Free Studio (9780307817600) by John Gregory Dunne

quality trade.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Abrahams said.
    Maxin seemed surprised at their naïveté. “No money changes hands,” he said. “They just want free albums. You want Sam Goody’s front window, you give Sam Goody 700 free albums.”
    “Is it worth it?” Jacobs said. “I want to know how many windows to buy.”
    “It … is … worth it,” Maxin said deliberately, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Listen, how many mobile displays you got?”
    “Fifteen hundred,” Jacobs said.
    “A
minimum
fifteen hundred you should get,” Maxin said. “If a store makes a commitment with a mobile, then they’re going to push your record.” He snapped his fingers at the waitress. “The cantaloupe’s a little hard. Bring me some vanilla ice cream.” He turned back to Jacobs. “And you should run a contest for your record distributors. The one who gets the best distribution for the record gets a free trip to Paris, say. Write letters to their wives. Say something like, ‘If you want that mink stole we’re handing out, your husband should do this and this and this.’ It gives the guy on the street selling the album a little incentive.”

4
“Wet she was a star,”
Joe Pasternak said
    The budget of every motion picture is divided into “above the line” costs—story, writer, producer, director, cast—and “below the line” costs—labor, sets, costumes, makeup, hair styling, optical and special effects. To the final budget of each picture is added a studio overhead charge that runs to approximately 25 per cent of the actual cost. It is a common complaint in Hollywood that the studio overhead subliminally encourages a certain amount of fat in a studio’s own below-the-line budget estimates. It is rare that a department head will choose the cheaper of two alternatives, since higher cost means higher overhead and higher profit for the studio. Thus, in a recent picture (which was not madeat Fox), the star’s costumes, which ran mainly to smocks and housedresses, were budgeted for $15,000; the costume designer, whose first film this was, estimated that she could have bought the same wardrobe retail for, at most, $2,500.
    At the Studio, the job of setting the below-the-line costs and policing them once they have been established falls to the production department. Every weekday morning at 11:30, all the department heads meet in the production bungalow to go over the progress of each feature and television film the Studio has either shooting or in preparation. There are approximately thirty people at this daily meeting, representing the Studio’s wardrobe, prop, police, electrical, construction, camera, art, makeup and hair-styling departments. The meeting is chaired by the assistant head of the Studio’s production department, Louis “Doc” Merman. One morning I walked into the meeting just as Merman was taking his place at the head of the table. Merman looks like an aging, amiable beagle. His hair has thinned into a few strands on the top and he has imposing bags under his eyes. He rapped his glasses on the table and called the meeting to order.
    “Jesus, I saw a stinker last night,” he said by way of preface. “
The Way West
. A million dollars in story costs. Jesus.” He spread the daily call sheet in front of him. “Anybody got the weather report for tomorrow?”
    “Sunny all day, Doc,” someone answered.
    “Okay, that means we don’t have to scratch anything on location,” Merman said. “
Sweet Ride
starts tomorrow, right? The company leaves the casting corner at 6:30. Is anyone still in that house they’re shooting in down at the beach?”
    “No, they all moved out, Doc.”
    “Who’s got the keys to the house?” Merman said.
    “We got a watchman there twenty-four hours a day, Doc.”
    “Okay, that takes care of that one,” Merman said. “Now, where do we stand on
The Boston Strangler
?”
    He went into every picture listed on the call sheets and the special problems with