On The Strangest Sea

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

-Emily Dickinson

WOODY ALLEN famously titled one of his collections of written essays, "Without Feathers," and that's a hipper usage than I can probably muster today.  But there's always been something about that Dickinson poem to me, something that keeps bringing me back to it at certain times, or during certain trials.

I think one of the reasons why I like it so is because it tells me that hope, besides being free, is generous if you let it, and can survive whatever kicks you choose to throw at it. The secret is to let that little bird in.

In that spirit then, a few stories today that could conjure the usual clouds of creative cynicism, but won't. Not today. Today let's look on these items and try to hear the song without the words.

Hollywood realizes that safe sucks.  Nikki Finke has an interesting story about studio heads scheduling meetings with agents to try and figure out where the hell to go next. The retrenchment that's gone on over the last couple years hasn't been just about the economy, though the over-reliance on sequel-bumping & TV show remaking is tied up in that.  There's also a lingering anger & resentment left over from the last WGA strike. Hollywood's uneasy relationship with that dificult and whiny & prickly class, scriptus writerus, fed a lot of fantasizing over the last little while -- from the idea that Leno could work at ten to the multiplexes would still burst with gelt no matter what crappy, half-assed spectacle you threw up there.  Well, with the box office off so much, it seems like maybe there's finally a move to listen to some new ideas:

"I have three heads of studios coming into my office. They're completely at a loss about what to do," one top tenpercenter put it bluntly. So what are the agents going to tell the studios? Here are our writers, here are their pitches and treatments and scripts, here is the originality you should be making instead of numbing predictability. Like, duh. Could this be an opportunity for creativity? That's what a major producer told my colleague Mike Fleming yesterday: "this sluggish summer might be a blessing in disguise for talent and producers who want to take risks but have been hamstrung for the past two years by studios that have been operating in retreat mode, and looking for the safest bets possible.

We'll see if it materializes. It depressed me a bit to see that Splice didn't catch on in its theatrical run -- but the horror market has been so dumbed down & Sawporned that maybe expecting more was ambitious.  I bet Splice will do great on Video.   For my part, I read the articles like this one tracking the up-and-coming promotional efforts around Inception with great interest.

About a month and a half ago I i.d.'d this as the only film that was likely to get me into a theater this summer. If it does well, maybe we'll see more movies with smarts & thrills.  And that's good for both audience & creators.

Good Looking Cops Having Sex? I'm in!

Meanwhile, here in Canada, Canwest Global sent out a press release alerting people that they were going to really, really, really promote the heck out of Rookie Blue,  in advance of its premiere June 24th. (Simulcast on ABC in the USA.) They've got a website with flash & whistles, even a special game you can play.

Complementing the vast off-air, on-air and digital media elements of the campaign are promotional rookie cards – a collectable item featuring glossy photos and key facts about the series’ rookies. These cards will be distributed in a targeted fashion to consumers, advertisers and press in the weeks ahead.

In tandem with the marketing efforts, Global’s comprehensive publicity campaign involved an original press kit in the unique form of a police academy notebook distributed to print, online, radio and broadcast outlets across the county. Additionally, the network is actively leveraging the homegrown cast with a number of targeted publicity tactics including an integrated press junket to build awareness of the series and the up-and-coming stars.

All creative and media plans were developed in-house through the Canwest Creative Agency and Media Strategy teams.

I guess Global's still smarting a bit from the pasting they took in the articles on their upfronts last week. Oh sure, one could point out that it isn't actually too newsworthy for a putative media company & TV network to try and self-congratulate for doing what is normally considered, uh, part of the job, but hey, it's Global promoting a Canadian series and spending money to do it!  So Shhhh, naysayers. Listen. Listen for the bird.  Ahhh.  See, doesn't that sound sweet?

The air may be lousy with cop shows, but Rookie Blue has always struck me as a savvy pitch -- Grey's Anatomy, but with cops.  That sounds fun and frothy & summery.  The scuttlebut and whispers in the industry say that when ABC tested the show, it did really, really well.  I'll be tuning in.  I hope lots and lots and lots and lots of people do the same, and Global gets giddy on the thought that maybe their CanCon could make money for them.  Oh little bird, sing your song. Sing the fuck out of it.

"If you tell me TV is dead one more time,
I'm gonna kick you in the Rundle."

Finally, there's Banff. Oh, sure. Once upon a time, when Pat Ferns was in charge it seemed to be more about the content & less the deal -- and deals actually got done there instead of just being announced there -- but Ferns kind of ran the fest into the ground.  Still, every year it seems to be more about visiting U.S. creators & less about creativity -- and now that it, like every other conference in the world, has been swallowed by the Convergence Traveling Digital The Future's Coming TV Is Dead Honky Tonk Roadshow, the expecations are even lower. I'm still hoping that along with all the self-evident tweets from #banff2010 (ably ripped on by Jim Henshaw here) there might be one, teeny tiny morsel of creative juice, one tiny new idea that gets reported back that makes me think, "ah yes, that festival is good for something other than clean mountain air."


Oh little bird, flap those wings harder, fly faster...sing louder -- cause I'm working real hard to name that tune.

Or, in the case of Banff, somebody could just, you know...shoot the bird.