Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties podcast featuring conversations with industry
Speaker 1: leaders about the business of entertainment. I'm Cynthia Littleton, Managing
Speaker 1: editor of Television for Variety, and my guest today is
Speaker 1: Terrence Gray, Founder and CEO of the New York Television Festival.
Speaker 1: Gray was ahead of the curve and recognizing the demand
Speaker 1: among independent producers and TV fans for having a forum
Speaker 1: to celebrate the small screen. The New York Television Festival
Speaker 1: encompasses a competition for independently produced pilots and various script competitions.
Speaker 1: The goal is to bring emerging creative talents together with
Speaker 1: the network and studio executives and the talent agents that
Speaker 1: can advance their careers. As he prepares for the fourteenth
Speaker 1: edition of the festival, which runs July fourteenth through twenty,
Speaker 1: Gray spoke about the evolution of the event and changes
Speaker 1: in store for this year's gathering. Terrence Gray, Executive director
Speaker 1: of the New York Television Festival, Thanks for stopping in
Speaker 1: to talk with us. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me excited to be here. You're getting close to the
Speaker 1: fourteenth edition of your week long festival that highlights that
Speaker 1: puts particular emphasis on independently produced projects and the networking
Speaker 1: bringing aspiring writers, directors, producers, actors together with television industry
Speaker 1: movers and shakers, people that can green light shows, people
Speaker 1: that can give them development deals, the people they need
Speaker 1: to get to that next run. Tell me, let's go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning. What inspired you to launch this festival? UM. Well, honestly,
Speaker 1: I I came out of school and I knew uh
Speaker 1: that I always wanted to be in TV. Um. And
Speaker 1: back in the day, uh, you know, unlike what was
Speaker 1: established with the great film festivals Sundance in Toronto and
Speaker 1: can and others, um, there wasn't really a way to
Speaker 1: make independent TV projects. And so how I sort of
Speaker 1: uh went about that in New York is we mounted
Speaker 1: uh sitcoms on stage and and back before there was
Speaker 1: a YouTube and the ability to distribute that Really, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to put your work on on its feet like,
Speaker 1: that was one of the ways to get it done
Speaker 1: because back then, uh you know, late nineties, early on
Speaker 1: its there, there really wasn't any independent television. Um. And
Speaker 1: from that I was lucky enough uh to meet my
Speaker 1: agent and William Morris, and that's how we started our
Speaker 1: relationship and our friendship and um and so for me,
Speaker 1: it was a great way to to actually take something
Speaker 1: I had created and and get it on speed and
Speaker 1: get it in front of people, because obviously, getting material
Speaker 1: in front of people is key, right, It's key to
Speaker 1: somebody starting their career and and and and moving forward
Speaker 1: or you know, in particular with the project they've done.
Speaker 1: Um and So in the back of my mind, I
Speaker 1: I think I always thought like there could be a
Speaker 1: great platform for television creators to get their work in
Speaker 1: front of executives. And I think as we progressed and
Speaker 1: as we got to a point where you know, I
Speaker 1: remember and and and in my career I had the
Speaker 1: good fortune of of working on shows like Who Wants
Speaker 1: to Be a Millionaire? And during that period of the
Speaker 1: late nineties the early two thousand's, you saw some of
Speaker 1: the top producers starting to make specifically in in non scripted,
Speaker 1: they started to make their own tape, right, They started
Speaker 1: to make sales tape that they self financed to go
Speaker 1: into two networks to sell. And so I think that
Speaker 1: was the first iteration of people making their own pilots.
