John August

fixed

Pencils down

Film Industry, Strike

A few minutes ago, the WGA announced plans for the strike. Barring dramatic progress in negotiations over this weekend, it’s happening.

pencilI’ve largely avoided talking about contract negotiations and the strike, ((At least now we can retire the term “looming strike.”)) because I have no particular insight. I’m not on the WGA Board, nor the negotiating committee. But because I’m one of the higher-profile screenwriters, people give whatever I say unwarranted authority. And you know, I’m all about authority.

Now that we’re at the 23rd hour, I can clarify a little bit more about what’s going on, and where I stand.

Last night, I went to the largest WGA meeting in history, held at the Convention Center downtown. The negotiating committee explained the progress (and lack of progress) in negotiations with the AMPTP, and confirmed that a strike would be occurring. Representatives from helpful allies, including SAG and the Teamsters, also spoke. I was encouraged by the thoughtfulness of the negotiating committee, who are dedicated to achieving a fair deal without unwarranted suffering.

If you know absolutely nothing about the issues — or if you have to explain it to your grandmother, who’s upset that her favorite soap opera is off the air — here’s my very short summary of the situation.

  • Writers for film and television are paid a small fee when the things they write (movies and television shows) are shown again on re-runs or DVD. These are called residuals, and they’re much like the royalties a novelist or a songwriter gets.

  • Residuals are a huge part of how writers are able stay in the business. These quarterly checks pay the mortgage, particularly between jobs.

  • There’s widespread belief that the rate paid to writers for DVD’s is too low. It was set 20 years ago, when DVD was a nascent and expensive technology. DVD’s are now cheap and hugely profitable, yet the rate remains fixed.

  • Downloads will eventually supplant DVD’s. That’s why it’s crucial to set a fair rate for them now, and avoid the same trap of “let’s wait and see.”

  • There are other creative and jurisdictional issues (such as animation and reality television) which are also on the table. According to the AMPTP, residuals are the major stumbling block, however. ((Nick Counter: “The companies believe that movement is possible on other issues, but they cannot make any movement when confronted with your continuing efforts to increase the DVD formula, including the formula for electronic sell-through,” he said. “The magnitude of that proposal alone is blocking us from making any further progress. We cannot move further as long as that issue remains on the table.” Link to Variety.))

Yesterday’s Variety and Hollywood Reporter featured this ad, in which showrunners from almost every drama and comedy on American television made it clear that they and their staffs would be doing no writing during a strike. Television will feel the impact of a strike long before features, because the season is only half-written.

But if there were an equivalent ad for feature writers, I’d sign it. As would every feature writer I know.

I’m contracted on two scripts right now, but they’ll be sitting unopened in their folders until the strike is resolved. I have a deal to write a spec for Fox, but that will also have to wait. Pencils down means pencils down. I’m not writing any features or television until there’s a contract.

So what will I do in meantime?

First, I’ll man the picket lines.

After that, I’ll turn my attention to the 100 other things going on in my life that don’t involve movies, television, or 12-point Courier.

Over the last five years, the craft has become a smaller proportion of my daily life. I’m a father, a technology nerd, and a trustee of my university. I’d like to get married. I’m helping to raise money for the new School of Cinematic Arts at USC. I’m starting an American arm of FOMO to help the orphans of southern Malawi.

I also write a lot of things that aren’t movies or TV shows. I really enjoyed the magazine writing I did this past year, and plan to do more. I wrote a play that I need to workshop. And I have this website, which is desperate for some re-tuning.

So I’ll be busy. And when the strike’s over, I’ll be excited to go back to the job I love.

Pre-Lap

Formatting, QandA, Words on the page

questionmarkThanks for posting the script to The Nines. In it, you give some dialogue a “(PRE-LAP)” extension. This dialogue begins in V.O., bridges us to the next scene, and continues onscreen. Obviously, it’s a useful and commonly used device.

The term “Pre-Lap” makes obvious technical sense, but is it common enough for us unknowns to use in our scripts? I’ve seen some scripts that use “(BRIDGING)” or “(BRIDGE)” – or even put some explanation in action paragraphs. I’d hate to adopt “PRE-LAP” only to find that low-level readers think I’m making up my own neologisms, or using obsolete technical terms like SFX or M.O.S.

What would you recommend?

–bagadonuts

Pre-lapping is when dialogue begins before we’ve cut to the scene in which it’s spoken. Here’s an example from The Nines:

He turns his back to the foyer, listening to the instructions on the phone.

GARY

Nine leopards run through the jungle.

(listening)

I bought two cakes at the store.

His identity evidently confirmed, he hangs up. He looks back into the foyer.

GARY (PRE-LAP) (CONT’D)

The house is haunted. There’s a zeitgeist, or something.

EXT. UPSTAIRS DECK – DAY

Margaret has brought coffee and pastries from Susina.

MARGARET

Poltergeist, and no. Maybe they were rats. L.A. is teeming with rats. They live in the palm trees.

