Media New Wave - 'You're Not Ready For Ambition Unless You're Prepared To Sacrifice Everything To Get It!'

Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent - it is the one most adaptable to change, that survives" yet during every writer, producer, agent, journalist, acquisitions spokesperson blah, blah, blah I have spoken to (and believe me there have been dozens) I've found 'most but not all' to be quite the contradiction.

A panel was assembled at 'Bournemouth University' recently from the Royal Television Society called 'Meet The Professionals' whereby a theatre of people from digital media design, through television production and various other groups to of course, scriptwriting practitioners, got to hear the views of high-end people involved in the industry. I could mention names but it'd take forever.

As one of my mentors told my from my time at Ealing Studios, why do we follow this film-making compulsion? "Because, there's something about the world we each want to change."

- I know... short but sweet, right?

The room was packed full of students who were told it is the best time to get into the media, especially with the convergence of transmedia storytelling, by which I mean, whether this be in television, video games, animation, film etc as well as its conceptualization through continuously evolving media devices from our phones to our TV sets.

All very well and good but it took forever to hit the nail on the head of "yes but what do we want to watch on them?" This only became more frustrating when they got to mentioning "if we don't start embracing the way in which media is changing, very simply we won't survive" - which is when we started to pounce.

Admittedly, the debate spoke up for what is being lost financially due to piracy and the evolving number of free website vendors, being problematic and the main reason for the mass number of redundancies in the industry currently.

However, whilst the representative for BBC admitted he was from an old system that needed to embrace the new media wave, he seemed helplessly dependent on sticking to shows which drew in what he claimed to be the target market of BBC viewers as being 40 - 60 year old's, during the day as younger people obviously have better things to do with their lives. With regards to everything we thought was wrong with this sentence (don't know about you but when was it you had the last person in this age group was actually satisfied with daytime programming, anyway?) questions began with asking how on Earth can we be expected to come in with new ideas from a younger generation, hoping to secure a career in television for example if all we get is a refurbished 'Doctor Who', 'Sherlock Holmes' and more period dramas?


After hearing "the BBC don't go after 'niche' audiences", I pointed towards shows like 'Breaking Bad' (long live Bryan Cranston!) and hypothetically, if they'd really turn down the opportunity to commission their next series?
This BBC spokesperson, an executive producer referred back to this question with a 'no' as he says its not what their audience wants and he didn't like it, a fair point but if media is changing and proving to be making money as a result the question is, "why are you not taking more risks?"

His answer was, "well, we recently commissioned 'The Village', which was fairly risky for us."

- Come on, I mean John Simms wasn't even realised until after he'd done 'Human Traffic,' which was of course a brilliant, exciting piece.

Maybe we need to start thinking about going to the U.S, guys?

Talk about banging your head against a brick wall with this kind of crowd. The talk had a ray of sunshine with someone from 'Shine International' (pardon the pun) and I think half of us were wondering what people who'd helped bring us great TV shows such as 'Misfits', 'Primeval' & 'Mad Dogs' was doing, sat with this dying breed?

I queued for over an hour twice to talk to two panelists about a new idea I'd written up (you can blame it on my pitching skills if you like) with a cast in mind, first draft, locations ready to go but neither was any help.

Even applying as a script analyst for British soap dramas seem impossible to get on an entry level, despite as writers, we usually dislike these things, we still try and manage the best story we can drill out of it, even if it means we are instructed to write in "another" pregnancy, affair or fight in a pub.

So... Are they 'really' ready to embrace a new media wave of scriptwriters, television production and such and so forth? - Not as long as these guys are still calling the shots but I urge them to consider the idea that we, the era of eagle-eyed focused, persistent bunch we are; are a spring, the more you to turn us away, the harder we coil and when we get released from this failing traditionalist system by people who 'are' prepared to give us our time to shine, you'll only be more sorry to be hit with it when you had the chance yourselves... Watch out!