Hollywood Babble On & On #988: Hunting & Gathering Hollywood Style

Let's have a little thought experiment.

Let's pretend that you're pursuing a career in show-biz, as either an actor, writer, and director, and to do that you need an agent. Now let's imagine that the impossible has happened and multiple agencies are interested in signing you.

But what kind of agent do you sign on with?

Wait, you ask, furrowing your brow in a feeble attempt to understand, there are different kinds of agents?

Yes, there are two kinds of agents, there are HUNTERS and there are GATHERERS.

HUNTERS are the kind of agents who actively go out and seek jobs for their clients, most agents consider themselves hunters.

GATHERERS are a little more complicated. Their clients are either flooded with offers that have to be sorted through, or their clients have the power to start projects, and it's up to the agents to negotiate with producers and studios to take it up. Gatherers are most common among the very top tier of the mega-agencies who rep only the highest echelons of the A-List.

Now unless you are at the very top of the A-List and are both flooded with offers, or have the money and clout to start your own projects you would probably want a hunter.

Hollywood Babble On & On #984: Jeff Berg's Resolution for 2013.

Jeff Berg has long been considered more than just another talent agent. For a long time he was the grand high poobah of International Creative Management one of the biggest of the big time talent agencies. Now a man of his age and status in the industry is expected to sit on his laurels and soak in the adulations and obeisances of the Hollywood community.

Mr. Berg has decided that isn't good enough for him. He's leaving his luxurious and lucrative comfort zone at ICM, and starting Resolution a brand new agency from the ground up. He's already moved into his offices, and is currently hanging his new shingle on his new door, with over $200 million in capital financing to help pay the bills.

Now some may wonder why he would be going to all this hassle at his age, which is a time when most would consider retirement.

I think it has to do with the thrill.

From what I've been able to gather Berg had been an important player at ICM since it was created in 1975 by the merger of two agencies (Creative Management Associates and International Famous Agency) and its growth into one of the biggest talent agents in the world.

There's a thrill to building a business like that. Making connections, making deals, and watching the whole thing grow and spread before your eyes, provide a rush not seen outside of illegal narcotics.

However, there's a time when you reach the top of the mountain, and you have a choice. You can sit on top of that mountain, doing nothing constructive because you're too busy battling all comers to stay on top until the day comes when you're finally pushed off, because as long as you sit there, everyone else's opportunities for advancement is frozen while you're there. Or you can have the wisdom to climb off the mountain by your own choice and go create new opportunities for others by either finding or building a new mountain because it's more fun and exciting than watching your back 24/7.

I'm no mind reader, so I can't say that my theory about Mr. Berg's decision process is anything more than just a theory with absolute certainty, but I have seen it before.

Canada's biggest movie producer and distributor during the 80s and 90s was Alliance Films which had been run almost since the beginning by co-founder Robert Lantos. In 1998 Alliance merged with TV prodco Atlantis Communications, and Lantos went from being a CEO back to being just a film and television producer.

As an industry watcher I was amazed by the transformation Lantos had. He lost weight, and looked 10 years younger almost overnight. This wasn't the sort of grimacing Botox induced death mask type of 10 years younger, he looked sincerely rejuvenated. It looked like being back in the organizational and deal making trenches of being a street level producer building a new business from scratch re-invigorated him. (Having the comfort of the money and connections earned through his past success no doubt making things a lot easier.)

So good luck to Mr. Berg, I like to see lots of competition, it's better for the industry as a whole.

Hollywood Babble On & On #929: Casting Calculations

Wes Anderson, hot from the art-house success of Moonrise Kingdom, has cast big money mega-star Johnny Depp in his next movie The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Now that sounds like a good match, Depp is the King of Quirk, and Wes Anderson is considered the master of quirky characters, so it should be inevitable.

But I suspect that there might be more to it than just a director hiring an actor he thinks is right for the part.

You see both Depp and Anderson are represented by the United Talent Agency or UTA, and this is where the cold calculation kicks in.

Depp is one of UTA's biggest money-makers thanks to the Pirates movies and other big buck fantasias, but there's a catch.

Depp is in serious danger of being priced out of his career.

Depp traditionally gets an obese up front fee with a hefty piece of the back end. Normally it should be all sunshine and unicorns, but there have been some setbacks recently.

1. The Pirates movies make huge money at the box office, but they have to break records just to break even.

2. He had a huge bomb with Dark Shadows, an overpriced boondoggle. A good chunk of the movie's bloated budget resting on his slender shoulders.

3. Disney is having tons of budget problems with Depp's version of The Lone Ranger, which seems to be completely out of control, cost wise.

4. Warner Bros. dropped his dream adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man. The reason: Thanks to Depp's fees, perks, and other assorted costs, the film couldn't be made for less than $100 million, even though 2/3s of the action take place in one hotel suite.

Depp's stardom is becoming a liability, because his image in Hollywood is not of someone who can sell tickets, but someone who eats up profits just by showing up.

