Author: Ellen

Nina Jacobson Isn’t Afraid to Fight Hollywood’s Old Guard

Ellen

11/14/2014   The New York Times

The producer of “Mockingjay” talks with Taffy Brodesser-Akner about getting the most out of the “Hunger Games” franchise (without being too grabby) and the rise of the female protagonist.

“Mockingjay,” the newest “Hunger Games” movie, is coming out in a few days. You’re producing the last book as two movies. Why? We felt we needed two movies to tell the story. But it would be disingenuous to say that there isn’t a benefit to getting four movies out of a trilogy instead of three.

So why not make two movies out of each book for a total of six movies? Well, that seems grabby.

What’s the most important thing that a producer does when she has a hot literary property on her hands? The most important thing is to always remember what made you love the book. The movie can’t and doesn’t have to be just like the book, but it should feel like the book — it should make you feel the way the book made you feel.

When the books came out they seemed to be too violent — children killing children — especially with so many school shootings in the news. How did you keep the movies from feeling that way? By staying inside Katniss’s point of view, we never made a party out of the violence. Our young people live in a world in which there’s violence wherever you turn. This is a young person having agency, taking action and doing what she can to save herself.

A ticket is a ticket, but do you have any feelings about whether adults should be so into reading Y.A. novels? To me, a great story well told is a great story well told, and just because the protagonist is a young adult doesn’t mean that story has less merit or worth than if the protagonist is a full-grown adult.

You have also acquired the rights to the hit novel “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” What do you think of the notion that movies with female protagonists are risky box-office bets? Since I’m not allowed to swear, I’ll say I think that’s a lot of bullpucky. I don’t understand why people still behave as though making movies with female protagonists is risky, given that — hello — we do make up over 50 percent of the population, and we go to movies.

So do you have any idea why this idea persists? Too many white men in positions of power?

How do you suppose that changes, then? White boys beget white boys. The more women and people of color who find positions of influence, the more women and people of color who will find positions of influence. So we need critical mass, and we’re still working toward that. I won’t be satisfied until we’re at the 50-50 place where we ought to be.

Do you find it’s a detriment to be out in Hollywood? No. If anything, it’s a detriment to be closeted. Being closeted in Hollywood is like wearing a toupee. It suggests that you’re not proud of who you are, and that you’re afraid of people finding out who you are. There are places where you can’t be out for fear of your life, for fear of your livelihood. Hollywood is not one of them. So to be closeted here is tantamount to being a wimp.

So you think you can always tell? You can always tell! When I first was coming out to a senior colleague of mine, I said, “Do you think the boss knows?” And he said, “Nina, at this point, I think it’s safe to assume everyone knows.”

Is it true that you were fired from your job as a studio head at Disney while you were in the delivery room for the birth of one of your children? Well, I’d stepped into the hallway. A story leaked into the press when my partner was going into labor. By the time I reached my boss, he was like, Can you come in? I was like, No, I really can’t. So it happened on the phone.

But being a studio head means that eventually you won’t be a studio head, right? When you get the job, they get out the egg timer.

The female protagonists at Disney were the opposite of Katniss: waiting to be saved by Prince Charming or a man with a glass slipper. She’s awake now, and she has a bow and arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/nina-jacobson-isnt-afraid-to-fight-hollywoods-old-guard.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

 

The Devastating Pattern of Sexual Abuse in Competitive Swimming

Ellen

11/13/2014   Slate   By Katy Waldman

As of 2014, more than 100 USA Swimming coaches have received lifetime bans over sexual abuse allegations.

A heartbreaking story in Outside magazine drills deep into the scourge of sexual abuse in competitive swimming. Written by Rachel Sturtz, the piece moves from the case of Anna Strzempko, who alleges that her middle-school coach raped her repeatedly in a storage room above her YMCA pool in 2008, to the USA Swimming officials who for many years went to perverse extremes to look the other way in situations like hers.

This is not a new story. In 2010, ABC’s 20/20 and the ESPN documentary series Outside the Lines sparked a flare of publicity with its pieces on Brian Hindson, an Indiana coach who secretly videotaped female swimmers in the locker room shower, and Andy King, a serial rapist and coach who preyed on at least 15 girls as he drifted between California towns. Those earlier reports also revealed a bigger pattern of abuse in the sport. As of 2014, more than 100 USA Swimming coaches have received life bans—and those bans reflect only the small sliver of incidents that were reported, then adequately investigated, then justly punished.

Sturtz’s deeply researched article makes clear that many sex crimes committed against young athletes never leave the locker room shadows. In the wake of allegations that prominent Washington, D.C., swim coach Rick Curl sexually abused a 13-year-old butterfly champion, the blog Cap and Goggles ran a post on how often these crimes occur and how rarely they’re discussed. Allegations like the ones against Curl (who was later convicted of child sexual abuse and sentenced to seven years in prison) are “not news at all—not to the swimmers and coaches and parents who grew up swimming,” wrote author Casey Barrett. “This has been an open secret for ages.”

