ES: We're gonna go to Article 7-205 [BA 7-205] regarding the Second Unit Director, which is the next article after the selection of the First Assistant [First Assistant Director]. Again, you see the same theme in the promulgation of this article that even Second Assist--the Second, the Director of the Second Unit, had to somehow fit his work in with the overall vision of the primary Director. Now, up until this the Producer could take a Second Unit Director and go out and shoot whatever he wanted to shoot. Sometimes even with principles doing minor things. And we had to put a stop to that. And so what we did here, so "the Director should be given an opportunity to consult with the individual Producer and participate in considerations as the person to being engaged to direct such second unit work," that is again, you hear lawyer's language all the way through this. "In the event of disagreement as to the choice, the employer shall submit to the Director a list of three qualified individuals, any one of whom would be approved as Second Unit Director, the Director should be obligated to approve one of such three persons." So, you had to have a major input into that choice. And then you have to be given the opportunity to consult with… They were very afraid of anything stronger than consult, because anything stronger than consult implied control. Anything that implied control related directly to their role as employer, under the law and in practice. So, we were pushing the envelope here. The approval, as matter-of-fact, the First Assistant Director, is viewed by hostile companies as a weak point in the legal status of the Directors Guild [Directors Guild of America], because maybe we're approving someone and that might give us too much of a control. And maybe, we're not any longer a labor union, which is nonsense of course, but… [INT: Why is that nonsense?] Well, you'd have to go to a lawyer to figure that out. [INT: Okay, okay.] But it's nonsense because it's all a part of the Directorial team, the Assistant Director, is a Director's right arm, a Cinematographer is the left arm. And you know, it's not just one-person walks onto the set without any assistants and does a movie.

ES: Then we come to something rather interesting, that has an anecdotal history, which is 7-206 [BA 7-206], which is "the individual with final cutting authority." That came from experiences, arguments that some people were having at MGM, where you would get one series of instructions from a Producer, maybe the executive assigned to that show, and they'd be contradictory. And so it was important, and then sometimes after the film was cut, you'd never see who it was that said, "No, that's got to be changed." It would be them, up there, somewhere. And so it was important to get that person named and have access at that time it was access to Jim Aubrey, who was the head of MGM. [INT: Oh. Were you... did you have any personal involvement in that particular?] Yeah, I did. [INT: What was it?] Well, Dan Melnick would tell me one thing and Jim Aubrey would say, "Never mind, don't pay any attention to him." [INT: And what film was that?] I don’t even want to mention the name of it. [INT: Okay. Okay.] And in order to be sure that it was clear who that was, so there couldn't be any corporate games, they had to be named in the deal memorandum, which is another issue we'll come to in a moment about the deal memorandum. [INT: Right.]

ES: And you see on 7-207 [BA 7-207], if you have an argument with the production executive who's assigned to it, you have the right to go above him, who has the, whoever has the final cutting authority. But then comes an item, which is probably the heart and soul of the whole Creative Rights issue and the one least understood by well-meaning younger members of the Director's Council and the Board, that is the one Director to a film. The companies wanted the right to have two or three Directors to a film. If they wanted to speed up production, "You take this scene, you take that scene, you take this scene, you take that scene." And in effect they would become the uber-Directors. They would have the vision; you would be simply an engineer, traffic cop. So we insisted that there would be only one Director. However, they did present arguments that there were times and the arguments are presented here in 7-208 [BA 7-208], and the Mirisch Brothers who were Producers at the time gave examples of TORA! TORA! TORA!, which is a movie which told the story of Pearl Harbor from two sides, the Japanese side and the American side. The Japanese side was all in Japanese, and the American side was all in English. So, we could see that although we could insist that there'd be an American Director, an English-speaking Director on both sides, we could see that culturally and terms of the nuances, that at point it might not damage anything if they had a Japanese Director handle the other side of the issue. Or in multiple segmented shows, like TALES OF MANHATTAN, which is a series of separate episodes, or underwater work, or things that are specialties. So, we reached an agreement on that. But that immediately distinguished us from the Writers Guild [Writers Guild of America]. And allowed the notion of the Director, the visionary, the skipper notion, to be codified and recognized. Now, some of the younger members of the Directors Council will come in and say, "Well, I think these two guys should be allowed to direct because they're good guys. And I know them, and they're brothers, and they work together, and they work very hard together." Nothing to do with anything, except that it strikes at the core of a notion that is one human makes the film, that directs the film. And I've heard those arguments when I sat on the Directors Guild, and they hurt, a lot. Because the people, the guys that made, that were uninformed, that without this one Director to a film, we'd very quickly become the Writers Guild, with four or five Directors on a film. There's still arguments when there's a second unit to be done with, whether that is really a second unit or a first unit.

