John Landgraf from FX, Disney’s Eric Schrier about surviving business unrest
The mayor of television has advice on how to survive these turbulent industrial waters: never stop learning. In a Hollywood Radio and Television Society Panel on Thursday on the Walt Disney Co. Studio Lot in Burbank, FX boss John Landgraf was careful with where the entertainment industry goes.
Director Paris Barclay, who moderates the chat with Landgraf and Disney TV Studios Chief Eric Schrier, asked Landgraf to give the audience a reason to be optimistic. Landgraf was a measured: “It will still be here,” he said. Barclay asked then, does this mean that there will be a place for all of us in the new world order?
“I don’t know anything about all of us,” said Landgraf. “I can’t speak for everyone personally. I can tell you that my Singular strategy for myself, just got better and better. Most days early in my career was the bug, not the windshield. I went home. I felt terrible about what had happened that day, or if a failure … But every day you can learn more about DRAMIN?
Landgraf said it took him a long time – and that he regards himself as a “late bloomer” for the company, and only feels confident about his status when he reached his in the late forty and early 1950s. “I know that you will not feel hopeful, except that the point of all this is that we live in a world that is so obsessed with success in the short term and in the short term,” he added. “To be honest, there is 5000 years of human wisdom and human science that says:” Do not concentrate on what is entitled to you, here at the moment. ” I mean in the now, but concentrate on the things that take time that you have to cherish, that a little faith, that character, courage, dedication, dedication in a world that is ridiculous about those characteristics, and yet I don’t think they are out of fashion forever. “
He also noted that it is sometimes difficult to deal with the fact that some people are successful at night because of happiness, while others take years to find their big break. “The world is not designed to be honest,” he said. “You have to say:” Do I want to live in an honest world? ‘That is, be bitter and is in my living room and bitch about what did not happen?
As for the company itself, Schrier sounded a little more optimism – pointing to recent successes such as ABC’s “High Potential” and the evolution in TV stories with shows such as “The Bear” and even the success of the children show “Bluey”. “How do you tell stories in different and unique ways?” he said. “That is actually more available than ever in the history of the medium. And so by being able to deliver it in an economic way. So I am really enthusiastic. There is just great creativity and telling stories is really important.”
Barclay pointed to the fact that he is currently working on a project about the war in Vietnam that he first started to make in 1986: “I believe you will continue, and you will continue to do it until you are right,” Saud. “And it is the same with this industry. It will be different in a few years, and I think it will actually be for good, because weird times in the world create great art. So I think you come in at a time that feels terrible, but you probably have to be really optimistic about the possibilities for art. Because artists will get up and they will now be, and those things will now go.”
During the conversation, Barclay Landgraf and Schrier asked to discuss what they are looking for in a good field and TV program. The Execs told the early days of the FX brand, and how their team at Die Cabler it built in a force with hits such as ‘The Shield’, ‘Nip/Tuck’, ‘The Americans’, ‘It’s always sunny in Philadelphia’ and more – so far and ‘Shogun’, ‘De Beer’ and more.
As far as the next step is, Schrier is Bullish on Comedy: “I think comedy will now come back in a great way because we need a smile,” he said. “The world is a bit heavier. But you watch the history of film and television, the things that were the biggest hits were the things you were the least expected … We are always looking for innovative stories to tell, and what a new way is to tell that story.”
Landgraf would like to find a procedural who could work for FX: “I would like to have a procedural who is deep enough and humanistic enough that it fits in the FX brand,” he said. “I am jealous of ‘de Pitt’. I loved ‘there,’ I was a current director of ‘er’ and I think it is a masterpiece of telling stories and humanism. Often, and that is what I would say. People always ask: “Well, what are you looking for?” And my answer is, a great TV show.