Often, it’s a choice made editorially, during post-production, but you can also write it in if it helps sell a joke or moment. It’s common enough — and simple enough — that I think most readers will understand it in context, even if they’re unfamiliar with the term.

You should know that some readers despise pre-laps, despite their usefulness. If you use them, you need to have a vigilant script supervisor, because these dangling lines of dialogue can find themselves forgotten in the rush of production.

Mis-pinned

Geek Alert, Travel

mapI’m in New York for the second time in a week. This trip is for a director meeting on the studio’s dime.

While no one will confuse me for a native, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with the city in the past few years. When people give me cross-streets, I generally have some idea what area they’re talking about. I’m a fast walker and subway enthusiast, so a visit to New York City is an adventure.

The biggest challenge for me is that beginning with my first visit in 1994, I flipped Manhattan north-south in my head. I don’t know how it happened, but whatever map I first studied was 180 degrees wrong, and it’s taken every brain cell to get the city reoriented.It’s not unlike that damn spinning dancer, which is strictly clockwise for me. I can’t even fathom her going the other way.

For years, I’ve been relying on my trusty laminated flat maps of the city. Nothing screams tourist like pulling one of these out while waiting at a crosswalk.

The advent of Google Maps on the iPhone changes all that. Quickly setting a few bookmarks, I can zoom in and out of the city. And if I have to refer to it at an intersection, I just look like everyone else checking email. But it’s not perfect.

  1. You can show where you are, or what you’re looking for, but not both. At least a dozen times, I’ve searched and found what I wanted — only to forget where I was at the moment. Yes, you can bookmark both locations and pull up directions, but a persistent “I Am Here” flag would be a great addition for version 2.0.

  2. Don’t automatically trust the pins. Upon arriving in the city, I searched for my hotel, and bookmarked it. However, it was four blocks wrong — a fact I only discovered when trying to get back to my room after a morning trip to Hamilton Heights. Fortunately, I remembered that I’m right next to the Directors Guild Theater, so it was simple to re-map.

  3. It always assumes you’re driving. When you use the directions, a “walking” option would be a huge help, since it could ignore one-way streets and other restrictions.

Once Apple releases the SDK, I hope one of the first applications is an iPhone-native version of Métro. It’s a terrific mass-transit mapper for the Treo and other platforms, which I’ve used to get around New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. There’s a web version, but that’s not especially helpful when you’re underground and out of signal range.

New York, Africa

Africa

I’m in New York for a U.S. Doctors for Africa benefit, during which I’ll be introducing the founders of FOMO, the Malawian orphan group I worked with this summer.

Coordinating our small part of the event has been an interesting example of the flat-worldness of 2007. I’m American; the charity is British; the filmmakers who put together the video for tonight are from Abu Dhabi. Without email, it would have all been nearly impossible to organize.That Malawi is almost completely internet-inaccessible is not lost on me. I have ideas and hive-mind questions, but that’s another post.

The goal of tonight’s activities is to enlist USDFA into getting much-needed medical care to the Mulanje region of Southern Malawi. Most readers are probably more familiar with Doctors Without Borders, another terrific organization. The difference between the two groups is in approach. Doctors Without Borders goes into crisis locations. They’re firefighters. USDFA is much more about building sustainable, locally-centered programs — which is why Malawi (and FOMO) makes so much sense.

Underscoring the small-worldness meme, upon checking the schedule, I learned that one of the other presenters tonight is Mia Kirshner — an actress from my very first TV pilot, whose departure from the series inspired a portion of The Nines. I don’t think she holds a grudge. But then, she is an actress, so would I know?

It’s uncomfortable to have aspects of my life crossing over. By and large, Africa John has been pretty autonomous. While there, I didn’t introduce myself as a screenwriter. They don’t have movies, so being the guy who writes movies is roughly the same as being the guy who paints unicorns. And outside of a small area of Los Angeles, I don’t have any measurable celebrity quotient. So I’ll be speaking tonight with only the authority of a guy who helped paint a mud-brick building. And I’ll be hoping the DVD intro plays correctly. Because I’m pretty sure they shot on PAL.

UPDATE (11:55 pm EDT)

  • The video went off without a hitch.
  • Cipriani is a beautiful space.
  • I was apparently looking at some other event’s schedule, because there was no Mia Kirshner to be found. However, Brett Ratner was there to introduce Russell Simmons. After that, I was probably the next biggest celebrity. Which is alarming.
  • If Alex Band were a tradable stock, I’d probably buy some shares. I’d never heard of him either, so it was smart for him to sing, “Wherever You Will Go” first for the “oh, yeah” factor.
  • I ended up chucking my script, which is a bold choice for a screenwriter. But after a string of hold-my-award speeches and a soporific live auction, I thought it best to just speak from a place of emotional honesty. It cut through the post-dessert fog, which was all I could hope to do.
  • The emcee introduced me by saying, “a man who needs no introduction,” which is patently false. The friend of the guy who was in The Brothers McMullenNo, not Ed Burns. The other one. — he knew who I was. Because he’d just finished a novel. And was looking for an agent.