Focus 580; The Manhattan Beach Project

Good morning and welcome to focus 580 This is our morning talk show. My name's David Inge. Glad to have you with us. And we are also pleased to have this morning as our guest Peter Lefcourt. He is a novelist he has authored six actually seven I think if you count the new one he is also an award winning writer for film and television and makes his home in Los Angeles His new book is titled The Manhattan Beach project and it's published by Simon and Schuster and we will be in presently here will tell you a little bit about the book and about the character that he created. A question is of course as we move along here through the hour. Welcome. The number to call if you're here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 Now that's number to call into the show. A pledge is not required it would be nice because we are raising money for the station this way but that's a completely separate deal separate number. So here we want to call in the show 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line. And that was good anywhere that you can hear us and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and

toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Peter Lefcourt Hello. Good morning David thanks very much for talking with us and I'm delighted to be on the show. We certainly appreciate it. Well let's just plunge right in and talk a little bit about how many had Beach project. You're your lead character here is a fellow who managed to win himself an Academy Award for producing a movie but at the time that we meet him when the story opens he's kind of on the skids. He is living in his nephew's pool house he's driving a borrowed car and he's attending a meeting of Debtors Anonymous. Tell us about Charlie burns. Charlie Burns was the hero of my first novel called The deal which is a kind of dark comedy about the movie business and it struck me at the end of that book Charlie wins an Academy Award for a very improbable reasons and it struck me fittingly that in a couple of years if that when you Academy Awards you could very very possibly in this business be on the bottom. And so we rediscover Charlie once we're on a playable

unable to get a job living as you say in his nephew's pool house and going to Debtors Anonymous trying to figure out how to deal with the amounts of debt that are surrounding him. He's kind of a typical character in this town because people in Hollywood go up and down with great rapidity you could be king of the world one day you could be bum the next and so I had to kind of find this for Charlie and didn't want to leave him stranded six books ago and I decided to bring him back. And in this book of course he gets involved in the somewhat surreal world of reality television. It happens when when he's approached by someone and who identifies himself as an operative in the CIA says I have a lot of experience and contacts in Central Asia and I have this idea for this reality program and he says to Charlie he says well you know about show business you know about television and about movies so I need someone to produce this for me I have the contacts I have the idea you can produce it for me and the idea is a reality television show

set in Uzbekistan that focuses on a warlord. I think the logline as we see in this business is Tony Soprano meets that like what they call high concept you can describe it if you can describe it in one sentence you've got something exactly the set up is that for the title the Manhattan Beach project is a play obviously On the pinhead project which was the. Secret government research and development project for the atomic bomb during World War 2. It struck me that the television business nowadays is so desperate that these networks are almost on a warlike footing with one another that it would perfectly feasible that they have a sort of secret weapon development factory and so I predicate that there is a division of A B C called A B C D which is located in Manhattan Beach which is a suburb of Los Angeles and in secret they have this huge bunch of people sitting around developing extreme

reality television shows. The types of high concept dangerous shows that the network cannot associate themselves too publicly with one of the one of the projects for example they have a new development in the skunkworks is called Kidnapped where they actually kidnap an unsuspecting person and bring him to a secret location filmed that and then call up his friends relatives and see how much ransom they would offer. Anyway Charlie goes with this man Kermit Spencer and pitches a reality television concept called Warlord which essentially is a documentary style program on the life of a spec warlord and Isabel Kharkov and of course they buy it and they develop it in secret. What's what's troubling in a way when you you think to yourself OK I'm going to I'm going to make up to develop a premise for a reality show and I'm going to do what I think is the most absurd thing that I can possibly think of like the two

examples that you cite. What what frightens me is the idea that you would that one writer would come up with something that you think well this is completely completely beyond the pale and that the but the next time you turn the television on you'll see it. It seems that there is and there's nothing that they almost nothing that they won't do. I believe absolutely that's why it's this secret skunkworks is actually experimented with some of the most outrageous things. It's not beyond the pale of possibility that a network would do this type of thing that some of my friends have jokingly said I should have pitched a reality show instead of written a novel. But you know this is a work of fiction but it's and it's obviously based in reality I think there is a great deal of desperation in the television business these days about trying to find hits trying to find things that people watch. And I see no reason why they wouldn't try this. I think it was Paddy Chayefsky who said the network. About 20 years ago or 30 years ago that they would televise the crucifixion if it got ratings. And so anyway

