Dr. Henry Louise Gates, Harvard University, Opening Keynote “Lincoln, Race, and Slavery in the Obama Era”

Let the Sales Begin!

January saw the first major North American non-fiction sales events of the year – the History Makers Summit in New York and the RealScreen Summit in Washington, DC. I participated in History Makers - as a moderator, panelist and one of 280 delegates.  It was a terrific conference event – a sophisticated agenda and setting, on an intimate scale.  The sessions were lively and stimulating and the social events relaxed. Highlights included a keynote address delivered by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., (who shared clips of his Looking for Lincoln PBS special) and a closing reception at the famous showbiz hangout, Sardi’s.

So what’s the news from the world of history programming? There’s no question that the television business climate generally is undergoing enormous change. And networks are under pressure to come up with successful programs and at the same time, differentiate themselves. Yet strangely, many seem to be looking for the same things! One network sees another’s success and wants to replicate it.  Everyone wants a successful series format, whether it’s a geneology/history detective idea or epic docu-drama. (Or the next Ice Road Truckers.) The fascination with World War II persists. Panels also covered topics such as archive use, alternative funding and biographies. For more information, check out the History Makers web site:

http://www.historymakers2009.com

History Makers 2009 Opening Cocktail party
Louise Rosen and Vardan Hovhannisyan/Bars Media, Yerevan, Armenia
“Vardan was one of my students at the Discovery Campus Master School in Germany a few years ago. His project there, A Story of People in War and Peace, went on to win Best New Documentary Filmmaker Award at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, as well as more than 20 other awards at festivals worldwide. He is developing several history and general interest doc projects and decided to make a tour that included History Makers and then went on RealScreen and some western European events.”

History Makers Closing Reception
Eric Stange/Spy Pond Productions, Arlington MA, Tom Koch/Vice President, PBS International, Boston, Kimberly Reed/Big Sky Films, NY
“Sardi’s upstairs room was a great party location, the walls are covered in caricatures of actors, writers, composers and other showbiz celebrities and the 50s/60s décor further embellished the atmosphere. This group represents a nice cross-section of the History Makers attendees. Eric’s company does a lot of history programming, including docu-drama but is also doing more interactive web-based projects as well. Tom is on the board of History Makers and several other industry trade organizations, as well as running a major international distribution operation. Kim’s film “Prodigal Sons” premiered at Telluride and is now traveling the world at other festivals. I’m proud to say she’s one of my clients!

**If you attended Real Screen Summit and would like to contribute a piece to the MFVA web site, please email MFVA Chair Dick Kane:

The next major sales event is MIP-TV in Cannes, France. MIP-TV (Marche International de Programming de Television) is billed as the worlds’s largest annual content market. It’s been around for more than 30 years and for at least the last 15 of them, has consistently drawn 10,000+ attendees, so it’s a fair claim. While it’s held in a beachside convention center in the heart of the fabled Cote d’Azur, it’s easy to lose sight of the location since much of the convention center is an underground bunker! But it’s a great place for business and I, or a representative, have attended each year since 1980. There is always a concurrent conference and one of the major thrusts of this year’s is “360 content”, meaning, content that can work across all platforms – television, online, mobile, etc. I’ll post a report on my return in early April and look forward to seeing you at the MFVA Party, April 16th!

http://www.mipworld.com/en/MIPTV/

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