I'm pretty sure that the good folks at UTA see this. Agents tend to be smart cookies, and they know they have to do something to change this image.

So what's better than putting Depp with Wes Anderson a filmmaker who is not only a critical darling but someone whose average production budget isn't big enough to cover Depp's usual fee. Even Anderson's most expensive and indulgent productions, like The Life Aquatic, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, still cost less than  the usual budget of some big studio romantic comedies with more than one "star."

UTA can then go to the studios and say: "Hey, Depp's not a black hole for money, look at what he did with Wes Anderson."

Now I'm not saying that Anderson is doing this solely to please his agents. I'm pretty sure he was already interested in working with Depp, the folks at UTA saw an opportunity to keep their biggest ship afloat, and sold Anderson and Depp on signing on the dotted line.

That is what agents do, you know.

Personally, I hope things work out. I don't like to see someone get sunk, even by their success.

Who Does What? #1: The Agent

Today marks a tremendous event in the history of this blog, if not the world.  It's the day I premiere a brand new feature.  This new new feature is called "Who Does What?" and like it says, it's purpose is to offer an explanation of what different people do in Hollywood, and who they do it to.

Today we look at THE AGENT!

Now some of you are furrowing your brow in a feeble attempt to understand what I'm talking about, but don't worry, that's the point of this blog.

Short answer:  An agent is sort of like a pimp.

Okay I'm being a tad glib, it's highly unlikely you'll ever see an agent wearing a hat like this...

Photo Courtesy of the Dolemite Collection of Cambridge Massachusetts.

Mostly because it messes with their elegantly coiffed hair.

Legendary Agent & Eyewear Enthusiast Irving "Swifty" Lazar

A key difference is that where a traditional street pimp will just slap their "ho" and yell: "Get your junky ass out on that street and earn me some ducats woman!" it's the agent who has to hit the streets, the phones, and the e-mails to find work for their clients.

The key similarity between an agent and a pimp is that both take a percentage of what their clients earn.  

The pimp usually takes about 90+%, while the agent, as a legally licensed representative, capable of negotiating contracts on behalf of their clients can only take 10%, and not a penny more.

It's not unusual for someone in show business to have more than one agent.  This is because talent representation has become a highly specialized practice.  Some agents specialize in feature films, others handle all television related business, while some others handle music, commercial endorsements & modeling gigs, public speaking, literary & publishing business, and merchandising deals. 

Now not all agents are created equal.  There are several different subspecies of the Hollywood Agent.  Here's an incomplete list....

PASSIVE:  This variety of agent is found in the top 2-3 mega-agencies and are really only useful to you if you're already a major movie star or a filmmaker who drops blockbuster hits on a consistent basis.  Because when you're at the top of the heap professionally, you need someone capable of sorting out the offers that come flooding in for you, and figuring out what works out best for you, your career, and your bank account.

However this method is not perfect.  Since they are not actively going out to seek new projects, preferring to only look at what's coming in, opportunities that might have been artistically and financially fulfilling are missed. They can also develop an air of snobbery over the size of the project/paychecks involved and can also miss opportunities.

And let's not forget what happens when you're not a big name movie star or hit dropping filmmaker and your a client of this kind of agent.  You can often wind up unemployed, or getting the sort of offers that their bigger clients rejected.

When you're a little lower on the Hollywood food chain you might prefer having an...

ACTIVE:  This kind of agent goes beyond just the offers coming and goes out looking for jobs for their clients.  They beat the bushes, looking for work, and trying to get the best money they can for their clients.

However, even this method isn't perfect.  Some agents aren't all that choosy when it comes to the jobs they pitch their clients, and their clients don't have the taste, experience, or financial resources to say "no."  So you run the risk of being everywhere, but at the top where you want.  

But this risk can be easily avoided as long as the client puts some thought in when it comes to their career and the lifestyle it supports.

PACKAGING:  Now this sub-species was mega-huge in the 90s, and while they're not as omnipresent as they once were, they still exist.  These agents look to sell not only their client, but a complete "package" of clients.  To explain this, imagine that you're a movie producer trying to get their film off their ground.  You want a certain big-name-movie-star to be the lead in your movie, but their agent has some demands that go beyond a simple payday.

If you want to hire "Big-Name-Movie-Star A" then you must hire the agent's other clients, like "Actor B" to play the villain, "Actor C" to be the love interest, "Director D" to direct the film, if possible, and/or "Screenwriters E and F" to at least do the rewrites if the studio doesn't already have their own preferred people on it.

Now the trap that ultimately sank packaging as the dominant practice in Hollywood is that it often does more harm than good.  Casting was based not on ability or interpersonal chemistry, but on the influence of the star's agent.  Writers and directors ended up working on projects they weren't right for, etc., etc... and the films, the box office, the careers of the clients, and with all that, the earnings of the agents suffered.  And while it's still done by some of the biggest players, it's not the "my way or no way at all" phenomenon it was back in the day.