INT: Do you feel, let me ask you a question, because this is such a key issue. What is your feeling about the current, within the Guild [Directors Guild of America], the current waivers that we permit where we are beginning to see seemingly legitimate teams of like brothers and, who are co-directing films...

ES: What this was intended, when this mentions bona fide, this clause mentions bona fide of teams, it meant bona fide of teams that can present evidence that they previously had directed together, not that they've written together, not that they produced together, not that one of them had been a Director and the other a Producer, but they were bona fide directing teams, and I consider this so sacred that it would, you'd have to wrestle me to the ground, brothers, sons, fathers, sons, daughters, nothing would move me off the notion that there should be one Director to a movie. And if the other guy, if there's a team and they've always worked together, but not as a Directorial team, the one named as Director can always consult what the other one can do, whatever he wants, he can consult with anybody on the set. But the word "print" comes from the mouth of one person, "cut" comes from one person, "action" comes from one person, talking to the Actors comes from one person.

ES: And then, just last night at the annual meeting I heard that the Guild [Directors Guild of America] is still complaining about Article 7-302 [BA 7-302], that if the delivery of shooting script, when very specifically we require that it be delivered, can you imagine that, not later than one day prior to the commencement so that they can prepare the script? Company heads did not realize that that was happening, that the scripts were coming up even after shooting began. And they promised--and this was a dozen or more years ago, to fix the problem. They blamed it on late network orders, and things like that. And were I the president of the Guild, I would say, "Tough.” What you gonna--the network's gonna have to back up, we've got the strength to do that, if we stand fast. But to allow Directors just to become, you know, turn on the camera and get people to move around and move on to the next set, it endangers the whole, the whole personality, the whole character of the Guild. Shall we go on? [INT: Yes. Absolutely.] And we go through stunts and television preparation time. [INT: Anything where you can particularly, where you could remember something that motivated it?] Okay, in dailies, the Producers used to pull in everybody, their aunts and their uncles, into seeing dailies, and the Director was kind of concentrate on what was being said, and whether the shot was right or not. So, we insisted that people who had a business with the show be included in the people who could see the dailies. "No one shall be present to screenings of such dailies except those persons designated by the individual Producers, the employer, the Director, and all such persons shall have a reasonable purpose for attending such screenings." That made it a little more orderly and private and businesslike, and professional, and not an occasion for a party, because there were very strange things that used to happen.

INT: "The Editor assigned to the picture shall be present at all such screenings at the studio," that's one that I didn't know. [ES: Where are you?] On 7-401[BA 7-401], the last line of the first paragraph, "The Editor assigned to the picture shall be..." [ES: Yeah.] That's, I never knew that.

ES: Sure. The reason for that was, they could throw you a bone, "All right, we'll set up a screening for you, but the real business is gonna be taken care of when we sit with the Editor." [INT: I see.] You know, so the Editor has to be there, so you can say, "Look, you see that shot where he does this, would you go in after that, and just avoid that opening or don't use this sequence, or use that sequence." All having to do, I keep repeating it, all having to do with that notion of one visionary, one responsibility going from the beginning to the end.

