All’s Well . . . for Now

They scripted a cliffhanger, all right. Three days after the contract between the Writers Guild of America and television and film producers expired, round-the-clock bargaining sessions produced a deal Friday. If ratified, as expected, by the guild’s 11,000 members, the agreement will help defuse the threat of a strike by the screen actors, whose contract expires in June.

Of course, the Screen Actors Guild negotiations still have sticking points. For instance, the deal did not completely resolve the issue of better pay in future years for work produced for evolving technologies such as Internet downloads. This is of equal importance to actors.

Affecting only the writers is the “film by” credit for directors, which writers find objectionable. Both sides Friday tabled the issue, agreeing to form a joint committee to seek a solution. This conflict over pride and creative credit will not fade away over the three-year term of the new contract.

Writers did win increases in minimum payments, some new one-time payments and important concessions that had more to do with respect. Long dismissed and excluded by executives and directors who wouldn’t have a story to produce without them, writers will get improved access to the sets where their stories are being filmed.

The deal averted a strike that could have shut down film and television production and possibly crippled the economy of the Los Angeles area. Now, even without a strike, film production may slow temporarily because the studios had moved at full tilt in recent months to beat the strike deadline.

However, changes in neither the writers’ nor the actors’ contract can solve one of Hollywood’s most pressing long-term economic issues: the flight of film production work to cheaper markets in Canada and elsewhere.

Those of us who live here and are used to seeing Klieg lights and costumed actors on city streets know that Hollywood is many things, including a business with thousands of workaday employees. It is the freelance film editor down the street hoping to be able to make his mortgage payment, the guy whose catering business depends on the lunches he serves to film crews, and the makeup artist living for her next paycheck. These workers in turn support the livelihoods of cooks and waitresses, keep car dealers in business and patronize supermarkets.

Regardless of where their sympathies lie in the just-ended talks, all of these folks hoped to keep on working. It was a hard wait, with the right ending.