..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Weapons of Mass Distraction

One of the early lesson you learn when you start networking in Hollywood is the degree to which people love to trade information. Never go to a meeting, never get on the telephone without a choice piece of news or gossip to impart into the conversation. It rarely matters what it is, simply that it has currency and that the person you're telling doesn't already know it. And just in case he's on the same tom-tom highway, it's best to be fully armed with two or three other bits in reserve.

It's also worth noting that while it's always a pleasant diversion to meet up for breakfast or lunch, meals are in general incredible consumers of time in relation to what can be gleaned. The far more effective route is to eat in and make phone calls between bites and gulps.

The telephone is the town's most lethal weapon. In the past decade it's become even more ruthless with the arrival and proliferation of its cellular cousin. And what more insidious device could there be to spread the buzz, interrupt the dialogue and distract one's attention in an environment that prides itself on communication.

As the manipulation and competitive sport aspects of Alexander Graham Bell's invention began to take hold of my memory bank, a stray recollection intruded into the vault. About two decades back National Lampoon did a piece where its writers posed as famous folk and called studios and agencies and then clocked the speed of the call back. For some reason I can still remember who ranked on the extremes of the spectrum.

The Sylvester Stallone call was returned in 26 seconds. It's safe to say that he's been usurped today by Tom Cruise and that should be an apt reminder of the fleeting nature of fame and power. But traveling in the Way Back machine one can recall that the Italian Stallion was once Rocky and Rambo and that meant a great deal.

The sad sack in the equation was Joey Bishop. According to the piece they waited 43 days for a response before they finally had to put the issue to bed. Mr. Bishop, then and now, must have concluded there was a Rat Pack conspiracy in play.

The power and misuse of the Ameche likely first dawned on me around the time of the National Lampoon snookery. I recall sitting at my desk when the phone rang (and long before there was call display) and it was a distribution/production executive that was finally getting back to me on a call placed a week earlier. There were no apologies, no excuses but before she rang off, she said hypothetically: "do you know one of the things I like most about you." A beat later she added, "you always return your call promptly."

The remark hit me in an odd sort of way. Initially I struggled to find some hidden meaning in the words to no avail. Finally I had to conclude that the statement was to be taken literally and that by inference the caller could not claim the same attribute. Guilt by communication?.

I found coming to that conclusion quite painful. Returning calls in a timely fashion was not simply good manners; it seemed to me a professional necessity working in an arena that pivoted on the transmission of information. What I began to learn was that a lot of other people I encountered were not schooled to have that appreciation. The withholding of information or the ability to diffuse it in oblique fashion was developing into an art form, especially among those that otherwise had neither a creative outlet nor any demonstrable ability of an artistic nature.

The rule of thumb (though by no means writ in stone) in my experience is that as one gets higher up on the totem pole, the necessity to return a call takes on higher priority. Senior studio executives tend to be prompt, as do high profile producers including Scott Rudin and Jerry Bruckheimer. Thankfully my need to contact "stars" is rare but in those instances I just grit my teeth for a call back from a publicist with a raft of questions and anticipate a follow up call weeks later informing me that the person in question is unavailable.

The propriety that's accorded access to performers exceeds all reasonable bounds. The publicist on The English Patient tells a story of receiving a call during the film shoot in Italy from Ralph Fiennes personal publicist Leslee Dart (remember her?) and being raked over the coals for talking to her client without first clearing it through her. "Why," asked Dart, "are you talking to him without consulting me?" The publicist replied, "because he's sitting across the room from me and you're in New York" and continued to get on with her work.

The rest of the world that doesn't require a personal handler, have their own unique set of firewalls. In most instances it's rare to have a direct line to anyone. One initially encounters a secretary or receptionist who will undoubtedly ask for everything save ones social insurance number and then pass you along to a personal assistant. This is simply an exercise in power from someone that has none because the information cannot possibly be passed along to the assistant whose first question is always: "who's calling?" It's more than likely one will be asked the same set of questions but one should keep in mind that this person is actually listening to your responses.

