Week Of January 17, 2007 - Wed / Fri

January 17 , 2007

Little Red Writing Hood Goes To Sundance

This is the cautionary fairy tale of Little Red Writing Hood. (Her real name is Lizzy Bentley, but we'll call her "Red.")

Once upon a time, in the sun-drenched land of LA, lived a lovely young lass named Red. She was a somewhat familiar figure in the land. A happy marriage to someone else in the industry, a smattering of high quality, but low profile work over the years, kids in the right showbiz schools. She wasn't very showy, this Red, in spite of her name. But she was proud and honest and still loved getting into work that made her feel like she was contributing the world.

One day, Red was bopping around the showbiz forest when a family friend from - could this be more ironic? - The Land of Dick Wolf, came to her to use her pen to a story about the Nanking massacres of 1937/38. The sweet and well-intended friend, Wolfie (known in the real world as Short Doc Oscar-winner Bill Guttentag), had written a treatment about the subject after being contacted by The Mighty Oz (mixed metaphor of the day!), who had read about the suicide of Iris Chang, best known for her book, The Rape of Nanking, and got financing for a doc. Wolfie brought WolfB (Dan Sturman) onto the project. And when Wolfie got the magical idea to do a staged reading based on real witnesses of what happened, the two wolves realized that they needed to hire a writer.

La, la, la, la, la...

Little Red Writing Hood made a deal with the wolves, then looking like heroic and handsome sheep, to write the script for the staged reading and other parts of the doc structure. The sheep/wolves were getting money from The Mighty Oz, but as always, doc sheep don't have very much, so Red was willing to work for Lollypop Guild (sometimes known as the Writer's Guild of America) scale, with the proviso that she become a guild member in the process. And off to work she went....

She worked and she worked and she worked, picking and choosing and shaping and writing her way through thousands of pages of diaries from witnesses. She delivered her first draft. Wolfie contributed about 22 pages and WolfB about 5 (none of which ended up in the film). And Red got her pay. But alas, there was no contract for her. The Wolves told her that they were still working on guild signatory status. And then came Draft Two... written by Red alone... still no contract... still no signatory.

When Red's solo Draft Three came and went, the wolves started baring their teeth! After three drafts of the screenplay, written alone, The Wolves wanted her to accept a deal as an Associate Producer with no writing credit. The Wolves threatened that if she didn't take this deal, she would get no deal at all.

It seemed so odd to Red to see all those teeth. Everything had been so nice, so friendly. So important.

As it turned out, as one asked around The Land of LA, one found that Cinderella (once known as Jennifer Warren) has some credit trouble with Wolfie on the Oscar winning short doc, You Don't Have To Die. And Stooge #1 and Stooge #2 (aka the guys who invested two years in shooting the footage that became the Wolfie-directed Oscar winning doc short, Twin Towers) had also had trouble with their credit situation, although they apparently got paid and contracted out by way of their own foolish business choice.

But these are other tales for another day...

The Wolves snapped and clawed at Red, hoping she would simply disappear, just another silly writer who didn't have the status and protection of The Lollypop Guild.

But as in so many fairy tales, dear reader, there was someone watching over.

In May of 2006, in the Land of LA, Red asked The Lollypop Guild what was going on and they told her that The Wolves had actually been guild signatory since November 15, 2005. Red was a defacto member of The Guild as far as The Guild was concerned. Where was her guild buy-in check? Where were the Pension & Health dues on what she's been paid?

That's when The Wolves really started huffing and puffing.

The wolves still had to shoot the staged reading, filled with glittering princes and princesses of LA. The script they would read was written by Red and Red alone. But the royalty was given a script to read from and on the front it said, "Written by The Wolves."

Still, in spite of the slap, Red was willing to accept a shared credit with The Wolves, even though she thought it undeserved, because she knows the game and she acknowledges that Wolfie wrote a treatment and WolfB came up with the staged reading idea. She harbored no anger at the wolves wanting a taste. But to eat her up?

Months later, after much back and forth, in Lollypop Guild arbitration - when producing and directing wolves come asking the guild for writing credit, there is always an arbitration, because, well, you know how wolves are.- that very same script that was read by the princes and princesses would turn up with a front page credit of "Wolfie, WolfB & Red." Hmmm...

In fact, none of Red's drafts with her name alone on them - and she never wrote with anyone else, which is what guild's use of "and" and "&" signify in credits - were allowed into arbitration as the result of a pre-arbitration hearing. Red objected, but found only deaf ears.

That's when Red got a lawyer and an arbitration expert of her team. One lawyer told her she could get an injunction against the film opening at Sundance while another suggested to her that she keep it all on the lowdown. They told her that she could create real problems for the wolves. They eventually told her not to talk about this in public.

But Red just wanted what she believed to be fair. Her payment for less than her actual work (2 drafts instead of 3)... her Lollypop Guild membership... her guild health insurance... and a credit that showed that she did write on the doc and that she did not write with either of The Wolves.

The holidays came, as they always do. And Sundance announced its slate, with credits provided by the producers, that offered no mention of the writing input of Red. The imdB posting was made... with no mention of Red. Tensions mounted.

A remarkably long 38 days after the pre-arbitration process started, just last Saturday, in fact, (less than a week before the film premieres at Sundance) there was a ruling. The credit, the Lollypop Guild pronounced, would be "Wolfie, WolfB & Red." Of course, the arbiters were only given scripts with that ampersanded credit or no mention of Red at all, so that was as close to a victory as Red could expect.

And so, the film premieres at Sundance in a couple of days. And by Lollypop ruling, The Wolves and their minions are scrambling to put Red's name back on everything they are required to put it on. The film's supposed to be very, very good. One of Red's lawyer is still suggesting that she could make a mess of it for The Wolves, asking for an injunction to pursue the "And" instead of the "&." But Red cares about the story being told and doesn't want to hurt the film. There are some teeth marks, but she got out of the forest with most of what was promised her and in this forest, that is a victory indeed.

The End.

For Now...

E Me.

---

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