Charlie developed this program goes to spec a stand with Kermit Fenster who is the name of the ex CIA agent finds a warlord and begins to photograph his life and runs in some interesting adventures. When he finds out by the way that the war lords life is not that interesting. And so what he does along with a he finds this ex Peace Corps volunteer who is working at the spec estate building septic tanks named buzz Bowden and bussin he decide that since nobody understands who spec anyway they rewrite the subtitles and create a kind of fictional reality show which hits all the bases because not only do we have the real violence and the real life but we have some interesting kind of soap opera situations. Will that also tells you something about the reality show because in fact the reality show is not reality and that the people who produce said do all sorts of things manipulate situations. Who knows what kind of editing goes on to to make a show that they think is going to be interesting is going to have drama. So in fact

saying that it's a reality program is something of a misnomer. Absolutely by all means that the act of editing becomes in fact an act of creating an act of writing a story in the peace project or world wide who is married to a solid woman who doesn't ever leave her room. He has in real life a fundamentalist Muslim son who wants to join the Taliban and he has a gay daughter. And what are our writers quote unquote do if they decide that the American ladies would never never really accept a son who went off to join the Taliban. So in the fictional translation of the subtitle he runs off to go to law school and can't and the wife who is notoriously absent from the compound is actually getting a facelift in Azerbaijan. And so they really create a soap opera out of the reality of the world to its life. Our guest knows but a focus 580 is a Peter left court. He is a novelist he's also written for

film and television among his credits are Cagney and Lacey. A program for which he won an Emmy Award and he's the author of a number of novels including 11 Karens the Dreyfus Affair the deal the woody Di and I and abbreviating Ernie. He is also the editor of an anthology of pieces that were written by screenwriters writing about their first jobs. He has a piece in there and there and there are a number of others and that book is titled The first time I got paid for it. His new novel is the Manhattan Beach project and it is out now and it is published by Simon Schuster. And questions comments certainly are welcome. You want to call and talk with our guest 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's for Champaign Urbana and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. This must be I would imagine that writers people who have written for a television or want to write for television must they must hate the reality show because. Well I'm not exactly sure that it that it X glued writers because as we've said you know it's not real it's not a documentary.

But at the same time you really don't need people to write stories. And I guess I think you don't really need people to write their stories or writers must hate these shows because it means you know for those guys we don't need those guys anymore. I think hate is too mild a word. You have to be dumb also. A member of the board of directors of the Writers Guild here in the central US and reality television is replacing in displacing a lot of writers from from point it's causing economic problems among not just writers but also women directors and actors in Hollywood because reality shows are done entirely by nonunion talent. Of course the question is as you pursue rightly say Aren't these shows really written that in fact they are the so-called producers who sit in the editing room and edit the footage actually create stories after the fact. Also the producers who think up the concepts of the shows are in fact doing the writing function so

we believe that these shows should be in fact credited. Writers should be created and they should be union shows using Writers Guild talent. They don't they exploit their labor. People work very long hours for very little money so it's become a political hot potato here in Hollywood. Well when you wrote the first book and you created this hero your hero your main character Charlie Burns who also reappears here in Manhattan Beach project. Surely you must have drawn some on your own experiences with this with was this one of those cases where you thought that you'd been kicked around and you said yourself OK I'm going to bust this down right off and I'm going to read this book I wanted to I'm going to tell it like it really is and people are going to see what it's really like. And my fellow writers well hoist me up on their shoulders and carry me around town was there just even the tiniest little bit in the back of your head somewhere thinking enough. I wanted the truth to put the truth on the page and and that's what people are going to get.

