It has been almost 9 months of vacuum in here, all because I lost my inspiration halfway, had to deal with business issues, figure out some things and finally get inspired to write again after watching Julie & Julia. As I am sure it did to hundreds of past bloggers.
But unlike Julie Powell, I am not aiming to get published nor drive hordes of traffic. This blog has always been my one favourite place to read my own stuff, because often – I get so bored reading my own scripts, proposals, news articles and corporate documents. Who wouldn’t after you have to to read and reread again, edit, read and read again? If monotony does not kill you, what does.
A lot has happened in the last 9 months. I ditched the Blackberry and caved into the iPhone, started a business partnership with a technology genius, spend Friday mornings feeding the homeless downtown, hooked up with old friends from past worlds and worst of all – inched a space for myself in that funny universe called Twitter world. For a while I thought I was a bird.
I have been reading a lot of news lately about the sinking television industry in Canada. While stories about broadcasters laying off people are no longer news, producers – the kind with rolling credits (both on screen and from the banks) are closing shops too. Inside stories came in fast and furious, and from what I fathom – it is a problem that’s waiting to happen. The way people consume entertainment has dramatically changed, and if Canada does not follow suit and strategically position itself to provide a comfy bed for content providers doing what they do best, then they may be trailing the bus and have to be content with inhaling smoke.
I am not saying traditional broadcasting has lost its splendour. I sincerely hope not. I love my TV, and I love the complexity of the industry. But it will be foolish to think that traditional broadcast is the end-all of a production, the ultimate resting place of that spark of brilliance when a writer or producer dreamed up an idea. It will be more foolish to just talk about creating multiplatform content, when your understanding of it is merely creating a webspace for your TV show and perhaps, a webisode of the series. Drafting regulations to police the digital framework will not work either, that will be bordering creativity towards artifice.
When a new medium emerges, it is quite simple really. The growth of creative ideas, especially one which is constantly evolving, is organic. Learn from how social media grew (and still growing!). No rules, no policies, no waiting for others.. just incentives to prod the creators along. Market forces will determine how sustainable an idea is, when one fails, reboot and create new ones. No need to whine and over-analyse.
I am still puzzled which part of this entire process that many people still don’t get.