"And this staffing season (which in Canada is to the U.S. staffing season as a Mosquito is to the U.S.S. Nimitz) actually saw, for the first time, active competition for writers - with 'go' shows going after the same small pool of talent. It's ... an interesting development, to say the least. And instead of the usual for-me-to-succeed- you-must-fail Darwinism that's always prevailed, there's a genuine feeling of camaraderie and support that's emerged, largely in the last year, year and a half. More and more, it seems like maybe a rising tide actually does float all boats.
I know you weren't around in the 80s and 90s, but there was a community of writers. And it was an active group of working writers who were all in demand in a MUCH more active market (more series and every show shooting 22 or more episdoes) who were fought over and who bumped their rates time and time again because there were so many shows looking for their skills. Unfortunately, many of those people can no longer find work, have lost the stomach for the bullshit involved in the business or have, quite literally, died.
Yup. And as the same person has been wont to exclaim, "Then, people bought houses."
Every generation tends to skew its own experience, and I'm certainly no different. Anecdotally, I know that there was a period in the not-so-distant past when things were much better for TV writers in this country.
I've had the experience of being told every time I've done something, that it was the worst time to do it. When I graduated high school, it was supposedly the worst time to go to University (I forget why now.) When I graduated University, it was the worst time in years to be entering the Media Job Market. (The Job board in my faculty that had about 14 or 15 jobs on it in my first year, sported just two when I graduated. And one of those was in Fort Frances, Ontario.) When I quit my job to go to the Canadian Film Centre, it was the worst time to try to get into writing in Canada.
After a while you just gotta harden your heart to all that and plunge on.
But I'm also of the generation that's not entirely self-focused. So that leads to a question. (Let's see if we can raise any of you lurking leviathans of the good old days)
If there was one thing -- just one -- about working as a TV writer in the 80's and early 90's in Canada that you could bring back, what would it be?
And "free flowing cocaine" is not an acceptable answer. Just saying.
11 comments:
the ability to hire more freelance writers, the abolition of a system that hires "story editors" pays them an inadequate amount of money in that role and buys them off by giving them scripts.
the economics of the business has forced me to do this over that last few years (on both sides of the fence) and it makes it difficult to hire and learn about new talent or even get the input that an outsider can give you.
when I started on a 22 ep run at least half of the scripts would come from freelancers -- some were good, some were bad -- but they brought something.
now we are pretty much forced by the networks to hire the next bright young thing that comes out of the CFC instead of being able to pick off the wall types (novelists, wine writers, the odd set person or two or maybe, gasp, someone who hadn't written anything).
oh -- and every generation is self obsessed.
I wasn't part of that boom but if there was one thing I'd like to bring back it would be the attitude.
In the 80's writers believed they were talented, could create great content, reach an audience and make money doing it. They believed domestic television could be a viable export to the U.S.
And they were right. Heck, Canada even won an Emmy back then.
Support that 80's style point of view now and you get laughed at, dismissed as naive, and duly informed of the 17 reasons why you shouldn't try because you're destined to fail. (eg. someone's already thinking that the success of the 80's had nothing to do with attitude - those lucky writers just didn't have to endure our horrible socio-economic climate).
Like Frank said, every generation is self-obsessed.
80's was piano neck ties and big hair, pastels and zubaz. The drug of choice was blow. It was buck the system and make a name for yourself. Make a big splash and see if anyone gives a fuck - and if they don't then just make a bigger splash.
Our generation has a self-hatred infused, pot-neurotic, emo dark taint to it. Optimisitc and ambitious just isn't cool. Self-loathing and denial is where it's at. Too precious, anal retentive and frighted to take a risk and make a splash, we invent shit like cutting our own wrists to get attention - and if we don't get any we just keep on slicing until we're dead.
And so it is with the writers of this generation (no, not all of them). They complain, whine and even cut down other successful writers instead of doing the one thing a writer should do - write (and no, I don't mean slumming around from show to show sucking up script fees for phoning it in - I mean write like they mean it).