And that's a very glib, surface only look, at what an agent is, and what they do.

Hollywood Babble On & On #534: 3 Bad Ideas

Welcome to the show folks...

BAD IDEA #1: SWIMMING IN THE SHARK TANK

The Summer movie season is not looking all that good, ticket sales overall are down, pundits are calling this "June Gloom," and the studio bosses are so panicked they're actually talking to agents about what to do next.

I have some video of one of these meetings:

I know, it's a joke I did before, but I love flogging a dead horse as much as the studio executives I like to mock.

But seriously, this meeting is a perfect sign of what's wrong with Hollywood, and here's why: It's basically two Hatfields having a discussion about why those damn McCoys are so ornery.

Well, here's my 2 cents about why things aren't working out whether you want them or not.

1. THE SELF FULFILLING IDIOCY: Hollywood should know that their own business practices are the main reason the costs of making, marketing, and distributing movies has a rate of inflation last seen in Weimar Germany. The whole structure of the studio system is designed to burn more mental calories figuring out how to screw some poor actor out of their 2% piece of the net, to get their CEO a better bonus, than making movies people want to see.

Everybody knows that, especially agents, and that's why agents have the reputation for being sharks. They know their clients are going to get hosed by the studios at some point, so they try to get everything they can get up front, and to hell with other considerations, because it's not like their clients are going to get their residuals anyway. The bigger the star, the bigger the demands, and the narrower the profit margin until it disappears completely.

This leads to an atmosphere of...

2. SHEER TERROR in the executive suite. The people who make decisions in Hollywood are terrified to actually make decisions, for fear of getting canned and losing their company paid Bentley, beach house, and jet for trips to the company retreat in Aruba. So they become extremely risk averse, because their practices made everything so damn expensive. This leads to an incredibly bland entertainment landscape, and a shrinking box office, that can't be attributed to the bad economy, because the movie industry is supposed to thrive in bad times. Hell, the Great Depression was a glorious time, both financially and creatively for Hollywood. Not anymore, so the Executives go off in search of a...

3. MAGIC BULLET. That simple, easy, 1 step plan for guaranteed hit movies, so they don't have to use any common sense in the field of studio management, budgets, or accounting. When one studio has success with a type of project, all the others pounce on that type like extras in a bukkake video. Remakes, reboots, adapting TV shows, digitally animation, 3D visuals, comic book movies, market research or even talking to agents. The problem is that most of these magic bullets are more fizzle than sizzle. I myself was shot with one of those magic bullets back in college, and no for a fact that they can do more harm than good.

While a university student in Toronto I was hired to write sketch comedy for a TV pilot. I was part of a team of 6 writers, and we were putting together some pretty good material. Then the producer decided that the project needed a magic bullet to make it a hit. So she went to market research, and from the findings of the market researchers we went from a funny sketch show, to a mildly amusing sketch/candid camera rip-off, then just a candid camera rip-off, and finally, a sitcom about angels. Why did it become a sitcom about angels? Because the marketing whizzes noted that an ad campaign for cream cheese using angels did very well (It's still running in Canada) so the show should rip off the commercials. The entire production crashed and burned over Xmas, the money people fled, and no one got paid.

Magic bullets do not work.

What does work?

Well, in the old days it was instinct. The folks who gave movies the green-light asked themselves: Would it play in Peoria? It was still a gamble, but at least they weren't completely turning audiences off the way their heirs are doing now.

But they're probably not going to hear that from the agents, because the agents are too wrapped up in the existing system. There's no one in Hollywood that can rattle the cages enough to get the people in power their to take notice.

BAD IDEA #2: MOVIE FUTURES TRADING

The federal regulators who thought Bernie Madoff and sub-prime mortgage backed securities were fine and dandy like sour candy, have decided that "futures trading" (translation: betting) on movie box office performance is a wonderful idea.

I have to call bullshit on this. It's a dreadful idea.

Why?

Think about it.

The values of these "futures" will be based upon the box office estimates made by studios and their rivals.

Those studios, and their rivals, all have reasons for spinning, or outright flim-flamming those estimates for their own ends. (I go into more detail here)

A movies futures market will give them yet another reason to play around with those estimates, and with it the money of even more investors than usual.

So I have to say this...

NO!

BAD FEDS!

BAD BAD FEDS!

DON'T MAKE ME RUB YOUR NOSE IN IT!

BAD IDEA #3: CRIMINAL MINDS - DEFINITELY NOT LADIES NIGHT

CBS has decided to trim the herd on their consistent Top 20 workhorse crime drama Criminal Minds by firing AJ Cook, chopping down the role of Paget Brewster, and keeping fan favorite Kristin Vangsness, for now.

Now CBS is hoping to mitigate the outrage among fans of the show by saying that they're adding a new female (& cheaper) character to the show to replace AJ Cook. Which means that they're already on some sort of damage control, not wanting the fans super pissed off at CBS with a Criminal Minds spin-off due in the fall.

