Even as writers and major studios were making a last-ditch effort to avert a walkout early Monday morning, both sides were busily preparing for all-out war.
Union workers were furiously assembling picket signs Friday as strike captains contacted scores of television and film writers to tell them where to show up for demonstrations expected to sprout across Hollywood and in New York.
Studios were maneuvering to keep their production pipelines flowing, ratcheting up pressure on truck drivers and other members of the Teamsters union to keep them working in the event of a strike.
Teamster leaders have urged their members not to cross picket lines in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, which represents about 12,000 TV and film scribes.
At the same time, the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were prodded late Friday by a federal mediator to meet Sunday at 10 a.m. to try to hammer out a new contract and avert a debilitating strike.
After months of contentious negotiations, writers and their employers were unable to reach agreement on a new contract to replace the one that expired Wednesday at midnight. Talks broke down over payments for DVDs and for shows distributed on the Internet.
On Friday, the union's board of directors accepted the recommendation of its negotiators to stage what would be the writers' first strike in nearly two decades.
"This is not an action that anyone takes lightly," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, at a news conference Friday. "But it slowly became apparent that the studios are not prepared to deal fairly with writers and the rest of the talent."
Nick Counter, president of the producers alliance, said the Writers Guild's call for a strike was "precipitous and irresponsible." Yet he held out some hope that a deal could be reached: "Our goal continues to be to reach a fair and reasonable agreement that will keep the industry working."
Already, informal behind-the-scenes talks have been begun between high-level members of the writers' negotiating committee and the studio and network executives they work for. The committee is headed by comedy writer John F. Bowman ("Saturday Night Live") and includes such top writer-producers as Neal Baer ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit") and Marc Cherry ("Desperate Housewives").