There are phone calls that are made to extract simple matters of fact and in those instances one should always leave the door open that the answer need not come directly from the source. A surrogate with authority will do just fine. However, when the intent is more complex, it's best to have a carrot to toss into the conversation - something that will encourage the target to return one's call in a timely fashion.

For all too many people in the industry, the withholding of a response is the zenith of their authority. They wield it for no particular righteous purpose but simply because they can. It is a time waster that fills up one person's agenda and squanders the others. I shutter at the very contemplation that I spend more time negotiating speaking to someone than the eventual time I have with the person in question. It's not my concern that the people employed to manage his/her availability feel compelled to elevate that task. I do not want to be drawn into that conversation.

There is a flip side as well. Having assumed a variety of profiles over the years, I've received all manner of unsolicited inquiry ranging from the rancorous to the insanely obsequious. Regardless of the nature of the call, my preference is for concision but my experience is that there's a compulsion to toss in some form of personal preamble. Again, I feel this is not my concern and the information bears little relationship to what's being solicited.

The most egregious examples that pop to mind of time wasting are both recent and historic. About a quarter century back when I was a lad, I was contacted about taking over the operation of the Canadian Film Awards. It had gone through a rocky period with the English and French sectors at odds about virtually every aspect of the event and as I had been successfully running a conference for several years that involved both factions I immediately understood the rationale for the call. For close to an hour Peter Pearson, who would have a brief tenure running Telefilm Canada, quizzed, cajoled and prodded and about 30 minutes into the conversation I had to conclude the job was my mine. But on the proverbial five yard line he said, "well, I just want you to know you're our second choice."

"Peter," I replied, "call me back when I'm first" and promptly extricated myself from the conversation.

On a more recent note, I was approached earlier this year about writing a book. A brief description is that it would profile a season in a particular niche of the film industry. The first conversation covered the basics of content as well as compensation and I was asked to send along an outline based upon the publisher's notes. As it had a degree of time sensitivity, a few days later there was a conference call with another person at the company that had a significantly different take on the project. Still, I was convinced that his ideas in addition to what intrigued me most about the pitch could be married into a single volume.

However, from that point, matters spiraled downward. Weeks stretched into months and all manner of excuse were proffered for what amounted to inattention. The matter was consuming far too much time considering all outward appearances of stasis. At a certain point I just wanted closure and assumed the same was true on the other side. I opened the door for them to gracefully exit but the response was a more vigorous insistence that the book would happen on a revised timetable. That's where it stands today despite an obviously growing disconnect from the currency of the subject.

This mounting screed has, of course, been interrupted incessantly by the telephone and pop ups from incoming e-mails that I have answered with alacrity because it's the proper and courteous thing to do. I could continue but my allotted time has now been expended and the key points have been made. So, I'm taking this phone call and leaving you to whatever personal devices you have at your disposal to wage the on-going communications battle.

Phony Baloney

The derivation of words has been a personal obsession that periodically renders fascination results. One of my all time favorites is the word "phony." We know the term refers to a person or thing that's not genuine. For those that took Latin or studied Greek there are no clues to be derived from those languages about word origins. Phony is a term that has its roots in the word telephone.

The backstory is what makes the evolution so interesting. At the time of Alexander Graham Bell's initial experiments and encouraging first results, the Scotsman gave a series of interviews to the press in which he talked about his invention's potential with a visionary zeal. He claimed it would one day connect cities, nations and span oceans and would have untold impact for business and interpersonal connections. A reporter for a Boston newspaper thought Bell's prophecy was a lot of baloney considering one could barely hear someone on the other end of the line three blocks away. So, he coined the term 'phony' and left any inference of his attitude off the hook.

In hindsight, Bell's prognostication was pretty much on the nose. However, the term coined from his machine had already become part of the lingua franca and the enduring irony is that this staple of daily life has a byproduct that distills in 5-letters everything that is false.

- by Leonard Klady