Sexual abuse cases in youth sports “happen with much greater frequency than people realize,” Sturtz asserts in the Outside piece, and then goes long on the institutional forces that have allowed the abuse to silently metastasize. Unlike most European countries, the United States has no government agency dedicated to protecting kids from molestation by their youth coaches. Instead, that responsibility falls to the United States Olympic Committee, which then outsources the task to national governing bodies, or NGBs, like USA Swimming, USA Football, and USA Taekwondo. This decentralized structure ensures that the people dealing with complaints of sexual abuse are those with the closest ties to the athletic community under investigation, officials who are more likely than disinterested third parties to wish to preserve appearances and reputations. With “the fox … guarding the henhouse,” Sturtz writes, “the USOC’s system historically protected the institution and its coaches more than children, dragging out investigations and lawsuits until sexual-assault survivors lost what little fight they had left.”

Until 2011, USA Swimming had no formal procedure for prescreening coaches, training them, or processing accusations of abuse. When a complaint arose, it generally went to a three-person panel chaired by USA Swimming’s own legal counsel—the very same defense lawyers who might later try to poke holes in the victim’s case in court. Most victims were lucky to get a panel hearing at all. According to USA Swimming, individual swim clubs were not required to report sexual abuse accusations to their NGB until 2010 (although Sturtz uncovered a 1999 code of conduct mandating that all complaints be sent to the USA Swimming president). That meant the people with the authority to handle sex crime allegations were not typically aware of the allegations (though victims and their supporters, including long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad and Olympic gold medalist Deena Deardurff, allege that USA Swimming higher-ups did see the accusations and chose to ignore them; this suspicion ultimately forced executive director Chuck Wielgus to withdraw his name from induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame).

Furthermore, should a suit ever get off the ground, USA Swimming’s defense lawyers stood ready to drown it in tedious, unnecessary paperwork. The “standard tactic,” according to Strzempko’s lawyer, Jonathan Little, was “filing every single motion they could file, even shit that didn’t’t make sense,” to wear the complainant down. During the Strzempko case, Little himself was sued for taking part in a “frivolous lawsuit,” though a judge quickly dismissed the charges. (The judge couldn’t dismiss Little’s $10,000 legal bill, however, or his increased rates for malpractice insurance.)

There is some good news. The burst of publicity and disgust around sexual abuse scandals in youth athletics has forced the USOC to evolve. In June, it announced the creation of a new agency, the National Center for Safe Sport, to investigate accusations of molestation and assault. Even Wielgus, who once asked incredulously whether he needed to apologize to victims, has become contrite. “I’m sorry, so very sorry,” he wrote in a recent statement. And in 2013, California congressman George Miller asked the Government Accountability Office to research the sexual abuse culture in youth sports, especially USA Swimming. The results of the yearlong investigation will be released this spring, according to Sturtz.

The Outside piece is long and powerful. But one of the most affecting parts, for me, was when Sturtz spoke to an expert about “grooming,” the process by which “children are conditioned to believe that inappropriate behavior from an adult is a logical outgrowth of their relationship.” Adults groom kids by gently, imperceptibly nudging boundaries. First, a coach may take a special, friendly interest in a swimmer, then meet with her alone, then touch her hand, then remove her suit. At no point on the slippery slope does a single act register as inappropriate, yet the seemingly natural flow of events deposits the child in an alien, nightmare world.

Isn’t this also how our culture of complicit silence takes root? In a horrible, unintentional way, sitting with rumors becomes minimizing their importance becomes sanctioning abuse. What feels like cautious inaction slides irrevocably into moral failing territory. For members of the swimming community—those for whom the prevalence of assault is apparently “an open secret”—maybe one act of silence simply begat another.

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/11/13/outside_magazine_s_story_on_sexual_abuse_in_competitive_swimming_is_devastating.html

 

Jose Antonio Vargas To Helm Race-Themed Docu For MTV

Ellen

11/10/2014   Deadline   by

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker and undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas has been tapped to direct a new documentary project for MTV’s “Look Different” campaign, which will examine what it means to be young and white in America. The Untitled Whiteness Project is slated to air on the network in 2015. Punched in the Head Productions will produce the project in partnership with Define American, Vargas’ media and culture group.

“As a new immigrant in America who grew up watching MTV, it’s a privilege to work on this project and for Define American to be a part of the Look Different campaign. And as an immigrant who is a gay, undocumented, and a person of color, what it means to be ‘white’ in an increasingly ‘minority-majority’ country has always fascinated me,” says Vargas.

Vargas revealed his “undocumented” status in a 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine in an effort to promote dialogue about the immigration system in the U.S. His most recent documentary film Documented was released in theaters earlier this year and made its debut as a CNN Films broadcast in June. He will receive the PEN Center USA’s Freedom to Write Award tomorrow in Los Angeles. Below is a trailer for Documented.