Now CBS's case is that they're trying to control costs, and they're picking on Criminal Minds specifically because it's their workhorse drama. It's not in the Top 10, it's unlikely that the star's going to be cast in the next big blockbuster movie during their summer break, and it doesn't sweep the Emmy Awards every year like those critical darling cable shows. So they can beat it like a rented mule, and get away with it, but I think it's a bad idea, here's why:

1. OPTICS: It really looks bad to slash the roles of female characters on a show that's already viewed as pretty male dominated. It also makes CBS management look like sexist pigs, and give internet wags like me the license to whip up little pics like the one to your right.>>>>>

2. FAN RESENTMENT: Fans are getting sick and tired of seeing their shows jerked around because some executive wants to charge a new boat to their favorite show's budget. This is especially true when it involves actors and characters they like. CBS can't afford to lose these fans, especially in the face of...

3. THE SPIN-OFF: CBS is trying to sell a spin-off in the fall. A lot of fans are already thinking that these cuts are to somehow make the costs of this spin-off more manageable, whether it's accurate or not. They're going to resent the spin-off, and quite possibly tune out.

Of course if the costs were the problem on one of the cheapest looking shows on the normally over-slick network, CBS could have negotiated some sort of deal where both sides could have been happy. Of course, they were denied that option by their own shoddy business practices.

Anyway, if they go through with this plan, I expect the show, and its spin-off, to be done and dusted after next season, barring a miracle.

Hollywood Babble On & On #494: A Couple Of Mini-Bits

Welcome to the show folks...

IS DRAMA DEAD?

The London Book Fair managed to get a few attendees despite the Icelandic volcano screwing up air travel, and some of those attending talked about movies.

Specifically, they talked about how "drama is dead."

According to some speakers the big studios are turning away from dramas for two reasons:

1. The sort of talky dramas that win awards and critical praise, just aren't enough to get bums in seats. Folks want big shows with big budgets and big FX if they're going to drop the kind of filthy lucre needed to get to a movie theater, let alone get a seat in one.

2. Television is doing drama way better than the movies have done in a very long time. In fact, many are saying that we've entered a new golden age of TV drama, if mostly on cable and not as much on the mainstream networks.

Now I have to say that if drama is dead, which I doubt, it's Hollywood's own damn fault, and here's why:

1. Too many filmmakers and critics think that drama is like cod liver oil, it's good for you, so you should accept that it tastes like a sea creature's bung-hole and take it. If you don't get that metaphor, I'm saying that if a film is considered entertaining, it's usually spurned as being "unworthy." Trust me, I went to film school, and sat through many a "worthy" movie where absolutely nothing happens. Tedium isn't seriousness, it's just tedium. Look at many dramas from the golden age of movies, the classics are both serious and entertaining, so why can't modern dramas be both?

2. Too many filmmakers & studios think high concept films can't be good drama, and hence give up on quality, and let the special effects department take over. That's laziness. It's extremely rare for a story to be beyond the rescue of anyone willing to put the talent and effort into making it worthwhile. The Dark Knight showed that you can even make a quality drama out of superhero story. All it takes is talent and effort.

My suggestion, is that filmmakers up the quality in the fields of story and character department, while makers of drama up the entertainment factor in their films. Then maybe we can find some sort of equilibrium.

MARK CUBAN WANTS REVENGE?

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has publicly declared that will do all that he can to put the kibosh to the Weinstein Bros. campaign to spend $625 million of Ron Burkle & Fortress-Colbeck's money to buy back Miramax.

Three possible reasons for this:

1. The effects of Harvey's hypno coin have worn off and Cuban realized that he was talked into investing in "9" and Inglorious Bastards, and probably hasn't seen a penny from either.

2. The leprechaun that lives on his shoulder that only he can see has told him to do it.

3. He's feeling pissy today. Which might also involve the leprechaun.

If he's successful and somehow ruins their bid, it could open the doors to Tom & Alec Gores, the billionaire brothers of uber-agent Sam Gores to renew their courtship, or Disney honcho Bob Iger could keep to his strategy of trying to dump Miramax on someone who can't do anything with it, and sell it David Bergstein's Pangaea Media & their future litigants backers.

We'll have to wait and see...

Hollywood Babble On & On #456: A Snarking I Will Go!

Welcome to the show folks...

After yesterday's juicy bit of corporate takeover strategic games, I'm now stuck with another day of minor bits that I can only snark about. So a snarking I will go!

1. Director Wes Anderson, who just a month ago defected from United Talent Agency to William Morris Endeavor has just defected right back to UTA. There are two possible reasons for this swinging back and forth.

A) Wes Anderson is a chip in the inter-agency poker game, which is held in Swifty Lazar's mausoleum on the second Friday of the month.

B) Wes Anderson is as indecisive and neurotic as one of his characters.

2. NBC is #1 in prime-time for the first time in years because of the Olympics. So Jeff Zucker is canceling NBC's entire line-up, except for Jay Leno's Tonight Show, and replacing it with all Olympics all the time. Sure the Olympics only occur every 2 years, and NBC is expecting to lose $200 million, but Zucker doesn't mess with such petty details.