ES: And then private office and parking. Now, there's s a whole funny story to do with that. I was working at Universal [Universal Pictures] for the late Roy Huggins, and I went to work one morning, and they sent me the script. And I walked into the Producer's office, and I said, "Okay, where do I work?" Well, the show doesn't start shooting today." "No, no, no," I said, 'Where do I work? I want a place to sit down, a desk." "Well, we don't have desks for Directors." And I said, "Wait a minute, you don't have an office for me?" "No, we don't have offices for Directors." And Jo Swerling, Jr., who was the Associate Producer said, "Hey, you can have my desk." I said, "No, no. I don't want your desk; I don't want anybody's desk. I want my desk. I want a place where I can put my stuff here. Where I can put my notes and everything else. And you don't have a... where does the Director work?" And they pointed to an office, to a door out on the corridor, and there were a group of the most bedraggled-looking guys sitting on stairs, leaning up against walls with the scripts. They were all Directors. And they had no place to work. So I said, "Oh, I understand what you require now." And I went out into the street in front of the office. I used to have photographs of this by the way, which I think either I gave to the Robert Wise Museum [Robert Wise Library], or I have them at home. I went out onto the street and I sat down on the street, crossed my legs and pulled out my script right in the middle of the traffic. And the Assistant Director--Milt Feldman was the Production Manager, they all followed me, looking out, and I said, "Come here, we're gonna have a meeting." And we came out, and he's laughing, the secretaries are looking out the window, laughing, it's this spectacle. I called the Assistant Director over there with his board, and he spread the board out on the asphalt in front of it. I said, "Sit down." I said to Milt, "I want you to enjoy the accommodations that the studio gives to its Directors responsible for the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Please, sit down and join me. I want you to have the same accommodations that I do." And they sat there and then a car pulled up, a limo, black car pulled up, a limousine with an executive named Pat Kelly, and he got out and he said, "What the hell is happening here?" I said, "Nothing Mr. Kelly, we're having a production meeting." And he says, "What are you doing here?" I says, 'It's company policy." He says, "What do you mean company policy?" I said, "Well, I went in there and they said they had no office for the Director, and when I said, 'Where do we work?' they pointed that way. So, that way I looked, and that way was the outside, so I'm here." He says, "You're kidding me." I said, "No, sir. There are no offices for Directors at this studio. So, we're making the best of the situation." He said, "Just a minute," he walked inside, he came back outside and in the meantime, the secretaries are all--I made this good and loud, so they all could hear. They were all laughing. Milt Feldman, who was a late Production Manager, was breaking up laughing, doubling up, the Assistant Director didn't know what to make of this, and I was determined I was gonna push this to the wall. Because there again was the bullies saying, "You don't count. You're too small to matter." Pat Kelly came out 10 minutes later. He said, "Come on in here." We walked in, they had cleaned out, they pushed file boxes into the corridor, cleaned out a whole room, put up a couple of bridge tables and said, there's your office, I'm sorry." [INT: He apologized?] He apologized, "There's your office. I'm sorry."