 

http://deadline.com/2014/11/jose-antonio-vargas-direct-race-documentary-mtv-undocumented-immigrant-1201280600/

 

​Watch what happened to Andy Cohen

Ellen

11/9/2014   CBS News

VIDEO:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/andy-cohen-loves-celebrity-and-being-one/

Just what happened to Andy Cohen over the years that he wound up hosting an uninhibited late-night talk show? Andy Warhol once predicted everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes . . . and it’s a message THIS Andy has taken to heart. Here’s Erin Moriarty of “48 Hours”:

Forty-six-year-old Andy Cohen is the Peter Pan of late-night television. If, by some chance, you’ve never heard of him, he’s the host of “Watch What Happens Live” on Bravo TV . . . a talk show sorely in need of adult supervision.

There’s blush-worthy language . . . inappropriate touching . . . and we should probably mention that he drinks on-air. So do the guests!

The show even has a bartender. Moriarty’s recent appearance in that position may seem strange to you until you hear why:

“A few years back, when I was in college, I interned at CBS News for an incredible reporter named Erin Moriarty,” said Cohen on his show. “How is this for a full-circle moment? She is doing a profile on me right now for CBS’ ‘Sunday Morning,’ and she’s here with a camera crew in tow. It’s tonight’s guest bartender, Erin Moriarty!”

Yes — Andy Cohen started his television career at CBS News, as Moriarty’s 21-year-old intern.

After college, Cohen became for a time a CBS News producer. But his real dream was to be as famous as the people we interview.

He’s not only done that; he’s a bestselling author, with a new book, “The Andy Cohen Diaries.” It’s patterned after “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” published 25 years ago, in 1989.

“I’ve always been fascinated by celebrity, from a young age,” said Cohen, “and I think that’s why I connected to Warhol’s diaries, because it’s a pop culture time capsule.”

Like the pop artist who loved bold-faced names, Cohen took notes on a year in his own fabulous life.

“November 18, 2013: Britney Spears’ people asked me to interview her onstage at her album release event this Thursday in L.A.”

We were with Cohen one day as he recorded his audiobook.

“June 15, 2014: Cher called today . . . “

Many of those A-list names visit him in his “clubhouse” (which is what he calls his tiny stage set).

There may be only 22 people in his studio audience, but in homes there are more than 900,000 viewers each night who know that he was born in St. Louis, and that his family ran a food business there.

He showed Moriarty a box of teabags produced by Allen Foods, Inc. “So you could be selling teabags?” asked Moriarty.

“I could be selling teabags, among other things!”

“Are you living the life you always dreamed of living?”

“I am,” he replied. “One-hundred percent. I mean, it’s great. There couldn’t be a more pure iteration of who I am than what I’m doing every night live at 11 o’clock.”

“And what does that mean? When you say that, what is that?” she asked.

“It means I am being 100 percent myself on TV.”

So who is he, and how did he get here? Like his idol, Andy Warhol, Cohen hit a pop culture nerve. Warhol did it with soup cans and faces. Cohen? He brought us the “Housewives”!

He asked, “Do you blame me for it, Erin?”

“Well, we’ll get to that,” she laughed.

Correspondent Erin Moriarty with Andy Cohen.

While working as a programming executive at Bravo, Cohen helped create the immensely popular “Real Housewives” reality series. Cohen still watches over the shows, and interviews the most controversial couples every week.

Moriarty asked, “Why would they want to share these very private moments? Divorces? Fights with their children? Why would they want to share that with America?”

“That I have not entirely figured out,” he replied.

“It isn’t for the money?”

“I think sometimes it’s for the money,” said Cohen. “I think sometimes it’s for the fame. They get speaking gigs, they get books, they get jewelry lines, they get other things.”

Cohen says the shows aren’t scripted, but the stars know they’re not likely to survive without drama.

He writes in his book, “This is the world we live in and I’m just feeding the beast.”

“Yes, it’s true,” Cohen said. “And sometimes I think that’s great. And sometimes I shake my head at myself.”

But you still do it? “I do. I love it. And I really — I’m proud of the show.”

And particularly proud that he is late-night TV’s only gay talk-show host, so he can openly complain about the only thing lacking in his life.

From “The Andy Cohen Diaries”:

“So why don’t I have a boyfriend? Pick one or two: I am shut off, I am happy as I am, I am selfish and set in my ways, I put my job first, I meet people that I’m more attracted to physically than mentally, I use my friends and job to replace a relationship.”

And, he told Moriarty, “It’s a part of the show. It doesn’t define me, but it’s part of who I am. And so, yes, the idea that I can be wholly myself on television probably didn’t exist ten years ago.”

