A conundrum, if you will.
Today, I overheard the showrunner talking to some other person who gets paid enough to not know my name: “I don’t know what _____ is going to say when she finds out she doesn’t get one. We’ll just keep assigning them until there aren’t any left, and then we’ll see.”
Except, instead of “_____,” he said the name of a writer that I’m friends with. Well, not really “friends,” so much as “friendly acquaintances,” but still. She’s helped me with some writing, and is generally a nice person. I don’t know what her writing is like (obviously), but she’s good enough that the showrunner hired her in the first place.
So, now, I know something about her that she doesn’t know. They’ve only written six episodes of our thirteen episode order. They’ve probably broken the stories on a few more, but it’ll still be a few weeks before she finds out she’s a producer on a show she won’t have a single writing credit on.
But can I tell her? Is that just spreading rumors? I mean, the executive producer could have been talking about something else. Of course, she’s a writer. What else would she be “assigned,” besides a script?
Plus, what could she do about it? Besides focus on other prospects, since she likely doesn’t have much of a future at this show. I’m not sure telling her would do any good.
On the other hand, I do have a general philosophy of telling the truth, and I don’t like secrets. What do you think I should do?
PS: Boycott the Arclight.
PPS: To all my friends who read this, I’m being facetious in calling for a boycott. I’m just causing trouble and generally being surly. I am trying to be a writer, so I might as well act like one, right?
5 Responses
I leave aside the part where it might get back to the EP and cause you tsuris. I don’t think you should say anything unless you feel strongly enough to say it openly without caring who hears about your involvement. If you don’t feel that strongly, keep quiet.
Also, you acknowledge that you don’t know what they were talking about.
My 2¢.
not true on the “good enough” part as there are a lot of ways someone will get on staff. if she helped you a lot and could one day give you a job, maybe. otherwise, the best way to keep your current job is to keep your mouth shut. you don’t want the ep to learn your name because your writer friend says she heard it from you
A tricky one.
From my perspective, that wasn’t a conversation you were meant to hear and as such is off-limits. If you were to tell your friend about this and it got back to the Exec Producer, you’d have shown that you can’t be trusted.
My advice is to stay schtum and not say anything UNLESS it’s really that big of a problem in which it would probably affect your friend’s employment/salary/etc. But even then it’d be your word against the Exec’s.