3. Speaking of petty details, a tip of my jaunty beret to our local Media Warrior, for this link about troubles with Jay Leno's return to the Tonight Show. To sum it up, he's lost his bandleader, and is probably ditching his announcer, but to me that's the least of his troubles. Old Jay does have that teensy problem about booking anyone he thinks might replace him, add to that the "team Conan" people who might call him out on his perfidy in his late night coup, and the only guests he's going to book will be the cast of the Jersey Shore.

4. A company has announced plans to make a movie based on the "Erector Set" toy. I think that this whole toy-based movie thing has gone way past too far, and now arrests, summary trials, and deportations to hard labor camps in Antarctica have to be made.

Not only does this show a complete bankruptcy of imagination, it will be the first film with the word "Erect" in the title to be offered anywhere outside that back room at the video store. Not that I've ever been in a room like that, I'm just going on what I've heard.

5. George Lucas has taken over the film Red Tails, about the heroic Tuskegee Airmen of World War 2, and will direct the re-shoots himself. I guess he felt the acting wasn't wooden enough, and that the film needs a cameo from Jar-Jar Binks.

Hmmm... isn't a producer taking a film away from its "auteur" one of the things that George Lucas and his generation rebelled against? Could it be that baby-boomers engage in hypocrisy?

6. Disney has no interest in doing a sequel to their recent Sandra Bullock mega-hit The Proposal, despite the film raking in over $300 million in profits. There are two reasons for this:

A) Disney really doesn't want anything they can't turn into a ride at one of their parks, and then back into another movie, a line of toys, and other products for sale to kids.

B) Sequels to romantic comedies are troublesome, because it basically means that the struggles and happy endings in the first film, were all for nothing. You're not talking about James Bond, who can go from mission to mission, or Star Trek going from planet to planet for adventures, you're talking about people finding true love and pledging undying love at the end. Having that love die in some vain attempt at scoring a quick buck, does not please the audience.

And finally...

7. Lionsgate and Sony's joint attempt to scoop up the Terminator franchise has failed.

Thank Xenu for that.

Lionsgate and Sony will no longer be in danger of joining previous Terminator producers Hemdale, Carolco, and Halcyon in the realm of corporate oblivion.

The Case of the Ousted Agent

It was a quiet weekend in my humble penthouse office on the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards and I had decided to do another one of my private eye parodies. My quiet weekend was quickly broken by a rap on my door.

The rap was "Mama Said Knock You Out," I picked it up and put it back in its box of hacky old wordplay gags. Then someone actually knocked on my door.

"Come in," I said, and the door swung open, revealing Hollywood agent Uta Yooteeyay.

Her tight power suit screamed "business," her eyes whispered "hello sailor," her cleavage said "hubba-hubba," and her mouth said "My eyes are up here Furious D, get back to them."

"I made my choice," I said.

"I need a dick," she said, and my ears perked up from the obvious double entendre gag.

"Then I'm your man," I said, hitting the button for my automatic Murphy bed and turning on some Barry White.

"I need to hire you," said Uta, dropping a wad of bill on my desk, then taking back 10%. "As a private detective, not a gigolo."

"Private eye is my business," I said, "gigolo is my hobby."

"Will you take the job?"

"What kind of a job?"

"A whydunnit," answered Uta.

"You mean you want me to find out why who did what?"

"Exactly."

"Then can you explain it to me, because I don't have a clue what we're talking about?" I asked.

"You've heard of Wes Anderson," said Uta.

"Yes," I said. "He makes those movies about the ennui of rich people."

"Ennui and familial dysfunction," corrected Uta.

"I stand corrected."

"Well he's dumped me as his agent," said Uta, "after I plucked him from indie film obscurity and got him movie after movie, even after they stopped making money. He just dumped me like I was a common Jennifer Aniston, and ran off with William Morris-Endeavor."

"And you want me to find out why?"

"Exactly."

"I'll take the case!"

#

To get to the bottom of this case I needed to know the word on the street. So I hit the street, and after I got back from the emergency room with freshly stitched knuckles, I decided to walk on the street and ask people.

So I went to Ronald the Homeless Movie Promoter, who was standing 0n the corner outside my building holding a poster for the movie Youth In Revolt.

"Hey Ronald," I said, "I see they're paying you to carry movie posters now."

"Yep," said Ronald. "I just found out that I'm literally half of Dimension Film's marketing budget."

"I hope you got your money up front," I said.

"Hell yeah," said Ronald. "They offered me a piece of the net, and I told them like it was offering me a piece of the Loch Ness Monster."

"I need to know something about Wes Anderson," I asked.

"Like what?"

"Like why he would dump his agent."

"Word on the street is that he blames his agent for the failure of The Fantastic Mr. Fox," said Ronald pointing a spot on Hollywood Boulevard that had the words: Wes Anderson Blames His Agent for the Failure of The Fantastic Mr. Fox painted on it in a bold Futura font.

