Thursday, November 29, 2007

Go Read It!

In an interview from 1970, Groucho Marx discusses various topics with Roger Ebert, including the movie, Skidoo.

• Posted at 8:39 PM · LINK

Strike Stuff

From within the WGA/AMPTP negotiations, I am hearing...absolutely nothing. As tempting as it might be to try to spin that as a good sign, it could just as easily be a bad sign. Or a sign that even the folks inside aren't sure where things are heading. I just know that the negotiators have a lot of uncommon ground to get across and that bargaining with the AMPTP, because it represents such a bureaucracy of different (and sometimes, warring) corporations can be agonizingly slow. So let's leave it at that.

I haven't answered e-mails here in quite a while so let's run through a couple, starting with this one from Nevin Liber...

With the strike going on, I was thinking of getting some TV show DVDs of stuff I've missed over the last few years. Should I put that off, and wait until you guys get a better deal?

I can't speak for writers who have a lot more of their work coming out that way than I do, but I would think it wouldn't make much difference. First off, any DVD increase we receive is going to be tiny. Secondly, it will probably not apply to DVD sets issued before the new contract. Lastly, I doubt any movement in that direction would make enough of a difference in sales to be noticed. If it did — if it actually caused sales to dip — the Producers would probably seize on that to argue that the market was crashing and that they had to slash our compensation, not increase it. So while the thought is appreciated, I don't think it matters.

J. Hoekstran writes to ask...

Someday, they'll settle this strike. What will it mean to the resumption of new programming? How soon would scripts be finished? How soon would they be on the air?

Simple answer: It will vary. There are shows that stopped production with scripts in the pipeline that just need a little tweaking before they can be filmed or taped. There are others that will have to start from scratch. There are many that even when they have scripts will need much time to restart the production process. A sitcom can usually go from a finished script to the first day of its rehearsal in well under a week. A CSI-type show needs to scout locations, cast additional actors, etc. In some cases, they may have laid off personnel and need to lay them back on. Some shows may try to get a running start on airing new episodes, getting several banked and then doing a big re-premiere.

I would imagine that Leno, Letterman, The Daily Show and programs like that could resume taping rather swiftly. In fact, one indicator that the strike may be about to break would be if those shows' networks start making a serious effort to line up their guests. Another might be if NBC shifted to more recent reruns of The Tonight Show. In case you haven't noticed, they're running old Jay Leno shows from when Branford Marsalis was his bandleader, Helen Kushnick was the producer and Jay's hair was mostly one color. It's an interesting reminder of how clunky that show was shortly after he took it over but it's almost like fragging your own troops. The ratings aren't grand. Makes you think someone at the network was thinking, "Hey, maybe we can embarrass Leno into coming back and doing new shows."

The upcoming Christmas holidays present some problems, of course. If they settle the strike today, writers will be writing tomorrow. If they settle it December 24, it may be a while before those keyboards are working to capacity. Traditionally, there's not a lot of Show Business in this town between around 12/21 and the first Monday after New Year's. Some producers love to give a writer an assignment just before Xmas...then the producer goes off on a holiday and expects to see a first draft upon his or her return. So like I said, it will vary.

Lastly for now, Scoutmaster Bob (that's how he signed his e-mail) wants to know...

Are people really emotional about this strike? Or is it just business?

I'd say both things are happening, Scoutmaster, and it's sometimes hard to tell which ballpark you're playing in. People can get emotional about their livelihoods, their work, their family's health insurance, etc. You have here a strike that's reportedly costing someone — it's hard to figure out exactly who — around $20 million a day. That's got to be destroying someone's life, someone's career, someone's business, etc. So emotion, whether it's anger or frustration or sadness, is not unlikely. Most CEOs and corporate types are good at not getting lathered up over business disputes...and at its core, that's all this is: A business dispute. Nothing that happens is likely to cause Peter Chernin to miss a house payment or lose his dental plan so maybe to him it's really just business without all the personal concerns. Then again, the strike has cost them a lot of money and killed a lot of someone's pet project and in a corporate environment, that does not occur without a fair portion of blaming, yelling and firing.

I'm not sure I can give you much more of an answer than this. Yes, some people are definitely emotional and with good reason. (In my own personal experience, the ones who get most upset are usually neither Management nor Strikers. They're the ancillary people — development execs, studio crew, etc. — whose lives are disrupted but who don't see that they stand to gain directly no matter how the strike turns out.) Still, it's possible to accept a certain amount of the disruption as part of the business. Entertainment is a roller coaster industry that even with no strikes looming goes up and down a lot. That's why it pays so well, especially on the "up" parts. We all expect a certain amount of instability...and this strike certainly came as no surprise to anyone who was paying attention. I think a lot of folks on both sides are mad at themselves for not being better prepared for it.

And that's all we have time for now. If I hear anything about the talks, I'll report it here but I have the sense I'm not going to hear anything.

• Posted at 8:26 AM · LINK

Holy Re-Release!

On Tuesday, I was interviewed on camera for one of those little "special feature" interviews that comes on a DVD — in this case, it's an upcoming release of the 1966 Batman movie starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin but not (sigh) Julie Newmar, who was replaced in the Catwoman role by Lee Meriwether. The film's been available on DVD for some time but this is a more deluxe packaging with extra bells and whistles. I don't know when it's coming out...and to head off the obvious question, I don't think this means anything in terms of the Batman TV show being released on DVD. As far as I know, Warner Home Video and Fox Home Video are still quarrelling over which of them has the right to issue that one. Perhaps if this new DVD of the movie does exceptionally well or even exceptionally poorly, it will shake up the dynamics of that dispute.

Anyhow, I explained to the camera how it wasn't the same with Ms. Meriwether — lovely though she was and is — in the cat suit; how I kept waiting for Batman to rip off her mask and shout, "You! You're not the woman who played Stupefyin' Jones! What have you done with the real Catwoman?"

Mostly, I talked about...

1. How creepy it was that Cesar Romero hadn't shaved off his mustache to play The Joker so they put the clown white makeup right over it. On my 17" Zenith at home, it was no big deal but on the big screen at the Picwood Theater, it looked awful.
2. How the funniest thing in the movie was, as you can see in the above photo, The Joker and The Penguin wearing masks. Yeah, you'd never recognize them with those masks on.
3. How I liked the Batman TV show until about the time I saw the movie. I thought it crossed the line of silliness, instead of teetering on self-parody. It was also a different experience for me to hear an audience laughing out loud at (not with) the Caped Crusaders. It was partly that and partly that the show was turning into a parody of a parody that caused me — and most of America — to lose interest in it. My friends lost interest when Ms. Newmar stopped being Catwoman...though the consensus was that Yvonne Craig in a Batgirl suit was a pretty good consolation prize. Still, when the series was cancelled, none of us cared one bit.

And I forgot to mention that three of the four actors who played the villains appeared two years later in Skidoo. Can't imagine how that escaped my mind.

• Posted at 12:18 AM · LINK