ES: The next negotiation I brought up this story and it was well-known to Sid Sheinberg, who had heard about it. And I said to them, "You guys should be ashamed of yourselves." Here you're asking the people that I represent to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars of your money, risk your studio fortunes, and you haven't even given them a chair to sit down on?" You know, they were like sick puppies. And Sid said, "We'll take care of it, we'll take care of it," and so we built in this [BA 7-403]. And then I said, "What a minute. Wait a minute, it's got to have a door that can close, so we don't have everybody peeping in." "All right, we'll give you a door that closes." "Now, wait a minute, it's got to be near a john, so that you don't put it off in left-field someplace to make us miserable." So, all of that is in there. [INT: Amazing.] On this... [INT: Telephone, ventilation...] Yeah, we had to spell it all out, define what an office is, “a room with a chair,” so it isn't a tent outside, “ventilation, a telephone, a desk, desk chair, room for no less than two additional persons, good lighting, sanitary facilities, should be in a reasonable approximately to said office.” I mean, the fact that we had to put all this in, said what? It said we did not trust the people who would execute these contracts. We trusted the top people, sat across the table, but when it came to people lower down, would find it more convenient to set up a tent in the back lot someplace and say, "That's the Director's office." You got to walk a mile to get to a john. And then of course there was the parking space. They didn't want you, make, you know, take the revenge on you by making you park in East Oklahoma and walk 20 miles to your tent. So that's included in there, too, about what the parking space should be. And then second unit photography of course there are, that speaks for itself is to what that should be. [INT: Right.]

ES: And then we didn't want video assist to be abused, and this was back in the days when it was first being used. In 7-406 [BA 7-406], agree that, “90 minutes or longer, video assist may not be used without the Director's permission," and the reason for that was because it was being fed to the lawyer's office someplace, who fancied himself a Producer. And they would then make judgments about what you were shooting.

ES: Then if you notice in 7-501 [BA 7-501], we come to "responsibility for the Director." And "the Director shall be responsible for the presentation of the cut, herein referred to as the ‘Director's Cut,'” that language codified now, “understood, is not complete until he's presented the Director's Cut." Now, that was something that they wanted in there, because they wanted to bind the Director to do that, after having first resisted it, they now saw that it was useful.

ES: And then there are some time restraints, and then came another habit that we had to deal with. This was not something that came from a personal trauma, but this is something that had happened to others. There was some very clever companies who would, the Director would get to the end of the movie, and then like a day before, an hour before, a minute before they completed--they'd fire him. And say, "Now you don't have any post-production rights, we'll cut the film." So, again, I remember saying, well, sat across the table, "You should be ashamed of yourselves." And all again, they looked like little puppy dogs. I mean, these great CEOs. And I said, "Here you have a man work..." I said man, because we weren't as that conscious of the man/woman thing at that point, "work all the way through and at the last minute when he's about to eat the dinner that he smelled, that he’s cooked and everything, you're gonna take it away from him?" I said, "That's not right, and you know it isn't right." "Well how can you solve that?" I said, "I'll tell you how. We're gonna vest those post-production rights. If a Director reaches X-point,” and we argued back and forth on what that point should be, “he owns those rights, you can't take them away, they are rights, you can't take them away." And they said, "Well, we don't know that, you know, why should we give the Director rights at 85 percent?" And I said, "I'll tell you why," and this was very embarrassing for them, I said, "Because if you take them away at the end you're admitting to your stockholders that you're stupid." "What do you mean by that?" I said, "Very simple. Why would you take away the rights to the Director, why would you fire a Director at the end of it?" "Well, you don't like his work." I said, "You mean, you made such a massive mistake in hiring this guy and you let him work all the way through and you didn't realize all the way through, until the end that you'd made a mistake? That you are that bad an executive that you let this fly? Are you gonna let the stockholders know that you can't make up your mind earlier than at the last minute after all the work has been done on the movie, that you had the wrong person doing it?" "Well, no." "Well let's find a point next to that, where it's reasonable." I think it was 85 or 90 percent, I forget what it is, but it is a point at which they're vested. And also I think there's something in there about... [INT: 90 percent actually.] The Directors, “Notwithstanding, if the Director was replaced after directing 90 percent, but less than 100 percent of the scheduled principal photography of any motion picture shall be the Director of the film entitled to all the post-production Creative Rights set forth in Article 7, unless he's responsible for going over budget,” unless, unless, unless, unless, unless. And then, “A Director who has Director 100 percent of the scheduled principle photography of a motion picture may not be replaced, except for gross willful misconduct.” Again, the lawyers got into it. So now there was not only one Director to a film, not only was he entitled to post-production rights, but they were now rights that could not be taken away from him. And you can imagine, those company heads did not like that. And we were going to approve the Assistant Director. They did not like this. I was called a lot of names by a lot of production heads, by that, because a lot of Assistant Directors were being chosen by Directors that the production heads did not like. However, I was happy. [INT: Well, let me ask you, I was gonna say this question--] Fulfilling that old dream of standing up to the bully. [INT: I was gonna ask you this question when we got to the end, but because you said that, I'll ask it right now. And I want to continue to go through this.] Okay.

