>>Kirsty Wark: Okay. Kevin, on the monetizing of the Life in a Day Of, because clearly it's
all at your end, isn't it. I mean, how did you get that financed?
>>Kevin Macdonald: Well, because it was the sort of first of its kind, that was easier
-- >>Kirsty Wark: And you were an Oscar winner.
I mean, to be fair. >>Kevin Macdonald: No. But Ridley Scott had
a lot to do with it. You know, I mean, Ridley is a big names in movies and having him attached
to it. But because it was a collaboration with YouTube right from the beginning, they
really were -- they came in with half of the money, and they then found us a sponsor, LG,
for the other half of the money. And actually, the film was envisaged as a
kind of experiment and as something that we'd share at a few film festivals, be of interest
to people maybe at events like this, but wouldn't necessarily have a larger commercial life
to it. But it's turned out to be the opposite of
that, actually. We've shown it at these festivals. It's had a huge audience response. It's a
very emotional experience, actually, watching the film. It is a movie in that regard. It
works as a movie. >>Kirsty Wark: Because it does take the art
from dawn -- >>Kevin Macdonald: Yes. And again, it goes
through the full gamut of human emotions that we're all likely to feel in our lives, you
know, whether it be love, fear -- >>Kirsty Wark: Death.
>>Kevin Macdonald: -- illness and death. And there's a lot of death, obviously, in it because
that is a large part of our lives. And so people have found it very emotional. And so
somewhat to our surprise, the film has taken on this commercial life and distributors,
traditional, conventional, old-world distributors, have bought it in a lot of countries and are
showing it in cinemas. It's coming out here in a month. It's coming out in Russia, as
I said. It's coming out in the U.S. And then it will -- it will launch I think on DVD simultaneously
with it being available free on YouTube. So it's going to be very interesting to see
whether, because it's available free, will people still buy it. Can that model work.
I mean, the traditional movie-making gurus will tell you no, it won't work, but it's
a fascinating thing to see and I think it may.
>>Kirsty Wark: So just in terms of just looking at YouTube as a phenomenon, how has it driven
things forward, can you see what will take over from YouTube, because it's still very
much kind of the place to go, isn't it? >>Sebastien de Halleux: I think ultimately,
watching a passive experience, I think what Kevin is doing is fascinating, because it
uses this medium to create an engagement with users. Game, and interactive entertainment
in general, whether it is on TV, through a console, on your mobile phone, or on the Web,
is a much more engaging medium. It's interesting, because all of us on the panel a few years
ago would have been running our different businesses without talking to each other.
And now we are essentially competitors because we're competing for, ultimately, people's
time. And people's time is a function of the quality of the product, first and foremost,
you know, the artist and the passion point. But it's also a quality affected by the level
of engagement of your players with that passion point. So it's one thing, you know, to care
about the movie. It's another thing to spend hours and hours and hours submitting content.
I'm interested in the day where you have mass editing and where people spend even more hours
editing the content. But people want to get engaged around the things they care about.
Just a few years ago, they had the tools. And now they're getting the tools --
>>Kirsty Wark: This is the -- from a point of view of a commercial player like LEGO,
is that actually, the idea of launching a product, something you manufacture and buy
now, without the process 360 degree is unimaginable. And you never thought that ten years ago.
>>J¯rgen Vig Knudstorp: It is truly game-changing. And I think the way I think about it in our
world, which is still, you know, traditional toys, if you like, is that we want to be irresistible
and irreplaceable. We want to be sure when that dinner conversation is happening, which
brand did you touch this week, that we're remembered, and if we were to go down again,
which we were nearly doing, that people actually write us letters and say, "Please don't die."
Because that's the ultimate accolade you can get. And I think that's what you are saying,
Sebastien, is that you need to have that level of interaction to generate that level of passion.
It's not enough to entertain; it's about engaging and interacting.
>>Kirsty Wark: And, Tim, on the use of the Net as well, versus television, it's quite
possible that, actually, people will coalesce around the Net and not the television in ten
years' time and create their own -- the whole idea -- you watch a wildlife program, but
you can actually pull in clips from David Atterbury, from the zoo. The screen becomes
an enabler. >>Tim Hincks: And as we know, television is
going to have Internet access built in and you can get into the semantics of what's a
television and what's a monitor. I think you're right. It's in my view very important to come
back to what's your core business, which is creating ideas, which are platform neutral.
