Picketing to Support Laid Off Workers As They Are Pink-Slipped by the Studios

As I approached Warner Brothers for the solidarity with those workers the studio was planning to lay off that day, I noticed this statue in front of one of their off-lot buildings. This is so much what our industry is supposed to be about. The filmmaker who shoots the script written by his writer partner in filmmaking and acted out for him to capture the visuals and audio by his actor partners, who say the words and do the actions, their writer partners laid out in the script.

The idea of studios was to facilitate those people coming together to make product with the money to make that happen. Yes, those owning the studio had to make money to pay back their financial outlays and to have money for future projects and to support themselves. But the moguls were also people, despite their not-so-nice reputations, who walked among their creative community and had bonds with them. Today studios are just one more money-making division of multi-national companies whom I fear only care about posting profits in the short term and not caring what happens to studios or the creative community or entertainment in the long term. When the profits fall, or the system teeters, or entertainment finds a way around the oppression of the studio system, the multi-national companies will simply divest themselves of the studios and leave the creative community to deal with the fallout.

Last time I mentioned that I was walking the line in the rain, unsuccessfully holding onto both an umbrella and a strike sign and how STEVEN SEARS had his little strike sign stuck in his hat band which freed up his hands. Before he left, he kindly gave me his little strike sign, so here is a picture of it on the line at Warner Brothers.

To show support for the workers scheduled to get laid off today, the WGA pulled its picketers from all studios except NBC Burbank where the Jay Leno Show was still going on without a WGA contract. Hence, there were not only more people here, but we got to reconnect with people we haven't seen in a long time. One such person for me is LIZ FRIEDMAN, whom I worked with on Hercules, the Legendary Journeys and who is now a writer on House. She told me she has written the episode scheduled to air following the Superbowl. She also told me that the Xena Day, Jan. 24th, has been moved from Disney to NBC Burbank, which makes more sense, since Xena was a Universal show and NBC Burbank is the only part of NBC Universal that's being picketed now.

I also managed to walk the line with a very cute blond actor named Alex (part of SAG solidarity) and a writer CAROLYN OMINE from The Simpsons show. They made the time fly by. And I learned a lot about how the writers dealt with the fact that for the first nine years of the very successful Simpsons franchise, the show was not part of the WGA Guild and hence not entitled to its benefits of health insurance and pension, to name a few.