INT: How did this affect your career?

ES: Destroyed it. It stopped momentum because I don't think these guys got together and said, "We got to stop him from working," because I think they're essentially honorable guys. But when they go back to the office, and they hold their head, "Oh my God, we can't... and we got to give all the Assistant Directors, and this guy Silverstein," the middle executives heard this, the guys that actually make the assignments, and they said, "Better stay away from this guys, he's too much trouble." And that slowly put the brakes on and I had a hard time, and still do. And because of that, that's why it was so particularly upsetting to me when the younger people have no knowledge or understanding or care about what's happening here. I mean that was a decision I made to continue that because of the psychological set that I had. And I thought--that drove me more than any self-interest. [INT: What happened in your childhood.] Yeah that's right, and recently, well, I'll talk more about this actually when we come to talking about moral rights, if you want, how this sacrifice turned out to be fruitless.

INT: Okay, let's go back to this and then we'll come back to that, because I don’t want to…

ES: Okay. Now, 7-504 [BA 7-504], is very interesting because again it defines the word I used before, the sanctity of the Director's Cut. “No one shall be allowed to interfere with the Director of the film during the period of the Director's Cut. There shall be no cutting behind the Director.” All right, that came from A MAN CALLED HORSE, where I told you about where the Producer had shot other things and actually prepared another cut. And I said, "That isn't gonna happen to anybody else." And so, “there's to be no cutting behind the Director as that term is commonly understood in the motion picture industry. The term "cutting behind" means any editing prohibited by the terms of this basic agreement [BA], including editing by electronic means. When a release date must be met in an emergency, the Director's cutting time can be reduced,” blah-blah-blah-blah. But no cutting behind. You can't, you can’t be doing your, working your heart out in one room, and a Producer is preparing a different cut at his home. And then there's some… schedule and some administration of how the Director's Cut will be prepared and it's in here, which is available for anybody to read it. And time periods, and granted, the amount of time on theatrical motion pictures, television--[INT: But that, but that came as a result of abuses as well?] Yeah, sure. All of this, all of this stuff came out because of other abuses. None of it would have been, none of it would have been needed, except the... one Director to a movie and Director's Cut, those two things really had be defined, but everything after that were abuses of those concepts. And other various rules about the administration of time and schedules for the preparation of the cut. Then, another cute thing use to arise, I think I mentioned this before, and that is they would take a Director's Cut, "Okay, goodbye. I'm finished with you, "Now, we can undo. Now, we'll really make the movie." You know? So, we said, "No, no, no, no, no. You can't again, keep somebody working, we give you this time, we make a gift to you this time to show you how much we care, we want to give you the benefit of our expertise, and then some of your people, who are PR people, or salesmen, who are lawyers, who are agents, come in and undo all of this. You think we're gonna tolerate that? We're not gonna tolerate that. While we can't, the law prohibits us from taking control of this without a personal service contract, we sure as hell want to be present during all of this stuff, all these meetings, all these decisions, all the way to the end. And be able to raise our arguments. And one CEO said, "Well, that's gonna make you very unpopular." I said, " I told you at the beginning, it was for those who care. Maybe somebody's comments are worth hearing, and maybe you don't have to listen to them, but I would think you'd want to hear from an expert if you've got all this money invested." Yeah, well, they went along with that. And what I mean they went along with that, I say that easy. Sometimes it's weeks and months of persuasion, meeting nights so that their wives would put pressure on them to come home to dinner. But it took a long time, and... [INT: This is over how many period of years were you...?] 27. [INT: What we're reading now took 27, pretty much 27?] All this stuff, to achieve all this stuff.

