The first one got me hooked!

These three interviews are off beat but insightful.

Bonus: Love this interview with Anna Kendrick.

In the following interview, Gerard is very personable even his PA is trying to take him away. And Jen just wanted the interview to end five minutes ago! Fun to watch still.

Dancing Pigeons ‘Ritalin’

Dir: Tomas Mankovsky / UK / 2010

A foreboding yet strangely humorous depiction of a seemingly pointless modern day sword fight, shot at 1000fps.

It was my pleasure to interview TiVo CEO Tom Rogers when he was at the 2010 Banff World TV Festival.

In the interview, Tom and I talked about TiVo’s relationship with the advertising industry and television networks. When people are fast-forwarding commercials using technologies like DVR, television “needs to find different forms of inventory that involve different technologies as a way to present that [advertising] so that the advertising is compelling”. Tom gave the example of TiVo’s ability to pause live TV, so viewers can search and find any products appearing in a TV show (a sweater worn by an actress, a golf club used by an athlete, or any products on screen at the moment) and then turn the thought into an actionable transaction where the viewer can buy the product. TiVo is putting a lot of meta data into the TV content and movie content and in doing so, create a lot of “transaction opportunities”.

I also asked Tom When will TiVo come to Canada? And will the data collected by TiVo be transferable to Canada and other countries.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers interview @ Banff World TV Festival 2010

Here is Tom’s Banff bio.

Tom Rogers is President and Chief Executive Officer of TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs). With a career that operates at the nexus of where media, technology, advertising and public policy come together for more than two decades, Tom brings to TiVo a distinctive blend of operational leadership and corporate strategy experience across multiple facets of the industry. With vast experience in running traditional media and new media companies, and in creating innovative business models for companies facing new challenges, Tom is poised to help TiVo continue to revolutionize the way consumers watch and access home entertainment. Previously, Tom was Chairman and CEO of PRIMEDIA, Inc. (NYSE: PRM), which then was the leading targeted media company in the United States. PRIMEDIA published some 200 magazines, operated more than 400 websites, and owned a wide range of television and video businesses. Prior to joining PRIMEDIA, Tom was President of NBC Cable and Executive Vice President of NBC, as well as NBC’s chief strategist. Among his many accomplishments, Tom founded CNBC, the nation’s leading business news channel and established the NBC/Microsoft cable channel and Internet joint venture, MSNBC. In addition, he served as co-chairman of the Arts and Entertainment and History Channels, and was responsible for overseeing many other cable channels including Court TV, Bravo, American Movie Classics, Independent Film Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and numerous regional sports channels. Prior to NBC, Tom was Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Telecommunications, Consumer Protection and Finance Subcommittee, where he was responsible for drafting a number of communications laws, including the Cable Act of 1984, as well as overseeing the FCC. Tom began his career as an attorney with a Wall Street law firm. Tom also served recently as the Senior Operating Executive for media and entertainment for Cerberus Capital Management, a large private equity firm, and as Chairman of the Board of Teleglobe (NASDAQ: TLGB), a leading international telecommunications, voice-over-internet, and mobile telephony provider. He currently also serves as Chairman of TRget Media, LLC, a media investment and operations advisory firm.

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Here is Banff description of the session.

In Conversation with Tom Rogers, President & CEO, TiVO

The biggest trends in television today are toward increased audience control – how will your company navigate the medium as time-shifting, pause, rewind and fast forward become standard options?

TiVo has changed the television industry, introducing the digital video recorder (DVR) into homes worldwide, and kicking off a shift in viewer behaviour that has rippled through every aspect of the home entertainment experience. President and CEO Tom Rogers, with a career spent navigating the intersection of media, technology, advertising and public policy, is helping TiVo continue to revolutionize how consumers watch and access television.

Learn from the man at the helm of the company that has changed the way people watch TV, at BANFF 2010

It was my great pleasure to meet, listen, and learn from Ian Brennan, creator/writer of Glee at the 2010 Banff World TV Festival. The following are video clips of Ian‘s Master Class and press conference.

