Prologue - Season 3

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering for.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

For every six days, there is something even.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

That's that does not work. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I do my one big guard. What I've realized with that moment is it's never one big guy. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

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SPEAKER_00 1:21

Dan, I I think this is where they actually want me to talk about how much I love it. And I do love it, it's great. It's collating function transformed me from the messiest writer in Hollywood to, well, ever so slightly less messy. My wife might have other things to say about that. Sitha listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sitha.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

For those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. So for this prologue, I have with me a man you may know, the co-host, Noah. Noah is well renowned for his time spent surfing, making pancakes, surfing again, coming up with terrible puns on X, as we now have to call it, and a variety of other things, and doesn't really do much else at the moment, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Dan, I don't think you have the strike rules uh correct. We can actually still say that I am a writer, uh, although we can't actually write at this exact second or submit anything. All we can do is uh post pithy things on social media, and for those people in LA, those many, many people in LA, they have been striking for four months.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, look, we obviously sorry, hello readers, uh what do you call them, listeners? Uh welcome back. Uh this is the prologue before the one, two, I guess this must be the third season of Screwing Into the Hollywood Abyss. Um very different, obviously, at the moment. We don't want to spend the whole of the prologue talking about the strike, but equally, given that we think most of our listeners are in some way related to the industry, otherwise, why would they listen to this podcast? We can't not mention it. Uh obviously, I'm not in the industry, so I'm not on strike, but a lot of my friends very much are, and of course, Noah is. Just give us a little bit of sort of how shit it all is at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

