September 2013 Newsletter

Newsletter 26 – September 2013

“HOLLYWOOD PLAYER” WINNER UPDATE

As our Newsletter followers know, Mark and Jeanne produced the “Hollywood Player Pitch Contest” at NATPE’s Pitchcon this past summer. The winner of the contest was Charla Young (right) with the pitch for her show, “Power to Change,” and we are happy to relay an update on what’s happened to her from that experience and working with us as a client directly from her blog:

“Three and a half months ago, when I first learned about the NATPE conference (Pitchcon), I never imagined I would have a national deal on the table and an agency representation offer from one of the top three agencies in the country (UTA), but that’s exactly what I have!

“Like most independent producers looking to make the ultimate connection, I had reached my limits, what I could actually do on my own. We worked to put together our pitch materials, to the best of our ability, and we connected to those we could reach.

“The ultimate opportunity came after winning the Hollywood Player contest and scoring 6 major meetings with powerhouses like Lionsgate, The CW and United Talent Agency. Another source of great information came from Mark Simon, owner of Sell your TV Concepts Now. As a part of our Hollywood Player contest winnings, we won the TV Pitch School home course. We listened in-depth to all courses to learn the industry. We really felt like we were in TV 101.

But, the information was invaluable. Another part of the winnings was a one- hour consultation with Mr. Simon. Incredible!

“Now, here we are today with two contracts in hand!!!! One from a media group that would put us in dozens and dozens of markets throughout the United States with a new studio, new administrative space and a new team that I can call my own! We also have a contract from a mega-talent agency in Beverly Hills! You can’t see me now, but I’m turning cartwheels. MORE POWER TO CHANGE is in our future, and I couldn’t be more excited! Thank you for to NATPE for helping to make my dreams come true!”
– Charla Young, President & CEO, “Power to Change” Communications

Jeanne, Charla Young and Mark celebrate her “Hollywood Player” victory at Pitchcon

CELEBRITY HOOK UP

Many of our readers have series projects they feel would benefit from having a celebrity attached or to help publicize, and they are constantly requesting information on how to go about doing that. We are pleased to remind you we have an affiliate agreement with a service that offers exactly that type of information: Contact Any Celebrity.

You can search for celebrities through their contact information (manager, etc.), or even by their causes. This type of information may be invaluable for getting celebrity involvement if the project you are working on in any way aligns with their interests.

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– Joan Stewart, President, The Publicity Hound

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WHAT’S HAPPENING

The offbeat horror movie “You’re Next” opened big recently at number 6 with more than $7 million at the box office (which is a great number when you consider the budget was probably half that). Even more noteworthy here is the fact Mark did the animatics for many of the key sequences during pre-production for the film.

Here’s a link from the Orlando Business Journal about Mark’s work on the film and the high tech toys and software he used to create those ‘killer’ animatic sequences:
http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2013/08/simon-says-watch-for-my-movie-credit.html

A story on Mark’s storyboard business and work for the film also ran on the front page of The Orlando Sentinel print edition on Thursday, August 29th. (We’d add a link, but for online access to stories designated as exclusive digital content, the paper restricts access to subscribers.)

Check out this link to a YouTube video which shows a fascinating comparison of Mark’s work with what ended up in the movie: (Click on link or video to play)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRIk-7BBuc

Incentives for the Florida film industry are in jeopardy and have caused a large exodus of talented performers and production personnel from the state. Local ABC affiliate WFTV did a story on their newscast and Mark was one of the local artists interviewed. Find the video of the broadcast story here: http://m.wftv.com/videos/news/end-of-incentives-for-florida-film-industry-could/vCBXMD/

The Ovation channel series “The Art of …” featured the art of animation this past Thursday and profiled our client Rick Solomon and his company Animate for the Cel of It. If you watched (or do a search for encore showings), you will see our logo featured in the background. Thanks, Rick! Nice product placement.

Also, if you see some familiar faces in the Africa-based animated feature “Khumba” when it’s released next year, look no further than Mark’s book, “Facial Expressions.” Mark was talking to the director, who was surprised to learn Mark was the author of the book, and later emailed:

“I just realized that I own a book that you published called “Facial Expressions.” We used this book all the time during face shape sculpting and animation on Khumba. So you had some influence in the making of our film as well 🙂 Great book!”
– Quentin Vogel, Director, “Khumba”

Check out a trailer from the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWJx_UCMQlU
(Click on image or use link)

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Last month we reported that Netflix earned 14 Emmy Award nominations for shows (including “House of Cards”) that it produced and offered online through its subscription or pay-per-view portal.

