...a follow-up to yesterday's post.
At the 2013 MacTaggart lecture at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television festival Kevin Spacey was eloquent about the future of what used to be called 'cinema' or 'television'.
"The audience have spoken. They want stories. They're dying for them. They're rooting for us to give them 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. All we have to do is give it to them."
And is already clear that the stories the audience wants will be produced in very new ways in order to exploit the advantages of 'second screen' apps and cross-media access.
One of the ways in which the publishing business is changing is perhaps instructive in this context. The supremacy of the established houses is being questioned by the agents whose job in the past was to be the intermediary between author and marketer of the writer's books. This gives rise to what can be termed curated self-publishing.
But it is not just in the literary arena that agencies represent creative talent... actors, too, depend on agents. And some agents will wake up quite soon the the new possibilities which they, like the writers' reps, can profit from in the new digital environment.
In many ways actors' agents have always been impresarios, intent on assembling a 'company'... a talent ensemble covering a wide range of age and type. Indeed in many cases a single agency on its own could supply the core cast for an ongoing drama series.
And today there is little to discourage a bunch of actors, encouraged by their agent, from following the suggestion Judy Garland made to Mickey Rooney in that 1939 movie...
"Hey, let's put on a show!"
Only the actors are going to go one step further. The next generation will have grown up shooting video on their smartphones, maybe even editing their footage with iMovie. Yes, they are acquiring basic 'production skills'!
I see on the horizon 'up-skilled' actors, not only able to handle the almost idiot-proof cameras which can now be had, schooled in the dramaturgy of editing and as storytellers confident well beyond the 'hyphenates' (actor-directors) of the past.
The console games with which they while away the waiting time in their trailers or dressing rooms will have put them instinctively in charge of narrative and from there it is only a small step to a sufficient mastery of tomorrow's screenwriting 2.0.
And the talent agent in all this? He or she will encourage members his ensemble to gain new skills, sell the notion to his actors. Mentor, facilitator, show-runner... but he or she had better be prepared also to act. In every sense of the word.
At the 2013 MacTaggart lecture at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television festival Kevin Spacey was eloquent about the future of what used to be called 'cinema' or 'television'.
"The audience have spoken. They want stories. They're dying for them. They're rooting for us to give them 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. All we have to do is give it to them."
And is already clear that the stories the audience wants will be produced in very new ways in order to exploit the advantages of 'second screen' apps and cross-media access.
One of the ways in which the publishing business is changing is perhaps instructive in this context. The supremacy of the established houses is being questioned by the agents whose job in the past was to be the intermediary between author and marketer of the writer's books. This gives rise to what can be termed curated self-publishing.
But it is not just in the literary arena that agencies represent creative talent... actors, too, depend on agents. And some agents will wake up quite soon the the new possibilities which they, like the writers' reps, can profit from in the new digital environment.
In many ways actors' agents have always been impresarios, intent on assembling a 'company'... a talent ensemble covering a wide range of age and type. Indeed in many cases a single agency on its own could supply the core cast for an ongoing drama series.
And today there is little to discourage a bunch of actors, encouraged by their agent, from following the suggestion Judy Garland made to Mickey Rooney in that 1939 movie...
"Hey, let's put on a show!"
Only the actors are going to go one step further. The next generation will have grown up shooting video on their smartphones, maybe even editing their footage with iMovie. Yes, they are acquiring basic 'production skills'!
I see on the horizon 'up-skilled' actors, not only able to handle the almost idiot-proof cameras which can now be had, schooled in the dramaturgy of editing and as storytellers confident well beyond the 'hyphenates' (actor-directors) of the past.
The console games with which they while away the waiting time in their trailers or dressing rooms will have put them instinctively in charge of narrative and from there it is only a small step to a sufficient mastery of tomorrow's screenwriting 2.0.
And the talent agent in all this? He or she will encourage members his ensemble to gain new skills, sell the notion to his actors. Mentor, facilitator, show-runner... but he or she had better be prepared also to act. In every sense of the word.
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