Fixing American Idol

If you've followed my blog you know I'm a fan of American Idol. I've used examples from the program to show you how to incorporate what works about it into your content. It remains one of the most popular shows on television, and its success and the success of its imitators have spawned even more music competition shows -- Duets is the latest. However, both the network, Fox, and the show's producers, are concerned about the show's 30% drop in ratings. They can't blame it on the latest Idol champion, Phillip Phillips, who had an inspiring personal story and an engaging personality. Last year I told broadcast networks to revive the variety show, and it seems like they did listen to me. Since I want to help save my favorite show, here's how I would fix the show. First, change the judges and judging. Steven, Jennifer, and Randy's supportive comments didn't help the contestants improve. Phillip and Jessica, the two finalists, were the same in the last show as they were in the first. When Simon was the judge, the audience wanted to hear his comments, because they knew he would tell the truth. Because the judges hardly said anything critical, the producers included Jimmy Iovine's taped comments to the results show. That didn't help the lack of criticism in the performanceee shows. The producers should encourage Randy Jackson to be more critical. They should replace Steven Tyler, whose comments very often were incoherent, with someone of equal stature who's going to say something interesting. The judge's comments are a big part of the show, and they were just fluff this year. Second -- promote conflict. More critical judges would help in this area. The contestants are fighting for their professional lives and the audience needs to see that pressure. They shouldn't be nice all the time, like this group was, or pretended to be. We want to see them really want this. If the contestants don't care, why should the audience? Third -- show more work. One of the best parts of Hollywood week and the auditions are watching singers make mistakes. Let's see our Idol contestants struggle more to achieve their performances. Let's have the celebrity guests tell the singers they may never make it. Wouldn't it be great to see the Idol mess up in the rehearsal and nail the performance? Essentially, I'm tellling the Idol producers the same thing that I tell all of you -- Raise the stakes. You'd think they wouldn't need to be reminded, but the main problem I see is that American Idol, after eleven years on the air, has become too comfortable. Everyone was happy on the show this year: the judges mostly said nice things, the contestants loved each other, and the celebrities kept being "amazed" at how good the singers were. No one had any problems. That makes a fun experience, but also makes bad drama. Make the contestants uncomfortable. Make the judges more critical. Make the stakes higher, and that will make American Idol #1 again.

How to End a Series

When I was growing up in the sixties television series did not usually have a finale. With rare exceptions (the two part finale of the original Fugitive series comes to mind), series just ended, going off TV. The castaways on Gilligan's Island, for example, were not rescued in the last episode of the series. That took the TV movie, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," which wasn't aired until several years after the series was cancelled. In the 70s show creators and network executives learned that series finales could generate great ratings and critical acclaim. The finale of the Mary Tyler Moore show, where the cast finally exits the newsroom singing "There's a Long Way to Tipperary," may have started the trend. The finale of MASH, whose series run lasted much longer than the acutal Korean War, was the highest rated series episode and remains one of the highest rated shows of all time. These days, almost every series that's been on the air for more than one season trys to plan their finale in a way that will satisfy fans of the series and tie up loose ends. Of course some series, like The Sopranos, end controversially. As a fan of that series, I thought creator David Chase didn't honor the series with his jump cut to black at the end. I didn't like the Seinfeld finale, a bizarre fantasy that made no sense to me. Which brings us to the finale of House. Spoiler Alert. I'm going to talk about what happened. I loved House when the series launched. I own the first four years on DVD. Like many viewers, I found the lead character fresh, funny, and interesting. I enjoyed the non-so-subtle Sherlock Holmes hints. I did think the series lost its way the last two seasons, and it was time to end it. I am glad that it ended with House faking his death, just like Sherlock Holmes did at the end of the first series of stories. I liked the character of House, and am pleased that he chose life, even if he had to kill his old persona to find it. Endings are tough, particularly in episodic television. When you're running a show, you're doing everything you can to keep it running by keeping the audience interested. A series that lasts several seasons leaves loose ends dangling all over the screen, making it difficult to tie them up. When you're creating your content, you should be thinking about how it might end, even at the beginning. I'm not saying you need to chart the plot, or outline it in detail. But if you know where your characters and story are going, you can shape the characters and events to make them get there. I hope we all have the success of a long running series, and the chance to end it gloriously.