“Or 25 years ago. ‘Cause you once told me that you were afraid, you didn’t know how I would react.

“Of course, I was in the closet when I was as your intern.”

Cohen has yet to find the right man, but he did gain a best friend: his adopted rescue dog, Wacha, named after Michael Wacha, pitcher for Andy’s beloved St. Louis Cardinals.

“Erin, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore,” he said. “I was just ready to take care of something else, you know? And I feel like he’s opened my heart up, so I feel like a guy is coming.”

There’s something else Cohen’s “Diaries” make clear: It’s a lot of work to be a celebrity . . . a lot of time on red carpets . . . a lot of time at the gym.

But there may be no one who enjoys it more.

“Look, I’m all about high and low,” he said. “I love The New Yorker and I love US Weekly. I love having Meryl Streep on my show, and I love having any ‘Real Housewives’ on my show. I don’t feel that different from the kid that I was when I was your intern, I really don’t.”

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/watch-what-happened-to-andy-cohen/

 

Cubicles Rise in a Brave New World of Publishing

Ellen

11/9/2014   The New York Times   By JONATHAN MAHLER

Michael Pietsch, Hachette’s chief executive, in his 6-by-7-foot cubicle at the publishing group’s new Manhattan headquarters.

Michael Pietsch was given his first private office when he became an editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons 30 years ago.

He got his first corner office when he was named publisher of Little, Brown and Company in 2001. He moved into an even bigger corner office — with a large living room area — 11 years later, after being promoted to chief executive of Little, Brown’s parent, the Hachette Book Group.

Mr. Pietsch still runs Hachette. But last month, he started working in a 6-by-7-foot cubicle. Except for a few family photos, it is identical to the 519 other cubes in his company’s new Midtown headquarters. Or more or less identical.

“I gave myself a window cube,” Mr. Pietsch said recently, as he led a visitor into his company’s sprawling new space.

Originally conceived in 1950s Germany, the open-plan office has migrated from tech start-ups to advertising agencies, architecture firms and even city governments. Now it has reached what is perhaps its most unlikely frontier yet: book publishing.

To help personalize the office, employees post snapshots of themselves, or their pets, on the Community Wall.

Few industries seem as uniquely ill suited to the concept. The process of acquiring, editing and publishing books is rife with moments requiring privacy and quiet concentration. There are the sensitive negotiations with agents; the wooing of prospective authors; the poring over of manuscripts.

Quite apart from the practical concerns, there are atmospheric ones. The quintessential editor’s office — crammed full of books, with a comfortable reading chair or two, and maybe an Oriental rug — is intended to set a tone as much as anything. And book editors often led outsize lives — with outsize expense accounts — to match their outsize offices.

But with their profit margins being squeezed by Amazon and electronic books, publishers are facing a different reality, one in which private offices may be a luxury that are not worth paying for. The trend started several years ago in London, where prime office space in desirable neighborhoods is typically even more expensive than in Manhattan. Penguin U.K. and Little, Brown U.K. are among the British publishers that have recently moved into fully open spaces.

This year, HarperCollins relocated to a largely open space in Manhattan. (Executive editors and above retained their offices, though most lost their windows.) But Hachette has become the first major American publishing house to abandon private offices altogether.

“I looked into the future and thought, ‘Are profits going to be easier to come by or harder?’ ” Mr. Pietsch said. “I think they’re going to be harder. We need to save as much money as we can and still have a nice office.”

As Hachette’s chief executive, Mr. Pietsch is in charge of the publisher’s contentious negotiations with Amazon, which has been delaying shipments and preventing preorders of some of its books. When he needs to have a difficult conversation with an Amazon executive, Mr. Pietsch steps into a conference room reserved for “executive senior leaders,” or one of a dozen so-called phone booths — small rooms designated for private calls.

And when he needs to wrestle with a manuscript? “I’ll do what I’ve always done — edit at home on nights and weekends,” said Mr. Pietsch, who edited Donna Tartt’s 775-page Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, “The Goldfinch,” and is now working on a 1,000-page biography of the Sun Studios founder Sam Phillips by Peter Guralnick.

If the decision to go open-plan was initially motivated by financial necessity — or prudence, anyway — Mr. Pietsch does not seem the least bit wistful about the old days. “I hated that corner office,” he said. “It was just incredibly isolating.”

Mr. Pietsch committed to moving about two years ago, after he learned that Hachette’s previous landlord intended to raise the rent when its lease expired. Leaving Manhattan was not an option. Mr. Pietsch wanted to stay near the various literary agents whom he and his editors do business with, and the media outlets they rely on to publicize their books.

The original plan was to move to a smaller space and simply reduce the number of private offices. Mr. Pietsch considered various permutations, including giving offices to only the 70 or so vice presidents, or the 12 members of the executive management board.

