"There are eight million stories in the city, and this is one of them" goes the voiceover as the camera pans across a New York skyline. The face of Harvey Keitel fills the screen. But without a script, Keitel is speechless.
So too are Sean Penn, Kate Beckinsale, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Minnie Driver (pictured here), Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and – thankfully – the cast of Ugly Betty.
They are among the Hollywood A listers who have signed up to a project in support of the Writers Guild of America, which is currently locked in a bitter industrial dispute over payment for DVD and digital rights.
In many ways, the strike has been endearingly old fashioned. The writers withdrew their labour, television shows fell silent because presenters were unable to deliver their usual "spontaneous" quips, and now even the film industry is feeling the pressure.
Picket lines have had a rather more glamorous feel than those involving striking postmen and civil servants in this country – a function not just of the fact that they are largely made up of film stars but also of the rather better weather to be found in Hollywood.
From today – Thansgiving Day in the US – a group of writers independently of the Screen Writers Guild is posting a series of short films on the internet in which the likes of Keitel, Penn, Sarandon and Sheen appear …. silently.
In one such film Susan Sarandon and Chazz Palinteri are seen in a domestic drama accompanied by loud piano music. In place of a script, they mouth "Blah, blah, blah…"
Penn, meanwhile, is seen talking straight to camera – but no words can be heard.
The films will be uploaded over the next few days at the Deadline Hollywood Daily blog, beginning at 9am today local time (5pm UK time), and from Monday will be transferred to a dedicated Speechless Without Writers site.
Each film ranges in length from 15 seconds to four minutes long.
In addition to the big names already signed up, the organisers are also filming slots featuring Woody Allen, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jane Fonda, Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, Jason Alexander and Charlize Therone, and hope to get others as the strike progresses.
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