The Big Squeeze

The writers' strike hits close to homeby

BY JOE O'CONNELL



Could the writers' strike snuff out Friday Night Lights?
During the 1988 writers' strike, Tim McCanlies got a pilot's license and
a wife. "I've still got both now, so I may write the novel I've always
intended to write," said the writer/director of Secondhand Lions and
perhaps Central Texas' most successful screenwriter. McCanlies had been
working on two projects for two separate studios when the last-ditch
effort to avoid a Writers Guild of America strike failed last week. The
sticking point in negotiations with the studios was what share writers
should receive from new sources of film and video distribution via such
sources as cell phones and the Web, as well as old complaints about
scribes' take from DVD sales. "I'm actually looking forward to a break
... or was," McCanlies said when reached late last week. "I'm climbing
the walls. Maybe I'll take a vacation!"

The impact of the strike is already being felt nationally, with the
shutdown of talk shows and a number of other television programs. The
effect on the Texas film/television industry will likely depend on how
long the strike lasts. Friday Night Lights is still shooting its second
season around Austin and should continue through the end of the month
and probably into December when it runs out of completed scripts. "It's
business as usual," according to NBC/Universal spokeswoman Jessica
Nevarez. If the strike continues, expect idle crews and disappointed
vendors that would have worked through about March. Series television
has been the savior for the Texas film industry recently, as more and
more studio films have crossed the border to New Mexico and Louisiana,
which offer heftier incentives than the $20 million program the Texas
Legislature approved this year. In Dallas, Prison Break is expected also
to shoot through the end of the month. In an open letter to fans posted
on the website PBreakFans (www.pbreakfans.proboards47.com), show
producer Nick Santora made his feelings about the strike clear: "This is
a wonderful collaborative art form ... writers, directors, actors, art
directors, make-up artists, and everyone in between help make film and
TV a great way to entertain, educate and inspire. But it seems to me, in
my 6+ years in this industry, that sometimes The Powers That Be forget
that you can't produce a blank page, you can't act a blank page, you
can't direct a blank page."

The 1988 writers' strike lasted for 22 weeks and led to a major loss of
television viewers. A threatened strike by both writers and members of
the Screen Actors Guild in 2004 resulted in lots of unscripted
television reality shows and led to a flurry of filming activity in
Texas and elsewhere in anticipation of the strike that never happened.
Many were expecting the same thing this time, only with the rush to film
happening in January, as it was assumed the writers would wait to join
forces with the Screen Actors Guild, which has a contract with the
studios expiring in June. "Things seem to still be shaping up for an
interesting '08," said Bob Hudgins, head of the Texas Film Commission.
"That's got everyone on pins and needles about getting this resolved."
Interesting new year? Consider word that Terrence Malick will shoot a
film in Austin (see "Film News," right), and you see what is potentially
at stake.

Hudgins' biggest fear is that picket lines now confined to Los Angeles
and New York City will appear elsewhere in the country if the strike
lasts for a long time. "Knock on wood," he said. "My feeling is they
will expand if the strike goes into a third month. It would kill us
long-term." In Hollywood, strikers are already seeing individual actors
and Teamsters joining their cause, compounding the effects. Television
networks lost a big chunk of their audiences in 1988, and much of it
never came back as cable offerings gave viewers more choices. For Friday
Night Lights, a show that struggled in ratings its first season, a
truncated second season could be a death knell. Part of the problem for
both television and the big screen is that scripts are often blueprints
that face major rewrites on the set, and those rewrites can't be done
during a writers' strike. "Half of the features shot are rewritten
during the process in some capacity," Hudgins said.