Guilds Vs. Producers, 2--The Impact

If Writers Guild stalwart Stephen Schiff sees a de facto strike developing, some feel it's already here. Our aforementioned producer source predicts that absent an unexpectedly early settlement, the industry could go dark long enough that "There will be a whole ugly round of people losing their houses."

It's obvious who will end up damaged. It's not the top rank of studio suits, who will need to nurture talent relationships and to be in place when the smoke clears, to make the next round of deals. It's not the partner level agents, for the same reason. It's not the A-list stars, nor even the A-list directors. (As an example, the two most perfectionistic auteurs in the business, David Fincher and Michael Mann, have in recent times already been supplementing their income, and chops, with high-gloss commercials--which are under a separate category with the guilds should a strike come.) And even the top-drawer screenwriters should ride it out easily enough, if they'll just give up that second place in Ojai.

It's the industry's normally prosperous middle class that's going to pay the price for a strike or lockout. And make no mistake, the latter could happen, because the studios are feeling at least as aggressive as the guilds. A former studio chief now working as an independent producer tells me the temperament of the production chiefs is, "`Bring it on'--they're happy to take time to do a whole rethink, to clean house on production deals they don't like, hoard their money, and get ready to do a slate of 15 movies instead of 25." For that middle class of writers that Writers Guild head Patric Verrone publicly anguishes over, times will be tough. For the vast majority of even the steadily working actors--especially those who bought an outsize spread in Calabasas because they were making sixty grand a week on their one-hour drama or whatnot--foreclosure looms.

In the face of such an economic meltdown--remembering that the house-rich Angelenos of the past several years are suddenly seeing their home equity wither along with the rest of the nation--the specifics of the coming negotiations may start to seem a bit abstruse. Today's news brought three news breaks on the moving target that is digital and ancillary rights--a Los Angeles Times appraisal of the coming scrap between writers and producers over online content, while the WGA and SAG issued a joint statement
declaring their support for a pair of congressmen who raised "concerns over product integration on television and the entertainment industry"--not so much over the financial aspects but because, as they said in a much more bureaucratic way, it's cheesy. Late in the day the WGA shot out another press release rallying members for a Thursday morning picket line and rally "in support of game show staff writers of the new TV series Temptation. The writers have been on strike for more than three weeks demanding a WGA contract."

The guilds will continue to be heard from. But if they strike or are locked out, the consequences will be widely scattered. For the below-the-line craftspeople--costumers and carpenters and gaffers and grips and the whole range of names that unspools for five minutes at the end of every movie, times could be tough indeed.

What's fascinating at the moment is the rush of shooting as the studios crank out product to get them through at least the early weeks of summer `08. As a result of the product being banked, says our first-quoted producer, "The damage has been done. We are now effectively in a de facto strike. Because every studio has X number of slots to be filled. When the product was created is irrelevant, those slots are being filled. Now [the production pipeline] has already been thrown so out of whack by the preparations for war, that when it's July, it doesn't matter whether [the guilds] go out or not, it's gonna be a fucking ghost town."

Worldwide film production will soon be at such a fevered pace that anyone looking to start a large-scale film-especially overseas, where the facilities and crews are fewer--needs to have already secured sound stages and personnel. Any movie with major action or special effects needs to start by February to get their 80-odd days of principal photography in (especially since prudent studios want a wrap date three weeks before the June 30 deadline to allow for weather delays, injured stars, or any complications in post.) The "cup and saucer" movies, at half that shooting length, have more breathing room. The crunch will color each shooting day in ways large and small. Some major pictures, mostly the out-of-town shoots, will devote their sixth day each week to cleaning up the dialog that more typically would be looped in post-production--and sound men are going to be correspondingly fussier about any stray noise on their tracks.

If feature film crews are nervous, their television counterparts are doubly so: "The TV people are just gonna get whacked. They barely make their deadline to get the shows on the air every week, so they don't have a backlog of material to shoot." Ergo--ghost town with tumbleweeds.

The one set of potential winners? Indie film producers who don't yet have a distribution deal with a studio and are therefore not party to the negotiations. The guilds are happy to give such pictures a deal whereby the production company falls in line with any agreement retroactively. "In fact, the unions love those deals because they feel it undermines the position of the studios. Those pictures are going to be in a sweet position because you'll have your pick of almost any actor or director in town." (By contrast, at this very moment actors are so avidly sought after that, "The talent is getting obscene top dollar because of all this racing around. The agents are having a fine time.")

Ultimately--if indeed there's no surprise settlement, which would wipe all this forecasting off the board--we may be headed for a golden moment in the history of commercials, concludes our source: "SAG actors will be free to work in commercials during any theatrical strike. So people who might go for ads appearing only in Japan [in the past this has included names like Pitt, Foster and Willis] might suddenly be considering the American market."