Create Great Characters - Game of Thrones II

What your characters do is ten times more important than what they say. As a program executive, I read character bibles for proposed sitcoms. They would include each character's backstory, which is their history before the show starts. Backstories often include the character's feelings about the other people in the show. That's standard. However, a great proposal -- one that would move along in the development process -- always included information about the actions the character would take, based on their feelings. There's a reason they call it Acting, not Feeling. To act is to do. Hamlet, one of the most famous "indecisive" characters in English literature,in fact does a great many things during the course of the play. He goes to the top of the battlements to confront the ghost. He feigns madness. He hires actors to play the play and writes an additional scene for them, while also delivering some of the most lucid instructions to actors in the English language ("speak the speech, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue"). Hamlet kills Polonius, sends Ophelia to a nunnery and gets in a big fight with Ophelia's brother over her grave. The one thing he doesn't do until the end is kill his uncle, Claudius -- but that's because he wants to be sure, not because he's afraid to act. A character's behavior is what makes them memorable. Tirion Lanaster, played by Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, certainly looks different from the regular-sized characters in the show. But it's not how he looks, it's what he does -- saving Lady Stark from Barbarians, weaving a web of spies around his sister, the Queen Regent, slapping the boy king, hiding his mistress in plain sight -- that makes us root for him. You're a creator, but you're also an audience. When you're creating behavior for your characters think about what you find compelling about characters you like to watch. Are your characters as interesting? If not, it might be time to do some revisions.

Why it's hard to find people to run film studios

There is a remarkable sentence in the middle of today's NY Times article about Rich Ross' resignation as head of the Disney movie studio after just two and one-half years on the job. Reporter Brooks Barnes writes that it will be difficult to find a replacement for Ross because "running a movie studio has become one of Hollywood's least coveted jobs". Did you know that? It surprised me. I'll declare right now that I'm interested in the job, if Bob Iger or anyone at Disney is reading this. Of course, that's not the point. They'll find someone to run the studio. What I want to write about is why Head of the Film Studio is no longer a plum job. After all, studio heads still get fabulous salaries, tremendous perks, invitations to all the big Hollywood parties, and most important, the ability to greenlight movies. It's the greenlighting of films where the danger lies. A studio head must make decisions about whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars or not on films based on a script and the elements -- director, star, subject matter, track record, etc. They have to decide if this film will be popular and successful two, three, four, five, or more years in the future. No one makes the right choice every time. The pressure is tremendous because the stakes are so high. A cheap movie costs $50 million, and a flop like "John Carter of Mars" can cost a studio hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The pressure causes studio heads to make the safest choices possible. They make sequels, adapt popular books, comic books, plays and television shows. They choose films with stars, because stars "open" movies -- except when they don't (see my post on why good people make bad movies). In the end, the quality of the script is one of the least important factors in the decision. They're not greenlighting scripts, they're greenlighting movies. If you're being considered for a studio job, you probably have other options. You may be the head of a talent agency, or, like Rich Ross, a very successful head of a television channel. Ross got the studio job because as Head of the Disney Channel he developed lucrative and popular franchises like "Hannah Montana" and "High School Musical." That didn't help keep him in the movie business after two years of posting $200 million losses. That's why its tough to find a good studio head. The best people are already doing well in their current jobs. Why take a chance? Of course people will. The glamour of the movie business weaves a powerful spell. But if you want to create content and you're offered that job, think twice, if not three or four times, before accepting it. After all, the studio head gets to pick the films, but he doesn't get to make them. He depends upon the producers and directors to create them. The fate of your job is ultimately in the hands of other people. One other point for content creators -- understand that you're going to fail as well as succeed. Persevere. If studio heads don't pick the right films all the time, why should you expect everything you create to work perfectly? Keep working on several projects and keep trying to improve them. If the audience responds positively, that's great. If they don't keep on working. And if they do, keep on working.

