11/14/22
Newletter158
The Crack of Dawn
Back in the late 1990s I was trying to be involved with the Director’s Guild, joining committees and going to various meetings. I am not a member of the Writer’s Guild, although I do get Writer’s Guild residuals and they asked me to join, but I declined. So, the Writer’s Guild held a weekend conference in Big Bear, not too far from L.A. and up in the mountains. A number of champion boxers, like Oscar De La Hoya, had their training camps in Big Bear. I was asked to speak at the conference representing the DGA.
The keynote speaker was the screenwriter, Ted Elliot, who was successful at that time, but has since become huge, having written: Shrek, Aladdin, and all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Ted was terrific and I was sorry I had to follow him. My topic was that I thought that the Writer’s Guild needed a low-low-budget category (as the DGA has) so that Guild writers could get started in cheap movies. Also, I put forth that if anyone on earth needed help with writing scripts, it was certainly low-budget filmmakers whose scripts always suck. A blonde, bespectacled, timid-looking female writer raised her hand and asked, “But what if we’re exploited?” I said, “But you get a film made, and a credit, and get your career going.” She persisted, “But isn’t there a good chance we’ll be exploited?” I shrugged, “Maybe, but you should probably start getting used to that.” Like a waiter had dropped a tray of dishes, I killed all of the fun energy in the auditorium that Ted Elliot had created. And Ted’s speech had been brutal – writing for major studios is like the death of a thousand cuts – but it was still about being exploited by the big studios. In Ted’s scenario, they destroy your work and your soul, but you’re paid well. I was the horrible voice of reality saying that before you’re allowed to be exploited by the big studios, you first have to be exploited by the small and mid-range producers. I could plainly see that no WGA members thought a low-low-budget category was anything they were interested in. In their dreams of glory they might possibly be “exploited,” but at least they were being well remunerated for it. The WGA, meanwhile, had offered me a free hotel room, but I opted to drive the couple of hours home.
Back then a lot of low-budget movies were getting made and coming out, and they all absolutely would have profited from having anyone within a mile of them who knew anything about screenwriting. Alas. Wannabe directors dream of making both low- and high-budget movies. Anything. But apparently wannabe screenwriters only dream of studio pictures.
I may have told this story – and I could check – but I’ll tell it again quickly. I miraculously and mysteriously found myself as the first writer on Hercules. I’m friends with Rob Tapert, the executive producer, so it’s not that weird. I knocked out a long, 20-page treatment (like a short story, in prose) in a couple of weeks in Rob’s kitchen. I then found myself at a long conference table at Universal Studios, Rob at one end and me at the other, and six or seven young executives all looking at me. Copies of my treatment lay on the table in front of everybody. It was now my job to defend my story. An exec asked, “Why does Zeus come down from Mt. Olympus and make love to a mortal woman?” I said, “So that Hercules can be born.” And they said, “But why?” And I said, “Because she’s beautiful, and I’m saying that Zeus is a hound dog.” They all shook their heads. No, that wasn’t good enough. In fact, Zeus shouldn’t even make love to a mortal woman because what would he do that?” And I said, “Because that’s what he does, otherwise there’s no Hercules.” Yeah, that wasn’t good enough either. This went on for two hours, and when it was over, I quit. I told Rob, “I’m a director. I don’t want to write these fucking things.”
And so I didn’t. But most of my treatment was used in other episodes. And so I’m not a member of the Writer’s Guild, although I do receive Writer’s Guild residuals, in their big green envelopes, every quarter. The checks are usually for $10 to $20. I still like getting them.
And thus a new day dawns.