“House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey made some comments about the Netflix model and his take on the future of series television while speaking at the Edinburgh Television Conference that we felt worth relaying an excerpt of to our readers:

“… So I predict that in the next decade or two, any differentiation between these platforms will fall away. Is 13 hours watched as one cinematic whole really any different than a film? Do we define film as being something two hours or less? Surely it goes deeper than that. If you’re watching a film on your television, is it no longer a film because you’re not watching it in a theater? If you watch a TV show on your iPad, is it no longer a TV show? The device and the length are irrelevant. The labels are useless. Except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers, who use these labels to conduct business deals. But for kids growing up now, there is no difference.

“Watching Avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV or watching Game of Thrones on a computer — it’s all content. It’s just story. And the audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them. They’re rooting for us to give the right thing. And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, Facebook, make fan pages, silly GIFs, and god knows what else about it. Engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of. And we all have to do is give it to them.”

He warned the traditional broadcast networks to learn these lessons, or risk losing a huge opportunity.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Emmy ceremony airs September 22, at 8 p.m. on CBS.

ACCELERATE… NOW

Even coaches have coaches, so here’s a shot of Jeanne with marketing guru David Neagle at his Atlanta event this past month. Neagle’s strategies help businesses grow by focusing on delivering the best results for their clients, so Jeanne is jazzed to pass on much of what she’s learned to our own clients.

One of the primary beneficiaries of those techniques are clients in the Accelerate Program, which is our TV series development intensive where Jeanne works closely with you to develop your raw idea into a TV series that the networks would want.

Accelerate is a virtual group program that you can join at any time. So far, Jeanne has led training sessions on show genres, how to create unforgettable characters, how to prepare an awesome overview of your show, what it takes to be an executive producer, and she’s done an in-depth review session of everyone’s work so far.

The next Accelerate training session focuses on how to create episode descriptions that prove your show can last multiple seasons.

So, it’s never too late to come aboard, get the full development process you need, plus have access to all prior training sessions.

Find out more about the Accelerate Program here:
https://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/accelerate/

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Our jaws are dropping and our heads exploding and it isn’t from a wheelchair bomb or smoking a Ricin cigarette, but from watching the final episodes of the landmark series, “Breaking Bad,” as Walter White’s world rapidly unravels.

(Photo right is of Wayne’s wife Danette with Jesse- er, Aaron Paul at the Las Vegas Film Festival).

Here’s a show that many people came to the table late on, binge-watching on DVD or Blu-ray, but no one is waiting for the DVDs or even the DVR to watch these final eight episodes as they air on AMC at this point.

This is now truly a series that defines the term ‘event programming.’ Re-caps of series routinely run on show business websites such as EW.com or HitFix’s What’s Alan Watching, but the number of comments posted on this show surpass anything we’ve witnessed before. “The Walking Dead” better cue up soon, because there will be a huge hole at AMC when “Breaking Bad” finally dissolves like a body in a barrel of hydrofluoric acid to that great meth lab in the sky.

Jeanne’s all over the “Inside Man,” airing Sundays at 10 p.m. on CNN (is there anything worth watching NOT on Sunday night?). This is documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s unique first person investigation into such hot button topics as Immigration, Marijuana, Gun Control, Unions, and the Drought. This is the guy who sacrificed his health eating nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days in the hit documentary “Supersize Me,” so we hope he got out of the weed episode intact.

Mark is ‘blown away’ by the new Hulu original, “Quick Draw,” an improv comedy western, which we believe is officially a new genre. We’ve talked about online companies like Netflix and Hulu stepping up to produce original series, and this one certainly fits the description, ‘original.’ Script outlines are developed, but the actors never see one, and the director tells them what the scene is about moments before they shoot it. The comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO worked in a similar method to “Quick Draw,” but it’s probably lucky there were no holsters with guns around when Larry David was doing his usual job of messing someone up. Not pretty pretty pretty.

Summer programming also has us all checking out “Hollywood Game Night,” hosted by Jane Lynch hyped up on Red Bull or some other super-caffeinated beverage. She runs celebrity friends through charade-like games to help contestants win cash prizes up to $25k. Our favorite bit is watching usually sedate celebs such as Rose Byrne (Damages) jumping up and down to wildly clue their teammates into popular song titles just by singing the words “doo doo” over and over to the tune.

“Drunk History” on Comedy Central: Actors in historical costumes and scene settings lip-syncing mangled dialogue, obsenities, belches and comments from a drunk narrator telling the story behind a historical figure or event. Genius! Hysterical.

VIDEO BITES

We’ve got a YouTube video featuring a very cool time lapse shot from the production on the PBS series Artisodes, airing this fall. Check it out here: (Click on the link or the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgPAiUimr9A

WHERE’S MARK AND JEANNE

Mark and Jeanne are home in Florida busy replacing a house full of appliances, television sets, receivers and other electrically supported devices that were destroyed by a lightning strike that came underground through an AT&T line during a violent storm. Who says lightning never strikes twice? This is the second time they’ve lost equipment from a lightning hit. A third time would definitely not be a charm.