BY THE NUMBERS

John Blumenthal’s glossary of Hollywood-ese: Angle: (1) What everyone in Hollywood has. (2) The position of the camera.

Cattle call: An open audition for a small part in a film or TV production held by a producer or director who wants to meet girls.

Creative differences: The most frequent reason given by a publicity department for an aborted deal. (Example: “The project has been postponed due to creative differences.”) Simply put, it means the director would like to strangle the producer.

Critical success: A term used to describe a film that has bombed at the box office.

Development: An intermediate stage in film making in which people are paid large sums of money to keep a film from being made.

“Let’s have lunch”: “Good riddance.”

Miniseries: A long TV movie shown over several days, usually on some epic subject that could easily have been edited down to two hours.

Package: The practice of getting big names to commit to a script in order to keep studio executives from having to do their jobs.

Relationship: In Hollywood, any romantic liaison that lasts for more than 20 minutes.

Talent: A term used exclusively to describe actors without reference to skill.

Source: The Hollywood Handbook, by John Blumenthal