Making Championship Content

In today's fragmented media world, sports coverage remains one thing that cuts through the clutter. Live sports in the US consume billions of entertainment dollars. The Super Bowl is usually the highest rated television show every year. Local sports networks receive ratings for games routinely higher than entertainment programs in their markets. Major League Baseball, Football, Basketball, and hockey all have their own channels; the number of collegiate sports leagues with their own channels continues to grow. The Pac-12 channel will launch this year. There are reports that even the Ivy League plans a post-season tournament for their major sports. Sport teams remain a great investment. According to news reports, Frank McCourt stands to make a $1 billion profit on his sale of the LA Dodgers franchise. He bought it for $430 million of mostly borrowed money and recently sold it for $2.15 billion to a group led by Laker great Magic Johnson and former mlb executive Stan Kasten. He got this price despite the fact that the Dodgers were in bankruptcy at the time. By the way, this enormous price should, but probably won't, silence any future complaints from team owners that they're not making money on their baseball teams. If you can invest $430 million in a franchise, run it into bankruptcy, and still make $1 billion on the sale, baseball teams must be a pretty good investment. It's not only sports teams but also sports media outlets that continue to rise in value. When I moved to Orlando to launch the Golf Channel as its first director of programming many friends in the business told me I was crazy. A channel based on one sport would never make it, they said. That's another example of why you shouldn't listen to the nay-sayers when you have a conviction. Not only did Golf Channel thrive, eventually being valued by Comcast at over $1 billion, but sports niche channels are becoming profitable -- the Tennis Channel, Soccer Channel, and Speedvision are just a few of the channels turning an excellent profit these days. The number of online media sources has exploded. In addition to official sites like mlb.com and nba.com, fan sites like Deadspin, and recruiting sites like Rivals, are worth big money. Reporters from sports blogs routinely receive media pases from pro teams. Do you remember when that was controverial? I do. Fans complain about the money players make, but how can you complain about paying $20 million to a player who helps generate billions of dollars in revenue across all platforms? I became a sports programmer and producer because I love working with live sports. Sports have drawn big audiences since the Ancient Greeks got together to hold competitions to honor the gods of Olympus. There's something tremendously compelling about watching people strive to do their best in an arena where there is a clear winner and loser. You're probably saying by now, "Okay, I know sports are popular, but what does that have to do with my content?" I'm glad you asked. Frankly, I'm in the sports media business because I love it, but even I was surprised about the size of the business and amount of money at stake. It's motivating to realize that if you create or own content that commands this large an audience, the financial rewards are large, too. Even if you're not a sports fan, you can bring some of the lessons to your content -- create clear winners and losers. Keep the stakes high, and have the characters strive hard to do their best. Make sure the audience knows the rules. Give them someone or something to root for. Include these elements in your content, and you'll be on the road to popular success.

