One unfortunate casualty of the recession that may not receive as much attention as the slow sales of homes is the shrinkage of the writers' room.Those containers of creativity haven't physically gotten smaller across the television production landscape, but they're slightly emptier these days. Rough financial seas have produced tighter ships.
"I definitely feel as if there are (fewer) jobs out there," says Damon Lindelof, exec producer of ABC's "Lost."
"Whereas new shows from pilots that got picked up used to have 10 to 12 writers -- that was the size of our staff in 2004 -- we're just eight now. In late winter and early spring of this year, when the recession was rearing its ugly head, everybody was hearing rumors about the ramifications, that nobody was immune and that we had to make compromises."
"For a show like ours," says Lindelof, "or 'Dexter,' that only does 15-17 episodes but is very serialized and complex and hard to do, it's almost impossible to generate those shows with writing staffs of less than six to eight."
For the immediate future at least, some shows might have to find out the hard way if that's true.
"I don't think anybody really knows, because we're only now finding out what the new shape of the room can do," Rotko says. "We'll have to see if the story is working, if the procedurals are working. This may be the framework: a smaller, slightly condensed room.
And:
(Posted using ShareThis)Experienced showrunners and senior writer-producers who would have easily landed full-time staff slots just a few seasons ago are now taking on consulting producer gigs, thanks to the much-diminished number of scripted series ordered by the major nets for the 2009-10 season.
The rise of consulting producers is definitely a function of market conditions, but that doesn't mean that it's automatically a horrible situation for writers. Seasoned scribes who have reached the exec producer or co-exec producer level say they'd much rather work as consulting producers than take another title that would indicate they've taken a step backward -- and make it harder for them to command exec producer stripes in the future.
"It is a manageable, win-win situation for everyone involved if (a consulting gig) is properly put into place and constructed," says Thania St. John, a drama vet who is a consulting producer on Lifetime's "Drop Dead Diva."
"Nowadays you have a large group of very talented (writers) who have reached a certain level in their career. At some point there's just not going to be that (top) job available, but you still want to work. It makes sense to be a consulting producer."
The consulting producer role has become commonplace on comedy and drama series during the past decade. It typically involves an experienced hyphenate working one to three days a week on a series -- helping to break stories and outline arcs, offering rewrite and punch-up services and general troubleshooting advice.
3 comments:
Jobs are finite; the number of dramas being produced is finite. There will not, ever, in any universe, be enough positions to satisfy the numbers of people who wish to be professional tv writers. And it's not that they leave and go to the States; they leave the industry and pursue other careers. That's the nature of the rough-and-tumble business.
If you are insanly obsessed about being a TV writer, then here's some good advice I received when I started out - SAVE YOUR MONEY. Save enough to live for two, three or four years, to get over downturns, fallow years.
The industry is also about LUCK. You chose the right show; you befriended the right producer, the right network exec, the right financier.
That said, I reiterate what I have probably said a million times before. The Canadian industry relies on the "kindness" of government hand-outs. It is NOT a business. Therefore, the most important players are bureaucrats and dealmakers - those who can bring money to the table and decrease the amount the govt must fork over.
And as William Goldman said - "No one knows anything."
[steps on soapbox]
If it's not a business, then it's your job, mission, what have you to make your own media and make it a business...at least for yourself.
As someone who lives in the 323, the rug is being pulled out from under all of us by the established business practices that are no longer working. People here are scrambling to try and make ends meet after being "let go" by their patrons, the studios.
And as much as anyone, I wish this were going to be a bloodless (r)evolution, but it won't be... it can't be.
You should be making your own media right now. Building alternative revenue streams to support what you're doing. Learn new skills. Apply the skills you already have to new venues.
Hey Denis, thank you for the link to the stressed-out rats in the NYT; unfortunately explains a lot of my behavioural patterns! Now I'll go re-arrange the room dividers in my cage...
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