I wanna be a producer, I wanna be a producer... -- Realities of putting up an ethical TV production

I am Lisa Gus, and I am a writer. And medical researcher. And a TV viewer — at least, I had been, back before adding a little mommy hat to my haberdashery shelf. What I am NOT is a producer. Had anyone asked me less than 2 months ago, I would have said I am the furthest thing from. Well, I might have had a good laugh. But no one asked. Because the very idea would have been crazy.

What changed?

I’m blaming Lombardi! Or Craigslist. I am flexible that way. Let me clarify.

Lombardi Street is a social network (built on Ning.com, and boy, don’t get me started - the preceding in an exceptionally uncomplimentary way, though one not altogether deserved), a social experiment on making your own television future — and a full-length scripted serialized drama intended to reach its fans via network television, internet broadcasting, and virtual worlds the likes of Second Life.

Now, in January, cruising the Craigslist writer’s jobs section, I came across a tantalizing invite to become a screenwriter for this democratic new show, and though my screenwriting experience hovered at the time…oh, between zero and none, I didn’t let a minor thing like that stop me.

Since I don’t want to turn this into even a first tome of War and Peace, I won’t bore you with the details of writing trials I had to pass, of struggling with an unfamiliar format, of sleepless nights thinking up story arcs — take out “screen”, and it wasn’t all that dissimilar to a normal writing class, though with certain additional pitfalls. Let’s just say, it’s been fun.

And let’s just say I did not make the cut — though the show creator recognized my ideas, my lack of screenwriting experience proclaimed itself from every benighted rooftop.

What followed was a bad couple of days. I have become invested in my characters, my story arcs — and even more, the very concept. You sign up, you show yourself — and the job is yours, complete with a cushy WGA-standards check and a writer’s credit.

Having practically held both in my hand — I made it through to the very last round — yeah, who likes losing?

Only I didn’t — lose, that is. Funny how it happens. The Lombardi Power That Be offered me a PR post. And soon after — I still had had to prove myself — I clawed my way through to producer.

Some of it was determination. Some of it - sheer unwillingness to write copy espousing the wonders of someone else’s work. And some…well, I guess our founder recognizes talent when he sees one. Hey, kidding, kidding…

So, behold, yours truly, a producer — one with creative powers I don’t quite have time to exercise. And I am loving every hectic minute of it.

Because hectic is what this is turning out to be — especially once I found out just what our founder has been going through and what sort of decision he was being forced into.

The very idea behind Lombardi is straight up “You Play, and If It’s Good, We Pay”, and considering the Internet is the very definition of a communal playground in the best of its Web 2.0-going-on-3.0 format, any sort of an under the table deal with a big time entertainment industry-entrenched sponsor is an anathema. And yet, though this has always been both explicitly and implicitly understood, such a deal was offered — and once rejected, the financing was yanked right from under us, leaving people who won the paid positions having to reevaluate their commitment to LS and our founder, who had already sank personal funds into the production with the expectation of recouping his losses once the show went on the air, scrambling for a less incestuous form of financing.

Considering I am there to help him along, I am sure he will succeed. Oh, come on, I am STILL kidding.

But, seriously, it is that kind of attitude that prevents the new DNA from sullying the muddy gene pool of Hollywood backrooms.

These days, for a beginning show creator, only the BBC (and that, on a limited basis) is not to say a guaranteed venue, but at least, not a guaranteed dead end) is keeping its doors cautiously ajar. For Hollywood, this has been a practice long dead and gone, so commonplace it is now an unwritten rule: years and years of entrenching yourself in the industry — that or turning up on the scene with impressively deep pockets. Because like someone smart to whom I recently spoke remarked, “music touches the heads, but money changes the minds”.

Well, I won’t pretend we have deep pockets — and Hollywood insiders? Ha! To paraphrase Mark TwainMark Twain, “we don’t want to be members of a club that WOULDN’T have us as members”. But we are working on rectifying the first. I can even say, we’re succeeding. If anyone’s interested, I will be back with updates. We’ll be meeting some unprincipled S.O.B.’s along the way, but guess what, besides becoming a producer, I am learning I may be more of an optimist than I thought. I firmly think we’ll also be meeting folks with a social credit score a LOT higher than 18.