"That's another mystery in itself," I said. "Agents line up gigs and haggle over contracts, they don't decide whether movies are successful or not. It's even less so in a career like Anderson's who pretty much writes and directs his own projects."

"Agents get blamed for all kinds of shit," said Ronald, "and that shit can ruin an agent's career. Look at me, last year I was a senior partner at the Paradigm Agency."

As I left I was going to drop some change in Ronald's case, but he got swooped up and hired as a programming executive for NBC before I could do it. I had some more digging to do.

#

After doing a lot of digging I found myself in the catacombs of Paris, France. Sure, it was a hellacious amount of work, but still easier than getting through airport security without a bomb in my underwear. Wes Anderson was here, keeping an apartment on the Rue De La Pretensionne, on the fabled Left Bank of the Seine. If I was going to crack this case, I had to go straight to the man himself.

The door to his apartment swung open, which was never a good sign. I stepped inside the carefully composed suite, a thematically suitable Rolling Stones song playing in the background.

"Who is it?" said a voice from beneath a stylish timeless, yet modern settee in the corner.

"My name is Furious D," I answered, "I'm a private dick."

"What do you want?" asked the voice.

"I need to speak to Wes Anderson," I said. "Is that you?"

"Yes," answered Wes Anderson as he emerged from beneath the settee. "What do you want to see me about?"

"I need to know why you dumped your agent," I said.

"It's their fault that The Fantastic Mr. Fox tanked at the box office," said Anderson, adjusting his suit, tailor made to looked just slightly out of style, while looking even more stylish.

"There are lot more reasons to blame others for that movie tanking," I replied. "You could blame the studio for poor marketing, a poor release plan, you could blame the cast for not exactly burning any calories in their performances, I mean I could only watch the preview, but everyone sounded like they just woke up, or you could blame yourself for making films that people, many of them fans, consider increasingly self indulgent."

"I could never blame myself!" said Anderson, shocked at the implication. "Martin Scorsese thinks I'm the next Martin Scorsese!"

"Martin Scorsese also thinks Leonardo DiCaprio is the next Robert DeNiro," I replied, "and that's why the previews for Shutter Island look like a high school production of The Mousetrap."

"Now you're denying me the approval parents in my films deny their children!"

"Why am I even going through all this trouble anyway," I said, "it's only a matter of time before your agent at WME defects to go work for Uta anyway. It's the circle of life in Hollywood."

Suddenly a troupe of dancers and singers appeared out of nowhere:

Gershay jenssie hai see-yem [There comes a client]
Sithi uhhmm ariemmanuel [Oh yes, it's a client]
Gersh dubbya hemmee [There comes a client]
Dwinka uhhmm soylatte [Oh yes, it's a client]
Yoo-tee-hay
Siyay-ay [We're going to sign a contract]
Hai-see-yem
Yoo-tee-hay dubya hemmee [It's a client and an agent]
Hai-see-yem ten perzenta (Se-to-kwa!)[Move to another Agency]
Arihemmanuel dubya hemmee (Asana)[Sign to another Agency]

From the day we arrive in Los Angeles
And, blinking, step into the sun
You have to see and forever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to make in here
More to find than can ever be found
When an agent's rolling high
Through the ozone free sky
Keeps great and small waiting around
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through Paradigm and Gersh
Through CAA and Verve
Till we find our place
Parking validated
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

It's The Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through William Morris Endeavor
Back to ICM and UTA
Till we find our place
With a corner office
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

"Hey!" I barked, "this is a Private Eye parody, not a musical. Now scram so I can declare..."

CASE CLOSED

Some Friendly Advice

Welcome to the show folks...

British talent agent and manager Duncan Millership is leaving the once fog bound, but now frost bound British Isles, and is moving to Los Angeles to take up a post with American management firm Management 360.

From one Duncan to another, I'd like to wish him good luck. With the current state of California he's going to need it. Which brings me to a list of handy items that he'll need to survive the inevitable culture shock which will come when he's full immersed in Southern California's "Nescafe Society" (to bastardize Noel Coward.)

First...

SUNSCREEN

Especially for someone from Britain, the nation that gave the world the very definition of the word "pasty." Mere minutes in the searing So-Cal sun can turn an ordinary person into some sort of lobster like creature at least in the complexion department. So a newcomers must stock up on sunscreen, preferably with an SPF rating potent enough to stop Gamma Rays. Because there is less ozone on Mars than above Los Angeles.

A SPANISH/ENGLISH-ENGLISH/SPANISH DICTIONARY

If you're going to live in Los Angeles, you're going to have to deal with the people who live in Los Angeles, and a lot of them do not speak the Queen's English. Now trying to talk to the stars is something you have to learn the hard way, but a good bilingual dictionary could help someone communicate with the rest of the city.

