Series Renewal

 Posted on 6/26/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


(blocked) asks:
> As an employer, how do you hire for the show in such a way as to
> let your employees know how long they would be under your employ?
> How do the actors deal with this?

Thanks. Basically, you hire actors by the season. You hire
someone for, say, 13 episodes out of 22. That actor has a pay-or-play
*guarantee* of 13 episodes. We may only end up using him in 11, but he
gets paid for all 13 regardless. So that allows the actor to plan his
year effectively. The contract for all actors has an option for the
following year at the producer's discretion. When we get the word on
renewal, we can then choose whether or not to bring an actor back,
assuming we haven't already decided this earlier and killed the
character off.

jms