Confessions of a Triplicate Mind: Day 1

So, here we are, at the beginning of what could be a long and messy strike. I say "could be," because I tend to be an optimist about stuff, and I'd like to believe that perhaps the WGA's brinkmanship will be rewarded with serious negotiations...

...but I have my doubts, because so much money is involved.

It's gone past the simple negotiations of one piece of talent, one representative, and 12 lawyers and business affairs people (slight sarcasm, yah, but you get my point) to becoming a larger debate about writers and writing.

In a world where a dog skateboarding on "You Tube" is seen more than "Viva Laughlin" on CBS, how do you define the importance of writers?

But then: The above question says more to their importance than their irrelevance, I think.

The debate isn't about the now: Now, it's all about reality shows and dance contests and all that crap that I hate. (Honesty.) It's about what happens when the pendulum swings back and suddenly, people want scripted things again in a digital age. Or if, I suppose.

It's about what ideas are worth in success, which is the frustrating part. Nobody's asking for a ridiculous amount more upfront (I think). They're asking for a little bit more in success: In success, I might point out, where everybody's making more money.

But then again, good TV is like creating a really good new medicine. A lot of money up front to create it, and then a lot of time to see if that's paid off. Look at Studio 60. The whole season is out on DVD right now, BTW. Get it, if you'd like a set of coasters with creator commentary.

So as this thing starts, I have three minds, all of which I'm trying to balance, all of them which I'm going to have to strive to remain ethical and consistent with, which won't be easy.

* The WGA mind - which supports my union, supports it's members and is proud to be part of something bigger than myself. As a friend of mine said today - others have walked this line and fought this fight for me, it's only fair that I do the same.

* My Hyphenate Mind - Which is about to executive produce my first live action, WGA covered single-cam,era idea, something that I've waited my whole career for. It's been very hard to watch this unfold at the exact same time - a little like getting a holiday gift and then realizing it came from China and it's chock full of extra lead.

* My Union 839 Mind - Which continues to produce cartoons in the midst of all this, because the cartoons I produce are not covered by the WGA. 839 is part of the IATSE which I always tend to find myself conflicted over - they represent writers, but we're 8% of their 839 (am I right?) - and we're not even called writers. We're... "Story Persons" or something like that. And you don't need to be a forensic scientist to know the divisions between writers and artists within 839 is deep indeed.
There are good things about 839 - but I also tend to find animation representation to be super limited - a small number of agents, and a limited number of talented people that are in bed with a small number of companies, which creates an "eggs in one basket" mentality that makes it very hard to push for "in success" pieces of the pie.
Everything substantial I've ever gotten in animation - outside of their Health care - has been through the effort of an agent, a lawyer, and individuals in a larger company that believed in me outside the parameters of my union minimums. And that, by the way, includes the studios I work for.

And within all of that, I have friends who are producers and directors, family, co-workers, people I work for, people who work for me... all of whom have their own individual agendas inside a million larger issues.

It's no wonder the debate has gone to brinkmanship... there are too many moving parts. Everybody has to fear the car falling apart, or nobody's gonna take it into the shop.

There's so many sides to this it sometimes feels as though my head's going to explode, but it really boils down to attempting, to the best of my ability, to act with integrity and be proud of my actions when this is all over.

It's day one.

That's where my mind is at. All three of them, actually.

How about yours?

- Steve

P.S. Sorry about the duplicate Emails. Outlook for Mac is ASS.

Hey, board artists!

So, the strike's coming, but it doesn't affect 839 because... well, quite frankly, 839 is cheaper than the WGA.

That's it, really.

Don't think for a minute that what I do is any different than Family Guy or the Simpsons (not quality, I'm just saying process). It isn't.

I open up final draft, I type, I hand to a talented artist and it becomes a cartoon.

The only difference is, I'm paid once, out of my salary, and then the money is done.

So let me ask you this: And it's hypothetical. You, board artists and directors, believe you are cartoon writers (and I don't disagree.)

There's a union that represents WRITERS - and they rep writers on prime time shows that probably make 5x what you make... AND they get residuals.

In an open playing field, would you:

1) Fight for change within 839 and hope that, like other writers in Hollywood you were able to get more money, residuals and a larger contribution to your health and pension?

OR

2) Move to the WGA because, as a board artist, you ARE a writer and maybe there's a cast to be made that you be treated as such?

That's the STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION we should all be asking ourselves, because the unions are the unions, the rules are the rules and it exists way outside the realm of what any one of us can decide.

Thoughts?

T minus 72 hours.

At the very least.

