogy. For instance, an actor can’t work on spec.))

Luckily, there are some actors who are able to remain actors because they book just enough jobs each year. They’re not making much — probably scale — but it’s enough to keep them working in their craft. These actors have a sense of how many days of work they need to book in order to stay solvent.

So consider our Chinese woman in her 60’s. If she works a certain number of days each year, it makes sense to continue acting and living in Los Angeles. If not, she might as well move to Tucson, where it’s cheaper and closer to her grandkids.

The showrunner told me that the studios are increasingly insisting that producers shoot out day player roles in fewer days, in order to save money. Episode-by-episode, this makes sense; why spend more than you have to? But in pinching pennies, the system may be squeezing out the actors it needs. And you really notice it in groups in which you didn’t have a lot of actors to choose from in the first place, such as minorities. If you write a role for a woman in her 60’s, and race doesn’t matter, you can cast anyone, including the Chinese woman. But if you write a role for a bossy Chinese grandmother, you really need that actress in town and available.

If you look at any one actor getting economically forced out of the craft, oh well. Sad story, but Hollywood’s full of ’em. But when you apply that loss across a swath of your talent pool, suddenly it’s impossible to find that African man in his 80’s you need for your episode. So you’re stuck rewriting it for a white guy, or a younger guy. The product suffers, and TV gets a little more white and boring.

I bring up this anecdote because it’s the kind of issue you really wish the industry was addressing in their ongoing negotiations with the actors’ unions, but they’re not. Instead, we get a three-way shoving match.

Anticipating the first dozen comments on this thread:

* Please don’t send your Chinese grandmother’s headshot. I’m sure she’s a terrific actress, but the example above was purely illustrative.
* I’m not claiming this situation is causing a lack of diversity in television, but it makes it harder to combat. As writers, we can create rich, multi-ethnic worlds. But if we can’t find actors for those roles, it’s all for naught.
* Obviously, the same economic pressures apply to plain old white actors as well. But there are more of them to begin with, so you don’t notice their absence as quickly or as acutely.
* You don’t notice the problem as much in features because there’s so much more time to do casting, and (generally) more money.
* I don’t have a solution to the situation, but it’s almost certainly not DVD residuals. Bumping up scale minimums will help, but only to a degree.
* We can’t conflate raw numbers with talent. When a showrunner and her casting directors are pulling out their hair because they can’t find a Pacific Islander for a part, it’s not because there are no actors in that category. There may simply be none with the chops to pull it off. Doubt me if you want, but 95% of Americans could not convincingly say four lines of dialogue on Law & Order. It’s tougher than it looks.

Looking at the credit proposals

Film Industry

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) determines who is the credited writer on a feature film. This is a Good Thing. It prevents studios, producers and directors from grabbing undeserved credit. But it makes for a lot of work and controversy within the Guild, because inevitably some writers will not receive credit they believe they deserve. It’s not just a matter of pride and bragging rights. Credits also determine who receives residuals.

For readers unfamiliar with how screen credits work, here’s the briefest introduction.

Let’s say you write a movie, and it gets made. If you were the only writer who worked on it, you get “Written by” credit, both on screen and in advertising.

If another writer was hired to work on the movie, then the two of you attempt to figure out who gets credit, possibly dividing up “Story by” and “Screenplay by” credit. For instance, you might take “Story by” while sharing the “Screenplay by” credit. ((When you see two writers names separated by “and” in the credits, that means they worked independently, as opposed to an ampersand (&), which denotes a writing team like Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel.))

What happens if you and the other writer can’t figure out a fair deal? Arbitration.

The Guild recruits three members (writers) to read all of the relevant drafts and determine who should get credit. Both the arbiters and the participating writers remain anonymous — the drafts are labelled “Writer A,” “Writer B,” etc.

It’s an exhausting and imperfect process, and the source of never-ending conversation among any gathering of more than three working screenwriters.

This week, the joint credits review committee of the WGAw and WGAE sent out [three proposals for amending the credits process](http://wga.org/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=2859). They’re very modest, and don’t try to tackle any of the bigger and more controversial topics ((Foremost of these is the Catering Analogy. Currently, the guy who drives the catering truck has his name listed in the end credits of a movie, but a writer who spent months toiling on it gets no mention at all, even though her impact on the final product is much greater.))

But they’re worth close examination.

1. Arbiter Teleconference In the Case of Non-Unanimous Decisions
The current manual states that each arbiter shall reach his/her decision independently of the other arbiters and that there shall be no conference among the members of the Arbitration Committee. The proposed change would allow for a Guild-hosted teleconference among the arbiters and the Arbitration Consultant in the event the Arbitration Committee is unable to reach a unanimous decision as to the appropriate writing credit. The identities of the arbiters would remain confidential during the teleconference. If a unanimous decision is not reached during the teleconference, the majority decision will be final.

Easy yes. I’ve served on several arbitrations that have resulted in split decisions, and would have greatly appreciated the ability to talk with the other two arbiters about how they reached their decisions and why. Did they notice something I didn’t? Is there something I could point out to them? Generally, these decisions come down to pretty small issues that merit discussion.

