Hey there, friends,
Once again it's time for us to sit around the table, in a tryptophan haze, and say what we're thankful for. I am thankful for many things, including:
*an amazing family (those genetically related, as well as those connected by hearts and minds)-especially this year's newest members (Amelia Laurel, Haley Ellise, and Jensen Michael)
*my health (no surgery this year - yea!)
*employment (a steady paycheck is a very good thing)
*a safe, dry, warm place to live (with a sweet, warm, soft kitty to love)
*fresh food to eat and safe, clean water to drink
*creative opportunities in writing and film making
*the fact that I live in the greatest nation in the world, where even in our not-quite-finest hours we live in freedom (Had I been born in Eastern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, or Central America, my life would be very, very different)
What are you thankful for?
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Mourning TV
by Damon Lindelof
New York Times Op-Ed
Nov. 11, 2007
TELEVISION is dying.
I should have realized this four years ago when I first got my TiVo box, but denial is always the first stage of grief. I simply couldn’t acknowledge that this wonderful invention heralded the beginning of the end.
TiVo stores your favorite movies and shows on its hard drive, allowing you to pull up last night’s episode of “The Daily Show” as easily as you click open documents on your laptop. In fact, once you download the original broadcast — sorry, I meant to say “record” it — you can watch it at your leisure. The next morning. Next year. Your call. Because now? You own that episode. Best of all, you got it free.
Television has always been free. Sure, if you want all the N.F.L. games in high definition, you have to pay the piper, but the broadcast networks still offer their entire schedules for absolutely nothing. The only catch, of course, is that you have to watch commercials. Economically, it’s a fair deal. The network pays for the shows, gives them to viewers, and makes its cash back through advertising. Which regrettably brings us to the most wonderful thing TiVo does: It enables you to ignore the commercials that keep the whole system running.
Twenty percent of American homes now contain hard drives that store movies and television shows indefinitely and allows you to fast-forward through commercials. These devices will probably proliferate at a significant rate and soon, almost everyone will have them. They’ll also get smaller and smaller, rendering the box that holds them obsolete, and the rectangular screen in your living room won’t really be a television anymore, it’ll be a computer. And running into the back of that computer, the wire that delivers unto you everything you watch? It won’t be cable; it will be the Internet.
This probably sounds exciting if you’re a TV viewer, but if you’re in the business of producing these shows, it’s nothing short of terrifying. This is how vaudevillians must have felt the first time they saw a silent movie; sitting there, suddenly realizing they just became extinct: after all, who wants another soft-shoe number when you can see Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock 50 feet tall?
Change always provokes fear, but I’d once believed that the death of our beloved television would unify all those affected, talent and studios, creators and suits. We’re all afraid and we’d all be afraid together. Instead we find ourselves so deeply divided.
The Writers Guild of America (of which I am a proud member) has gone on strike. I have spent the past week on the picket line outside Walt Disney Studios, my employer, chanting slogans and trudging slowly across the crosswalk.
The motivation for this drastic action — and a strike is drastic, a fact I grow more aware of every passing day — is the guild’s desire for a portion of revenues derived from the Internet. This is nothing new: for more than 50 years, writers have been entitled to a small cut of the studios’ profits from the reuse of our shows or movies; whenever something we created ends up in syndication or is sold on DVD, we receive royalties. But the studios refuse to apply the same rules to the Internet.
My show, “Lost,” has been streamed hundreds of millions of times since it was made available on ABC’s Web site. The downloads require the viewer to first watch an advertisement, from which the network obviously generates some income. The writers of the episodes get nothing. We’re also a hit on iTunes (where shows are sold for $1.99 each). Again, we get nothing.
If this strike lasts longer than three months, an entire season of television will end this December. No dramas. No comedies. No “Daily Show.” The strike will also prevent any pilots from being shot in the spring, so even if the strike is settled by then, you won’t see any new shows until the following January. As in 2009. Both the guild and the studios we are negotiating with do agree on one thing: this situation would be brutal.
I will probably be dragged through the streets and burned in effigy if fans have to wait another year for “Lost” to come back. And who could blame them? Public sentiment may have swung toward the guild for now, but once the viewing audience has spent a month or so subsisting on “America’s Next Hottest Cop” and “Celebrity Eating Contest,” I have little doubt that the tide will turn against us. Which brings me to the second stage of grief: anger.
I am angry because I am accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I am angry because my greed is fair and reasonable: if money is made off of my product through the Internet, then I am entitled to a small piece. The studios’ greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the Web — that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely “promotional.” Seriously?
Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. Not working means not getting paid. My weekly salary is considerably more than the small percentage of Internet gains we are hoping to make in this negotiation and if I’m on the picket line for just three months, I will never recoup those losses, no matter what deal gets made.
