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Spinning-Off and Away September 2013It started with the news that Warner Bros. was returning to its cash cow and getting back into the world of Harry Potter. Newt Scamander doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice to start a new franchise within that universe, but J.K. Rowling knows a thing or two about great stories and characters. Besides, the suits at Warner Bros. would have signed off on just about anything that would allow them to include the words "Harry" and "Potter" in any and all marketing materials. The Harry Potter Brand is worth $15 BILLION - Read Article Many people assume that Hollywood has no interest in original properties anymore with the amount of sequels and reboots they produce, but the numbers don't lie. Audiences want to see familiar characters and stories so these spin-offs are an attempt to give people exactly what they want. This means there's more pressure than ever to create not only a character and story that are compelling, but to set them in a world that allows for expansion in many different ways. Even though Harry's story might be over, audiences are anxious to explore different scenarios and characters that are set in that world. And that's a testament to the world J.K. Rowling created, whether she wanted this world to function in that manner or not. As you can imagine, though, such things make creators want that development to be very intentional in their own creations. It can be a dangerous game to play because just giving people that familiar setting and those familiar characters isn't enough. And spin-offs can be especially tricky because they often are not utilizing the idea or concept that people are attracted to the most in the first place. That’s why creating a world that allows these stories and characters to renew and reinvent themselves is more important than ever. Creating these sorts of worlds was a big part of Houston Howard's presentation at the TransVergence Summit,The Art of Creating a Robust Storyworld. In it, Howard went though a number of different examples and talked about how creators can create storyworlds that allow them to continue telling stories using various characters and plotlines. With a robust storyworld, the possibilities are practically endless, and the recent spinoff announcements prove that. Read Article Intellectual Property As An Economic Driver. Times, June 8 2012 A US government survey has highlighted the importance of intellectual property in the US economy by reporting that nearly 35% of US gross domestic product ($5 trillion) comes from 75 IP-intensive industries that employ 40 million people. These intellectual- property intensive industries are identified as movie industry, drug manufacturers and high-technology companies. Thomas Donohue, president of the US Chamber of Commerce, made the comment that "in laboratories and studios and research hubs, and even in home garages, entrepreneurs and innovators are hard at work turning their ideas into real products". But "innovation can't create jobs without strong IP protection". Likewise, IP protection does not create a successful business without a clear intellectual- property commercialisation strategy. Many progressive business leaders, though, are recognising the opportunities that intellectual property offers for value creation. It is not only high-technology companies with substantial patent portfolios, or brand houses with well-established trade marks, that can take advantage of this opportunity. All forms of intellectual property offer this opportunity, provided that there is underlying value in the intellectual- property assets. For example, Annie Liebovitz, the world-acclaimed photographer, announced a deal during 2010 in terms of which she has used the copyright in her portfolio of photographs as the basis for raising capital with private-equity firms. She has many famous photographs in her portfolio, not least of which is her Rolling Stone portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, her Vanity Fair photo of a pregnant Demi Moore and her 80th birthday portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Miss Liebovitz has previously raised capital against the copyright in these assets. Her portfolio is in excess of 100 000 photographs. The deal is estimated to be worth $24 million and is aimed at maximising the value of the photographs through their active management and collaboration with Colony Capital. The management of intellectual property to generate additional revenue through licensing and intellectual- property exploitation programmes is not something new. During the 1990s, companies such as IBM and Texas Instruments focused on managing their intellectual property to generate additional revenue out of non-core assets. This programme has proven to be tremendously successful, and at its peak generated in excess of US$1 billion a year for IBM, in addition to the revenue that was generated from intellectual property in core business activities. Licensing remains the most common route to follow in intellectual-property exploitation. This is largely because licensing requires a narrower range of skills to implement than other routes. Other routes that are becoming of increasing importance are alliances and partnerships, joint ventures, the sale and securitisation of intellectual property, spin-outs and corporate venturing. Compared with licensing, each of these presents greater challenges, but can offer greater returns on investment. In conclusion, the opportunity for intellectual-property exploitation programmes does not lie only with multinational corporations with large portfolios of patents and trade marks. There are also opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses, research institutions and even individuals in establishing revenue streams from portfolios of intellectual property. The advice that we often give to clients is that, when you have developed a new technology or established a successful brand, don't immediately think that you have to sell a product or offer a service to leverage intellectual property. There are many successful businesses that have built themselves entirely on intellectual-property exploitation business models. Originally published