But the more spaces Mr. Pietsch visited, the more attracted he became to the idea of going 100 percent open plan. “As I looked at these places, there was just this energy and buzz and sense of excitement of collaborative human endeavor that really was kind of exhilarating,” he said.

Mr. Pietsch thought the company would benefit from having its senior leaders out in the mix with the rest of the staff. Also, if everyone had a cube, there would be no cause for resentment among colleagues.

Not that his staff shared his excitement, at least in the beginning. “The first time I said the words ‘open plan,’ people gasped,” he recalled.

Their concerns were not unwarranted. Even as the walls of America’s workplaces continue to come crashing down, leaving only a handful of holdouts — like corporate law firms — a number of recent studies have been critical of the effects of open-plan offices on both the productivity and happiness of cube dwellers.

“The evidence against open-plan offices is mounting,” said Nikil Saval, the author of “Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace.” “The idea is that these offices encourage collaboration and serendipitous encounters. But there’s not a lot of evidence behind these claims. Whereas there is a lot of evidence that people don’t like open plans.”

The notion of cookie-cutter cubicles is especially anathema to a certain breed of editors who see themselves more as men and women of letters than they do as businesspeople.

“It’s a world of words that we’re working towards, not an intellectual sweatshop,” said Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux and an opponent of open-plan offices.

For book editors, offices provide more than just privacy. They like to fill the bookcases inside with titles that they’ve published, making for a kind of literary trophy case to impress visitors.

In Hachette’s new space, editors can display their books in the shared conference rooms for meetings with agents and authors. To give the office a little more personality, there is the Community Wall, for employees to post snapshots of themselves or, if they prefer, their pets.

To drown out ambient sound, Hachette has piped “pink noise” — white noise that has been set to the frequencies of human voices — through a system of overhead speakers. If editors or other employees are still finding it too distracting to work in their cubes, they can bring their manuscript or laptop into one of handful of silent conference rooms called “quiet cars.”

Reagan Arthur, who oversees her own imprint at Little, Brown, chronicled her first few days of cubicle life on Twitter. (“Open plan, Day 2. Happy to report that when you sneeze, nobody blesses you.”)

Ms. Arthur said she was dead set against the idea, until she toured the open-plan space of an architecture firm. “I came away thinking the experience was a little bit like the college library during finals,” she said. “Everyone is there in their carrels doing their own thing.”

The open plan may be the future of publishing, but for a lot of editors in this genteel, old-fashioned business, it’s going to take some getting used to.

“Having a door and a window is starting to feel like having a car and driver,” said Tim Duggan, who has his own imprint — and, for the time being, office — at Crown. “It’s almost too good to be true, and probably too good to last.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/business/cubicles-rise-in-brave-new-world-of-publishing.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

 

Sandy Grushow on Hollywood’s Need to ‘Connect West of the 405 With East of the 405′

Ellen

11/9/2014   The Wrap   By

Former Fox TV chairman Sandy Grushow is mining for gold in Silicon Beach – here’s why

After a long career in television including  as chairman of the Fox Television Entertainment Group, TV executive Sandy Grushow has taken a stealth leap into the new digital economy. He spent two years as the chief creative officer of MediaLink and two years ago started his own company, Phase 2 Media, exploring innovative business ideas in Silicon Beach.  He got grilled on his new venture by TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman.

SW: You started this company two years ago, why?
SG: After I left Fox, it quickly became clear to me that I had gone as far as I could go in the traditional television business. That the media world was changing rapidly and dramatically. And that my timing was very fortunate in that I had the opportunity to take part in the digital revolution.

The challenge was figuring out the best way to learn about the space. I quickly realized that I couldn’t get my digital PhD by reading the Hollywood trade papers in the Polo Lounge. There was only one realistic path, and that was to roll up my sleeves, dive in and get dirty. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years.

Explain what you mean by roll up your sleeves and get dirty.
I became fascinated with the world of startups and early stage companies by spending a lot of time down at accelerators on Silicon Beach in Santa Monica. Launchpad LA, the Amplify, the Mucker labs.  And it was really there that that it struck me that there was a great need to connect what was happening west of the 405 to what was happening east of the 405.

I love that distinction. We talk a lot about the divide southern California, but you’re saying that divide exists within Los Angeles?
Correct. I felt it was low-hanging fruit. One of the first entrepreneurs I met was a dynamic woman named Tracy DiNunzio who was starting an ecommerce platform called Tradesy, for women to buy and sell clothes out of their closets.

Her biggest challenge was customer acquisition costs. The first thing that struck me was the possibility of creating a cable television show, and we’re now working on a format with Core Media Group, which if we’re successful in selling to a network, will give Tracy the opportunity to integrate her platform into the show.

Another example is a company named Two Bit Circus. These guys have set out to reimagine out- of-home entertainment using the technology that’s available, starting with a conventional carnival. Starting this month in downtown LA, they’re launching the Steam Carnival, which takes traditional amusements at a carnival and hits them with laser and fire, and makes them relevant for the younger consumer.

