Voices from the picket lines
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Voices from the picket lines:
--’I’m hoping this won’t be a long haul, but I’m here for the haul,’ said Mike Schiff, a writer on TV’s “Caveman,” as he picketed outside Sony studios today. He was one of several dozen WGA members, clad in the now-familiar red T-shirts, walking back and forth in an orderly fashion outside the Overland Avenue gate, as vehicles passing by honked their approval. ‘My wife hates this color on me,’ Schiff said of the T-shirt, ‘but it’s for the cause.’
--’We’re getting a raw deal,’ said writer David Windsor. ‘They’re making so much money on the Internet. If we don’t take a stand now we’ll suffer the consequences for years to come.’
--’I think everyone is very excited. It’s been building up for a long time. People are happy something is happening,’ said Michael Curtis, who writes for ‘J.O.N.A.S.,’ a Disney Channel kid’s show. Production was supposed to start today.
--Over at Culver Studios: ‘I’ll stay out here a year if I have to,’ said Nick Santora, co-executive producer on Fox’s “Prison Break.” He said he used to clean parking lots, has worked as a lifeguard and is a non-practicing attorney — so he’s confident he can find something to do to weather a long strike.
--Robert Guza, writer and producer for ABC’s daytime drama ‘General Hospital,’ said there is ‘a lot of fear’ among writers who are living paycheck to paycheck. While the Writers’ Guild has a strike fund that can help with low-interest loans, ‘they can’t give loans to everybody,’ he said. ‘There is a great deal of creeping dread’ about a prolonged strike, he said.
--Robert W. Welkos, Lynn Smith