Well interestingly enough when I wrote the deal which I would do in the 80s you know I had actually wanted it to be about three years previously so that for Cagney Lacey. And by that point three years after winning an Emmy I couldn't get a job because I had I guess antagonized people and it seemed to be perfectly fitting that it is time to face it three years after winning a major award nobody will hire you. And so I set out to write a book because I wanted to it's essentially. People said bite the hand that fed needs to erode the deal which is a very dark satire about the movie business and the book came out and became a cult favorite and perversely I became very playable again. For some reason in that masochistic logic of Hollywood people suddenly want to give me work to wind up working as a screen television writer a lot of the 90s while I was writing novels. So go figure. That does bring you the question about or raise the question in my mind at least about the the value of these awards to the people who get them and how it is that you

as you say could have won a major award in television and not been able to get work or your character here in the book wins an Academy Award and then you know as they say can't get arrested. You wonder well what what exactly is is the value of this award you know get to take it where you you get your moment they're weak it's to stand up and say I'd like to thank everybody for this. And you take it home you put it on your mantle piece and I'm sure that that people come over they look at it and they're envious but then how quickly does that does the shine where often does it get to a point where it's almost like if you hadn't won in the first place. Well I use mine as a doorstop. Very effective if it's a large statue you know. Nothing is so fleeting as success in the entertainment business. There are people who want to count Luis Fletcher won an Academy Award a marvelous actress who three years later she was doing small roles on television movies. It's really goes with the territory and this is very much of a youth oriented

business. Once you get past 30 40 Oh God forbid 50 you're you're you're basically put out to pasture there's an enormous amount of ageism in this. And those of us who've been around for a while kind of accept it. It's it's really very much of a kind of free falling economy someone said that the pole is greased with which you go up and down and it's only happened to me in my career and it's happened to a lot of people I know. Fortunately I've had my books which have always provided me with you know a sense of great satisfaction. This is difficult even under the best of circumstances difficult to be a writer in Hollywood because movies and television shows are really not about writing they are about movie stars and they're about camera work. And a writer is just really one element. So the most important element in the process the writers often denigrate that you could ask your audience for example to be a prominent screenwriter today and I bet very few will come up with the name of someone who's not a writer director don't think of Quentin Tarantino because he's a writer director. But in terms of a pure writer

we have a little joke here we call that the Tomb of the unknown writer and it's always been that way in the business of screenwriting. It's really it's tough and maybe the only revenge writers get is they manage to write things where they can make the writers the hero or can point out the fact just how little control writers have or how you may write something and the studio might even say oh this is great we're going to do this but then they go it ends up get being given to somebody else who ends up doing something to it and then it may go to somebody else who does something with an answer. And by the time that comes even becomes a finished script much less a movie you might look at it and say I didn't write this you die when you wouldn't even recognize it. We have to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald The best writing well is the best revenge. There was a T-shirt that people were wearing around Hollywood recently that said I didn't write the fun stuff because there were 35 credited writers on the Flintstones. It really goes with the territory writing and rewriting you write a script.

And the studio executive needs to have at least 10 people rewrite data to its right and its director is brought in and he or she has a writer that goes to the script and then the stars is hired and that person has a writer and you know it just it's it. That's why I write books because at least when you write books it's your book. Nobody can rewrite you. You can't get fired off your book. How many scripts scripts are written and are paid for so writers were paid for their work that never go anywhere. Well I can reverse the question tell you that I think I would say perhaps one of the 20 scripts that I purchased actually make it to cinema to me even be larger than that. So I mean that's good for writers it creates employment but it's also frustrating to something we call development hell in which you finish a script. You do all the rewrites and then the film does around for a year or two while they look for the right movie star to star in it with the right

director to direct it with the right. Climate too or location to shoot it. This has been going on since the days of Nathaniel West and Scott Fitzgerald and Faulkner who also wrote screenplays in Hollywood and I'm not at all but I accept that it's part of the system and you know when I want to write I write books and you know several My books have been optioned for movies. The one that is probably the best known is a book called the Dreyfus Affair which was my second novel after the deal. And it's a book about about two baseball players who fall in love and cause a scandal. And it's really a comedy about how baseball deals with the public relations aspect of two baseball players falling in love. And that book has been optioned five times for movies and it's now been made. It got fairly close a couple of years ago with Ben Affleck playing one of the stars. But and Betty Thomas directing but that deal dissolved when Ben decided he wanted to go to a. Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for a lot more money. That movie still has me.