Currently, when arbiters are coming up with different credits, it falls on a WGA staffer to talk to each arbiter individually and see there is common ground to be reached. Not only is it inefficient, but it introduces an outside element to the decision.

A telephone conference call maintains the anonymity and autonomy of the process, and should result in better, quicker and more thoughtful decisions.

2. Eliminate Relaxed (“Any Substantial Contribution”) Standard
The current manual states that where a production executive or production executive team makes the requisite contribution to receive screenplay credit, the Arbitration Committee may — but is not obligated to — accord any other writer screenplay credit for “any substantial contribution,” without that writer meeting any specific percentage requirement. The proposed change would eliminate the relaxed standard and provide that the normal percentages apply, even where one of the participating writers is a production executive or a production executive team.

Yeah, my eyes glazed over too. It’s difficult to parse. So let’s break it down.

“Production executive” in this case means a producer or director, rather than a studio suit. So the proposal is talking about situations in which one of the participating writers on the project is also the producer or director. For sake of example, let’s call her WRITER B. ((For WGA credits, a writing team is treated as a single writer, so the same would apply if it were two writers working together. But note also proposal #3.))

As the rules stand now, if Writer B gets credit, the arbitration panel may also award credit to any other writer who provides “any substantial contribution,” disregarding the normal percentage requirements.

This is weird.

You’re throwing out all the rules and asking the arbiters to possibly consider awarding credit based on an oxymoron (“any substantial”), without offering guidance as to why the special case exists.

My hunch is that the “any substantial contribution” clause was enacted to thwart a situation in which a writer-director (or writer-producer) rewrites someone else’s script so completely that the original writer would find it impossible to get credit based on real percentages.

Having been on both sides of arbitrations, I can tell you that it’s extremely unlikely for the original writer of a spec script to come out uncredited. But the real question is why this special case only kicks in when one of the writers is also a producer or director — a situation that already requires a higher threshold to receive credit — and why it doesn’t just apply to the original writer, but ANY writer who works on the movie.

It’s a weird, bad, dangerous precedent, and it should be changed. So I vote yes on the proposal.

3. Eliminate 60% Rule for Production Executive Teams
The current manual states that where a subsequent writer is a production executive team (i.e., one or more members of the team is a production executive), the team must contribute “substantially more than 60%” to receive screenplay credit. This rule applies even if one of the team members is not a production executive. The proposed change would reduce the threshold for a production executive team to receive screenplay credit from “substantially more than 60%” to “more than 50%.” The change would bring subsequent production executive teams into line with subsequent production executives who write alone, who are currently subject to a “more than 50%” requirement.

Again, not the easiest paragraph to read, but easy to agree with once you understand it. Let’s take it from the bottom to the top.

Currently, for a Production Executive (really, a writer-director or writer-producer) to receive credit, she must have contributed more than 50%. That’s higher than the threshold for non-production executives, which stands at 33%.

Currently, if a Production Executive is writing as a member of a team (for example, Todd McClever & Sarah Goodwit, of which Goodwit is the director), they need to show that they’ve contributed “substantially more than 60%.”

This doesn’t make sense.

Why should McClever’s presence change anything?

The proposal has it right: if we’re going to set a higher threshold for hyphenates, it needs to be consistent.

The upshot
—-

All three get a “yes” from me.

But make no mistake: they’re very modest improvements. Over the next few years, the real discussion needs to be how to accurately and fairly recognize who wrote on a movie. The current credits system reflects failed attempts at social engineering, penalizing hyphenates and encouraging writers to make Hail-Mary attempts at credit through arbitration, since it’s the only way they’ll see their name on something.

For now, though, the committee deserves a thank you for presenting three proposals for patching glaring holes in the current setup.

The meeting

Strike

Last night’s meeting at the Shrine was packed. It started late, because of parking challenges. Most of my picket line crew was out sick. And as I took a seat next to a fellow USC’er, I had a brief moment of panic: I spotted a woman with an LED pin which kept scrolling, “IT’S NOT OVER YET!!!”

While the woman’s pin was technically correct — the vote to end the strike will be counted Tuesday night — I hope she reprogrammed the message during the 2.5 hour meeting. “WE WON!!!” might be a choice. “WE ACHIEVED MEANINGFUL PROGRESS IN KEY AREAS RELATED TO NEW MEDIA” would be more honest. But that probably wouldn’t scroll as well.

The focus of the meeting was to read through and explain the four-page deal summary. To their credit, the guys on stage did a good job explaining the victories and the concessions, and the logic in ending up where we did. They called it the best contract in 30 years, while pointing out its obvious gaps. Was it kind of dull? Yeah. But I was happy to be bored.

One of the most important areas the new contract defends is separated rights, which I suspect will not be well explained in mainstream news reports about the deal. So here’s my very brief recap.

Remember a couple of months ago, when I explained [Why writers get residuals](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/why-writers-get-residuals)? In it, I described the weird legal judo writers and studios do to assign copyright and authorship to the corporation rather than the creator. Well, there are certain rights that the writer has traditionally been able to keep in this arrangement. For example, turning a TV series into a feature film. Or using a character created in one show (Frasier Crane, in Cheers) as the basis of a new show (Frasier).