There's a federal mediator coming in to "help" the WGA negotiations... Which means that by this time Thursday, every writer in Hollywood will have been evacuated to the Superdome.

Will Sean Penn or Anderson Cooper float in to save us?

More on the Biersch thing

So...

...a lot of strike talk was discussed, and to be honest - much of it was tongue in cheek but SOME of it was really poignant.

Both 839 (Steve Hewett) and the Writers Guild of America were represented... and I thought it was interesting... because everybody there was passionate about the impending writers strike. I tried to corral them to the same table, to see if it would explode into two angry wet cats clawing at each other, but in the end, they were both civil and I couldn't manipulate an "Accidental cage match."

An evening's worth of theories:

1) Regarding a strike: There's movement. I don't think there's going to be a strike on November 1st, because people are talking. I could be wrong. That being said, I stick by my Strike Pool choice.

2) Script writers are acutely aware of the board/director animosity towards us. But they are also - by and large - willing to open conversation with people that they, in general, consider peers who write a different way. It would be nice if certain animation professionals (Rhymes with Shmon Shmay) would stop poisoning young animators minds - the same way the Taliban gets 'em young in Afghanistan.

3) A nice long discussion with the WGA about the fact that as long as TV Animation is considered the bastard child of a bastard child, we know that animation writing will be the first thing surrendered to up the residuals on a box DVD set, or digital downloads. We think, in general, we are a disliked minority within our own union where we are labelled "story revisionist monkey" or some such nonsense, and a disposable subsection of another. Is it any wonder we spend most of our days reading comic books and playing video games?

4) We could use a little bit more diversity in our field.

5) Whatever AGEISM exists in prime time television does not exist in TV animation. The writers ran the gamut, from newbie kids to old school types. There was a lot of history there last night, and it was cool.

That's that for that. It's 1 AM, and I am wiped.

Again: Good to see you all. Post. Reply. All that stuff.

And I'll probably pull another one of these together mid January.

:)

- Steve

We animation folk are an honest lot.

So, to start the story, Jack Thomas put the "over under" at $150.

To reserve the Gordon Biersch, I had to slap my credit card down and guarantee a certain amount of boozing and dining would happen. $700 worth, to be exact. I figured, with 80 people RSVPing, that wouldn't be an issue.

But when I arrived at Biersch, they informed me there would be one check for everyone -- which put me in the position: Trust my animation brothers and sisters to chip in on appropriate levels, or raise a stink.

I trusted my kinfolk.

So the evening starts at 6:20 - I get there early to connect with the Biersch folk - and run into Stan Berkowitz and his lovely wife. Word was spread: Anything not paid for becomes the responsibility of Marmel Dynamics (My loan out company), and a small wicker basket was placed out for people to toss what they felt they drank, ate or whatever into it.

Like Church, I suppose, but with funnier people.

Here's the math.

The bill was 849.00, not counting monies paid via credit card.

I probably enjoyed about 40 bucks of food and drink, two people who work on the same floor as me at Frank G. Wells promised another 40 between the two of them, I paid $7 to the nice valet people and I picked up the tab of the nice lady from the WGA who came out to meet animation professionals.

That means I needed to pick up $742 in cash to break even. I picked up, I shit you not, $723.

The pot was off by 19 bucks. I can live with this.

So while everyone is arguing about money, and a bunch of animation professionals converged on Gordon Biersch to eat, drink and be curmudgeony... everyone was talking about residuals and strikes...

...everyone had a good time and pitched in their fair share.

I know things are more complicated than that.

But then again, maybe it's as simple as that as well.

Thanks for not sticking me with the tab, guys. See you all in three or four months.

:)

- Steve

In Praise of Not-Writers

Funny LA Times opinion piece about the glories of "not-writing" and how it relates to the current strike unpleasantness.

As a professional writer, I've always been pretty good at not writing. Not writing, in fact, is one of my chief skills. I can not write anywhere -- on a plane, in a coffee shop, in my office -- and I often feel that a day spent without not writing is a day wasted. I even keep a notebook by the side of the bed, in case I wake up with an idea at 3 in the morning and don't want to write it down in case I don't forget it.

STRIKE POOL! Your comment is your entrance.

And it's five bucks per guess, honor system.

Everyone gets to pick one day - if it happens, the person closest to the guess wins whatever the pot is.

Since we don't have any control over it, and all we're doing is idol speculation, I figure we might as well make it official.

Ties split.

Comment here and pick your day. By commenting and picking a day, you are tossing $5 into the pool. And with any luck, it'll never even happen that we'll have to collect.

I'll start. I choose Friday, November 23rd.

Who's next?