Oh yeah and we know what a big success Pearl Harbor was a great decision there Ben. Absolutely well go figure. The at the moment 11 carriages under option. That's going to be a challenging screenplay because it's about 11 women named Karen all of whom the narrator has had some connection with but I'm writing a script about that and the what do you which is a novel before that is also under options. So we are hopeful that sometime in my lifetime or my children's lifetime it will be a movie. But you know something David even if there isn't the fact that the book exists and the fact that I have I get letters of my my website from readers is enough to make me happy as a writer. So what we take just a brief pause here Peter because we're here at the tail end of a week where Boehm been going here for the microphones and begging people for money so we're going to do that for a moment here and we're going to talk some more with our guest PR people give me. He took the stage. That's right people give money to this. Not to me personally that would be nice they could write out a check to me. But no that's really not the idea the idea is that people are giving money to

the station. It's Public Radio and Public TV and that really means that the public's got to support or else we're not going to be able to do what we do. All right well we'll put you on hold here for just a sec. We'll give the phone number here. My good friend Jack Brighton who is a producer for this program for a long time and now continues to be a guest host and now his other job his thing he spends most of his time on is working on our web various kinds of Web based services things like the archive we have of past interviews. The fact that we're now streaming on the web so you can listen that way. The fact that also we actually our archive is now downloadable. You know a lot of things like that and just trying to improve and make our Web site more more usable more useful better. Better yet look at all those kind of things that he really has been involved in the last couple of years. Right well before I reflect on that let's give the phone number for people to call so if they've been waiting please make your pledge call right now 2 4 4 9 4 5 5. This is the

last week day of our driving the last chance for folks who are fans of focus 580 and David Inge to support the station so we hope you will do that. I sure enjoy doing the web development stuff here but I really miss producing focus 582 I got to tell you David and David is just great to work with and we have a great crew here. But you know I was listening to this interview and just drawn into it because I love hearing writers talk about writing and about you know the life of a writer and the work that they're doing and and so forth. And this is the kind of show where we can do that it's really a very unusual thing anymore in the media that you have an opportunity to hear these writers great great artists who are talking about their work. You know we're not talking about Michael Jackson there we're not talking about you know whatever other scandal has sort of gripped the rest of the mainstream media we're talking about ideas and. Really sort of thoughtful conversations about the work people do as creative human being so that's my pitch I hope that

is something if you're listening to the station I assume that you enjoy. We need you to support that to keep doing it. That's what this is all about. 2 1 7 2 4 4 9 4 5 5 is our pledge number. And you know speaking of the website you can go there and make a pledge as well. A U.S. dot edu. We accept your credit card pledge right there on the site. And that's easy enough to do so I hope you will do that. Can we check in real quick with David if you'll do that to David Seals our TV program director and he has volunteered to stand by the telephones and talk to us about how things are going. And I'm literally standing by the telephones right now. And frankly I'd love to be able to sit down but I can't do that right now. We have several lines engaged at the moment but I believe that the volunteers are taking calls for our FM station not the AM station so am listeners right now we want to hear from you at 2 4 4 9 4 5 5 on this last morning focused 580 during this winter pledge drive it's very important we hear from

you. And you know. I've hosted this show a few times writes a guest host and I don't know if people appreciate the amount of work that goes into this not to toot my own horn but I mean I'm not I'm saying on behalf of David and the other people who have hosted the show from time to time. I mean there's a lot of work that goes into a you know doing one of these interviews because we actually read the book. Yes starters right. Unlike a lot of interview shows we read the book and actually have to you know sit down and really prepare a lot of questions and think of things that hopefully will be interesting to say before the interview even start. Yeah you don't just just jump into it and that proves we're crazy actually because nobody else is doing that out there I mean author's comment today I hear it all the time on David and in his interviews. The author goes you actually read my book. Yeah I remember it oh we had a couple years back I had the Trading Spaces people in here and you know and I was giving all kinds of little anecdotes about you know their careers outside the show and they said you did your research and well that's what we do. So

