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December 20, 2006
Welcome To Oscarwood
After an afternoon of being yelled at by Oscar consultants, Marcel Giacusa and Tim Webber spent the morning being yelled at by studio executives, member directors and others and… VOILA!
The DGA, which yesterday claimed publicly never to have ever had an unwritten, but often spoken policy against screeners being shipped to members, is back to its original policy, with plans to implement the opportunity for studios to ship screeners to the 13,400 DGA members next season if studios so choose. A press release is being written.
As we close the book on this, a couple of factual clarifications:
1. DreamWorks was not in touch with DGA about sending screeners around Thanksgiving. At that time, DreamWorks, like everyone else, was operating based on the long-held unwritten, but verbalized rule that DGA members could not be sent screeners.
2. The letter requesting that a screener mailing was sent to the DGA by a Paramount employee on December 8. It appears that DGA staffers already had a decision on Dec 12, the day before the Bob Welkos screener-vs-screening story ran in the LA Times, as they told Welkos that DGA was allowing screeners. But DGA had not responded to Paramount, formally or informally. The potential of a DGA mailing was not discussed in awards strategy meetings on the afternoon after the Globes noms, Dec 14.
3. Paramount was informed that they would be allowed to ship on the 15th. And DGA, which held the exclusive oibligation to inform all the other studios, says they faxed and mailed everyone later that day. But only a few studios received these faxes.
4. Miramax did not request or receive a go ahead until Monday of this week. And if they had shipped, they would have been able to ship screeners to DGA’s full membership.
5. We will see what the DGA press release says, but there is still industry-wide unanimity that DGA has indicated annually that screeners being shipped to membership are not an option and that this allowance was a change… and that DreamWorks, Miramax, and anyone else was well within their ethical rights to pursue that opportunity as aggressively as they could.
6. Powerful members of the DGA, as well as top-level studio execs, came down on the DGA management team today with concerns that this situation was not only unfair, but creating havoc.
7. No Dreamgirls DVDs have shipped to DGA members, as was rumored this morning, though they are ready to go and will ship to other groups this week.
8. The greatest cost of this fiasco could be to the studios that were told they could ship to DGA and now cannot, who may not be stuck with thousands of expensive watermarked DVDs for which that they now have no assigned use.
And so, it ends…
Posted by poland at December 20, 2006 03:00 PM
Comments
So how about the thousands of watermarked screeners one can only assume Paramount has been assembling for "Dreamgirls"? Lots of money pissed away there...
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 20, 2006 04:12 PM
Wow, Tapley, you won't take one moment not to take a shit on Dreamgirls won' you? Really, its getting a bit tired.
Posted by: wholovesya at December 20, 2006 05:39 PM
Ironically, I don't know that Kris was taking a shot there. But I'll let him speak for himself.
Paramount is and always has been shipping thousands of DVDs in the next week.
Posted by: David Poland at December 20, 2006 05:46 PM
Um, I wasn't take a shot. And there's nothing "ironic" about that fact, either...but let's not get into a discussion about taking shots at films, advocacy, etc.
I'm just commenting that there's a lot of money that feasibly was being spent toward watermarking DVDs of Dreamgirls, as you noted in your follow-up to the initial item, David. Kind of a bum rap to give and then take, that's my point.
I guess I could have said the same for Notes on a Scandal in hindsight, but DG is the first film that came to mind since, apparently, that was the film that started this whole "fiasco."
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley at December 20, 2006 06:15 PM
Now, that felt more like a shot.
This was a fiasco... the DGA's. No other entity started or ended it.
Posted by: David Poland at December 20, 2006 06:24 PM
Not meant to be a shot. "Fiasco" was your term, of course, and I'm using it again here. But Paramount was the first studio ready to ship to the DGA, no? So they are, in effect, potentially the ones, one of the ones, the first ones, whatever, stuck with the costs of watermarking DVDs that they wouldn't have otherwise had to manufacture.
Yes, this was the DGA's fault all around. I never claimed otherwise.
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley at December 20, 2006 06:28 PM
Great reporting, David!
Posted by: EDouglas at December 20, 2006 07:21 PM
(and that wasn't a shot or sarcasm... it was a serious compliment. I really think you're on a roll with this DGA coverage)
Posted by: EDouglas at December 20, 2006 07:25 PM
Oh, and allow me to join Ed on that. Great reporting indeed.
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley at December 20, 2006 07:34 PM
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