Speaker 1: And so I thought, oh, okay, the the ability to
Speaker 1: use a digital camera and to edit online. Uh, with
Speaker 1: software that was available, you could start to put together
Speaker 1: your own pilots, right and and the cost of doing
Speaker 1: that where where the cost of doing a film was
Speaker 1: still you know, fairly sizeable if you were trying to
Speaker 1: get into a place like a Sundancer Toronto, big barrier
Speaker 1: to entry, big barrier to entry. Right in that if
Speaker 1: if you were editing online yourself, and you had a
Speaker 1: digital camera and you have the ability to put these
Speaker 1: things together, I thought, Okay, we're starting to see a
Speaker 1: recipe where we could legitimately go out to an independent
Speaker 1: production community and say, bring us the best of of
Speaker 1: your TV pilots or presentations or what have you. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I tried to get it off the ground
Speaker 1: with John Rosen, who is my who's my agent, who
Speaker 1: has been incredibly supportive over the years, and for the
Speaker 1: first couple of years, UM, people were just sort of like, look,
Speaker 1: television is made in l A. It's made in the studio. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. We don't validate
Speaker 1: get out like I mean. It was just it was
Speaker 1: just the reaction was sort of there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of like we don't really see where this material
Speaker 1: is coming from. We don't really understand, and there's a
Speaker 1: professional way of doing this, uh, you know, on the
Speaker 1: West coast. And so we finally and it was Nancy Debuke,
Speaker 1: who was at ANY at the time, who was really
Speaker 1: the first executive UM to come in and say, I
Speaker 1: will support this vision of people making UH their own tapes.
Speaker 1: And I think people have been probably going into any
Speaker 1: uh and and showing sizzles, but she was fantastic. She
Speaker 1: was the first one to jump in UM and and
Speaker 1: really that that started it. And I think during UH
Speaker 1: that year, really YouTube and Lazy Sunday in particular from
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live hit and people really realized, oh, when
Speaker 1: I make something, if it doesn't you know, get into
Speaker 1: this particular festival or or other platforms that were becoming available, UM,
Speaker 1: I can self distribute it and I can put it
Speaker 1: on YouTube and I could direct a bunch of people
Speaker 1: to go there and watch it. Because prior to that
Speaker 1: you could like send it to your aunt, and like
Speaker 1: I mean, there was there wasn't a lot of distribution
Speaker 1: for something that you had made. So I think the
Speaker 1: the advent of YouTube was enormous to a migration of
Speaker 1: people that I think had been primarily doing independent film
Speaker 1: to trying out the medium of television or episodic. It
Speaker 1: seems like a great confluence of timing of literally the
Speaker 1: digital tools that that people had to work with, and
Speaker 1: the you know what we now know what we now
Speaker 1: call peak TV. This just explosion of creativity and an
Speaker 1: understanding that it can I think that it can come
Speaker 1: from all corners in the US overseas. So now you know,
Speaker 1: now you're in your fourteenth year. You there are That
Speaker 1: seems crazy when I say it out lout, but yes,
Speaker 1: we are in the fourteenth year. You know, fast forward
Speaker 1: here and you've got you've got there. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of television festivals now on the calendar. There's series
Speaker 1: fest in Denver, Austin, Texas has the a t X,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of festivals in Atlanta. But you're still
Speaker 1: the only one that really has that competition element. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about how the submissions work and how you
Speaker 1: how you determine what will be you know, actual festival selections,
Speaker 1: what what projects are actually screened? Yeah, and I can
Speaker 1: maybe uh go back a little bit if if that's helpful,
Speaker 1: Like when we started the festival, the the ideas that
Speaker 1: we were standing on the shoulders of Sundance and others
Speaker 1: UM that had created and obviously those guys are much bigger,
Speaker 1: but they had created this dynamic platform for storytellers and
Speaker 1: filmmakers UM to present their story in whole and in
Speaker 1: front of a very important audience. And so that's how
Speaker 1: we began too. It was sort of the idea of saying, um,
Speaker 1: if you and and we're still open to this, but
Speaker 1: if you have a TV show in any genre, right,
Speaker 1: so it could be animation, it could be comedy, it
Speaker 1: could be live action, it could be non scripted drama,
Speaker 1: we are open to it. We are open to whatever
Speaker 1: your interpretation of whatever show you want to do. And
Speaker 1: we in the beginning we messed around with with different
Speaker 1: lenths of time, and over time we realize that the
Speaker 1: timing framework that you put out there is really less
Speaker 1: important than giving a representation of the world of your show,
Speaker 1: the characters, the tone, the pacing. So that used to
Speaker 1: be a big thing in the beginning, UM, but so
Speaker 1: we were open. It was it was it was bring
Speaker 1: us your best stuff, UM, and then we will connect
Speaker 1: to you with agents and executives and people in the
Speaker 1: business um around the third it's either third of the
Speaker 1: fourth year of the festival um and again another one
Speaker 1: of our great board members, Kevin Riley, was at Fox
Speaker 1: and we crafted a partnership where we were going to
Speaker 1: look for sitcom scripts for Fox, and Kevin was fantastic
Speaker 1: and supportive, and as part of that partnership there was
Speaker 1: a guaranteed Fox script deal, which is an enormous deal
Speaker 1: for any young writer to be able to get a
Speaker 1: deal at the network, to get a ton of interest
Speaker 1: from agents and managers as a result of that, and
Speaker 1: really get to that next level of their career. Um
Speaker 1: And from that one deal with Kevin and Fox, we
Speaker 1: ended up doing annually anywhere between twelve to twenty guaranteed
Speaker 1: deals with different networks and studios and platforms. And the
Speaker 1: realization that we had was that online film, TV and
Speaker 1: the people that distribute TV, the networks and the platforms,
Speaker 1: what have you, they have a particular brand, they're looking
Speaker 1: for a particular type of show, and they are serving
Speaker 1: uh constituency or an audience that is going to them
Speaker 1: for a particular thing. And so at first we were
Speaker 1: a little I was a little nervous, like if if
Speaker 1: we defined, uh, the sort of creative brief of what
Speaker 1: somebody was looking for, would that take away from the
Speaker 1: creative projects that we were getting in. But what we
Speaker 1: found was that the independent community was starved for information.