It's 2008. Kurt Cobain was buried a long time ago. Being tragic has gotten old. Let's give naive and optimistic another whirl - at least it's more fun than being seasoned and bitter.
I'm certain that every generation creates or remembers its own "Golden Age" when everything was much better than it is now.
It's a natural defense against the loss that comes with time and the realization that some of your dreams may have to go unfulfilled.
So, of course, something needs to be found to blame -- and that's always "the world today".
That said, there are a couple of things I'd like to see come back. The first is the sense of "Possibility".
In the 80's and 90's, networks and studios really wanted stuff that was different, that challenged or questioned. They didn't always produce it, or even do it well, but there was definitely a feeling that you could try new things and even if you fell on your face people appreciated the attempt and what was learned in the process.
And you got paid for trying -- or in the cases "Dolly" describes for giving a writer who didn't have a track record in the genre a shot because "writing is writing" (which it is).
Thus that guy who'd never written a cop show or a kid show but had thought his way through a novel might just come at your series from a POV nobody working on it could even imagine.
The second thing I'd like to see is a return to a "Belief in Ourselves". Even then, that didn't always exist at the corporate-get-an-American-or-European-sale level and I don't mean it on a personal level either.
But there was this belief that we really did have better ideas for shows than you could find in LA, that our actors were better and our directors had more audacity. We all had something to say and nobody had a right to water that down in order to get it said.
The last thing I'd like to see more of now is "Courage".
Back in the day, if a guy didn't pay you, you could confront him. When you got notes from the network you didn't agree with you could argue with them.
And nobody told you they had to shoot your show in Hamilton for tax credits and revise it because Hamilton didn't have a beachfront. Because they knew that wasn't going to make the film better and didn't let government bureaucrats dictate how their shows turned out.
You didn't always win those battles or get your money, but nobody gassed you or labeled you "trouble" for standing up for yourself or your show.
Now bringing these things back won't make the shows any better (because most of them weren't) but it would make working in the industry a lot more fun and way more rewarding.
It's funny. I don't perceive it as being always sunnier or a lack of perspective.
If anything, I think the so called first "Gen X" people -- those of us in that cohort, because we were raised in a culture that pre-dated the focus on monetizing the teen market, kind of ingested a lot of second hand culture. I don't remember too many stories about me growing up. Everything -- EVERYTHING -- was pretty pretty much about the baby boomers. That used to p.o. me, but it really doesn't now. It means I'm a lot more familiar with the culture before me and that after me.
But we did have the crushing cynicism. And blindmind, I wonder how much of the desire to let go of that is just getting old.
I know that the thing I'm developing right now is a concerted effort to try to come up with something that is lighter, and more positive.
I confess that I am continually surprised by how timid the people in the business are here. You need people who will speak truth to power. In Canada, these days, in film and TV, you have trouble finding those who will speak truth to squirrels.
Keep it going tho. this is interesting stuff.
Look, every new management regime brings in new people. This isn't anything peculiar to the showbiz racket. If the new regime used the people favoured by the former regime they could never take credit. And regimes in Canadian television tend to be very short lived. Don't be bitter, just wait until the auditors turf the the current crop. Know that if you are busy now, there will shortly come a time when no one will hire you because of your, unfairly assumed, associations. Change is good, and cruel. As for Dolly's desire for the return of freelancers, it's coming. In Los Angeles there is a growing disenchantment with writers'rooms. "Too much room, not enough writing" was the crack I heard. In retrospect everybody had a good experience with the WGA stipulated freelancers. Change is good, and scripts coming out the same room tend to have ... well ... a "sameness". The audience needs the occasional curveball to maintain their attention. It used to freshen up the show, motivate/inspire/challange/threaten the writers in the room/cult. Given the vice-like economics of our times ... you ain't gonna see a 22 ep season for a while. And yeah, definitely yes, everybody's generation was the best. Besides what old gal wants to be writing television shows? Stay in your house.
It's always difficult to have these discussions without somebody feeling somebody is pulling generational rank or major leaguing them.
But it's really important that writers from different backgrounds and experience share those experiences, because Geoffrey's right, it's always changing and what's been around is likely coming around again.