A CONVERTIBLE

It's pretty much standard that any newcomer to So-Cal MUST spend their first year in the city driving around in an overpriced convertible. Then you'll realize that you're losing brain-cells from inhaling everyone else's exhaust, and then get a regular, air tight car. I suggest a jaunty British sportscar to advertise Mr. Millership's UK bona-fides. Though I'm sure he knows that any British car, will need a British mechanic on staff, but I'm sure he can work it out.

A GPS SYSTEM

In Los Angeles you cannot get milk from the corner store without driving. It's a car-centric city and it's urban planning is a lesson in how to not lay out a city. It's basically a massive dog's breakfast of cities, suburbs, and exurbs. So any new comer will need either a driver with the path-finding skills of a master explorer, or a damn good GPS.

A BRITISH LAPTOP COMPUTER

Trust me, after getting that stupid red line for trying to spell "colour" the proper and civilized way, for the 1,000,000 time even though you damn well reset the spelling dictionary, any person will be ready to use the next item on their accursed machines.

A GUN

When in Rome, do as the Romans, and when in America, you reserve the right to bear arms like all the rest. Sure, a lot of the upscale Angelenos will say they are pro-gun control, but know deep down, they're all packing serious heat. Plus, it proves helpful when navigating Los Angeles' frequent traffic jams.

I hope Mr. Millership finds these suggestions helpful. Do my loyal readers have any more suggestions for a newcomer to Los Angeles?

Hollywood Babble On & On #424: Business Blatherings

Welcome to the show folks...

HARVEY CASHES IN CLAUSE IN CONTRACT WITH SATAN

There's a report going around that some unidentified person or business is in talks with the floundering Weinstein Company to set up a fund for TWC to acquire independent films for distribution.

Which makes me ask a question for this as yet unidentified investor.

Why?

True there was a time when the Brothers Weinstein were considered the masters of independent film acquisition. But now folks are questioning if that truly was mastery, or if it was just a combination of dumb luck and good timing, because they certainly don't have that reputation now.

Their current reputation, one they've had way back in the days of Miramax, is to buy independent films, and either chop the living shit out of them until they were unrecognizable to the people who made the film, or to just shelve them, sometimes for years, before unceremoniously dumping them in the DVD discount bin, because they somehow didn't fit in with Harvey Weinstein's personal fits of whimsy.

The reputation of buying films and hustling them hard into profitability and awards is as long dead and dust covered as most of TWC's past independent film acquisitions.

Which raises another question.

How many independent producers are still willing to sell their films to TWC?

I know that indie film distribution is hurtin' for certain, but a simple look at the Weinstein scorecard shows that going into business with them carries the potential to seriously damage your movie, your money, and possibly even your health from extreme stress. And there are just too many stories of filmmakers going through this intense hell, and still end up with their film collecting dust on a shelf. To show anyone that it's worth going into business with TWC, you have to show some sort of evidence that Harvey Weinstein's undergone the sort of radical personality change that recently transformed Tim Robbins into a closet Republican.

I'm beginning to suspect that Harvey's true talent isn't hustling movies anymore, it's convincing investors that they can still trust him to not run a company into the ground, despite all the evidence.

THREE AMIGOS FEEL SOME VERVE

A trio of agents (Bill Weinstein, Bryan Besser and Adam Levine) have left mega-agency WME to form Verve, their own agency.

Personally, I think it's good to see a new business open up shop, because competition, not conglomeration, is what keeps the agency industry healthy, and that same competition is pretty darn good for clients too.

I wish the Verve trio good luck.

CABLE, CASH, AND CRAP

First Fox and Time-Warner Cable fought it out, now it's Cablevision and the Scripps Network going at it like two chihuahuas over a steak, resulting in Scripps yanking the popular Food Network and Home & Garden TV off of Cablevision.

I know that I wrote, somewhat glibly about the Time-Warner Cable/Fox Broadcasting feud, but this situation illustrates something that I think not only afflicts the entertainment business, but other industries as well.

This is when I put on my Strother Martin hat, and matching cosh and declare that what we have here is a failure to negotiate.

Both sides are infected with the false notion that life is a zero-sum game, and that for someone to win, someone else must lose. This creates a destructive pattern where people forget that in a true free market system, there is always a way for all sides to win, and that is through NEGOTIATION.

So what do they have to do to negotiate successfully?

First, identify the parties who have a stake in the negotiation. In this case it is:

1. CABLE CARRIERS- These are the guys who rent the use of their cables that carry a variety of channels to homeowners.

2. CHANNEL PRODUCERS- These guys own and operate the channels that carry the programming that make renting the cable worthwhile.

3. CABLE CUSTOMERS- These are the people who rent the cables that carry the programs that run on the channels that come over the cables.

Then you identify what each party in the negotiation wants.

