“We want you to be the Executive Producer of the film.”
After seven years, my movie was going into production. We had an amazing director, a great
cast, and now I was going to have an active role in the production.
“And we’re going to pay you as the Executive Producer.”
I understood what this meant. By paying me as a producer and not as the writer – they
wouldn’t have to make my Pension and Health contributions.
“Uh… Well… Thanks but no thanks. I still want to be paid as the writer.”
“Sorry, we can’t.
There’s no money in the budget.”
I served on the 2011 Negotiating Committee. I had written two movies for HBO and
many tv movies for the networks. I
was brought onto the Negotiating Committee to represent television movie
writers. I was part of the
Committee that fought to preserve our health benefits and our pension
plan. And we did. Even after the Great Recession of 2008,
the Guild’s pension and health plans are rock solid. Try to think of another industry where workers have a great
defined benefit pension that is fully funded.
Now I was being told that this movie that I loved and nurtured and fought for
and would do anything to get made wasn’t going to happen because I wanted my
Pension and Health contributions.
For years, television movies were my bread and butter. And then, they went away. “TV movies are dead,” my agents
said. Within a year, all my agents
were fired. I was forty years old
– married with two children, a mortgage, no agents, and the profession I had
worked in for the last decade had disappeared.
Like so many other writers, I had to re-invent myself. The world had changed and I had to as
well. But how? As I lay awake at night worrying, I
wondered:
Does the math work anymore? Is it even possible to make a living as a screenwriter when
I pay 10% of my earnings to my agents, 10% to my managers, and 5% to my
lawyers? How many writers can
afford to give away 25% of their income?
Because of a clause in the MBA, I was able to get back the
feature rights for free to a spec script I had sold to Lifetime. I used that script to get a new
manager, who introduced me to a producer, who introduced me to the director,
who got the star, who got the money for the movie that was now not going
into production because I wanted health insurance for my two sons.
Saturday afternoon, watching my son’s baseball game, I got
many angry emails, texts, and phone calls (“Turn off your phone,” my wife
urged). I wondered – should I
cave?
I held my ground.
I realized that if they don’t have the money for my health insurance,
they don’t have the money to make my movie. In the end, I got my Pension and Health Contributions. Yesterday, I saw the first cut. The film looks great.
The world has changed.
Budgets have dropped.
Dailies arrive on thumb drives.
Instead of dealing with six studios, many writers will be dealing with
one of the thousands of new producers flocking to our industry. These new producers have different
levels of experience and different amounts of money in their pocket.
In this changing landscape, what can the Guild do? Lots.
We need to keep our PENSION and HEALTH PLANS STRONG. This is the single most important thing
the Guild does for all of us – we all benefit. Again, I am incredibly proud of the work of the negotiating
committee.
We need to RAISE THE MINIMUMS. The minimums affect all of us – from residual rates to what
writers earn.
We need CABLE PARITY.
We gave the networks a break to get the new medium up and running. It’s up and running. It’s time to acknowledge this reality.
We need CONTINUING EDUCATION. The Guild needs to sponsor and promote a WGA
University. We all need to be
re-inventing ourselves. I am a
huge fan of the mini-courses that Billy Ray, Craig Mazin, and so many others
have offered through the Guild. In
a rapidly changing world, the Guild can be a powerful clearinghouse for the
ideas that are working, a forum to share our experiences. If you haven’t attended any of these
seminars, I urge you to attend one.
If you’ve discovered a new way to get your project made – I urge you to
lead one!
What the Guild can’t do is tell you how to behave. It can try. It can set standards.
Tell you not to do free re-writes or turn in written pages before you’ve
been hired. But I’ve attended
Guild panels where WGA Board Members have told crowded rooms that they have
done just that. The truth is, had
I wanted to accept my fee as an Executive Producer – what could the Guild have
done? My lawyers took their
cue from me. If I had caved, they
would have caved. When I stayed
strong, so did they.
The Guild must EDUCATE WRITERS ABOUT THEIR RIGHTS IN THE
MBA. Much of what I experienced in
this past year forced me to wade through the thicket of the MBA. The Guild lawyers were incredibly
helpful. But they were helpful
only when I had educated myself and asked the right questions. The MBA is an incredibly powerful
document – but only if the members know how to use it.
You fail to change at your own peril. Screenwriter earnings are off by 65%
from 2007 ($343 million in 2007 vs. $526.6 million in 2012). The number of screenwriters reporting
earning is off by over 500 writers (2,041 writers in 2007 vs. 1,537 writers in
2012). Even though television
earnings are up over the last five years, the number of television
writers reporting earnings is up by only 152 writers (3,356 writers in 2007 vs.
3,508 writers in 2012). That’s a
net loss of over 350 writing jobs.
I have worked in Hollywood for over twenty years. I started as Roger Corman’s assistant,
answering his telephones and bailing his dog out of the Santa Monica
Pound. In the first feature I
wrote, I predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union. NPR and CNN wanted to know how a Roger Corman movie
anticipated something that the CIA had missed. I’ve produced movies for Dino De Laurentiis. I spent years working as a film
executive. I am a Harvard graduate
who worked in Argentina as a reporter for the Associated Press.
I am a working writer who has had many good years and a few
horrible ones. I make 100% of my
earnings as a writer. As so many
of us have over the last few years, I have been forced to re-invent
myself.
I love the Writers Guild. It is an imperfect organization; it can be made better. But I believe it is one of the last
organizations that puts the needs of its members first.
I ask you for your vote. In exchange, I promise to protect our Pension and Health
Plans, raise minimums, achieve cable parity, expand continuing education, and
educate our members in their rights contained in the MBA. I will fight for all writers as we
navigate an uncertain future in new platforms and new ways of storytelling.
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