you know we hope that the listeners appreciate that effort and appreciate the work that goes into these programs this is not something you're going to find everywhere else. And we hope that they'll call right now at 2 4 4 9 4 5 5. And well we'll get back to our conversation with Korda Anil but later we'll talk some more encourage people to support the station. If you would like to call in to this program. Now the same number as always pledge will not be required. Be nice but it's not required. That's 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's for people here in Champaign Urbana. We do also have that toll free line. For anybody who is outside of the immediate area here that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and let me again introduce our guest Peter Lefcourt. He's been a writer and producer of both film and television he won an Emmy award for the show TV show Cagney and Lacey in the late 80s he started writing novels His first was published in 1901 titled The deal and features this character Charlie Burns who also appears in his new novel The Manhattan Beach project. As other books include 11 Karens which as he said is sort of story of a man and

his relationship with 11 women all named Karen the Dreyfus Affair the deal the woody Di and I and abbreviating Ernie those are his novels and then he's also put together this anthology of pieces written by screenwriters who write about their first jobs. And that book is the first time I got paid for it. If you're interested you can go. Look for that and questions walking 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I'm still is sort of curious about the the the idea of the reality show and I think when the shows you why I'm not a big time producer I guess as when the first one and I get the first one that I would've been aware of with Survivor that that show came along I thought well this is never going to go anyplace even after the first season I thought to myself No no this is going to die out very quickly but of course now every time you turn around there is some sort of new reality program. What do you think accounts for the popularity of that jhana and then do you. Is this something that where like with other

programs we're due if we're going to see it it's going to peak and then it's going to be gone and then they'll be something else and then maybe sometime in the future it'll come back. Well this may sound a little extreme David but I think reality television is a little bit like crack cocaine. It's irresistible it requires very little involved and on the part of you or what bothers me about the genre isn't so much its simplicity and accessibility is that it seems to me to feature the least desirable human characteristics. There's a lot of jealousy envy backstabbing competition shows like Survivor with The Apprentice really seem to function on the basis of some of these very very and on attractive human qualities. And that's one of the problems I have with the show and in that genre in general

we have a caller to talk with why don't we do that on our line number one. Peter is still there Peter gets out OK with him so we just heard a noise on the line it happened because I had to switch phones but I'm back. Oh OK. My director says to me Wait a minute make sure he's still there. So we have a call or someone calling on the cell phone and our bell but I don't. Maturity from one of the parents. Let's hope we'll see one number one a little high power for a brief question. Then there was a very big article in the York Times recently about the lesbian thing in TV shows and they referred to the girl Willow in Buffy in the vampire and between two women friends. Anyway in that article they said that the that there was an undercurrent of Rez be an ism in Cagney and Lacey and I was one the ass you can sue

wrote for the show was there or was it an unintentional one or was that some of the writers want that in or the producers of theirs or anything just because it had two women in the lead obviously in fact I think right now in Desperate Housewives because one of the leading actresses is 43 and not married and he's acting. Basically claimed that she was 8 and she lived in a lesbian because that was the rumor and so anyway the question is Cagney and Lacey Blake way back when. I have and the current lesbian relationship and I'll just hang up and rest and start there. Great question. Well how did your grades go to go ahead. You could have fooled me. Certainly nothing that was consciously put in the show I think. There will always be those types of rumors and whenever you have two attractive women you know who are working together as a kind of a natural thing but believe me this certainly

wasn't anything consciously put in the writing of the show and certainly nothing between the two wonderful actresses Stein Daly and Sharon Gless. Yes I've heard these before they say I've heard the same stories about this but housewives and I'm sure that that's not true either it's something that people people people see things on television they tend to imagine things that really aren't there. And this really was anything there and you can't really see. This I think also I saw the piece of the caller was talking about it also seemed that the theme of the piece was that this is one of those things that gets that gets pulled out at times and ratings times at sweeps and it's it is just one of those things that's done just for to generate excitement to generate titillation whatever it's kind of an exploitation deal and at those points in the year where it's very important to the networks to get as many people watching as possible because there is a tie between the audience and their advertising revenue. That's why they do things at

