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November 8, 2007
My Nightly Routine
It's quite simple.
Sunday: Showcase dress/tech and preview performance. Come home, read up on the strike, cry.
Monday: Tisch Arts West monologue slam. Come home, read up on the strike, watch strike footage, cry.
Tuesday: Showcase opening night. Come home, read up on the strike, watch strike footage, cry.
Wednesday: Showcase. Come home, read up on the strike, watch strike footage, cry.
And tonight we'll close the showcase. I'll come home, read up on the strike, watch strike footage, and cry.
I can't not cry.
I watch this footage, I read this coverage, and no matter how funny those writers are, no matter how much solidarity I see among actors and writers and show runners, no matter how much pride swells up in me when I see people fighting for something so damn simple as a tiny percentage of profits (so no one is being asked to give up a slice of something without that "something" already equaling a healthy studio and network paycheck), I am left feeling so very sad for how long I fear this thing is going to last.
I hear that outside of Hollywood this is being spun in such an ugly way. Writers are selfish. Writers don't care about their audiences. Writers are greedy.
Dear GAWD, with as much time as I've spent around creative, brilliant people in the past few days alone, I can assure you that writers want to write. We want to create. We love to create. We absolutely would do it for free (and usually do) simply for the joy of it all.
So, the fact that members of the WGA want to protect themselves and future WGA members by having protections put in place for new media that were skimped upon during negotiations for video delivery systems 20 years ago (because it was all "too new" and producers "needed every advantage" to help VHS and then DVD technology launch without being "hobbled" by paying pennies to writers on each sale or rental) to such a great extent that they'll NOT WRITE right now should tell you something.
This is a big deal.
Oh, and starting Friday my schedule will change. The showcase will be over and Keith and I will join the picket lines.
It's just the right thing to do.
Maybe I'll feel less like crying, being out there "doing something." Because right now, even with all of the amazingly brilliant creativity swirling around me each day, I feel completely powerless over what's happening in Hollywood. Two filmmakers for whom I'm casting feature films were at the showcase and our conversations turned to rewrites and new shoot dates. Even casting has to stop when scripts are in limbo. (At least when the filmmakers are also writers... and they wouldn't dare shoot a frame without the ability to tweak a line during the filming process. And since that's the kind of filmmaker with whom I work, well, you get the picture.)
I guess my optimism was short-lived.
Posted by bonnie at November 8, 2007 4:26 AM