The new contract needed to establish that even if work is created for the internet (rather than TV or features), the same principles of separated rights apply. If a webisode becomes the basis of a new TV show, that’s separated rights. It’s a unique, writer-only issue that doesn’t have a parallel in the DGA or SAG deals. There are loopholes and potential issues, but the framework is now in place.

I went to the meeting dreading the open mic format, but the first few questions from the floor proved to be explanatory rather than inflammatory. For example, in contract terms, “dramatic programs” isn’t a genre, but rather a means of distinguishing scripted programs from other formats. (Thus, a sitcom is a dramatic program.)

There are some writers who don’t like the deal, and intend to vote against it. But the vast majority of people in the room, and online, have already reprogrammed their internal LED displays in preparation for the post-strike period.

The deal

Strike

Early this morning, the WGA published the terms of the tentative deal reached with the AMPTP, in anticipation of the membership meetings happening later today in New York and Los Angeles. By breakfast, there was already considerable discussion online, with writers and interested parties dissecting the merits and deficiencies in the deal and how it was reached. Several colleagues emailed me to ask my opinion.

So here it is.

There is only one question to be answered: **Is the deal good enough to accept?**

YES   NO

Pick one. Everything else is irrelevant, and emotion should play no part in the decision. Unlike screenwriting, in which the journey is the story, a deal is strictly about where you ended up. The path is irrelevant. The past is irrelevant — and the future has to be reasonably discounted for its vast uncertainty.

So is this deal, today, good enough to accept?

Yes.

It’s a yes for me. And I suspect it’s a yes for most writers. Some would shout yes emphatically, with a victory dance around a giant picket bonfire. Others would mutter yes with a forlorn shrug of their shoulders, deeply dissatisfied yet not able to rationalize a no vote. I’m somewhere in-between. I don’t think it’s great — hell, it’s not even “good” — but it’s honestly better than I thought we’d get.

Let’s take a few minutes to list a few of the most natural (if sometimes unspoken) objections to the proposed deal in anticipation of the meeting tonight.

**But the DGA got a deal that was almost as good, and they didn’t have to strike!**

Irrelevant. They had leverage because we were out on strike, and used it to get a better deal than they would have otherwise. There’s an emotional component here as well: it doesn’t feel fair they get as much as we do. But as a thought experiment, take the DGA away and pretend that we’d reached the same deal without them. Would it change your perception? Remember: the deal is where you ended up, not how you got there.

**But the AMPTP have been such dicks!**

Emotional and irrelevant. (I agree, by the way. They have been dicks.)

**But what about SAG? They could still strike!**

Irrelevant. They’ve been very supportive, but ultimately have their own decisions to make. I’ll happily carry a picket sign for them. But I’ll be even happier to send a nice note if they reach a deal without going on strike.

**But they’re holding a gun to our head!**

While I haven’t seen official confirmation, the tentative deal is apparently contingent on suspending the strike. That’s dickish, but it’s ultimately irrelevant. If we accept the deal, the strike is over. If not, the strike goes on.

**But we need more time to decide!**

Take all the time you want. The elected WGA board has the power to suspend the strike at any time. They’re seeking member opinions because it’s the right thing to do.

**But we didn’t go on strike for just these small gains!**

We went on strike to prevent major rollbacks, which we did. Do you remember “profit-based residuals?” Sure, it was probably just an inflammatory, ill-conceived ruse on the AMPTP’s part. But it’s easy to forget just how heinous the original terms were.

**But these will be the terms of the contract for the next 20 years!**

I will fully cop to helping perpetuate the notion that strike gains and losses last 20 years. They don’t. The contract runs three years. If the terms are unacceptable in 2011, we do whatever it takes to improve them.

**But we didn’t get an increase on the DVD formula! What if SAG gets a bump?**

DVDs were taken off the table before the strike began. You may disagree with that decision, but the fact is they were never the focus of the strike: new media was. If SAG gets more than we do for DVDs, then good job SAG. They’re buying the next round. Still doesn’t change the deal on the table.

**But we could strike longer! We could shut down the Oscars! We could tank the next TV season!**

Yes. There’s no limit to how long we could strike. Each week we’re out hurts the studios — and industry workers, including striking writers. At some point, the net damage exceeds the net gain. If you think that point is still months off, and believe the AMPTP would agree to a significantly better deal at that moment, vote no.

But I’d ask you to test your powers of prediction: did the strike go exactly the way you thought it would? Probably not. So why do you think the next few months would go according to plan?

**But the guild is strong!**

Yes. And there’s considerable value to ending strong.

I want to stress that in addition to what I have listed above, **there are valid reasons for rejecting the deal.** You may believe that the terms aren’t good enough, and that the consequences of rejecting this deal are absolutely worth it. If so, speak up at the meeting tonight. But defend your points through logic, not emotion. Explain what you’re willing to lose in order to win.

I’m turning off comments, but I’ll be back with an update tomorrow, after the WGA meeting.