Speaker 1: So you know, as a producer, I would get priests
Speaker 1: from William Morris on like what is this network want
Speaker 1: or what does that studio want? So the idea and
Speaker 1: the support of of the End Street and networks and
Speaker 1: studios that they were willing to create a brief with
Speaker 1: us that we could share with the independent community was amazing.
Speaker 1: And and then the idea that they were going to
Speaker 1: take the best of the best projects that that they
Speaker 1: found UM and get into business with them and give
Speaker 1: them a deal is um. You know, it's still extraordinary
Speaker 1: and and it really helped us build a really dynamic
Speaker 1: and and very talented community. And it helped us establish
Speaker 1: a season right that people understood when submissions opened, when
Speaker 1: they were due by, when the festival was so it
Speaker 1: really got people into a frame of mind of when
Speaker 1: they had to hit deadlines. And clearly, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of festivals and and and like screenwriting competitions, there's
Speaker 1: a cash prize at the end, but clearly for for
Speaker 1: people that want to get into the business, more than
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars is fifteen minutes with Kevin Riley, that's right.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, at the end of the
Speaker 1: a UM, it's it. It doesn't even really matter what
Speaker 1: the size of the deal is. If you are getting
Speaker 1: into business with Lions Get or you are getting into
Speaker 1: business with Comedy Central, well now you're where you want
Speaker 1: to be. And and it's also if if you're not represented.
Speaker 1: And as we've grown, we've we've had more people who
Speaker 1: are who are represented coming into as as independent television.
Speaker 1: The movement itself has matured. There are more and more
Speaker 1: people doing independent TV projects and some of those people
Speaker 1: have agents and managers and they're they're more uh experienced,
Speaker 1: or they're further along in their career and it's a
Speaker 1: passion project that they make something independently. So the number
Speaker 1: of people that are represented has gone up, to dismay
Speaker 1: of some of the agencies that were partnered with UM.
Speaker 1: But I I feel like for the people that aren't represented,
Speaker 1: and I still think that that's like you know, roughly
Speaker 1: for to your of the people that are in the festival.
Speaker 1: If you do get a deal with one of with
Speaker 1: a true TV or you know who any of our
Speaker 1: partners that is going to attract UH agents and and
Speaker 1: managers to say, oh, well, this person made the festival.
Speaker 1: Then they got the attention of True. Oh we should
Speaker 1: definitely check in and ultimately whether or not that deal
Speaker 1: turns into a pilot or a series, if it gets
Speaker 1: you on the radar of a representative that can work
Speaker 1: with you going forward in your career, that is a
Speaker 1: home run, right. You know, somebody a development executives read
Speaker 1: something in a in a spec script that has a
Speaker 1: great voice. That spec script may not be right for them,
Speaker 1: but that voice might be a you know, a staff
Speaker 1: writer on an on an on a emerging pilot or something.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly that's exactly right. So in the
Speaker 1: case whether it's a scripted show or whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: a comedy format. As we were we were talking about true,
Speaker 1: the idea that a creator, creator, writer or a producer
Speaker 1: gets to go into the network and sit down and
Speaker 1: and go through that development process with an executive and
Speaker 1: go through that firsthand, that experience of being able to
Speaker 1: get that feedback work with that executive um try to
Speaker 1: bring and progress that show forward, whether or not that
Speaker 1: actually happens, their ability to go back into a place
Speaker 1: like true. First they're going to establish that relationship with
Speaker 1: that executive, but they're going to be much better prepared
Speaker 1: in terms of their next creative idea about how to
Speaker 1: framework that and deliver it back to the to the network. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so you have various levels of competition. You have
Speaker 1: competition in various genres for projects and now you you
Speaker 1: even I think last year moved into a script competition
Speaker 1: that's just at the script level, not for something on video. Um.
