February 2015 Newsletter

We had a great group of Hit Maker Tour members this year with projects ranging from one-hour scripted action adventure to reality medical shows to a heart-warming series about a farm woman’s bonding with a special cow.

Here’s the entire crew at a closed dinner session the night before the official conference start, and hopefully trying to respectfully refrain from ordering the beef.

Let’s jump right to the big action, or the ‘Beggs’ action in this case. Here’s the group meeting with Kevin Beggs (left), the President of Lionsgate Entertainment, in their private suite.

Our Tour members heard exactly from the man-in-charge what Lionsgate is looking for and they were able to pitch their own shows.

The group was pretty excited about this highest level meeting as evidenced by their enthusiasm here, just prior to entering the suite for the meeting. Lionsgate produces and distributing some of the biggest profile films and television series internationally.

Another private suite meeting was with Meg LaVigne (seated behind table), president of Litton Syndication, which funds, produces and distributes shows. She was very responsive and spent a lot of time with our Tour members.

Jodie Mackie, center, is the Acquisitions Executive for Breakthrough Entertainment, which also produces, funds and distributes television programming. One of our Tour members made a deal with them last year on a tour, and this year they are very interested in member Dr. David Florence’s show, “Doc Star.”.

Here’s the group pitching their shows to an executive from truTV in an office that we shared with NATPE. This accommodation came in quite handy as a location for any private meetings a member wanted to schedule.

Celebrities were in abundance at the conference this year. Tour member Dr. J. (holding microphone), enthusiastically got his picture taken with every celebrity he could pounce on, tracking them down like a great hunter on safari. Howie Mandel was perfectly okay with being the bagged prey here. But please… no shaking hands.

Mark’s infamous loud pants were the topic of discussion when Jeanne and Mark encountered Shark Tank star and fashion maven Daymond John.

“Fashion Do or Don’t?” Jeanne quizzed him about Mark’s pants. For attracting attention, Daymond replied, “Definitely a fashion DO.”

We couldn’t help noticing a poster at the TVS booth promoting “The Charla Young Show.”

Charla was a client of ours who also won the pitching contest at Pitchcon in Santa Monica a couple years ago. It’s always great to see great talent we’ve worked with and rooted for coming into their own.

Jay Leno was on hand to present the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award.

Mark also couldn’t help eavesdropping on a huddle between Jay, comedian Tom Pappa, NATPE President Rod Perth, and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” producer Vin DiBona

Phil Rosenthal was the creator and producer of the long-running TV series Everybody Loves Raymond, based on experiences in his own life, including with his parents, seen here. Mark walked up and just said he wanted a picture with Phil’s mother, which immediately got a laugh, and also a picture.

When Mark complimented Phil’s fascinating documentary about trying to launch a Russian version of Everyone Loves Raymond in Moscow, the mother quipped, “That’s the first intelligent thing anyone’s said to my son.” Now we understand where all those stories about the outspoken mom from the show come from.

Our Tour members had a spectacular and productive experience, with many leads and bites to follow up on. But the conference did have one epic fail. This magician promoting and shooting footage for his show was attempting a water tank escape that went on forever and was so boring everyone was secretly hoping he would drown.

It was another great NATPE and we will continue to update you on the progress of all our Tour member shows, including one show that got multiple bites from several huge companies.

Watch for another Hit Maker Headlines this month for news from the frontlines at Reelscreen Summit.