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...That being, of course, the title of William Goldman's second book about the trials and tribulations of working as a writer in Hollywood. But today, the video below (courtesy of United Hollywood) puts the title in a whole different light.
Let's be clear: writers are professional liars. And the first lesson I learned in this business was the importance of keeping those lies (in a screenplay, or a novel, or a comic, or a computer game...) in order, organized, and noncontradictory.
Plainly Big Media (as we must now call them, the Producers' Guild having gingerly started to put some distance between itself and the Huge Media Companies: you can just see the producers lifting their garments up to avoid the muck as they tiptoe away...) ...anyway, Big Media are not real good at keeping their lies straight at the moment. Specifically, the one about how the Internet is Too New for them to know if it's possible to make any money off it...and of course they therefore can't promise to give us any of it. They tell us that across the bargaining table, doubtless fighting to keep their faces straight. And then they go on TV and do... this.
...There's another fun video under the cut, here, too.) "Studio Execs Protest Unfairness of Striking Writers." ("We're the aggrieved parties here! We're under threat! I could lose two of my five homes!")
(Oh, BTW, YW.net users: Sorry for the brief interruption in service. A bounced-credit-card-charge message from our forum provider got missed. The Forums should be back online within the next 24 hours. YoungWizards.com is unaffected.)
( Read more... )
Let's be clear: writers are professional liars. And the first lesson I learned in this business was the importance of keeping those lies (in a screenplay, or a novel, or a comic, or a computer game...) in order, organized, and noncontradictory.
Plainly Big Media (as we must now call them, the Producers' Guild having gingerly started to put some distance between itself and the Huge Media Companies: you can just see the producers lifting their garments up to avoid the muck as they tiptoe away...) ...anyway, Big Media are not real good at keeping their lies straight at the moment. Specifically, the one about how the Internet is Too New for them to know if it's possible to make any money off it...and of course they therefore can't promise to give us any of it. They tell us that across the bargaining table, doubtless fighting to keep their faces straight. And then they go on TV and do... this.
...There's another fun video under the cut, here, too.) "Studio Execs Protest Unfairness of Striking Writers." ("We're the aggrieved parties here! We're under threat! I could lose two of my five homes!")
(Oh, BTW, YW.net users: Sorry for the brief interruption in service. A bounced-credit-card-charge message from our forum provider got missed. The Forums should be back online within the next 24 hours. YoungWizards.com is unaffected.)
( Read more... )
