Without Me, There Wouldn’t Be Any Paramount Studio
I was in London last week, spending the week at the UK offices of Paramount Pictures, something that had been arranged for me after I went on the Marketing & Distribution course at Media Business School in Spain. I had a ton of meetings and learned a lot about theatrical distribution from the studio perspective – which really put what I learned on the course into context.
I haven’t got a lot of gossip to share (and I had to sign an NDA anyway), so this isn’t going to be the place to find inside information on what’s coming up in 2010, and if you were expecting the scoop on the potential Star Trek sequel, look elsewhere. I’m very grateful to everyone at Paramount for being very generous with their time and for explaining everything in such detail, and to the Media Business School for arranging it for me.
What I do with this new knowledge, I haven’t quite worked out yet. Looking over my notes from the week, I’ve realised just how much I’ve learned, and while it will obviously help me to develop as a producer, I need to see how I can put this into some sort of practice from 2010 onwards.
My Camera, It Doesn’t Know How To Lie
Here’s the new trailer from SSAW – Skillset Screen Academy Wales, edited by Ewan Jones-Morris. It’s compiled of films made with the support of the Screen Academy between 2007 and 2009. There’s lots of footage from 17 included, check it out.
An Early Christmas Present
Aron Cynan & Iwan John in Rhestr Nadolig Wil
Rhestr Nadolig Wil has won Best Drama at the EA Bafta Children’s Awards. It was the first production I worked on when I was on a CYFLE traineeship, which feels like a long time ago now. It was first broadcast over Christmas last year, no doubt S4C will dust off the tape and give it an airing again this season. Congratulations to Boomerang and everyone involved in the production.
Sound The Horn and Beat The Drum
I haven’t got much to say about this article, apart from that it’s an interesting profile of Hollywood producer Ryan Kavanaugh. Is he a new breed of producer, or just the modern equivalent of the movie moguls of the past?
It was EAVE in Wales week last week, and thanks to Anne-Marie at the Film Agency for Wales, as I was able to sit in on a few sessions. The most interesting thing I learned is that many European producers see the UK as a difficult co-production partner because of the amount of red tape and hoops you have to jump through in order to unlock the finance for your project, and that one of the stumbling blocks are the huge legal fees incurred because of this. If Wales is to develop a real feature film culture, something that we’re told is actually happening, then perhaps we need to consider how we can break down some of these barriers, even if it means lobbying government for change.
It was good to meet other like-minded people from Wales at EAVE, and also some from overseas. I loved seeing how passionate people are about both crunching the numbers and telling stories they truly care about. After all, even Ryan Kavanaugh cares about having a good script. Maybe.