But I am willing to hold firm for considerably longer than three months because this is a fight for the livelihoods of a future generation of writers, whose work will never “air,” but instead be streamed, beamed or zapped onto a tiny chip.
Things have gotten ugly and the lines of communication have broken down completely between the guild and the studios. Perhaps it’s not too late, though, for both sides to rally around the one thing we still have in common: our mourning for the way things used to be. Instead of fighting each other, maybe we should be throwing a wake for our beloved TV.
Because the third stage of grief is bargaining.
And bargain we must, because when television finally passes on, there will still be entertainment; there will still be shows and films and videos, right there on a screen in your living room. And just as the owners of vaudeville theaters broke down and bought hand-crank movie cameras, the studios will figure out a way to make absurd amounts of money off of whatever is beaming onto whichever sort of screen.
And we’ll still be writing every word.
Damon Lindelof is the co-creator and head writer of the television series “Lost.”
New York Times Op-Ed
Nov. 11, 2007
TELEVISION is dying.
I should have realized this four years ago when I first got my TiVo box, but denial is always the first stage of grief. I simply couldn’t acknowledge that this wonderful invention heralded the beginning of the end.
TiVo stores your favorite movies and shows on its hard drive, allowing you to pull up last night’s episode of “The Daily Show” as easily as you click open documents on your laptop. In fact, once you download the original broadcast — sorry, I meant to say “record” it — you can watch it at your leisure. The next morning. Next year. Your call. Because now? You own that episode. Best of all, you got it free.
Television has always been free. Sure, if you want all the N.F.L. games in high definition, you have to pay the piper, but the broadcast networks still offer their entire schedules for absolutely nothing. The only catch, of course, is that you have to watch commercials. Economically, it’s a fair deal. The network pays for the shows, gives them to viewers, and makes its cash back through advertising. Which regrettably brings us to the most wonderful thing TiVo does: It enables you to ignore the commercials that keep the whole system running.
Twenty percent of American homes now contain hard drives that store movies and television shows indefinitely and allows you to fast-forward through commercials. These devices will probably proliferate at a significant rate and soon, almost everyone will have them. They’ll also get smaller and smaller, rendering the box that holds them obsolete, and the rectangular screen in your living room won’t really be a television anymore, it’ll be a computer. And running into the back of that computer, the wire that delivers unto you everything you watch? It won’t be cable; it will be the Internet.
This probably sounds exciting if you’re a TV viewer, but if you’re in the business of producing these shows, it’s nothing short of terrifying. This is how vaudevillians must have felt the first time they saw a silent movie; sitting there, suddenly realizing they just became extinct: after all, who wants another soft-shoe number when you can see Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock 50 feet tall?
Change always provokes fear, but I’d once believed that the death of our beloved television would unify all those affected, talent and studios, creators and suits. We’re all afraid and we’d all be afraid together. Instead we find ourselves so deeply divided.
The Writers Guild of America (of which I am a proud member) has gone on strike. I have spent the past week on the picket line outside Walt Disney Studios, my employer, chanting slogans and trudging slowly across the crosswalk.
The motivation for this drastic action — and a strike is drastic, a fact I grow more aware of every passing day — is the guild’s desire for a portion of revenues derived from the Internet. This is nothing new: for more than 50 years, writers have been entitled to a small cut of the studios’ profits from the reuse of our shows or movies; whenever something we created ends up in syndication or is sold on DVD, we receive royalties. But the studios refuse to apply the same rules to the Internet.
My show, “Lost,” has been streamed hundreds of millions of times since it was made available on ABC’s Web site. The downloads require the viewer to first watch an advertisement, from which the network obviously generates some income. The writers of the episodes get nothing. We’re also a hit on iTunes (where shows are sold for $1.99 each). Again, we get nothing.
If this strike lasts longer than three months, an entire season of television will end this December. No dramas. No comedies. No “Daily Show.” The strike will also prevent any pilots from being shot in the spring, so even if the strike is settled by then, you won’t see any new shows until the following January. As in 2009. Both the guild and the studios we are negotiating with do agree on one thing: this situation would be brutal.
I will probably be dragged through the streets and burned in effigy if fans have to wait another year for “Lost” to come back. And who could blame them? Public sentiment may have swung toward the guild for now, but once the viewing audience has spent a month or so subsisting on “America’s Next Hottest Cop” and “Celebrity Eating Contest,” I have little doubt that the tide will turn against us. Which brings me to the second stage of grief: anger.
I am angry because I am accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I am angry because my greed is fair and reasonable: if money is made off of my product through the Internet, then I am entitled to a small piece. The studios’ greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the Web — that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely “promotional.” Seriously?
Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. Not working means not getting paid. My weekly salary is considerably more than the small percentage of Internet gains we are hoping to make in this negotiation and if I’m on the picket line for just three months, I will never recoup those losses, no matter what deal gets made.
But I am willing to hold firm for considerably longer than three months because this is a fight for the livelihoods of a future generation of writers, whose work will never “air,” but instead be streamed, beamed or zapped onto a tiny chip.
Things have gotten ugly and the lines of communication have broken down completely between the guild and the studios. Perhaps it’s not too late, though, for both sides to rally around the one thing we still have in common: our mourning for the way things used to be. Instead of fighting each other, maybe we should be throwing a wake for our beloved TV.
Because the third stage of grief is bargaining.
And bargain we must, because when television finally passes on, there will still be entertainment; there will still be shows and films and videos, right there on a screen in your living room. And just as the owners of vaudeville theaters broke down and bought hand-crank movie cameras, the studios will figure out a way to make absurd amounts of money off of whatever is beaming onto whichever sort of screen.
And we’ll still be writing every word.
Damon Lindelof is the co-creator and head writer of the television series “Lost.”
Friday, November 09, 2007
WGA Strike
I fully support the Writers Guild of America and the decision they've made to strike. I know the amount of personal labor that goes into writing a film, and I believe that those people who create films or television shows (or "webisodes") are entitled to a share of any profits. For the latest strike information, go here.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
My Annual 9/11 Challenenge
Hey friends,
Please take some time today to reflect on the thousands of innocent lives lost on that horrible day 6 years ago, as well as the thousands of lives lost since then. Pray for our troops and the families waiting at home for them.
A few years ago, I decided that every September 11 could be a day of mourning or a day of celebration. Of course, I will always mourn those lost that day, but I choose to honor them by performing an act of giving toward our future, rather than lamenting the past. Every year I choose a non-profit organization and send them whatever small gift I can afford.
In the past I've given to the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, and the United Nations. This year, in an act of thanksgiving for the opportunities I've been given in the last year, as well as an act of remembrance of another innocent life cut short, I am giving to the Adrienne Shelly Foundation. I challenge you to follow my lead. Choose an organization that contributes to a healthy, free society and make a donation.
Please take some time today to reflect on the thousands of innocent lives lost on that horrible day 6 years ago, as well as the thousands of lives lost since then. Pray for our troops and the families waiting at home for them.
A few years ago, I decided that every September 11 could be a day of mourning or a day of celebration. Of course, I will always mourn those lost that day, but I choose to honor them by performing an act of giving toward our future, rather than lamenting the past. Every year I choose a non-profit organization and send them whatever small gift I can afford.
In the past I've given to the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, and the United Nations. This year, in an act of thanksgiving for the opportunities I've been given in the last year, as well as an act of remembrance of another innocent life cut short, I am giving to the Adrienne Shelly Foundation. I challenge you to follow my lead. Choose an organization that contributes to a healthy, free society and make a donation.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
I'm Baaack
Hey there friends,
I have decided to start writing again. So much has changed this year. I had a short film produced, I've directed 2 shorts of my own, and I'm about to produce and direct my next short. My next goal is to finally write my teen rehab film. I'm also contemplating writing a television pilot.
Speaking of television, I want to practice my reviewing skills, so there will probably be a lot of posts in the near future regarding the new fall tv offerings. I'm the most excited about Heroes and the debut of Pushing Daisies. Oh, and I've just started watching season 1 of Dexter on DVD, and it's probably the most brilliant series I've ever seen. It's truly outstanding.
Time to go to work. Have a great day!
I have decided to start writing again. So much has changed this year. I had a short film produced, I've directed 2 shorts of my own, and I'm about to produce and direct my next short. My next goal is to finally write my teen rehab film. I'm also contemplating writing a television pilot.
Speaking of television, I want to practice my reviewing skills, so there will probably be a lot of posts in the near future regarding the new fall tv offerings. I'm the most excited about Heroes and the debut of Pushing Daisies. Oh, and I've just started watching season 1 of Dexter on DVD, and it's probably the most brilliant series I've ever seen. It's truly outstanding.
Time to go to work. Have a great day!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Cruisin' With the Getaway Girls
This weekend, my friend Laura took her girlfriends on a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas to celebrate her 30th birthday. It was awesome!! We flew to Orlando from our homes around the country and met up to take a shuttle to Cape Canaveral. Although we (the friends) hadn't really met before, we all got along REALLY well. Nassau wasn't great, although I liked the pirate museum, but Castaway Cay was really cool. We all ate, drank, and were merry, including some karaoke performances that I really hope do not remain on anyone's handicams. We actually decided to form a vacation club, the Getaway Girls, who should travel together every two years or so. God help wherever we decide to go next! I'll post pics when I get some.
Take care!
Take care!
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