You know, I think there was, you know, to start 120 days ago, there was sort of an enthusiasm because this is a paradigm-shifting labor action where things have been bad for so long that uh there was no choice but to try and take a stand and and try to change things, or the majority of working writers wouldn't be working anymore with or without a strike. They're just it was an untenable career for too many people. I think a lot of people see writers as sort of well-paid, well-off, you know, people. And there are definitely writers who get paid really well. But for the majority of our union, you know, they barely make enough to uh, you know, cover themselves for health insurance. It takes often eight to ten months to close a deal. They have to take second, third jobs, they, you know, they get kicked off projects. Our whole podcast, in fact, is about people who are, you know, who struggle in this industry with things that have to do with the strike and with things that don't have to do the strike. But in a weird way, everything we talk about on this podcast is connected to the strike because it's it's it's getting hard and it's always been hard, but it's it's to the point where it's literally impossible. So I think that is what started this labor movement. Uh, and there was this, you know, groundswell of enthusiasm to make change. And 120 days later, the solidarity is there. And I think the enthusiasm has turned into anger for a lot of people because this uh it doesn't only affect us, it affects, I looked at the numbers recently. There's something like 725,000 people who are now out of work uh through the collected uh, you know, I don't want to say through the collected actions of Stag and WGA, because this has been forced upon both of us by the AMPTP, and they still refuse for the most part to negotiate with either of us. So here we are 120 days later. Uh I'm upset, I'm frustrated, I'm on all of these crew pages, I'm watching as people are losing their homes, and there seems to be no sort of, you know, there's there's no sort of, you know, excuse me for swearing, but fire under the asses of the AMPTP to come and make a deal. They simply do not care, it seems like, about the livelihoods of the people that work for them. And that that that is not only, you know, horrifying and and you know makes people infuriating, it's also you know, a bit depressing. And I kind of posted the other day that I feel like the moment that person's the unknown studio exec said that they're after our homes, I've been in a slight depression, it's just hard to shake that off when the people that pay your bills, that's sort of the attitude is that they want to break us, and that's just hard to deal with. So that's my long way of saying, you know, I'm in this with everybody else. I'm I'm upset, I think, equally as much as anyone else out there. And AMPTP, if anyone in the AMPTP is listening, you need to make a deal. We need to make a deal. You're killing your own business and you're killing all the people who work for you. So it's time to make a deal.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, well said. Uh in the three or four months it is since we last had episodes of this, obviously the strike started, but I finally decided to come and visit you in Hawaii, mostly because you promised me that I could be an extra in NCIS. Um, and then obviously, due to the strike, there's no production, so I didn't get to be an extra, but I did get to spend like an hour or two with it was I think it was a day after SAG joined WGA, and so all of the people in Hawaii from the two unions got together for a sort of photo shoot. And it was fascinating the seeing the solidarity and talking to people because you had famous people there, so you know, the the cast of uh of your show or your former show, however you have to phrase it, um who are obviously very famous and uh have very big homes that have featured in uh magazines in Hawaii, but uh the whole point is all the extras, um, you know, a couple of non-working writers were there, and uh that's the majority of the union, and they're the people who are gonna struggle the most, uh, which is why this whole thing is such a mess and so sad. I think I obviously I know quite a lot of people in the industry, including people who work for studios, and not the owners of studios or the you know the senior bosses, but working level people, and none of them are allowed to say publicly that they are supporting you know the unions and want to get back to work. But I think even the sort of mid to high level execs who are the ones you're gonna be sitting in a room with when you're back getting notes, you know, they weren't the ones who did this to you. I think basically everyone just wants to get back and make television.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that, because that that is important, you know, for me to say and for us to discuss here that the average studio executive is not part of this action and they're not part of they're not recipients of our anger. They are as much of sort of a victim of this sort of new paradigm that has swept through Hollywood. You know, I'm not I don't have all the details correct, but starting at some point in this decade or maybe the last two decades, Hollywood has been bought by these massive conglomerates. I think we had Liz Alperon, you know, many episodes ago who discussed this, you know, on she's a board member and she discussed how tricky it is when basically you are owned by companies that are owned by other companies that are these huge conglomerates. Entertainment is only a teeny percentage of what they do. Most of these companies are tech companies. They don't even, you know, we might make up 1% of their bottom line, if that. So they don't really care about the creative arts the way we do. There was the days, obviously, of the studio system and the Warner Brothers, and these studios were owned by families, and they were also after a profit. This has always been show business. We get that. You have to turn a profit, but right now the profit is so far removed from the people actually making the product that they're that these people that are running the businesses are basically, and I you know, I hope this doesn't sound too conspiracy theorist because I don't mean it to sound that way, but they run the world. And we're only a teamy part of that. So it's really hard for them to suddenly cave because these are