However, one point I want to make and I've been aching to find the right words for since DMc and I got tagged with the "Bitter" label on Blogtalkradio....
Ahem -- I'm not bitter! Never have been! Never will be! About anything!
Okay, there was that blonde with the hazel eyes who should have given me a better shot -- but career-wise -- nothing.
How come somebody suggests something isn't what it could be, everybody just shrugs and says "bitter"? -- How about nodding and going "He might have a point."
I really do think that it is a bit of a weird prevailing deficiency in the culture here. It's what happens when passive-aggressivity is allowed to rule.
I'm constantly getting drubbed for being "negative" and "bitter," despite the fact that, you know, doing something stupid like this for NO GODDAMN MONEY FOR THREE YEARS must mean, somehow that you think, you know, there's something worth saving.
I can rant with the best of them, and I can express despair -- but then they're EXPRESSED, that's the POINT, and I feel better afterward.
Meanwhile, I have absolutely no problem lavishing praise on something when I see it and I like it. I've sent emails to fellow creators, I've walked across rooms at Awards Ceremonies to tell Canadian creatives when I really liked something they did.
My feeling is that I signed up to say it all. So I do. And I feel better. I feel better praising something, than feeling resentful that that person had success and not me.
Now, reconcile that with the "bitter and negative" thing and I think there's something a bit odd going on. It boils down to this:
If you say what you think, instead of keeping it in, if there's any bit that can be construed as negative, then you're being bitter.
The good thing about that is that it's a form of control. It lets all the people who won't say a peep off the hook for being so mealy mouthed.
Still, you get a guy like John Doyle, who is thoughtful and puts praise out there when he thinks its deserved, and all anyone does is seize on the negative here. And they call him bitter.
It's a funny dynamic.
I say what I think and I sure as hell sleep better than all those years when I held my tongue.
And apparently, so long as you actually, you know, back it up with good work -- it doesn't come back on you.
So I take the bitter badge. It's fine.
Because I know the real bitter types are the ones too sour to even speak up when they think something's decent. Or too bitter to see when something IS decent.
Definitely the freelancer writing gigs are missed...I received several opportunities as a up and comer and then handed out plenty in the early/ mid 90's.
And then there were the groupies...but that's all I'm going to say about that.
DMc and I got tagged with the "Bitter" label on Blogtalkradio....
Aww, to be clear, it was only DMc I was calling bitter, and only in the context of yet another "writers keep getting shafted so I'm going to pack up my toys and move to the US."
So go. The audience will get over it. The industry will get over it. If you're going to bring that up, you have to connect it a point that the listener needs to care about ... and it took almost 1/2 hour after my question to get to an answer about why anyone but you should care if you move to the US. And that answer never did connect to the CRTC hearings - as in, whether the cable companies or the broadcasters were going to actually give audiences more content they can't already get on US networks.
And to be clear - I agree with you guys in principle. I think we need to value the creative community, and have an industry that values Canadian shows and gives us more of them. But no one but you is going to care if you frame an argument the way it was framed in that conversation, or if you insult the audience by making it all about you and slamming them by saying the only thing Canadians get upset at is an increase in their cable bills (an issue I have yet to hear brought up among my acquaintances - we're all too busy being mad about gas prices and health care funding and bigger class sizes in schools and Canada's role in Afghanistan.)
Jim, I'm sure you'll be glad to know you're not bitter. It must be quite a relief.
What a wonderfully insane reduction of what I had to say. So glad I took the time to do it.
As the British (a famously bitter people) are wont to say: "fookin hell!"
My "insane" comment wasn't a reduction of the entirety of what you had to say, it was an explanation of the "bitter" remark, which was not said about you guys in general, but that comment in particular. If you want support from people who aren't already invested in the cause, I think you need to think about what matters to them, and I believe the things I commented on are what damages your argument. And I believe in your argument so I wish it weren't hampered by intelligence-insulting claims that moving to LA is the path of least resistance or that the audience is ridiculous for caring about increased cable bills.
Post a Comment