Punt, that's what, and truth be told, I really didn't think anybody would notice. The audience for this blog was never all that wide to begin with -- even in the halcyon days of yore when a particular post resonated, it might garner 2500 views at most -- and now that I'm long gone from working on set, the numbers have dwindled to a mere handful. I get it. Real time stories of drama on set are a lot more interesting and relevant to readers than book and DVD reviews, so no harm, no foul.
Still, one among those readers reached out to ask if I was okay. She'd noticed the absence of a post, and once you reach the age where a growing number of friends have been lost to the Grim Reaper, you understand that silence can mean Something Bad has happened.*
Not yet, gentle reader, not yet. The Reaper is coming this way, of that there can be no doubt, but he's still down the block a bit.
I hope.
Maybe I'll have a fresh post for May and maybe not -- it's too soon to say. I still have some cleaning up to do from the Noachian Deluge of winter, during which four and a half feet of rain fell along with a virtual forest of branches, and believe it or not, I've been working a lot more on the blog book. I know ... you've heard that before and will doubtless hear it again, but that book turned out to be a much bigger project than I'd anticipated. So it goes.
Meanwhile, here's an oldie from another April when I was still in the thick of the Hollywood wars. The industry was recovering from the WGA strike at the time, and wouldn't you know it -- another WGA strike now looms. Back then the writers were worried about their income from the new streaming services -- an issue that still bedevils them -- but now there's another monster crawling out from under the bed: AI writing technology, which has the potential to put a lot of writers out of business.
Good luck, WGA -- I hope you win this one.
And so without further ado: April is the Cruelest Month
* Thanks, Deb!
6 comments:
hello Michael, hope you are well. I still always check back once every month or so and was happy to see a new post. Yes, strange times in Hollywood… between wondering how AI will affect our future and streaming companies deciding to make way less “content” after the deluge of the last few years, and upcoming potential strikes from the above the line guilds… I guess the only constants in this business are change - and uncertainty. I went back to April 2008 to read other posts and it’s lended good perspectives on dealing with some of these anxieties. Thanks and take care - Austin
Austin --
Good to hear from you! I have no idea what will happen this go-around. Once again the writers and producers find themselves yelling at each other over a new technology that may or may not revolutionize the biz, and negotiations are especially difficult when both sides are standing on slippery ground.
Are you still gripping/juicing these days, or are you all-in on the vidassist gigs?
Or maybe something new -- as you say, the only constant is change.
Whatever it is, I hope you're working as much as you want and need, and that all's well.
Thanks for tuning in.
Love “Noachian”!
As AI tools continue to rock more and more of the world, I was glad to see the WGA taking it on. However, a strike takes a player out of the arena. Things are changing so speedily that being outside may be more risky than usual.
Your April 2008 post made me think about whether the euphoria/despair cycle is part of the appeal of working in film. Life is physically as dramatic as any big-screen story. I wonder whether that’s part of what I still miss from when I worked in the biz.
I hope it wasn’t too long until your next gig arrived.
Hey Michael!
I’m still making a go at it! I joined local 695 for video in LA about 4 years ago, and slowly but surely, starting in Fall 2020 after the initial pandemic lockdown, work opportunities and relationships pulled me increasingly down I-5 until I officially made the full-time move to Dodgers territory about a year ago - something I never thought I’d do.
Part of why is because 10-13 years ago when I was in high school, dreaming of a career in show biz, LA was not the place to go, the (now nosediving) Streaming boom hadn’t even began and the big concern was runaway production to other states and countries (an issue, I fear and predict, will once again rear its ugly head in Hollywood soon, as less productions are made and even more of the ones that are get sent to Atlanta, New Jersey, Texas and countries overseas amidst even tighter budgets).
In fact, I was fortunate to have worked so much in recent times that I was finding myself burned out. I was able to enjoy the last 6 weeks off (because no calls came) until I just recently accepted work on a tiny tiny Tier 0 film, mostly to get some MPI hours in the books.
We’ll know in a few hours as of 6pm 5/1 whether or not there will be a writers strike or not - but strike or no strike, we’re probably headed into leaner times down here.
Having no other connection to the film industry growing up, I honestly thank your blog for preparing me to live well within my means, expecting the boom cycle to swing back around, and my hope is cooler heads will prevail and my plan is to hope for the best…
In other news, I recently worked with a really great script supervisor and person, the first call for Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and others - who grew up on a dairy farm in Point Reyes - small world!
Thanks and take care,
Austin
Debra --
I don't like seeing the strike happen (now that it's on), since everybody loses in the short to medium run. Whether either side will "win" in the long run remains unclear -- we won't know 'til we know -- but the entire industry will suffer for a while.
I think you're right about the drama of the biz being part of the appeal. This week I've been re-writing a post (for the book) called "Feed the Beast" that deals with the unconscious need I felt on set to face a stiff, risky physical challenge every now and then just to confirm that I still "had it in me." There was a real endorphin rush of doing that, which makes me wonder if maybe we're all just drug addicts at heart...
As for 2008 ... I had to go back and read some of those posts to recall, but once the WGA strike settled, work dribbled in and life returned to more or less normal -- or as "normal" as life can be in the film/TV industry.
Thanks for tuning in!
Austin --
Sooner or later all roads in the film and television biz lead to the Rome that is LA. If nothing else, living in LA for a while will give you a real appreciation for the Bay Area, and I hope it all works out for you. I was very familiar with the burnout you speak of -- it happened to me many times in my career -- and that's when the temporary nature of the work really pays off. When you don't want to work, you don't really have to, although care must be exercised when turning down jobs to avoid burning any bridges.
Re: your scripty pal ... Back in the mid-80s, I attended a birthday dinner at a restaurant in LA with a group of people who were all new to me (other than the birthday gal), and I ended up sitting next to an actress. We chatted for a while, and she asked me where I'd lived before coming to LA. I told her, then added that I now had a house in a little town north of SF -- "It's too small for you to know about." She pressed the issue, to I told her it was Pt. Reyes. "I grew up in Tomales on the Strauss dairy farm," she replied, and it turned out she was Vivian Strauss, daughter of Albert who started the dairy.
Small world, indeed.
Good luck down there -- I hope the strike is settled soon, so everybody can get back to work.
As always, thanks for tuning in!
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