quote unquote masters of the universe in their own mind, and they do not want to lose this battle because in many ways it's the tip of the iceberg for other labor fights. So, you know, they they're calling this hot labor summer. Uh, I see that others might be going on strike soon. It's, you know, I feel like the, and this is not what the podcast is about, but the demise of the middle class is sort of affecting everyone. And I think that we'll begin to see more actions, labor actions, to try to change that. But, you know, sadly, too, it's just it doesn't affect those. The trickle, like you said, you know, people in Hollywood, uh, the the trickle down, the effect that the the old the the prop houses that are closing, the costume houses that are closing, the old, you know, the camera companies that can no longer rent cameras, they're close, these are all family-owned businesses for the most part. They can't make it. The COVID hurt them. This might be the finishing blow for them. So I think we're aware, everyone's aware of that. I think we, you know, and I think the sad part of this is that the studios, and again, Dan, you're correct to say, not the people that I'm getting notes from. It works sort of all in this together, but the people at the very top, they just don't care. And they they want to see us fold and they want to see us cave. And I think worst of all, they want to use our empathy against us, they see us caring uh about those all around us, and I think they're using it as leverage, which is you know somewhat despicable to me. So again, this is hopefully things are gonna change. Uh, hopefully we're gonna end this strike soon, but it feels like we're entering a uh particular leg of the strike after Labor Day where people should be back to work, where it's starting to feel a little hopeless.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Yeah. Um look, I mean, we could talk about this for an entire episode, but there's other people talking about this in the media and on other podcasts, and I think that's not really what we're here for. Um, so let's just actually talk about what we're gonna be doing this season. And I should clarify um please don't call me middle class again. Um I'm uh from a obviously different class, as you'd expect, like a lot of British people.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Um British British British class you have four classes, right? You have like the gentry class and the clerics, or is that just D D?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, yeah, I think that's Dungeons of the Dragons. So uh in terms of the this ep this series, so this is gonna be another 50 episode uh run for the third season. Obviously, things are a bit weird at the moment, so they're some of the guests we might normally want to come on, and I'm sure it's no surprise that some of the guests that we used to get were in the way the world works, wanting to promote their shows and so on. Uh, and came on around award season. I'm sure our readers would have seen read between the lines a bit on that, our listeners. Um but obviously a lot of people either obviously they they're definitely not going to be breaking any rules and coming on talking about their shows, plus there's not shows coming out at the moment, and people aren't wanting to promote these vehicles for the studio. So some of the although we have got some guests uh in the first few who are sort of traditional showrunners, as it were, um we're going to be using this uh early phase of the season while the strike is still on, which hopefully is not for too much of the season, uh to look around a bit more. So we're looking at other bits of the industry. So we have tried over the last hundred and something episodes to sort of it's been maybe 70% uh showrunners with the odd uh producer or studio exec um or actor or two thrown in. Um I think uh we're gonna sort of shine the light a bit on other bits of the industry. So you'll hear from somebody who works on on IP, you'll hear from somebody who works in casting. And it'll all be uh in the same light in the way that we do this. It's still uh rejection, failure, and adversity, but we're just looking at it slightly differently. Now, hopefully things will return to normal, and then everyone will be desperate to promote all sorts of shows and we'll be inundated by PR people who can finally get back to work um and will go back to sort of to an extent traditional showrunners. But I think it's important that we talk about other bits of the industry because actually some of these other areas are equally fascinating, and regardless of where we are with the strike, they also show how the industry is slightly dysfunctional um in different ways, and it's not just you know senior writers and showrunners who come across this dysfunction. So it should be a bit different this season.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I think while we're pulling back the curtain, it's kind of I and I say this with you know all respect for the people that approach us with guests, and all the guests we've had were fantastic. But I remember the first time, Dan, that we started to get publicists approaching us to put people onto the show, which was sort of a labor of love from you and I, and mostly if you know obviously you were there, so you remember, but started with me just going into the DMs of people I knew on Twitter, and that that started more, and then all of a sudden we began to gone up, we got on some list, some publicist lists, multiple publicist lists, and they began to say, Hey, we have these awards coming up. Would you put this guest on or this guest on? And we were like, You do know what we talk about on the show, right? Because it's a really amusing thing in a weird way that people are promoting their show and promoting themselves by talking about getting fired, by talking about all of their worst failures. But that didn't stop, you know, people from approaching us, and we do appreciate that when they do. Uh, and yes, we cannot, it is against union rules to promote some for somebody to come on and promote their show. That does not mean that our show won't go on mostly as normal, as Dan was saying with some tweaks. If we're having a showrunner on the show, it does not mean they're violating the strike in any way. They are, these are always stories about their own careers and about their, we, as you might notice, we spend very little time