those times of year that they might not do the rest of the year. You know David in the reality my fictional reality show women have beach projects. Well the Lord is a real love affair between the daughter of the well the Lord and one of the camera women they have a Polish crew filming it and Charlie the producer actually uses this to help build the ratings. So actually this is something that happens in television all the time. Anything that will help reduce something that is desirable in television show. I'm shocked I'm shocked to hear that such a thing would take place. Have you continued to be involved in writing television or would you take that kind of opportunity of if one was offered. Absolutely I actually had a very good experience a couple of years ago I worked as I created and ran a show on Showtime called Beggars and Choosers which was a satire on the television business which was right up my alley it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

It was on for two years. We made 42 episodes about a man who was programming a network played by Brian Kirkwood and it was a delightful experience it was on Showtime we didn't have commercial breaks. We didn't have to worry about language. And anybody that had the problem is that not that many people have Showtime so it wasn't seen by that many people but it may be coming out later on this year on DVD which is the new reality television business. That was a wonderful experience and I've continued to write pilots and movies for television but less and less as the years go on because I've become more and more intimate of writing books. And as I get older people are less excited about hiring me. And one of the facts of life in the television business. I'm no longer twenty eight by a long shot. You mention something I think it's interesting. Some people I think would make the argument that some of the most creative work in television is not going on on network television but it's going on places like Showtime or like HBO

where they have developed series that have been critical successes and popular successes although success in cable is you. It's different it's defined differently because the potential audience is smaller than it is for the over the air broadcast network and so you can count something as a success on HBO that might not seem so successful if it was on ABC because. Because the numbers are much smaller. But and of course with a show like The Sopranos for example that runs on HBO there are things that you can do that you cannot do. Why did I tolerate the lack of limits to artistic expression it's a fact that cable television is not about broadcasting good casting is about reaching the largest possible audience and so what you have to do essentially is write a little bit to the lowest common denominator cable television you can do programming you can write and produce programs that appeal to a smaller segment of the audience. As long as people keep buying subscriptions to the cable system and HBO has done it brilliantly and to a lesser extent so I Showtime but now using eFax

doing some very exciting things on television I think I would be getting some of the most creative work in television is being done on the cable systems and it's being reflected in a number of enemies that they're winning. Every year you begin to see that HBO and Showtime and FX are winning a larger and larger percentage of the Emmy Awards by their peers. So that's I was talking about this with a colleague the other day and that was there she was raising this question What was it what is it that HBO for example is doing that that's worked for them. Sounds like the answer that you would give is that well you're you're you're saying to yourself we're going to create a show that it's not going to appeal to everyone and that's going to be OK with us if it doesn't appeal to everyone as long as it appeals to enough yet it will still allowing writers and directors and actors to I think. To do just better and more honest work by not imposing limitations on them in terms of not just censorship of the language but also censorship of some extent of ideas that you

know most conventional television is really written right down the middle of the page. There's always a fear that every every single episode has to be resolved in a very neat and clean way and you very rarely see kind of slightly different more creative slightly more original types of writing and acting directing you know cable really is the move of the future and we're hopeful that that network television is beginning to move slightly in that direction you mentioned Desperate Housewives which is a it's a it's a soap opera but it's a dark and funny soap opera and I think people in the television business are encouraged that there has been some success for the show because at least it's not another procedural drama. Television had been just absolutely drowning with procedural drama CSI this CSI that they have a. In my book I have a way to television programs fictitious television. One is called CSI El Paso and the other is called Law and Order ECD or ecclesiastical crimes.