Press conference

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The following is Ian’s bio from Banff.

Ian Brennan
Writer, Glee
“Glee marked Ian Brennan’s first foray into television writing. Brennan began his acting career in Chicago working with the prestigious Steppenwolf and Goodman Theatres. He later moved to New York to pursue other opportunities in television and film, and has been involved with off-Broadway plays at the Vineyard, Playwrights Horizons and MCC Theatres. Brennan is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago. He was inspired to write Glee – a television show about a high school show choir – after participating in his high school’s show choir that never won anything and whose director later spent time in prison.”

An intro about the session,

“Brennan was inspired to write Fox’s smash hit show “Glee” – a television show about a high school show choir – after participating in his high school’s show choir that never won anything and whose director later spent time in prison. Alongside show creators, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, Ian has created a musical menagerie that is redefining TV drama. It has quickly gained a cult following with extreme fanatics watching, buying, and loving everything associated with the musical show about a misfit high school show choir, their supportive teacher (Matthew Morrison) and arch enemy (Jane Lynch). The series continues to rack up accolades earning a Peabody Award in its first season, the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series—Musical or Comedy, and People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy in 2010. Join Ian as we delve into the creative and inspiring process around GLEE:
• You finished the script in 2005 with little success at first, how did you get your first break?
• What was your inspiration for writing Glee? When you started writing the series did you know where the storyline would go and how it would end?
• How did you seamlessly incorporate musicality into the storyline?
• How important is product placement and other ways to make money like CDs, tours, downloads in today’s market?
• You’ve had some guest stars participating like How I Met Your Mother’s, Neil Patrick Harris, how important is star power to a show, and are their any other guest stars lined up?
• Can we get a sneak peek into the next season of GLEE and your plans for the cast?”

For the record.

‘MILLIONAIRE’ AFTERMATH: WHY DO STUDIOS KEEP LOSING LAWSUITS?

Wed Jul 07, 2010 @ 06:58PM PST

By Matthew Belloni

Perhaps studio execs should start volunteering for jury service.

Wednesday’s $270 million verdict against the Walt Disney Co. over profits from “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is part of a trend that should have Hollywood heavyweights worried: Juries lately are skeptical of so-called “Hollywood accounting” — and are not hesitant to award huge damages to creative types who cry foul.

Consider the evidence: A Riverside, Calif., jury of five women and four men, none of whom work in entertainment, awarded $269.4 million in damages to “Millionaire” producer Celador after only three days of deliberations — by far the largest jury award ever in a case alleging self-dealing among studio-owned entities. It unanimously endorsed Celador’s argument that Disney-owned ABC and Buena Vista Television violated a complex deal to produce and distribute “Millionaire” in North America by brokering sweetheart deals that cheated the U.K.-based Celador out of its 50% participation in the show.

“All the testimony showed there would be a sharing of rewards,” Celador lead trial attorney Roman Silberfeld said. “It became a huge success, but Disney changed the agreement. The jury roundly rejected that notion.”

That rejection is becoming a common theme.

The verdict came on the same day that actor-producer Don Johnson was awarded $23 million in profits from Rysher Entertainment over “Nash Bridges.”

Last month, an appeals court upheld a $3.2 million jury verdict for Alan Ladd Jr. against Warner Bros. over profits from several Ladd-produced films. And in 2007, a case brought by “Will & Grace” creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan against NBC Universal was settled shortly after a jury reached a $48.5 million verdict.

After seemingly disappearing for a few years, the “vertical integration” case is back — with a vengeance.

“This is a game changer,” said Larry Stein, a litigator who brought some of the first lawsuits challenging studio self-dealing in the 1990s on behalf of David Duchovny (against Fox over “The X-Files”) and the creators of “Home Improvement” (against Disney/ABC). After an initial wave of vertical integration cases, many studios changed deal language to limit damages and require private arbitration of claims. A key appeals court decision involving Gary Wolf, a profit participant on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” also helped the studio cause, ruling that participants aren’t owed fiduciary duties, which eliminates the possibility of punitive damages in most cases.