in Legal Times, Friday June 8, 2012 Read Article Hyde Park Entertainment Chairman - Wanted:Bright Ideas "One could make deals on napkins just based on artwork and storylines," says the one-time professional tennis player. But as Amritraj prepares to participate on a May 18 panel at the third annual Intl. Film Finance Forum in Cannes, those foreign pre-sales that were once the bread and butter of the independent producer are a lot harder to come by. Amritraj, who's speaking at the session Global State of the Industry: How to Get Films Financed and Made Today, says for a company like Hyde Park "there are growth markets like Russia, Brazil and China, but others like Italy and Japan are more difficult," due to such factors as the dearth of buyers in the former and the small number of screens in the latter. Indies have also gotten into the slate game. As early as 2008 Hyde Park partnered with Image Nation Abu Dhabi on a $250 million financing deal. (The relationship continues; in April the two companies got together to finance "Midnight Sun," an Arctic adventure that marks the first feature in a dozen years for "Chariots of Fire" director Hugh Hudson.) In September, Emmett/Furla teamed with Envision Entertainment to create a $250 million revolving equity and debt fund. So what's the hardest part about getting a film financed today? "Finding exciting original projects," Amritraj says. "Distributors have their check-books out and the talent is available as long as there's good material." Read Artcle Spike Lee – Tell Your Own Arabian Stories Spike Lee challenging filmmakers in the Emirates: "Why do you wait for Hollywood to tell your stories?" Because there is all this discussion about Arabs being misrepresented in movies, which is true. It's very limited and stereotyped. But he said: "Why do you wait for Hollywood? You have to tell your own stories. You have what it takes – show us." Arabian Traveller Ibn Fadlan - Antonio Banderas Ibn Fadlan's account are used in the novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton (adapted to film in The 13th Warrior with Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadlan), in which the Arab ambassador is taken further north and is involved in adventures inspired by the Old English epic Beowulf. A major Arabic TV series, The Roof of the World or Saqf al-Alam was produced in 2007 charting Ibn Fadlan's journey from a contemporary perspective. The 30 one hour episodes tackle the relations between Islam and Europe at two moments: the time of Ibn Fadlan and the present. The motivation for the series was the 2005 Jyllands-Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark. Content Is King When Its ...... The Book World "There is such a thing as film envy in many parts of the publishing community," said Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly. "Movies based on books can make a lot more money than books, and people in publishing have watched for years as film companies make profits on novels they've developed. They want a bigger role." In the boldest of the new ventures, Random House, the nation's largest publisher, has formed a partnership with Focus Features, maker of such literary-based hits as "Brokeback Mountain," "The Constant Gardener" and "The Pianist." The publisher will not only open its vast holdings to the filmmaker, but it will also put up half the money for the movies that result, on projects costing up to $20 million. It marks the first time a major U.S. publisher has gambled on such a scale in Hollywood. At HarperCollins, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., publishers recently announced a plan to transform books into television series through an aggressive in-house partnership with Fox TV Studios. Elsewhere, Penguin Group (USA) is allying itself with Walden Media to develop movies and television properties based on its books. Simon & Schuster, part of the corporate universe that includes CBS and Paramount, continues to pursue a host of book-to-movie projects, as does Hyperion, which is part of the conglomerate that includes Disney films and ABC. "We're seeing a lot of new ventures because now, more than ever, content is king when it comes to movies and TV, and nobody has more content than the book world," said Samuel Craig, director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University's business school. For both big-name and obscure authors, new approaches to turning books into movies could also be very attractive. Currently, agents sell book and film rights to a manuscript separately, often at different times. But Dean Koontz, for example, sold the film rights for his latest thriller, "The Husband," to the Random House-Focus partnership because he was encouraged by the filmmaker's "courtesy and respect" in adapting his novel. For less well-known authors, the partnership offers the chance of a deal for a small but worthy book that might otherwise be ignored by Hollywood -- and selling film rights early often boosts foreign sales as well. Mining for Hollywood gold in a New York-made bestseller is an old quest. So is "synergy," that widely derided concept that large conglomerates with publishing, movie and TV arms could profit from sharing content across divisions. Critics of the synergy model say compelling a book publisher and a movie division to work together by corporate decree is unworkable, because they do not share the same priorities and may as well be on different planets. Others say a culture clash is inevitable: If Big Apple publishers have movie envy, their West Coast rivals are equally uncomfortable with New York literati. NEW YORK TIMES Read Article Musunahi - Museum Of Supernatural History Familiar to Web denizens enamoured with the spooky, suspicious and bizarre -- is the Web site otherwise known as the Museum of SuperNatural History, and DreamWorks Studios sees feature potential there. The museum's curator, Ernest Lupinacci, considers his creation a "transmedia brand" designed to "be to the paranormal world what National Geographic is to the real world." Lupinacci, who will executive produce the film project, described Musunahi as "a multimedia brand whose purpose is to study, protect, explore and explain the unexplainable. DreamWorks is talking to writers about how best to turn the lunatic-fringe material into a screenplay, which would centre on the curator of a covert organization known as the Museum of SuperNatural History who must seek out and protect the world's best-kept secrets. "The inherent drama, action and adventure of that mission -- especially from a storytelling point of view -- is that every time we shatter or even question an accepted belief, we have the potential to answer the eternal question, why are we here?" Lupinacci said. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, who are producing the DreamWorks projects "Dinner for Schmucks" and "Motorcade," will produce the Musunahi feature. The project falls under Parkes/MacDonald's partnership with Imagenation Abu Dhabi, launched in October to provide financing for the development of film projects under a $10 million revolving fund. Last week, the producers inaugurated the fund when DreamWorks picked up rights to "Eat, Sleep, Poop: A Common Sense Guide to Your Baby's First Year" for them. The site's focus on the otherworldly and conspiracy-minded includes such hot topics as the lost city of Atlantis and the origins of the Pyramids, the Sphinx and Stonehenge. "On any given day, another ancient temple is uncovered by Google Earth and NASA telescopes come closer to finding intelligent life in the galaxy," Lupinacci said. "Science is on the verge of cloning extinct creatures, and man and machine are approaching the so-called singularity. These sorts of things all contribute to the enduring fascination and universal appeal of this subject matter. The supernatural is ultimately 'the make-believe you can believe in.' Read Article Fox Launches In-House Writing Studio - Studio Talent Incubator Twentienth Century Fox has created an rapid in-house development program for emerging film story writers, tapping former Chernin Entertainment executive VP Nicholas Weinstock and former LucasFilms VP of development Steve Tzirlin to head the initiative. The move marks the latest studio effort to incubate fresh new ideas, stories and talents Fox exececutive Emma Watts will oversee the initiative. Leadership will focus on the development of ideas from emerging writers. Weinstock will spearhead comedy development while Tzirlin will oversee action/adventure. Pair will hire five writers in each division to start the program. "The goal for this enterprise is to create a place where original ideas are generated and where new writers can feel supported to do their best work," said Watts in a statement. This isn't the first time a studio has created an in-house incubation program. Sony and Disney are among those to launch divisions in recent memory, with Sony focusing on harnessing established writers while Disney focused more on developing talent. In 2008, 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Broadcasting Co. invested in an animation initiative, Fox Inkubation, aimed at developing animated series through short films. Studio tapped Jennifer Howell, executive VP of "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker's Important Films, to run the venture and created an animation department to complement the program. The goal, Howell said at the time, was to have 20 to 25 projects in the pipeline at any given time. Weinstock, a former writer and book editor, has served as exec VP of comedy at Chernin Entertainment since 2009. Tzirlin has worked on live-action television, film, video game and animation projects at Lucasfilm for the past five years. Read Article National Geographic Television is always on the look out for exciting new stories to bring to our viewers. We produce 100+ hours a year from a variety of broadcasters both in the U.S. and around the world. The films we produce promote the mission of National Geographic in ways that create a distinct and immersive viewing experience. We seek out dynamic storytelling, a unique angle, strong characters, and a visual narrative approach that entertains, fosters better understanding and inspires us to care about our world. We cover a broad range of scientific, environmental and cultural topics focused by a compelling story arc. What's at stake? What is your main character's goal and how is it at risk? We look for a mission, a journey, a quest, a mystery. We strive to make the best in non-fiction drama—films that demand viewer attention from beginning to end. Topics include: Prehistory, Archaeology, Early Man, Dinosaurs
Story Development Coordinator
National Geographic Television S. T. A. R. Z........ Is Putting Its Lens On The Ottoman Empires The male - skewing cable network, through its co-production deal with the BBC WORLDWIDE PRODUCTIONS, is developing Harem, an exclusive, potential six - one hour series exploring the grand reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest reigning sultan of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, who reconstructed its legal system and presided over the fleets annexation of most of the Middle-East. The STARZ PROJECT would involve around ROXELENA, a beautiful young slave girl whose ambitions knew no bounds and whose marriage to Sultan Suleiman kicked off what became known as the "REIGN OF WOMAN". Read Article New $ 300 Million Egyptian Biblioteca Alexandria
The LIGHTHOUSE, once one of the seven wonders of the world has long since gone. the Unleash your creativity, Murdoch tells Arab world Cultivating a vibrant media will help the Arab world to unlock the creative potential of its young people and capitalise on its "one economic resource that is truly inexhaustible", Rupert Murdoch said yesterday. Creative industries could transform economies and generate millions of jobs for bright young minds, the News Corporation chairman said. Mr Murdoch cited the film My Name is Khan, which was co-produced by Imagenation Abu Dhabi and premiered in the capital last month, as the kind of cross-cultural media product that could become the region's signature. Imagenation Abu Dhabi is a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media Company, which owns and publishes The National. "The popularity of My Name is Khan reminds us that no nation has a monopoly on creative content," he said. "If you tell a good story, people will respond." Read Article |
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