this was gonna start...

...with an amusing anecdote about how awesome it is to be an executive producer on a pilot...last week, our scheduling, budget and location needs made it necessary for me to switch a scene in which the middleman confronts a gangster ape from the ape's house to a bada-bing-esque gentleman's club...as a result of the change, i actually got to walk into the costume department and request that they make a fur bikini for a showgirl who will appear in the scene.

how often does anyone get to do that?

so yes, the best job ever.

except that now, the writers guild is on strike - and, while i believe wholeheartedly in the cause (don't get me started on the hypocrisy of a vertically integrated media oligopoly pleading poverty on residuals - or how annoying it was to see shows i wrote become the first ever top downloads on itunes and know that i was never going to see any compensation for it) the strike has put me in a a difficult position as a producer.

of course, i am about to do all the things i must do - including registering the scripts i have in production or development so that the writers guild can monitor for signs of scab activity and preparing to follow the strike rules issued by the guild...strike rules that not only require me to not generate new material, but which also stipulate that, i cannot render writing services including...

(a) cutting for time
(b) bridging material necessitated by cutting for time
(c) changes in technical or stage directions
(d) assignment of lines to other existing characters occasioned by cast changes
(e) changes necessary to obtain continuity acceptance or legal clearance
(f) casual minor adjustments in dialogue or narration made prior to or during the period of principal photography
(g) such changes in the course of production as are made necessary by unforeseen contingencies (e.g., the elements, accidents to performers, etc.)
(h) instructions, directions, or suggestions, whether oral or written, made to a writer regarding story or screenplay

the rules additionally state that as a rule of thumb, if you are asked to do something that feels like writing...don't.

so the middleman script is locked. i will not change it or do any of the things listed above: all the drafts of the script i have turned in were done before the expiration of the wga contract on october 31st.

so that's taken care of, but there's another moral quandary...

...see, as a hyphenate, i can't be legally penalized by the guild for doing my duties as a producer: but the guild would certainly prefer it if the walkout was complete - if people like myself struck not only as writers but also as producers...because if the paralyzing effect of the strike is felt swiftly and across the board, the producers might be more motivated to settle quickly.

so here i am, given the opportunity to see through to completion the production of a nine year-old dream into a pilot...a dream i self-financed as a comic book, seen through to three volumes and fought to get to this place, into a reality...

...and on the other hand, there's a labor union of which i am a member, mounting picket lines i am required to honor, running a justified strike against a predatory media cabal that has no qualms about taking from creators as much as they can possibly get (while laughably pleading poverty when their entire raison d'etre is to monetize the work of people such as myself) asking me to walk away completely.

the areas are grey and the questions are difficult...is the editing of a series - the shaping of scenes, cutting scenes for maximum impact, and reordering of plot elements that routinely takes place when an executive producer does his final cut of a project - considered writing (morally if not functionally)? is producing this pilot - arguably a product the network cannot exploit unless it settles a strike and proceeds to make a series - a bad moral choice in the face of the strike?

what would you do?