The view from L.A.
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Correction: Craig Sweeny’s first name was incorrectly listed as ‘Chris’ in an earlier version of this post.
The writers’ strike is underway in L.A. Here’s the scene from studios around the region:
More than 50 Guild members amassed across the street from Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank promptly at 9 a.m. and prepared to spread out to walk the line at all gates into the massive complex. Every few seconds, a car passing on the busy boulevard would honk in support and writers shook their signs and whooped in response.
‘I have a feeling it will be one long one,’ said Russ Woody, 51, a writer on ‘Notes From the Underbelly’ who also struck in 1988. ‘We learned a lesson from that one. We let some things go that we shouldn’t have.’
Elsewhere: There were about 100 strikers at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank and about 30 strikers at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach.
Raleigh is home to ‘Medium,’ ‘Boston Legal,’ ‘CSI: Miami,’ and ‘Psych,’ which is not in production. Strike captain Craig Sweeny, a supervising producer on ‘Medium,’ says the plan is to have about 35 people at any given time. There are a total of 75 writers on this lot. Asked if ‘Medium’ star Patricia Arquette is going to cross the line, Sweeny said: ‘I’ve had conversations with the star of our show and am aware of a level of support from her that I’m not going to discuss with the press.’ Moments later, Arquette arranged for cookies to be brought down to the strikers.
The strikers there are wearing red WGA T-shirts and carrying signs that have ‘WGA’ in red and ‘On Strike ‘ in black. They are in good spirits and cheered loudly when a UPS driver refused to cross the line. The driver declined to give his name but said that ‘we’re union also and we’re not allowed to cross the picket line.’ He dropped off the packages with a security guard and said that if the strikers are here tomorrow, he will just walk away.
The strikers are a few feet away from the main gate. Plenty of workers are driving in right in front of them.
-- Joseph Menn, Maria Elena Fernandez and John Horn