Once I met them, it occurred to me that they had a television series in them. They’re whimsical inventors. They refer to themselves as a Merry Band of Nerds. The founder and CEO is Brent Bushnell, his father is Nolan Bushnell who founded Atari and also Chuck e Cheese. So Brent obviously had invention in his DNA. I introduced them to Craig Piligian at Pilgrim Entertainment, who has some 40-some odd shows on the air. We cooked up a format, and we’re currently in deep discussions with multiple cable networks.

Why is this divide we’re talking about, even within Los Angeles?
When we talk about east of the 405 and west of the 405. I felt there are opportunities to leverage television in the interest of building digital businesses. That’s a huge advantage that start-ups and early stage companies have here in southern California over those in northern California. We have an obligation to try to be as helpful as possible.

Why aren’t others doing what you’re doing? What is that disconnect about?
You really need to establish credibility for yourself in both worlds. The only way to establish cred west of the 405 is to spend a significant amount of time and energy helping and learning.

You started advising these companies?
I started out by mentoring. Trying to be helpful. In all humility, I was offering the experience of someone who had run companies, and who knew traditional media industry. Mentoring quickly turned to advising, being offered lots of board seats. A good piece of advice I got was: First get busy, then get picky. Over time you get to know folks down there. The MCNs (multi-channel networks) were born down there. A lot of these people come from purely tech backgrounds, and they start businesses because the barrier to entry is so low, without a real knowledge of how to build a business.

Now I advise close to two dozen of these companies. And we’re doing a lot of stuff in the over the top space.

On the one hand, Drama Fever is an over the top content company, it licenses Korean dramas, and was acquired by Soft Bank. I was a strategic adviser – that was a good day for me. On the other side of the ledger, I sold along with Wellesely Wild (Ted, Family Guy) a show to Fox Broadcast company, The Weatherman.

This is an example of my life: The CEO of Mobcaster (a crowdfunding company) got in touch with me, he asked if I would look at this pilot that these two Australian kids had posted on Mobcaster in an effort to raise $73,000 so they could shoot six more episodes.

I said to the CEO, ‘You realize that $73,000 is craft services money.’ I went back to my hotel room, watched it, thought it was hilarious, I was blown away.  I called them and ask what they wanted to do. They said, “We want to leave this provincial country of ours and come to Hollywood to make sitcoms.” I hung up on the phone, and on a lark, and sent (20th Century Fox Television co-Chairman) Dana Walden an email asking if she would do me the favor and watch The Weatherman. Frankly I didn’t imagine I’d hear back from her. Within an hour I got an email saying, ‘This is really funny.” I’m sending it to Johnny – Jonathan Davis (president of creative affairs at Fox). He got back to me and said, ‘I love this, I want to buy this.’

It was one of most gratifying calls I’ve ever made in my career. I called Australia and said, ‘Twentieth Century Fox television wants to buy your show and adapt it for television.’

 

http://www.thewrap.com/sandy-grushow-on-the-need-to-connect-west-of-the-405-with-east-of-the-405/

 

The 30 Most Influential LGBT People In Tech

Ellen

10/30/2014   Business Insider   by

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday publicly acknowledged he is gay, but his sexual orientation has long been known in the tech community and beyond.

In fact, Business Insider named Cook as one of the most important LGBT people in tech back in December 2013.

In light of Cook’s coming-out, we are re-running our list of the most important LGBT people in tech. (We’ve also decided against ranking this list.)

As Business Insider’s Jim Edwards has noted, it’s unfortunate that some famous, successful gay people like Cook might feel pressured to talk about their personal lives while straight CEOs can maintain their privacy.

Still, it takes courage to give up that privacy in order to inspire others to be more open or insist on equality for gays.

Cathy Brooks

Cathy Brooks, a lesbian activist, previously worked at Seesmic and founded a digital marketing firm. She also hosts a podcast about tech/society. But Brooks dropped her career to pursue her passion for dogs back in February 2013. She opened up a private dog park and training academy for dogs in Las Vegas and founded The Hydrant Club, a place for cool canines to “romp and learn.”

Lisa Brummel

Lisa Brummel has been with Microsoft ever since she graduated from college in 1989. Brummel has held a variety of positions at the tech giant, but has since become the executive vice president of human resources. Brummel is the one who informed employees that Microsoft would axe its controversial stack-ranking system — a system that hurt morale by turning teammates into competitors.

Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the most powerful gay man in technology. Even before he came out publicly on Thursday, Cook spoke out about gay rights and discrimination.

“Now is the time to write these basic principles of human dignity into the book of law,” Cook said in his acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award from Auburn University.

Last year, Cook wrote an open letter in The Wall Street Journal encouraging Congress to pass a law that would provide equal rights to gay and lesbian employees.