Let's talk to some other callers here we had somebody over in Indiana our line for toll free line. Hello hello. Unfortunately so many questions and I wanted to ask a real writer that I just come up with something a service a preemie be nebulous. Do the Hollywood have to say people because I don't know who they all really runs things you know in terms of when a movie is actually made. Do they get into marketing research like Procter and Gamble doing things like at do they do focus groups. Then they and then do they come to a writer quote unquote and say this is what we want. I guess the thing that bothers me is that you mentioned earlier about you know I write a story and I see the movie and I wonder what the hell happened in between the two because that's not what I actually wrote and that brings up an issue of I would imagine some sort of legal sense that you know

you've pandered my mind. My novel you you've ruined it you haven't done this or that. They never get involved in the mix at all and those two things the sort of research on what we go and do or is it just simply that movie made it last year and this is the movie we're going to run until it stops making money than before. Well when you're leaving the Hollywood studios are points now with Major vertically integrated international multinational companies. And they are terribly risk of verse. The average cost now of making the movies about 80 million dollars and it does not count prince in advertising in releasing so that they they really are very wary of doing anything outside the region that the hope of the movie business a smaller independent film a film like Sideways for example which is a film that was made on a very low budget or My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Yes and I think thats very much a fact as a novelist I must tell you. You just accept the fact that Hollywood is going to make a movie out of your book its going to become a Hollywood movie. And most

novelists that I know simply just take the money and write another book and dont worry about what Hollywood is going to do with it. Some writers adapt their own their own novels I've done it a couple of times and it's a little bit of a painful operation because you realize the book is just the basis of the movie. But I think most novelists accept it as just another form of income so that they can and I can write new more novels because I tell you being a literary novelist is not a particularly lucrative profession. People are reading less and less and it's harder and harder to make a living as a literary novelist is one thing. Want to make sure I understand. I think this is the truth if a studio comes along and they buy your book or for that matter if if they buy a script that you have written it's theirs and what you no longer have any claim to it. They only actually own the copyright. It's called work for hire. They do this so that you can get protection by the Writers Guild as an employee. But they own the copyright to the to the. They don't own the copyright to the novel obviously as an adaptation you own the novel

but they own the copyright to the movie from the novel and they can do whatever they want with it. They can change the name the title anything they want you sign over the rights to do that otherwise there's no way they will buy it. Just in response to the caller's other question I know that for example what happens is that movies are made and then. They're shown too before they're released to the general audience they're shown to sample audiences and they ask the people who are watching the movie Well what do you think did you like it. And certainly there are there are plenty of cases where things have been changed. Endings of movies have been changed because preview audiences said I don't like I don't like the way that story. I wanted to end happily I wanted to end differently. Is there does it also happen that someone at a studio just has the idea that says I want this kind of movie I want this kind these kinds of characters I want these sorts of things to happen. And then almost Then they go to a writer and they they have a you know it's like they have a checklist and say all right I want to script what I want with this kind of setting and these kind of character and I want these kinds of things to happen because they have got they have some. Idea in their

heads there that is the studio boss or whoever that this is a movie that people want to see based on having gone out and asked people what kind of movies do you want to see. Yes absolute testings a very real part of both television and movies. In fact in my book in the Manhattan Beach project the warlord reality show that they're making secretly to spec a status test marketed over a closed circuit television system that ABC runs and this system is calibrated to find out just who are the demographics or the desirability of television. Nowadays it's all about getting people from age 18 to 35 to watch your television program. They're not particularly concerned about the people older than that because they believe that those people do not buy new brands that the advertisers are not interested in them. So the trick in television and to a lesser extent in movies is to be demographically desirable. Young people go to movies more than older people to young people by different types of

products more than older people do better for those of the people for whom television and movies are produced most often someone here in the Belgium that's nearby ally number one. Hello. I was just going to interject into the conversation. I thought that you were talking about niche markets and wanting to control your own product and everything like this. Well every I O is very much on a cutting edge of things with their blogs and their internet aspects. Keep the future artist present generates this type stuff to generate a website that produces his entire program himself. He writes it he directs it and he acts on it and what it does everything because rapid streaming and broadband could make that very much possible. Well I don't rapid stream but I do have a website be GSW the puter left quite early f c o u r t dot com and it's become kind of an occupational

hazard for novelists these days and the website simply has a biography it has the events in which I'm appearing for example they don't do publicity on this book so when doing signings and book touring I put a couple of my short stories on it. There's a discussion link there are links to buying my books and it becomes part of the necessity of selling yourself. Used to be you write novels and the publisher would go out and sell them. Now you write novels and you have to go out and sell them also get people to read them it's just part of the business of being a novelist. And perhaps some day I will be streaming my own novels over the over the website I hope not but that could happen or not. So I think I think you misunderstand what I'm saying is you become the studio you become the whole thing because there's so much you know programming you can develop for all kinds of things with all the programs they have for computers and stuff and you were. Also sell the service. You wouldn't make money just somebody