And for my business, you know, it's 95% of the revenue we make has been this television
traditional model. But it's changing. And I think it's important to think of ideas as
being part of a conversation. I think -- one of our thoughts is that in a way we spend
too much time trying to start conversations when they're already happening. So Big Brother,
for example, why have a Big Brother Web site set up when, actually, there's plenty of Web
sites where Big Brother is being discussed, there's digital spy, Twitter, why don't we
use them and be part of their conversation rather than saying, no, no, you're supposed
to discuss it over here. Do you mind coming over here to chat? It doesn't work. I generally
believe that for creative people, it's an exciting time.
I really believe that if your skill is about having ideas and being able to envision them
and make them happen, it actually just means people can enjoy them and interact with them
in a far more meaningful way than they've ever been able to do. And I think this social
layer we're looking at is absolutely revolutionary. It feels like it's finally kicked into gear
and it feels like we can have some fun. >>Sebastien de Halleux: I think one of the
biggest trends is we're moving away from hit creation to sort of nurturing a hit. Because
it's too expensive to create a hit, because you're going to miss so many times and you
can only afford so many misses before you run out of cash. And so by nurturing a hit
and listening to what the Big Brother or is saying or what the LEGO community is doing.
You don't have to come up with the idea, just encourage it, versus saying, this is how --
>>Dan Duncombe: We work with artists six months a year way up front, and a lot of these artists
are borne out with things like MySpace and more now with YouTube. And these guys are
creating content, getting feedback from their fans. We can get involved at the stage when
they've already got an artist presence online on various platforms. And we'll amend that
by some marketing expertise, but we're incubating that and allowing them to be at the forefront.
>>Kirsty Wark: When you look to sign artists now and your people go out to look for them,
if they're not artists that you think would actually be comfortable or lend themselves
to this 360 degrees, you would be less likely to take them?
>>Dan Duncombe: I think there's two sides to that. There's the creativity of an artist,
and there's -- with those, there's digital platforms that can afford you in and different
opportunities. But there's also how we approach it in terms of artists can be very enigmatic
and intriguing. With certain artists, we have to kind of take a step back. With some people,
the fans are really interested in what they do every minute of every day. And with others,
you know, we still want to have the intrigue and mystery that I think surrounded artists
20, 30 years ago when you couldn't get all this information at your fingertips. I think
it's a balance of how you work with these artists, what the rights exploitation opportunities
are and getting the right approach with them. It's a collaborative process.
>>Kirsty Wark: Not on the life in the day, Kevin, be but going back to eagle, with this
whole idea of kind of the strange -- >>Kevin Macdonald: A more conventional movie.
>>Kirsty Wark: Yes, but did you do a lot of 360 degree around that as well?
>>Kevin Macdonald: No. I don't know I totally agree with everything that's being said here.
Obviously, in a slightly different world than all of you guys. Because I still think there
is a place for passive entertainment. I still want to pick up a book and be told a story.
I still want to read a newspaper and have an expert tell me what to think about what's
going on in Libya as opposed to just reading blogs. And in the same way, I think that people
have said for many years now that with the advent of cheap digital technology, that movie
making is going to change radically, that anyone can go out and make a movie, you can
cut it on your laptop. Well, I haven't seen a huge boom in fantastic, low-budget movies.
I think there are probably less good movies than there were made 20 years ago. So you
have to ask, something else is going on. We all yearn for a great new TV show or great
new movie or whatever it is. But there aren't really any more of those now than there were
before. >>Sebastien de Halleux: But the difference
is that this is the seed. Before that, you know, you would have no reaction. People would
pay to see the movie and that's it. Now you have Web sites --
>>Kevin Macdonald: In the same was as J¯rgen has LEGO and as he said, he gets tremendous
loyalty from the people who use it, you have to have LEGO to begin with. You have to have
Pirates of the Caribbean or whatever it is that people enjoy and feel is worth discussing
and being around. That thing that is the center is the story and is created not by a group,
it's created by a few individuals or one individual. And I think it's easy to forget that that
component, without that, there is just chatter, but there has to be something to chatter about.
