Prime Yourself for Happy Endings

In 2007 I was working on season five of a CBS crime drama called Cold Case. In November, in the middle of the season, the writers went on strike. We were forced to cut the season short. In post production we had about five more episodes that we were finishing up after production wrapped. Our showrunner at the time, which is basically the executive producer who is ultimately in charge, was a writer, so she went on strike before we were finished. As a result, one of the other executive producers, a man named Jonathan Littman, stepped in to help guide the ship as we wrapped up those last few episodes.

Jonathan was no regular executive producer. He was actually the head of television for Jerry Bruckheimer Productions at the time. He wasn’t just an executive producer on our show, but at the same time also produced Without a Trace, three different CSIs, and The Amazing Race, not to mention the forty or so other TV shows and the Broadway shows he would produce across his incredible and continuing career. Suffice to say, when it comes to television, Jonathan clearly knows what he’s talking about.

And what we were all talking about back then was, obviously, the strike. “The last writers strike was in 1988,” he said. “And you know what came out of that one? The reality show Cops. During the last writers strike we all sat around and thought, maybe we can do this without writers. And Cops was an experiment in a new business model that was the basis for modern reality television.”

Then Jonathan made a prophetic-level prediction, followed by an offhand comment that set me on a journey that would shape the next few years of my life. “Warner Brothers makes an episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles,” (which was a popular sci-fi show based on the Terminator that was on TV at the time) “and spends $2.6 million an episode while Mark Burnett makes American Gladiators for 800 grand an episode and gets twice the viewers. Why would anyone want to make Sarah Connor Chronicles?” He was explaining the business implications of the giant gap between the profitability of making narrative, dramatic television and making reality TV shows. “Mark my words,” he said. “When this is all over, you’re going to see an explosion of reality television. Every network is going to keep a few dramas on the air because that’s how they brand themselves, but all the other time is going to be filled with reality TV.” Then, almost as an aside he joked “You want to make some money? Come up with some ideas for reality TV shows, because everyone’s gonna be buying them.”

I don’t think he meant it as advice, he was making a joke. But that evening I called one of my closest friends, Ethan, who was a comedy writer, and I said, if Jonathan Littman makes a prediction about how to make money in the television industry, it’s probably a good idea to take it seriously. So we started our own production company. “Staff House Productions” was basically just me and Ethan sitting in his living room trying to come up with fun and creative ideas for reality TV shows, and then going around town trying to sell the ideas to various production companies.

It started almost as a lark. We spent a couple of afternoons brainstorming and making pitch materials, then I called the production company where I had worked and had friends and asked if they would take our pitch? They actually seemed to genuinely like our ideas, but said they weren’t exactly perfect for their company and suggested we look for companies that made shows like the ones we were pitching. So we cold called producers and said, hey, we were just pitching over at JM Productions and they suggested we bring this show to you. Over the next couple of years we managed to sell a few ideas, then sell a pilot to Lifetime, then create a game show for Cartoon Network called Brain Rush. We basically had a little run at becoming reality show producers. Ultimately, for many reasons which all make good topics for future essays, I decided that music editing was where I wanted to be. But with hindsight, the effects of that 2007 writers strike on not just me, but the entire trajectory of the television industry, are undeniable.

Then it happened again in 2023. The writers went on strike, only this time the actors joined them too. But there had been a huge shift since that last writers strike that was going to change everything about the way the producers reacted, and that shift was streaming. Back then our shows were being broadcast by the big three networks, and a few premium and basic cable networks that were producing original content, all of whom were big Hollywood companies. But now our shows are being broadcast by Apple and Amazon. Big international conglomerates have bought most of the big Hollywood companies. No longer were Hollywood producers sitting around in rooms asking each other how they could make television without writers. Corporate executives, for whom production is just a small department, were sitting around in rooms asking themselves how they could make television without Hollywood. And other options were open to them.

Twenty-five years ago, if you watched a movie or TV show, you knew within thirty seconds if it was made in Hollywood or not. There was a polish that only we could get, a level of professionalism that required an embedded industry with thousands of trained craftsmen working inside of infrastructures that really only existed in this one place. But that isn’t true anymore. There are talented and competent crews all over the planet. Hollywood has gone from the entire marketplace to a Gucci bag, an expensive, high-quality, name-brand product where a certain type of discerning consumer pays the extra money because that kind of elite product is worth it to them. Now, there is a market for Gucci bags. But it’s not the entire market. Hollywood is becoming an important but small segment as market forces push production elsewhere. After that 2007 strike, people didn’t like watching television any less. Viewers migrated to cable and moved around to find their new favorite shows, because reality TV really is entertaining.

With just a few years of hindsight, we see the same thing happening again. The 2023 strike is once again having a profound effect on the future of Hollywood, not because the circumstances or market forces are the same, but because once again it forced the powers that be to reassess the entire business model. How this all shakes out is still unknown, but in the meantime, Hollywood is in transition, and being forced into big transitions always feels painful.

Nobody wants to make big changes against their will. Transitions can be scary so we naturally resist. But the resistance to change is exactly why it’s painful. You don’t want to change, and you feel forced to, so change sucks. But when you do want to make a big change it’s the opposite. It can be equally scary, but it feels electrifying. It’s exciting. An opposite emotional reaction because you imagine an opposite outcome. But the future is actually a mystery.

Sometimes things go how we expect, but sometimes changes we make with intention, because we think they’re going to make our lives better, turn out really badly. And sometimes those changes we were forced into, that we resisted, even the seemingly terrible ones, turn out to be improvements in our lives.

After Ethan moved to Austin and Staff House Productions closed its doors, I built Mind Meld Arts, which grew into one of Hollywood’s largest boutique music editing companies. Over the next few years I watched my roster grow from just me to eight full time music editors sometimes working on as many as 15 projects simultaneously. Before this last strike I had two other full-time music editors on my team alone. I don’t think we’ll ever grow back to that size again. I’m lucky if I can keep four people on payroll now. I don’t know what the future of my company will be. I don’t know what the future of this industry will be. And I don’t know what my future will be.

So here I am, being forced to change against my will, and my brain automatically tells me a story about how bad that is. But the truth is, my brain has no idea. The future is a mystery. And I have, as a tool, at my disposal all of these stories where forced change turned out well for me. And so do you. We all do. Those are the stories I revisit all the time now. I tell myself those stories over and over to remind myself of all the times I was forced to change and it turned out great.

Only after I’ve done that, while I’m still thinking about that, do I give myself permission to tell myself the story of what’s going to happen after this change. I think of it as “narrative priming.” I fill my brain with stories, true stories, personal stories that have meaning to me, where a similar struggle to whatever struggle I’m going through now turned out good. It doesn’t eliminate fears of the future, it doesn’t solve all of my anxieties, but it helps me think of happy endings. It helps me imagine believable personal stories of how I’m going to get those happy endings. And as much as I can I try to make sure it’s those stories that guide my actions.