“Everyone got discouraged,” said Stein, who represented Celador in the first few years of the six-year litigation. “But then the studios decided to fight a few of these cases on the older deals. A jury is always going to ask, ‘How much money did the studio make and how much did the profit participant make?’ And the jury will look at it and say, ‘That can’t be.’ “

During the three-week trial, Silberfeld hammered home the accounting issue, arguing that ABC artificially deflated fees the network should have paid BVT and Disney-owned Valleycrest, which in turn decreased Celador’s share of revenue. The jury awarded $260 million on the network license fee claim and about $9 million on a claim over merchandising revenue.

Disney vowed to appeal the ruling.

“The judge and the jury got this all wrong,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday at the Sun Valley executive confab.

Iger was one of several top execs that testified during the trial in front of U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips.

Former WMA agents Ben Silverman, Greg Lipstone and John Ferriter all discussed under oath the dealmaking that brought “Millionaire” to the U.S., as did Celador topper Paul Smith.

WMA was not a defendant but it packaged the show and came under fire in the trial. Disney, led by attorney Marty Katz, blamed both the agents and Celador’s in-house lawyers for being aware of the license fee arrangement and not complaining about it. Lipstone, the chief negotiator for Celador and now an ICM agent, testified that he did not know that ABC was going to set a license fee equal to the show’s production costs until long after the 1999 contract was signed. He said if he knew that was going to be the arrangement, he would have informed Celador and would not have closed the deal.

Former Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner never appeared at trial, although an e-mail was read in which Eisner estimated the value of the show’s rights at $1 billion and said it would reverse the network’s fortunes. During Iger’s testimony, he contradicted Eisner’s e-mail by calling him a “great enthusiast” who might have been making “wild guesses” in describing the “Millionaire” franchise’s worth.

In the 1999 deal, ABC received broadcast nights to the show, while BVT got other rights like production and distribution. In exchange, Celador received an executive producer fee for each network episode (weekly fees in syndication) plus backend participation based on BVT’s gross receipts, subject to deductions.

Jurors were presented with four possible damages scenarios and chose none of them, instead fashioning their own calculation. Disney will likely focus on these calculations in an appeal that could take years to meander through the courts.

Reaction from the Hollywood litigation community focused on the recent spate of anti-studio verdicts in profits cases.

“Juries are highly skeptical and view studios in the same light as insurance companies,” said Neville Johnson, a litigator who is representing actor Jack Klugman in a profits case against NBC Universal over “Quincy M.E.”

“These are the types of claims that juries respond to in a visceral manner,” added Michael Kump, who is representing the creators of “Smallville” in another profits case against Warner Bros. “Even though they have complicated issues of accounting, juries can get their arms around it.”

To us Canadians, the world famous funny comedian Ricky Gervais is Ricky Dene Gervais (watch Ricky’s acceptance speech to find out why)!

The following is red carpet interviews with Ricky including my question to Ricky about the finale of Extras (highly recommended funny comedy).

The following is Ricky‘s speech and a brief clip after receiving his award.

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This is part of the amazing scene from Extras I love so much and a very insightful and enjoyable interview “Ricky Gervais in His Most ‘Postmodern’ Interview Ever“.

“The Cove” is a documentary I love and highly recommend. It was my pleasure to see Louie Psihoyos, Oscar Winner and director of The Cove won the Green Grand Prize at the 2010 Banff World TV Festival.

In Louie‘s acceptance speech, Louie talked about measuring a documentary’s success in terms of the people you changed. And a movie as a “Weapon of Mass Construction”, something that changes millions of people’s life. “We are not making movies, we are trying to start a movement.“

Here is the award winning trailer (yes, the trailer won award too) of the Oscar winning documentary.

The following is from the press release.