ES: Now, you look at 7-508 [BA 7-508], "It is understood and agreed the Director's right to prepare his or her Director's Cut is an absolute right, subject to terms and conditions of the Basic Agreement.” Nothing can change that absolute right. And then there's a, there is a next thing which brings us closer to the moral rights questions. When films were sold to television and they were chopped up, so the very least we could try to get was consolation. Not consultation, if they were to be chopped up, unfortunately, but consultation as to how they would be cut up. And not, definitely where they could be cut up, but at least a chance to raise the argument as to where they could be cut up. And they have to be notified, we have to be notified as to when this is gonna be run. All of this kind of stuff that if ethics were the primary principle, governing the operations, none of this stuff would be necessary. [INT: Right.] But there again, companies have the same problem as I just mentioned we do. They have younger people come in who know nothing about this. They have their lawyers read this and advise them. They don't read it. They don't understand what it is. And they would be sometimes prone to figure, "Well, they've got a title, they got a thing on the desk, an office, and a secretary and power, they can go ahead and do what they want. And they may be doing it out of good faith, without any knowledge that they're violating an agreement. So, I don't, you know, I don't hold them necessarily 100 percent responsible when they fail to uphold these things, but it's interesting I think that we, last I talked with Elliot Williams, who was a outgoing counsel of the Guild [Directors Guild of America], that we used to win 75 or 80 percent of the arbitrations. Because we're, we've got this stuff in here; this is the Bible. [INT: We're still winning you're saying, 75, yeah.] Yeah. Yeah. Same thing is true about editing for foreign exhibition.

ES: And another cute thing used to come up, the 7-512 [BA 7-512], the Producer would schedule things, so he could deprive the Director of his creative rights, schedule something, and you live in New York, he schedules your shoot in Chicago, he takes the film back to California and says, "You have to come out here and edit it." So, in 7-512, "The employer should not use its scheduling authority to deprive a Director his or her creative rights.” [INT: We skipped over 7-506, and I think that's such an important one you ought to go direct.] Oh we did? [INT: That's the right to be present in the...] Oh, I said that, [INT: Oh, you did.] He has to consult all the way down to the end. [INT: Right, but that means, that translates, you cannot be removed from the editing room?] That's right. [INT: Yes, well that is absolutely key. Because most Directors tend to think that when they deliver their cut they can be asked to leave. They are being asked to leave, but don't know that.] Is that not a post-production operation? [INT: Yes.] They have to be notified, of the date, time, and place. "They should be afforded a reasonable opportunity, subject to his or her availability, to screen and discuss the last version of the film before negative cutting, before negative cutting or dubbing, whichever comes first.” And he has a present... “to be present at all times”--all times. [INT: Right.] “To consult with the employer throughout the entire post-production period in connection with the picture.” If a decision is made to cut frame one, that's a decision. [INT: Right. Okay.]

