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RED - Sundance Cast Photo

From L to R: Shiloh Fernandez, Noel Fisher, Brian Cox, Kyle Gallner, Kim Dickens, Robert Englund, Yours Truly, and director Trygve Allister Diesen.

A reality writer responds to the AMPTP...

This letter was submitted anonymously by a working reality writer. He/She requires anonymity, because otherwise, he/she fears being fired for writing this.

Dear AMPTP,

Today, I read on your website, “thousands of people in reality and animation have chosen not to join the WGA.”

This statement is false.

As a writer (aka "Supervising Producer", the name I'm given to get around having to give me a WGA contract) who has worked in reality television for over three years and who knows many people on the reality circuit, I can tell you that reality writers desperately want to be part of the WGA.

Why wouldn’t reality writers choose to join the guild? Because we don’t want health insurance? I can assure you, we want health insurance. You think we don’t want to join the guild because we do not want to be paid for overtime? You think we enjoy working 70-80 hour weeks and being paid for 40?

We are good, smart, hard working people who don’t like knowing our employer is breaking California (and other) labor laws. Our salaries are cut in half because in many cases we work twice as many hours as we are paid. We want to be paid for overtime.

We cannot join the guild until we meet the qualifications of the WGA and that means being called a “writer.” Because of this, you refuse to call us “writers.” You give us many other titles like "segment producer," "consultant," anything that does not have “writer” in the title. Yet, that’s what we do in reality television. We write.

We write and create storylines, develop characters, character arcs, structure scenes, write entire series plotlines before and after the show is filmed, write host copy, write dialogue (yes it’s true!), write questions, write narration -- the list goes on and on and on.

You know that what we're doing is writing. That's why you hire writers to do it. This name game is just that -- a game. It's a game to avoid paying pension or health benefits, to avoid paying overtime, to exploit writers. If we speak up, tough, we get fired. If we get sick, tough, we pay the bills ourselves, and if we take too much time off, we get fired.

Reality writers want to join the WGA. I challenge you to find one overworked, underpaid reality writer who wouldn’t want to join the guild right now and receive the same just and fair benefits given to other members of the entertainment unions like IATSE, SAG, WGA, and DGA.

I write this on behalf of all my friends and colleagues who are currently working seven days a week to get a show out for a big network -- but are not getting paid for the weekends. Or the overtime. Who aren't receiving health benefits. Or... you get the picture.

I can't sign my name, because there is a very real threat my employers will fire me. But I can still call myself what I am: A writer.

A glimpse into the mind...

...of the AMPTP.

It's EVERYONE'S fight.

RED to premiere at Sundance 2008!

Read about it here.

THE EXORCISM

LOOK.

LISTEN.

WATCH.

WATCH MORE.

READ.

Read MORE.

"The Heartbreaking Voices of Uncertainty"

Overheard joke...

How many screenwriters does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Ten. 1st draft. Hero changes light bulb. 2nd draft. Villain changes light bulb. 3rd draft. Hero stops villain from changing light bulb. Villain falls to death. 4th draft. Lose the light bulb. 5th draft. Light bulb back in. Fluorescent instead of tungsten. 6th draft. Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero’s mentor. 7th draft. Fluorescent not working. Back to tungsten. 8th draft. Hero forces villain to eat light bulb. 9th draft. Hero laments loss of light bulb. Doesn’t change it. 10th draft. Hero changes light bulb.

The Sting

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From Crackle: Script Cops, Ep 2: McKee Sting

BUNNIES!!!

THE GRUDGE in 30 seconds. With bunnies.

Best movie teaser. Ever.

Intrigued? More here.

Being the bad guy.

Oh. Oh, dear God. I'm a terrible influence upon little children.

Far, far worse than ecstasy.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/2983.html

(it takes a while to get to the payoff...)

A shout out to my peeps.

"It's a trap!"

This is way too funny...

April 29th 1982, EMI - Elstree Studios, England. A frustrated Richard Marquand is not getting the performance he needs from one of his key actors, Timothy Rose. In a last ditch effort, Marquand shows Rose, playing the role of Admiral Ackbar, a number of films to help him prepare for his final scene of "Return of the Jedi"...

Way to go, FunJoel!

Check out the details on his first job here.

"Grudging Me, Grudging You"

Awesome. Simply awesome.

Metaphors probably not worth borrowing.

A friend passed this along -- supposedly they're from student essays. Either way, a very illuminating read.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its
two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.

3. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly
the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

4. McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a
paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

5. Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a
sneeze.

6. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black
dots in the centre.

7. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

8. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

9. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like
maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

10. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers
raced across the grassy field toward each other like two
freight trains, one having left York at 6:36PM traveling
at 55MPH, the other from Peterborough at 4:19PM at a speed
of 35MPH.

11. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full
stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

12. John and Mary had never met. They were like two
hummingbirds who had also never met.

13. The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound
of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the
storm scene in a play.

14. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red
crayon.

15. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a
steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had
rusted shut.

16. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

17. The plan was simple, like my mate Phil. But unlike
Phil, this plan just might work.

18. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get
from not eating for while.

19. "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving
like a student on 31P-a-pint night.

20. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame
duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe
from stepping on a land mine or something.

21. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like
someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not
Butter."

22. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that
sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended
one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.

24. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had
disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a
rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free
ATM.

25. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an
oscillating electric fan set on medium.

26. It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing
kids around with their power tools.

27. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he
heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.

28. She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword.

29. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and
he was room-temperature British beef.

30. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98
missing legs.

31. Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a
first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a
band tightened.

32. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you
accidentally staple it to the wall.

WorkbookProject.com

My buddy Lance Weiler (THE LAST BROADCAST, HEAD TRAUMA) has put together an incredible website -- a "social open source experiment for content creators".

He just posted a phone conversation/interview we did last month -- check it out here.

LINKS:

- Official HEAD TRAUMA home page
- More information on Lance & the WorkBook Project

"Wei Si Li Zhi Lao Mao (Lo Mao)"

This film, also known as "The Cat", is a must-see.

If you want your head to explode from laughter.

Netflix carries it. Run, don't walk.

Want some convincing? Okay. How about this: there's a knock-down, drag-out Kung Fu battle between a cat and a dog.

Yes. A cat and a dog. Kung Fu. Battle.