Thursday, January 17, 2008

DGA: Deal or No Deal

It's difficult to fully evaluate the DGA settlement with the AMPTP based on the summary that's presently available to us. The fact sheet released so far is a mixture of low numbers coupled with a lot of "Well, what does this mean?" The percentages paid to directors for work downloaded from the 'net are very low and the breakpoint numbers are very high and I can't imagine why they think this will amount to any sort of meaningful financial participation.

It is good that the AMPTP is acknowledging that they must share Internet revenues with the folks who create the programming. Their entire approach to the WGA has been to try to deny that or keep the numbers down to token payments. The terms of the DGA deal, to the extent we know them, seem like a little more recognition that they cannot exclude us (writers, directors, actors and others) from New Media revenues...but the numbers are way below what they should be. The deal still allows the networks to take a show produced for network television — a show which would traditionally pay substantial sums to its writers, actors and director for its rebroadcast — and to instead slap it up on a website, sell advertising and pay us a very low amount of money. And even that's after a "free window" where they can do that without paying anything.

I'm trying to seize upon one good thing about this deal and I may have found it: "Payments for EST [Electronic Sell-Through] will be based on distributor's gross, which is the amount received by the entity responsible for distributing the film or television program on the Internet." One of the six demands that the AMPTP had before they walked out of negotiations with the WGA was for us to drop our demand that payments would be based on distributor's gross. My question then is if there are any other details in the new DGA contract that would enable the studios to fudge the amounts that they report as distributor's gross and whether there's a truly effective way of monitoring payments. The summary assures us that "the companies are now contractually obligated to give us unfettered access to their deals and data." That would be good if true.

Also of some concern is this statement: "Additionally, if the exhibitor or retailer is part of the producer's corporate family, we have improved provisions for challenging any suspect transactions." I'd sure like to see some lawyers check the final language for loopholes before I believe that will arrest a major problem. Corporations like to agree to certain terms with a union, then set up "shell companies" to operate in violation of those terms. If the DGA has secured language that will effectively stop that, good for them.

At the end, it says there's a "Sunset provision" that "Allows both sides to revisit new media when the agreement expires." I'm not sure what that means. It may mean another strike in three years.

All in all, I'm extremely disappointed. I wouldn't hazard a guess at this moment on the mood of the Writers Guild or the Screen Actors Guild. But if I'm given a choice of accepting terms similar to what I fear it all means or remaining on strike, I'll be out on the picket lines until a real offer comes along.

• Posted at 3:57 PM · LINK

School Days

So yesterday, I taught my first class at U.S.C. It's called "Writing Humor: Literary and Dramatic" and it's part of the school's Master of Professional Writing program. (The current semester is not yet listed on the school's website but will be shortly.)

Things began appropriately. I determined the right hour to leave my house and allow sufficient time...then got out to the garage and found my car battery was dead. Someone — I'm not mentioning any names because it might have been me — shut a rear car door on a seat belt so it didn't close all the way. I took a cab to and from U.S.C., musing how it was somehow appropriate that a class in Humor Writing was starting off that way.

After that, things went well. "My students" — there's a phrase I never thought I'd type — seem bright and eager to absorb whatever I can impart to them...though I'm thinking the most useful skill I may be able to impart is how to carry a picket sign.

I had a great cab driver on the way back. In L.A. for some reason, you can't phone a taxi company to pick you up on a street corner. They insist on an address. The way U.S.C. is laid out, there is no easy address where they could find me so I walked three blocks over to Jefferson and Figueroa where the famous car dealership, Felix Chevrolet, is located. I didn't go in. I just used their address when I phoned, then waited next to a big statue of Felix the Cat for a taxi to come get me.

The cab driver was a very old gentleman from Kenya who told me he'd gone off-duty when he heard the radio call that they were looking for someone to pick up outside Felix Chevrolet. "I signed back in to get you," he told me. "I love Felix, always have." As a tiny Kenyan, he said, he had a Felix the Cat shirt that he wore everywhere until it was so ragged that his Mama started insisting he give it up. He refused and refused up until the day it came out of the laundry in tatters. He said that sixty years after the fact, he still suspects sabotage on his mother's part.

I asked him if he'd ever seen a Felix cartoon. He said he didn't think so. I asked him if he'd ever read a Felix comic book. He said he didn't think so. I asked him what it was about Felix that made him so special. He said, "Felix always seems so happy. When things get me down, I just look at him and he makes me feel better." As good a reason as any, I'd say.

• Posted at 8:20 AM · LINK

Today's Political Comment

Not that many of you are likely to feel otherwise but this new wave of attacks on John McCain's military record is just as shameful and factually-deficient as the one on John Kerry's. I am amazed at the number of people who think that our soldiers are sacred...but only up until the moment when they don't want to see one of them get elected. But then I'm also amazed at the number of folks who accuse anyone who questions the war's leadership of "hating the troops" but don't seem to care a whole lot if those troops are paid badly, don't have proper equipment or medical care, are killed needlessly, etc.

• Posted at 7:58 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Yesterday, we had a commercial for Beany & Cecil toys from Mattel. Today, we have a clip that has three of them but the third one's a repeat so you don't have to watch it.

The first one features a voiceover that is either by Frank Nelson or by someone doing a darn good impression of him. I think it's Frank and I call your attention to this article that I wrote about him. In this commercial, you get to hear a little more of the voices that Daws Butler, as mentioned, did for these toys. (As several of you noted, not only does his Beany sound like his Elroy Jetson but his Cecil sounds a lot like his Quick Draw McGraw.)

Then the second commercial is all animated and features Irv Shoemaker, who did the voices of Cecil and Dishonest John on the cartoon show. A nice little ad.

And then the third spot is the same one as yesterday and you can skip it. Here we go...

• Posted at 12:03 AM · LINK