1. CABLE CARRIERS- To make money renting out cables that carry a variety of programming.

2. CHANNEL PRODUCERS- To make money putting programming to run on the cables.

3. CABLE CUSTOMERS- To watch the shows they like at a reasonable price.

Now this where things get tricky, because only two of the three parties involved are directly active in the negotiations. This can lead to two potentially harmful traps:

A. The Cable Co. and the Channel Co. make the negotiation into a contest to see who could screw the other out of something.

or

B. The Cable Co. and the Channel Co. stop screwing each other, and start screwing the customers.

Both traps are caused by the two sides forgetting the fundamental basis of every business, which is to make money by giving people what they want to pay for. When this basic fact is forgotten you get a business that repulses customers, raises prices beyond what market forces call for, and rationalizes piracy.

Right now Cablevision is looking at losing a lot of customers over this feud, meanwhile Scripps is losing the revenue those very same customers could have been making them during the time it takes for them to switch their cable providers. Hell, if I was one of Cablevision's competitors, I'd be on their customers like stink on shit, and it serves them right for making this fundamental mistake.

To prevent these fiascoes I offer this 4 point plan:

1. The companies remember their reason for existence: To profit from pleasing customers by giving them a good or service they want to pay for.

2. The companies remember that they have a symbiotic relationship, where they can both mutually profit with a viable business model that operates without deception or coercion.

3. Formulate a co-operative instead of adversarial plan to maximize their profits by maximizing consumer satisfaction. This is by calculating the best service they can provide while making a profit with a price that the market will bear.

4. Put plan into action.

You'd be surprised how simple business can be when there's a little common sense put in the mix.

Hollywood Babble On & On #416: Not Clever/Clever

Welcome to the show folks...

CAPITOL SPENDS CAPITAL ON COURT

When I have those dark tea-times of the soul where I wonder if the movie industry is the worst run industry in the world, I just step back, look at the music industry and realize that movies are only the second worst run industry in the world.

The same industry that brought us the eternally wonderful format of the 8-track, has fallen to its default position when it comes to running their business, the pointless lawsuit.

The latest exercise in lame litigation is over this video and others like it:

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Apparently Capitol Records considers people making videos "lip-dubbing" to songs copyright infringement, and are suing the user-created video site Vimeo, because they blame the site and its parent company for starting the fad.

I have my personal beefs with the music industry* but I think I can put my bitterness aside and offer an objective, nay clinical, view of the whole thing and boil it down to its essence.

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS STUPID!

It really is. They failed to capitalize on just about every advance in audio/video technology since Edison unveiled his first wax cylinder recording of Shine On Harvest Moon, and they sued him because they thought it would hamper sales of sheet music. They literally had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and they still don't know what to do with it.

Now the record industry will tell you that the videos they are enriching lawyers over are the cusp of the slippery slope of music piracy.

Guess what music industry, there is no slippery slope, it's a cliff, and you fell over it about ten years ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure the impact has driven the industry's collective head up its collective ass. They still fail to see the fact that the main motive behind music piracy is the notion that it's a victimless crime, because they believe they're stealing from some big faceless corporation that artificially inflates the price of music while screwing and suing the artists out of their royalties, and stunts like this don't do much to dissuade this image.

The "screw and sue" image also blinds the music industry to opportunities.

I have to agree with the article's author, Dylan Stableford, and say that these "lip dub" videos are not piracy.

They are FREE ADVERTISING.

Millions will see these videos online, and if 10% actually go out and buy the song, that means hundreds of thousands of extra sales that may not have happened because folks sure aren't going to see one of the official music videos on MTV.

What the record companies should have done was team up with a TV channel and hold a "lip dub" reality show contest, where teams can win money, concerts by the bands in question, or some other lame ass prizes. I'm sure Paula Abdul could use the work as a celebrity judge. Slant the finalists to the back-list, and you can unload a lot of product that's just sitting and gathering digital dust.

Goddamn it music industry, opportunity knocks, and you go and sue the knocker.

And that internet company's owned by Barry Diller, who has some sharp elbows and will make any fight cost them big time.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Anyway.... here's me saying something nice about someone.

RUPERT MURDOCH IS A MAGNIFICENT BASTARD

Yep he really is, and the big clue is this story at Deadline Hollywood Daily.

For those to lazy to click the link it says that the Wall Street Journal, which is the biggest newspaper in the country right now, has switched over their representation from Creative Artists Agency, over to United Talent Agency. (Possibly because UTA still validates parking)

Now you're probably wondering why a newspaper needs a Hollywood agent, well it's simple. Newspapers carry stories, stories can be made into movies, and agents negotiate a price for those stories.

Now you're probably wondering why a newspaper owned by a man who already owns a movie studio, a TV network, and numerous cable outlets would want one of their newspapers to have a talent agency to negotiate prices with other studios.

That's because Rupert Murdoch has a cunning plan.

Think about it, media conglomerate synergy is all about taking material from one outlet and using it cheaply through other outlets. But sometimes another company will pay more money for the same material, then the original company gets to put the financial screws to their rivals, and then get those same rivals to pay them all over again for advertising space with those same newspapers and TV channels.

Rupert Murdoch, you are a magnificent bastard, and for that I salute you.