watching and praying that you're putting on. Seems to me to be a very viable aspect of getting around some of the problems you have. Well those are interesting but movies cost millions in these in these of dollars I still don't know how you would produce the type 2 quality film and television shows over a computer no matter how advanced the technology becomes. Why I don't know Pixar does some amazing things over a computer. That's true but Pixar is also a large company that has the capital of millions of these adult I don't know individual writers and artists which I thought was your idea would be able to produce their own work. Well you might have to be a little bit broader than just yourself. But you see what I'm saying. Well United Artists back in the 20s Douglas Fairbanks Charlie Chaplin and Mary Astor did that just they did the exact same thing they got together and started their own studio to try to control their product and of course that was a great idea for a while when it was taken over by the suits which eventually happened. Most artists are not interested in business and I think the answer to your question is that most authors would hire suits eventually to do the work that they don't want to do because they're interested in creating art and

not in making business. Well I was referring to maybe just getting around some of the control of your content and knowing who is going to do it and what's going to do it. You're just someone directly to the public yourself essentially what I'm getting down to 15 guys a little bit of the sting. Stephen King released the book over the Internet. Yes he has done that type of thing but most of us really just want to write books and make movies and I'm really not interested in that part of the marketing equation. But it's a good idea. I think it's a very interesting idea. Thank you thank you. If he wants to go real quick here we can get him in before the time runs out. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5. Why was Beck a standard you have some particular interest in in Central Asia before this before the Manhattan Beach project took shape. You know it's such a bizarre part of the world you have this Islamic society that with crony allies by the Soviets and grafted onto the Muslim culture you had social realism until about 1990 and when the Russians left that they left a vacuum.

And it's just one of the most bizarre places on the planet. I did a great deal of reading and research about Central Asia and it's a place that is in fact ruled by war lords to a great extent and I just thought that was a great setting to do a reality television show because there is a lot of frontier kind of violence and action going on there. That's exactly the type of thing that would appeal to a television audience. It's like Dodge City 1880. Is there anything that you're working on now that you did you would feel like talking about I know sometimes writers start asking well what are you writing now is AOL out really don't want to talk about it. Actually I'm I'm conceptualizing I'm gestating a novel about the con film festival I was there last May with my wife's film. She had wonderful film based on a short story of mine called recycling flow and we spent a week at con and it's just struck me as a great setting to do a novel because Con is really a business market masquerading as an art film festival. And I'm thinking of bringing Charlie brings back one more time for the third book in the trilogy

that will take place in the common Film Festival but you know that book is still in the gestation stages I'm still really doing the work of going out talking about this book which is as I've said before part of that of the work of a novelist. Are there any film festivals that aren't like that anymore that aren't actually business markets masquerading as the one thing I think about I guess is Sundance would sounds like that also now has become a business market. Masquerading as a film festival. It started out absolutely as a haven for independent film but I think that this is the way of all of all flesh essentially in the film business. You know there are many many many small film festivals all over the world now and majority of them are in fact just film festivals but they eventually as they become more successful they just attract people who are interested in buying and commercialized film. But I don't mean to be harsh about con con is a wonderful place. It's interesting it's a mixture of languages culture and it's a lot of very very dynamic people there

it's I think a great setting for a book I think in a great city for someone to visit. Well I think we're going to have to leave it there because I'm sorry to say we have used the time that we have if you like to read of a fun book. I would suggest you go out and get yourself a copy of the Manhattan Beach project by our guest Peter Lefcourt in the book is published by Simon and Schuster. And he has authored a number of other novels. He has also been a writer producer of film and television and won an Emmy for the show Cagney and Lacey. If you're interested in finding out more about him you can look at his website which is WW Peter Lefcourt dot com. His last name spelled l e f c o u r t. And up here thank you very much for talking with us today. My pleasure David.