Directors Cut the Chatter in Early Bargaining Talks
By DARRELL SATZMAN
Staff Reporter
Launching into negotiations a full seven months before their current pact expires, Hollywood directors appear determined not to take the same acrimonious road that writers and actors traveled in their negotiations with producers earlier this year.
Missing from the talks between the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that began Nov. 26 are the public threats and allegations that surfaced with writers and actors last spring. Aside from a vague statement about addressing “wide-ranging economic and creative rights,” the DGA has yet to articulate what it is seeking or what its key issues are.
“We go deep, deep black as soon as talks start,” said DGA spokesman Andrew Levy.
In a statement, DGA Negotiating Chairman Gil Cates explained the guild’s motivation for early talks by saying that “now is not the time to impose further economic instability on our industry or our country.”
Kyle Cooper, a member of the DGA who is managing partner of Hollywood post-production and title house Imaginary Forces, said he is relieved that both the directors and studios appear committed to making a deal well in advance of the June 30 deadline.
“We were affected by the negotiations (by actors and writers), so I’m glad that they are addressing this early,” Cooper said.
Like the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, the DGA negotiates its three-year contracts with the AMPTP, the bargaining arm of the major Hollywood studios. And like the writers and actors, the main economic issues are likely to be setting new industry minimums and residual scales for television, cable and film work, and working toward equitable formulas for divvying up newer revenue streams, especially DVD sales.
Less likely to be resolved are contentious creative issues between writers and directors that resurfaced during the WGA negotiations. Writers chafe at directors getting possessory credits like “Film By,” but directors have been loath to cede any ground on these issues.
Barbara Corday, a former Columbia Pictures and CBS Television executive and a member of the writers guild, also credited the DGA with starting talks early and for its non-combative approach, but she said it’s often the writers who smooth the way.
“Directors have traditionally done their negotiating after the writers,” said Corday, who now chairs the production division of the School of Cinema and Television at USC. “The writers do the fighting and then the directors come in and have a clear view of the playing board.”
That has allowed the directors’ guild to conduct its business with the producers on a more collegial footing.
“The screen actors saw a real need to take their battle to the public. The DGA doesn’t have the same history and the same needs,” said Kent Wong, director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education. “There is a pecking order among entertainment industry unions, and the directors are definitely at the top. There’s fewer of them and they play a critical role in the (production) process.”