Since taking charge of Apple in 2011, Cook has led Apple through significant product upgrades like the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iOS 7.

Steve Demeter

Peter Thiel, famous for being Facebook‘s first investor and the co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, is the brains behind the Thiel Foundation. As part of the two-year fellowship, 20 teenagers receive $100,000 to drop out of college and start a company.

As both a VC and entrepreneur, Thiel has been involved with companies like Palantir Technologies, Founders Fund, and Facebook, where Thiel was the social network’s first outside investor and director.

Thiel is also the founder and president of Clarium Capital.

Lorenzo Thione

In his early 20s, Thione launched his first company, Powerset, a search engine startup. That company eventually sold to Microsoft for about $100 million, where it ultimately became part of the tech giant’s Bing search engine.

He’s currently chief executive officer at the Social Edge, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas, the current editor-in-chief of ReadWrite, is the epitome of a Silicon Valley insider. Thomas is the one who “transformed Valleywag into the Silicon Valley’s authority on tech gossip.”

Disclosure: I used to work with Owen during his time at Business Insider. 

Edith Windsor

Edith Windsor, a former IBM engineer, became an unlikely activist in the gay rights movement. Back in 2010, Windsor sued the government for a $363,053 refund of the estate taxes she had to pay when her spouse passed away. The Supreme Court ultimately decided in her favor, marking the first the US-recognized marriage between partners of the same sex.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/lgbt-leaders-in-tech-2014-10

The Era Of TV’s Media Dominance Will Come To An End In 2016 — Here’s The Evidence

Ellen

11/6/2014   Business Insider   by

The death knell for the primacy of TV advertising has been ringing for some time, but we now know when to arrange the funeral: 2016.

That is the year researchers at Forrester predict US advertisers will spend more on digital advertising than TV ads. Email marketing, social media, display advertising and search marketing combined will be growing at a combine annual growth rate of 30% by then (up from 24% in 2014.)

And by 2019 “interactive spend,” as Forrester calls it, will top $100 billion, while TV advertising will be at just over $90 billion.

That crossover is coming a lot earlier than was previously thought.

Researchers at eMarketer think the switch will happen two years later, in 2018.

Emarketer TV Digital

Magna Global, meanwhile, said in August that digital would overtake TV in 2017. BI Intelligence has also previously predicted digital will surpass TV in 2017.

The signs of the demise of the traditional TV spot have long been visible. But there has recently been an acceleration in the amount of evidence pointing toward the shift to digital advertising. It’s worth pointing out that this evidence doesn’t point toward the death of TV networks and broadcasters (they sell a lot of digital ads too), but that marketers are increasingly pivoting their spend to focus far less around the 30-second digital spot. So it’s the end of TV’s dominance, rather than the end of TV.

That’s a bracing thought: The internet is about to do to TV what it has already done to newspapers and radio. TV will become a second-rate medium, the afterthought behind digital.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week of a “structural slowdown” in the TV ad market, with marketers pulling back amid economic uncertainty (TV is — aside from sponsorship or huge stunts — the most expensive form of advertising around) and the shift towards digital media.

The WSJ backed up its claim with three key recent financials:

Overall, US advertisers are committing hundreds of millions of dollars less to cable TV networks for the first time since the 2009/10 seasons, according to a report released last month from the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau. The report found that advertisers spent 6% (or $577 million) less on securing “upfront” deals with cable TV networks this year. The upfront represents the time of year when TV networks sell the bulk of their advertising for their most attractive Fall programming ahead of time.

Forrester thinks there are a number of reasons behind the move to digital advertising: that there are an increasing amount of measurement partners that can help marketers prove their digital advertising works, media proliferation means there’s more ads to buy and that a recovering economy boosts confidence in technology (with Forrester citing the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 report.)

Also, marketers are slowly coming around to the realization that consumers are spending more time on their desktops, mobiles and tablets than they are watching live TV. Ad spend on digital is starting to level up with time spent.

adpsendtimespentBI Intelligence

Digital formats are also getting a lot more attractive than the humble 20-year-old banner ad. Advertisers are starting to see the branding benefit of digital video in particular. Brands can run beautiful campaigns like on TV, but they don’t have the shackles of scheduling, they can use more sophisticated targeting techniques and — currently — online video ads are still cheaper than buying primetime 30-second spots.

Marketers’ budgets aren’t infinitesimal, that digital ad spend has to come at the expense of something else. For the most part it’s display advertising. And after that it’s coming from TV.

digital videoBI Intelligence

On the other hand, we could just be in a period of experimentation. There is evidence that TV remains the most effective ad medium. A UK econometric study from Ebiquity, commisioned by UK TV marketing body Thinkbox, found that every £1 spent on TV advertising generates £1.79 in profit, far ahead of the next most effective medium, radio.