>>Tim Hincks: I think that's exactly right. I think the real trick is making the experience
converge so you're all, in a sense, sharing an experience, whether it's about one of your
films or about a TV show or LEGO, whatever, but that you don't all have to interact with
it at exactly the same place. So you can enjoy the television show for what it is, have a
parallel experience if you wish. And we've all shouted at the telly or the newspaper.
Now you have a forum where you can do that. And I think that's what's exciting, that you
let that build up but don't confuse it and sort of put it all in one box. I think technology
now allows us to have all these parallel experiences. But, you're right, end of the day, that's
why I think for creative people, it's incredibly exciting, because you're at the center of
all of that. And if you decide to give up and go home, then the world's a poorer place
and none of these things can sort of function. So you're right, I think it makes you more
important. >>Kirsty Wark: Just checking. Anybody for
a quick question. Yes, please. >>> How are you doing. I'm Babs Rangaiah,
I'm from Unilever, on the marketing side. So a couple years ago, I saw during the Obama
election, we saw Tina Fey imitate Sarah Palin. And I think for the first time ever we saw
more viewership outside of the show itself on Saturday Night Live on online areas. Entertainment
seems to be coming from all different place. In the future, you do see marketers working
more directly with content creators versus networks or distributors, so that regardless
of where people -- regardless of where people are taking in content, your messages will
still be attached? Because if -- if now viewership is going to be seen in all these different
places, you don't want to miss out on that contact with people.
Where do you see that going? You know, with Tim from Endemol, I think that would make
sense for you. But also, not just television shows, but across the board, what kind of
opportunities there? Is this something I should be considering and thinking about as we move
forward in our plans? >>Kirsty Wark: Tim.
>>Tim Hincks: I think it's exactly where we want to be heading. It is, of course, slightly
a question of economics. Because it's how you challenge -- in television terms, it's
how you challenge the existing model. For some time now, we've had the notion of producers
and content creators getting into bed with products and brands and advertisers. Now that
challenges the existing model, so it's a different area and none of us have found a way of making
much money from that yet, to be frank. But going forward, you're absolutely right.
In the end, creating, as I've said earlier, creating a channel is now a very different
thing to what it was before. You can actually create a destination online that people can
come to. And we're very excited about the prospect of new economic models and looking
how that works. I think it is, though, ultimately a question of just getting those economics
right. Because making television or making content is an expensive business and it's
a risky business, and we've all got to be aware of those risks as we get together. But,
no, I'm all for it. >>Kirsty Wark: Question from that microphone.
>>> Hello, I'm Michael Aidin. I'm general manager of Evian Water within Group Danone.
I have a candid question for Dan from EMI. It seems that all the industries you that
guys are representing here have sort of reinvented themselves through digital and have been pretty
successful at doing so. Now, at a time where probably more people
than ever are listening to music and there are more and more occasions to listen to music
than ever before, it seemed the only industry that is really, really suffering from this
change is the music industry. So how can you -- where did it go wrong? And do you think
that there are ways of turning that around in the future?
>>Kirsty Wark: Okay. In one minute, where did it go wrong?
>>Dan Duncombe: I think -- you know, we've learned a lot of lessons. I think we've listened
a lot, and we were probably the first industry to be hit hard by piracy. But I think we have
bite-sized content. So that was probably one of our issues and we were there at the start
with the piracy issues. But we've changed. I think we were the first major to adopt DRM-free
audio. We listened to consumers on what they wanted. We've been the first to embrace new
models with our artists in terms of the rights that we acquire. And I think that we're very
much embracing partnerships, distribution, new business models, new opportunities.
It's quite a complex business in the way that rights set up with the artists and the contracts
that we have. But we are moving towards what George Osborne was talking earlier around
open ADIs and relinquishing control of our content through hack-a-thons and through APIs
that we want to work in a controlled environment with developers. I do think it's difficult.
But I do think that we're positioned uniquely, as I mentioned earlier, as a rights management
company to now try and work with partners in that way, to now try and distribute our
content in a more innovative and creative way.
>>Kirsty Wark: Well, with that, could you please, ladies and gentlemen, thank our panel.
Thank you very much. [ Applause ]