Create Great Characters -- Lessons from Game of Thrones

I have to admit I'm hooked on HBO's series "Game of Thrones." This adaptation of the popular George R.R. Martin has built audience steadily since HBO ran the first series last year. Viewership for the first episodes was below expectations, but increased steadily throughout the run. The premieres of the first two episodes this season rated even higher. What's the secret? The premise is familiar to any fan of Sword and Sorcery epics -- a bewildering cast of royals, nobles, and pretennders to the throne fight over the fictional land of Westeros. Meanwhile, across the narrow sea a former member of an ousted royal family plots to take back the throne -- and she has dragons! There have been many other series of sword and sorcery books that have mined this territory for material. What makes Game of Thrones cut through the clutter? It's the characters. We are fascinated not by the medieval backdrop of castles, ships, and swords, but by the characters in the foreground. Every character consists of unforgettable traits and hidden motives. Each of them is in relentless pursuit of their character's objective, whether it's power, pleasure, or a combination of both. The television Game of Thrones cast wonderful actors in every part, who are able to make the characters on the page live for us in the audience. Particularly memorable are Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lanaster, a dwarf who uses his brain and knowledge of people to gain power, and Richard Madden as Robb Stark, leading the forces of the north against the Lanasters to avenge his father. If you watch the series you probably have your own favorites; it's difficult to pick one. Plot is never enough. In order for your program or content to work, a great plot must be matched by a great character. A great character can even make up for a poor plot. So the lesson of Game of Thrones is: take time to develop your characters. Make the stakes high for them, so they have to strive hard to achieve their goals. Give them interesting traits and identifiable habits. Tyrion, for example, has a marvelous sense of humor. Then, get the best actors you can find. They don't have to be stars, but they need to be able to inhabit the characters so they live for the audience. A good actor will develop behavior that even the author didn't think of, but is still true to the character. There are other lessons from Game of Thrones I will blog about in a future post.

How Do Good People Make a Bad Movie

This should never happen, yet it does all the time. Talented, successful, writers, directors, and actors make bad movies all the time. Steven Spielberg made 1941 right before directing the first Indiana Jones movie. Academy Award winning actors Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty made Ishtar. The Marx Brothers made At the Circus. Yes, this is really an article about the Marx Brothers. Groucho, Harpo, and Chico remain recognizable icons more than 60 years after their last movie. Groucho's rapid fire wisecracks still sting, Harpo's mime still is a wonder, and even Chico's fake Italian dialect comedy still gets laughs. Writers are still mining the lives of the brothers, particularly, Groucho, for material. Their best films, including Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, and A Day at the Races, are considered some of the greatest comedies of all time. Yet just a couple of years after they made A Day at the Races, they appeared in At the Circus. I'm a huge fan of the Brothers, but even I had never seen all of At the Circus until today. The movie has virtues -- Groucho sings "Lydia, The Tatooed Lady," and there are some funny lines. But by and large, the film is an arid exercise devoid of wit and wisdom. Not even shooting Margaret Dumont out of a cannon can save it. Several things went wrong in the making of the movie. The Marx Brothers were under contract to MGM and so had nothing like the control modern actors have to pick their projects. Irving Thalberg, who signed the Brothers to MGM and supervised both A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, had died. His successors did not see the Brothers as a big asset, and didn't work as hard to supply them with first rate material. They did not allow the Brothers to try out their material in front of a live audience as they did with their last two films. That might have exposed some of the problems with the script. The result was a movie I can now say deserves its reputation as the worst film the Marxes made. At least their last film, Love Happy, had a cameo by Marilyn Monroe. A movie is a collaborative effort. No matter how talented the actor, and how sincerely he tries to make his role believable, an actor can't overcome a bad script. Even with a good script and actor, a bad directing job can kill a film. So can poor editing, cinematography, or musical scoring. All of a film's elements need to work together for a film to have a chance. In fact, the question shouldn't be how good people make bad movies, but how does anyone make a good one? Because it's so difficult to make good, popular films, the artists that do so consistently deserve the millions of dollars they get paid. If you're going to create content for a living, whether as a writer, director, actor, designer, musician, etc., you have to be ruthless about your material. Keep editing out the bad, and strive to make the good better. Challenge your collaborators to give you their best work, and hope that they demand the same from you. Expect this work to take time to complete. And after you've done everything you can to insure your work's excellence, let go. If it's a success, enjoy it. If it fails, forgive yourself, and move on to the next project. The Marx Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Dustin Hoffman, and Warren Beaty, didn't quit after their failures. Neither should you.