Thinkbox TV effectivenessThinkbox

Once marketers dip their toes in the digital water and find it’s not as good for raising awareness as TV, they may well perform a u-turn and do some serious grovelling with their broadcaster account managers to get their brands back in the commercial breaks. But for the next two years at least, the rise and rise of digital advertising looks to be finally coming at the expense of TV.

http://www.businessinsider.com/digital-to-overtake-tv-advertising-in-2016-2014-11

Political Drama From Former Obama Speechwriter Jon Lovett Set At Showtime

Ellen

11/4/2014   Deadline   by

On the day of the midterm elections, a political drama that kicks off on an election day has landed at Showtime in a competitive jonlivettsituation. Titled Anthem, the project is written by former Jon Lovett, former speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then-Senator Hillary Clinton and co-creator of the White House comedy 1600 Penn. Executive producing the project are the Ocean’s Thirteen duo of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, writers/executive producers of Showtime’s high-profile Wall Street drama pilot Billions starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis.

 

 

Image (6) showtime4__140512213840-275x95.jpg for post 731761Anthem chronicles an unraveling: what happens when our political system collapses under the weight of mistrust and partisan division. The pilot begins on a typical presidential election day. When it ends, America is on the brink of a second civil war.

 

Lovett, repped by CAA, Mosaic, and Jeff Frankel, most recently was a producer on the final season of the HBO series The Newsroom. Levien and Koppelman are repped by WME and lawyer Karl Austen.

 

http://deadline.com/2014/11/anthem-political-drama-brian-koppelman-david-levien-showtime-1201273117/

 

Gavin Polone: Will You Ever Make $1 Million a Year Working in Hollywood? (Guest Column)

Ellen

11/5/2014   The Hollywood Reporter   by Gavin Polone

The producer cautions against simply chasing the big paydays out of Silicon Valley and Wall Street

Internet piracy, declining ticket sales, layoffs and lawsuits initiated by interns: Is a career in the entertainment industry still worth pursuing? I’m often asked by those starting out for advice about how to get ahead in the business. Given recent headlines, I wonder if my response should be, “Why bother?”

When I started out as an assistant at ICM, oh-so-many years ago, revenue at the major studios and networks was growing at a fast pace; executives at those companies were realizing seven-figure gains on their stock options through mergers and buyouts; all of the talent agencies were smaller, with lower overhead, so as their businesses grew with the expansion of the film and TV industry, their net profits grew exponentially — and so did the incomes of the individual agents. Hot late-20s, early-30s up-and-coming agents were pulling down $1 million to $3 million a year, and the biggest of the bigs, CAA’s Michael Ovitz, was taking home many times that amount. Smart, motivated people wanted to come out west and see if they could make it huge in Hollywood, enduring long hours and humiliating tasks — as I did when I would have to take my drug-addicted boss to the hospital so she could get a shot of Demerol to soothe her weekly made-up migraines.

Personally, I was lucky enough to participate in the gold rush, making a big salary as an agent then collecting on the backend of a couple of successful movies and TV shows. Today, studios and networks have been able to consolidate their operations vertically, giving them greater power in negotiating with talent. There is no such thing as an adjusted-gross-profit definition on a TV show, and first-dollar gross on a movie is rare. The two major talent agencies, CAA and WME, have expanded wildly and to do this have sold big pieces of themselves to private-equity firms, who now have a say in their operations. This has resulted in a greater focus on the bottom line, reducing the available share of the pie for those who showed up late to the meal. An agent starting out today would have very little chance of earning what the partners to whom he or she reports have earned, or certainly will have earned when they liquidate their ownership. The same can be said of studio and network executives (less in stock) and producers (smaller backends). And now it feels like the people just out of college who can get hired anywhere are headed to Silicon Valley and Wall Street, rather than Burbank and the Westside.

The future seems pretty grim for the next generation in entertainment, right? Not right. I think people earning less is, in a lot of ways, a good thing. Even on this reduced scale, we all make a shitload of money, and cash shouldn’t be the only compensation for the work we do. Yes, it is easy for me to say that, having already fed at the trough, but in all honesty, more than money I appreciate my connection to the careers of the incredibly talented people I represented as an agent and to the few truly good movies and TV shows I produced. Going forward, those entering the business will probably be more passionate about the product and less so about how much they can make from that product — and this will surely yield better work. I promise you that I did a better job representing those whose art I respected than I did the few I took on just because I knew they would pay me sufficiently. I’d say the same about some small projects I produced for little or no money, in comparison to bigger projects where I received my full fee.

So if your goal is a path to nine figures, I recommend starting a hedge fund or developing an app that can be sold to Google and will be forgotten in eight months. But if you absolutely have to participate in the creation of the next Breaking Bad or Gravity, there is only one place to go.

Gavin Polone is a film and television producer and sometime contributor to The Hollywood Reporter.

<em”>This story first appeared in the Nov. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/gavin-polone-will-you-ever-746141#sthash.o0srK5Sr