uh actually talking about any individual success or any individual show. It's more about just talking about people's careers. So we do have uh, we have uh recorded a bunch of episodes. They are a little bit, you know, they are a little bit wider uh spread topic-wise and career-wise than we have before. But you know, I find it fascinating. The interest, the industry is fascinating, and we promise you that the people we bring on, I think this is sort of the secret sauce of our show, which is that we are interviewing people about their failures and rejections and adversity they face in Hollywood, but they're all at a very high level. They've all sort of somehow uh transcended the difficulties in their career. And so whether they're a writer or they're an executive or they are doing something around like dance at IP, which was sort of a fascinating conversation we just had, uh, they've all had their own challenges, and those challenges have led to them, you know, bouncing back and and succeeding. And so, in a in in a way, every this this is still the same show, which is people talking about failures, uh, and those failures represent how you know where they are today, which led them to where they are today.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think you know, obviously we plan to go for 50 weeks, so uh which is quite a long time. I'd be uh I'd be very upset. Well, you'll be even more upset if the strike is going on beyond the first half a dozen or so episodes of this. Um you know, it'll be interesting because we will do some interviews post-strike and uh it'll be interesting to talk about some of these issues around being in a room with uh senior executives from studios who you've now become friends with again. And I think there's gonna be, you know, we're not trying to be journalists, and this isn't meant to be a sort of live commentary on what's happening, but equally I think some of these issues that have led to the strike that you you like to think will go away when some of the deals are done. But equally, the sort of post-strike world of people returning to work and what that looks like will, I am sure, make for some fascinating episodes, which of course none of which were recorded yet because we're not in that place yet, because the strike's not over. Um so it will be uh we're excited to do this. Noah and I have talked a lot about because this is just a hobby, you know. Obviously, not when when he's not on strike, Noah is a busy and successful writer. Um, I am a busier and probably more successful, I think people would say, uh in my career. Um, and I'm very busy. Uh my football team's having a great year. We're uh heading towards the playoffs. Our coach has just won coach of the month for the second month in a row, never happened before. Um, and there's all sorts of exciting things going on. So this is uh you know a labour of love, and we do it for fun. Um and we've talked about should we stop? Uh and we just there's so many stories we want to tell, and every time we do an interview, we are re-enthused uh about why we enjoy doing this. And you know, there's a little bit of Schaden Freud. We do like hearing people's uh failure stories, but uh we enjoy doing this, and as long as people are listening, we're gonna keep doing it. So uh it's actually quite hard on podcasts to know when it when it when people are listening or not, but uh the the numbers that you get from your podcast hosts suggest that people are going to keep listening, so we're gonna keep making episodes until we we run out of guests or run out of ideas, or people don't care anymore. So this will be a fun and exciting series. Hopefully, your industry will repair itself to an extent so people can go back to work and we can talk about amazing shows being made again uh and not about this weird world where people have got heads full of ideas but can't get anything made, and even if things have been made recently, they can't talk about promoting them because that's against the rules. So uh thank you for uh listening, thank you for pausing during our summer break, and we hope to be able to entertain you over the next year with current strike and then post-strike interviews.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Um, and I will definitely agree on one point, you are busier than I am um at the moment. This strike has left me with only podcasting, damn. That's what I do now. I am a full-time podcaster, which is which that just means one episode a week with you. Uh that's my that's the extent of the work I am allowed to do. So please, for my wife's sake and my family's sake, let's put us all back to work so that we're not at home, you know, annoying everybody. Uh, I think it's time for this, all of us, whether it's the writers, the directors, the actors, the cast, the crew. It's time for all of us to go back to work and for us to start making the things that you guys love, which is your shows. And I think the last thing that I do want to say is like, I don't think the public has really um, it hasn't affected them yet, because there's still TV on and there's still movies on. And I think there's gonna be, you know, in a month or two, when that well dries up, we're gonna have a groundswell of people saying, hey, you know, where's the thing that entertained us our entire lives? Where's the thing that entertained us through COVID? So uh if you guys want you guys, as in non-writers, the writers are already doing their thing, the actors are already doing the thing, the crew is already doing their thing. But if you're not in the industry and you want us to go back to work, write to your congressman, write to your president, post on social media, show that you support us because I think every little bit of that is helpful and maybe will get us over this finish line, which is hopefully right around the corner.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation. Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music, and thank you to our loyal listeners. If there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection federal university, please send them all by. If you are interested in following us on social media, oh I've lost track.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

I am at NEBsland on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, I'm also at Noah Ebbsland on Hive, Scotable, Blue Sky, Threads, Mastodon, MySpace, Frencher, and I'm sure a thousand more.