ES: Oh, yes, the 715 [BA 7-515], Motion Picture Rating, I told you about that experience with the censor board on A MAN CALLED HORSE, there it is here. [INT: Yes.] "The Director shall have the right to participate in the proceedings.” [INT: Did that come out, your experience on A MAN CALLED HORSE?] Yes. [INT: It did.] A lot of this stuff came out. I don't know where does the deal memo come in here. It'll come in shortly. A lot of administrative stuff as to how people are notified of events and previews, notifying the Director of the previews and... Then looping and narration, and the rights to supervise that, and we all know the situation where the looping engineer with all good intensions has merely got his eye on whether it'll technically match and not whether there's any performance retained in ADR. So, that was important. And then, the replacement of a Director. That came out of--that's 7-1400. Where I think it was called, I think it was, I'm not sure, I think it was called SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION, where a Director was replaced and the star said, "Don't worry about it, I can carry the rest of the movie." And we saw right away that the power, the authority of the Director could be affected seriously if a star could walk in or the Producers could walk in, or the Producer's aunt could walk in, "I know the movie, I can do it." So, we had to strengthen the position of the Director and make it difficult to be replaced. So, "no person assigned to or performing in a particular motion picture before the Director is replaced can replace the Director." And that is any part of the team can't replace him. "The Director may be replaced only by a person who has never been assigned to or performed in the particular picture and has theretofore directed a feature motion picture or not less than 90 minutes of television programming, which has been exhibited in the United States." So, it had to be somebody who directed something before, who's experienced. And had to come from outside that production family. What did that do? That made it a little more expensive. There was at cost of replacing a Director. [INT: Yes, because, oh, because of course they'd have to shutdown, too.] Probably. So, there’s an exclusion for a real emergency in which case of time limitation, where that emergency can be extended. All of this is again, I keep underlying, one Director to a film, authority, strength, unity, responsibility… And then there is a... under general provisions of course to adhere to the law, the labor law, which gives the employer, by definition, the right to control, 7501, "The employer's decision is final." If it weren't for that, we would've pushed further. I can tell you. [INT: 7-501?] 7-1501, sorry, on page 73. Now, then there was the most naïve statement in the entire document, but one which we had to put in there to take note to remind some people of their ethics, was 7-1503, "The employer shall not discriminate or retaliate against the Director because the Director exercises or asserts his or her rights under this Article 7." How are you gonna prove it? You're never gonna be able to prove it. But it's in there just as a reminder, really. And maybe if it were proved, you know, there'd be problems.

ES: Now, there was… put in another part of the manual is the requirement for the employer to provide a deal memo. I would say that the Director's Cut, one Director to a film, and the deal memo, probably are the three-legged stool. And how did the deal memo come about? I was doing a film at Warner Bros., called THE MARAUDERS. Kirk Douglas was to star in it, Herb Hirschman was to produce it and at the same time Elia Kazan was doing a film in which he had Marlon Brando. Brando pulled out while we were in pre-production, and Kirk Douglass wanted to step into the Brando part, thereby shooting down THE MARAUDERS. My colleagues, the Writer and the Producer, thought they we had a deal with Warners. I thought I did. And then the lawyers started to work, a suit was brought, everybody was suing everybody, and I remembered a line asked to me by a lawyer for Warner Bros., "When was the exquisite moment you thought that there was an agreement?" “Oral agreement.” And I saw how much we had descended into the muck, when a handshake and an oral agreement had to be reduced to, "When was the exquisite moment...?" Never again. So, we went in and I remember, I said to, it was Sid Sheinberg sitting across the table, again, as the leader of the opposition, and I said, "We want a deal memo." He said, "A what?" "We know what it is, Sid, we want a deal memo." "Why?" I told him the story. I brought up other stories, I forgot what, they were other Directors who were told that they had employment, and then the attitude generally of the company was, "Sue me. If you think there's a deal memo, then sue me." Five years later down the line, career ruined, money spent, and you're in a trial. So, he said, "I don't know what you're trying to achieve." I said, "Sid, when you get on the telephone, and you negotiate with an agent, what do you do?" "What do you mean?" "What do you do?" "Well, I make some notes." I said, "That's it. We want your notes. We want what you think the deal was. We want it in one page." "Well, you don't want it in one page, that will prevent you from negotiating further." I said, "Fine. Put it in one page, a simple one page, 'We offer you employment, these are the terms, one, two, three, four. This is the date in which there's a deal.' And there's no screwing around with anymore sue me's, Sid. And you're an honest man, Sid, you're not gonna vary from your notes are you? All we want is the notes." He said, "All right. A deal memo." And that's how we got the deal memo.