L.A. in 9 Hours or Less
Had to fly into Los Angeles yesterday for a meeting. It was with a Veteran Producer who was more comfortable going face-to-face about DVD design issues than conducting business over the phone of via emailed pictures.
But this meeting was in the afternoon, and I was in town mid-morning. So I put on my blogging journalist hat and looked around to see what effect the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) strike was having on the city at large.
A cruise by CBS Television City on Fairfax and Beverly confirmed a sizable picket line of writers outside the gate. They looked determined and well-motivated. Whether this extra determination originated from the passionate belief in their cause or the extra attention they were getting I leave as an open question.
After lunch (at Pink’s on La Brea: “Chili cheese dog, hold the onions, I have a meeting”) I stopped by a place I love to visit whenever I have an opportunity: Hollywood Book and Poster on Hollywood Blvd. They have a nice selection of one-sheets and lobby cards, and a gigantic collection of film and TV scripts they repro and sell. I asked the fellows behind the counter if the sudden lack on new scripts is going to affect their business. Turns out they move a lot of classic movie scripts and already-broadcast TV, so it won’t affect them for a while.
The next stop was the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Sunset and Fairfax, and there I struck gold. EVERYBODY was either working on a script on their laptop or reading one, sometimes aloud. (Hats off, by the way, to CB & TL for free wifi access.) I rudely asked a few people if they were willing to give up some opinions on the WGA labor action and was rebuffed a few times (one guy mumbled “Err…guh… gotta meeting,” folded up his laptop and skeedaddled). But a pair of writers working on a manuscript were willing to share quite a few opinions:
• The standard “Producers are screwing writers on the ancillaries” argument. This is the official line, and is a perfectly legitimate one at that.
• A frustration that the studio decision-makers are widget salesmen from Harvard Business School, not creative types, and thus lack a willingness to back truly creative material. This is really old argument, Originally leveled at Sam Goldwyn and his ilk.
• An interesting angle: Some producers are sidestepping having to hire writers at all. They purchase content through outside companies, LLCs who in turn internally hire writing talent and sell the finished written product. Selling the product, not the service.
When I finally made my meeting with the Veteran Producer in his lovely office on the Strip, the conversation about the WGA stoppage continued (When I mentioned I was on the thirteenth draft of a feature-film script, he said, half-jokingly, “You’d better stop working on it!”).
When I told him I solicited opinions at the CB & TL on Sunset and Fairfax he laughed heartily, as only a Veteran Producer can. “Those guys are all posers! There probably wasn’t one WGAw member in the bunch!” I admitted the scene looked a bit theatrical, but then again so does everything in L.A.
The Veteran Producer had his own points to make, and lots of history to back it up– He was a Guild member during the ‘80 and the ‘88 WGAw work stoppages. We had an agreement on one rather arcane aspect of contention: Producers are downplaying DVD as a revenue stream, giving emphasis to online content, which in their opinion still needs to be quantified before the can determine revenue-sharing deals with labor. This is, to a certain extent, hooey: This allows producers to ignore very real DVD profits while drawing attention to non-existent internet profit structures. DVDs have an enormous install base and aren’t going anywhere, even with the advent of Digital TV in 2009.
Later, after the meeting was over, I burned off some time before my flight back to San Francisco by visiting The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I parked–for free!– on sixth and got into the museum for free as well. Los Angeles is one of the great cities in the world– because things like this can still happen.
Walking back to the car in the chill Fall air through Hancock Park by the La Brea Tar Pits, I was trying to untangle what I learned about the WGA stoppage. It was all sort of contradictory and vague. The WGA, after all, is an artisan’s guild: This is artisans versus patrons. Their strike is going to have a much different feel and effect than, say, an auto worker’s strike. It’s going to be compromised and contentious, both sides filled with collusion and weak on first principles.
I strolled by a pair of enormous concrete statues, life-sized depictions of the Mini-Cooper-sized giant ground sloths that once roamed the Los Angeles Basin. One, on it’s hind legs, looked out over the city. It’s day was over: The early Holocene world it belonged to had vanished. The lights of Park La Brea and Hollywood beyond reflected in it’s hollow cement eyes.
I think it was trying to tell me something.
–Skot C.