“GREEN GRAND PRIZE
Green Grand Prize: Louie Psihoyos, Oscar Winner and director of The Cove. The prize recognizes outstanding achievement in creating public awareness and understanding of environmental issues through the use of visual media. Psihoyos was selected as a result of nominations received from all around the world, honouring his tremendous impact on a global level. Dr. David Suzuki, president of the Banff Green Jury, presented the award to Mr. Psihoyos.”

David Zucker, executive producer of The Good Wife 2010 Banff World TV Festival master class

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The following is David’s bio at Banff

“David W. Zucker is President of Television for Scott Free and Executive Producer of both the hit CBS drama, THE GOOD WIFE, starring Julianna Margulies, as well as the Friday night stalwart, NUMB3RS, which will wrap its sixth season in March. He is also Executive Producer of the eight-hour limited series, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, based on Ken Follett’s international best-seller. Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Matthew McFadyen and Donald Sutherland headline this summer event, which airs July, 2010 on STARZ. Meantime, production will commence this spring on a new CW pilot, NOMADS, the first U.S. television project to shoot on location in Thailand.

During his tenure, Scott Free has produced a steady stream of Award-winning longform programs including HBO’s INTO THE STORM, which earned 14 Emmy nominations and is a sequel to the Emmy-winning telefilm, THE GATHERING STORM. Other longform projects include A&E’s Emmy-nominated mini-series, Michael Crichton’s THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and TNT’s epic six-hour spy thriller, THE COMPANY, a Golden Globe nominee, starring Michael Keaton and Alfred Molina.

Current pilot development includes a series about international money laundering from Evan Wright (GENERATION KILL) for HBO, a series tracking the domestication of a former CIA operative from Frank Spotnitz (X-FILES) for FX, a thriller about the privatization of law enforcement by Bruce McKenna (THE PACIFIC), a medieval western being drafted by Bill Broyles (FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS) for FBC, and an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE in-the-works for the BBC.

Prior to joining Scott Free, Zucker worked as Story Editor on the popular CBS series, JUDGING AMY, and wrote pilot scripts for CBS and ABC as well as various stage plays. Zucker also served as Vice President of Drama Series for CBS, and Vice President of Drama Series and Current Programs at Warner Bros. Television, overseeing such shows as “E.R.,” “Lois & Clark,” “Knots Landing” and “Murphy Brown.””

I really enjoy the pilot of Jason Priestley‘s new TV series “Call Me Fitz“, it looks like great TV where Jason plays Richard “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, “a morally bankrupt used-car salesman whose consequence-free life is complicated by the arrival of do-gooder Larry (Ernie Grunwald), another salesman who claims he is Fitz’s conscience.“

In the following clip, you will see Jason and the show creator Sheri Elwood at Banff talking about “Call Me Fitz“.

Note: I want to add that the cool and character fitting underwear wore by Jason in “Call Me Fitz” were designed by a Canadian company (Ginch Gonch) and we first heard about the brand/business pitched on CBC TV on Dragons’ Den in 2006. It looks like the company was sold in July 2008. Anyway, good job by the PR team to get Ginch Gonch products featured.

Here is a trailer of “Call Me Fitz“.

Jason talking about “Call Me Fitz” at MIPTV.

At Banff, Sheri talked about finding “Fitz” in Jason after watching this QTV interview of Jason on the internet. I think this is a good lesson for actors/actresses as you never know how and where you will be discovered for a role.

More info:

- Cast grows for ‘Call Me Fitz’ – Ernie Grunwald among actors joining Jason Priestley in sitcom (Hollywood Reporter)

- Jason Priestley embraces role created by South Shore producer (southshorenow.ca)

Some info about the clip.

“Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth, who both won Oscars with Charlie Kaufman for their Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind screenplay, collaborate again on this Cosmic Galerie exhibition. The All Seeing Eye opened 8 October 2005, and ran from 12 October to 3 December at the Galerie in Paris.”

Prom Night In Mississippi -> New doc by Morgan Freeman.

In 1997, Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades. PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white and a whole lot of taffeta.

[via BMD]