Speaker 1: How and you get submissions from literally all over the
Speaker 1: world of steps mission process work. Uh, well, I will
Speaker 1: I guess I would go through the submission process in
Speaker 1: general as a as a broadly applause. But as you said,
Speaker 1: we do individual initiatives with with different industry partners as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But a call will go out around either a specific
Speaker 1: partner brief or Uh. We have the independent Pilot competition.
Speaker 1: Uh that goes out every year in January, and that
Speaker 1: it got moved up a little bit this year, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about sort of the change in the calendar.
Speaker 1: But the but but that competition will open if there
Speaker 1: are partners within UH that competition. There, briefs will also
Speaker 1: go out so that people UH and that artists will
Speaker 1: will be aware of them. UM. And then there's a
Speaker 1: a a period of development and and producing or writing
Speaker 1: your show, UM, which will last anywhere from say three
Speaker 1: months to six months. There'll be a deadline. All of
Speaker 1: those UH materials will come in UH, they will be
Speaker 1: vetted by our programming committee. UH, and ultimately what we're
Speaker 1: looking at is probably the top four or five percent
Speaker 1: on the pilot side UH and UH with ny TVs
Speaker 1: scripts that you talked about, UH, that is usually less
Speaker 1: than the top one percent. So the you know, it's
Speaker 1: very competitive both in the pilot stage and in the
Speaker 1: script stage. UM. But the but the voices and and
Speaker 1: and the artists that we have coming through, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: in my view that they've now had this equipment or
Speaker 1: there's been platforms as you mentioned other TV festivals as
Speaker 1: well out there. We're you know, fourteen years old, but
Speaker 1: certainly in the last decade there and and other film
Speaker 1: festivals have moved into episode as well. So I feel
Speaker 1: like the movement is maturing because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities for people to try to get in and
Speaker 1: show off their work and get in front of people.
Speaker 1: How do you guard against the concern that somebody sends
Speaker 1: in an independently produced pilot or or a script, and
Speaker 1: the concern that that somebody might steal the idea or
Speaker 1: steal the concept. One of the ways that that that
Speaker 1: we combat it, I guess is by by being as
Speaker 1: transparent as we can UM and by not holding anyone
Speaker 1: to anything. I mean, when you come to the New
Speaker 1: York Television Festival, UH, you're free to take a deal
Speaker 1: or not take a deal, or what have you. Like,
Speaker 1: you sort of hold the fate of your project. And
Speaker 1: I think it's it's gratifying to know that the level
Speaker 1: of projects that we get and the quality people that
Speaker 1: are involved in them, that we've built a layer of
Speaker 1: trust with the creative community over fourteen years because we
Speaker 1: worked very hard to make sure that one everybody's treated
Speaker 1: like a professional and and and taken seriously in this endeavor, UH,
Speaker 1: and to to make sure that they have the freedom
Speaker 1: to do whatever they want to do. The festival, I think,
Speaker 1: since its inception, has been in October, but this year
Speaker 1: you're moving to July. Why did you make that calendar change? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the festival. I believe it's always been. It may have
Speaker 1: been one or two years, like the last week of September,
Speaker 1: but you're right, it's always been in October. And I
Speaker 1: think initially it was just like October is a beautiful
Speaker 1: time in New York, and it was sort of like
Speaker 1: we we wanted to make sure that UM September when
Speaker 1: everybody comes back UH from summer break, I feel like
Speaker 1: there's so many things that happened in New York in
Speaker 1: September to try to compete with any of that is
Speaker 1: very difficult. And we felt like as we edged towards
Speaker 1: UH the second half of October, we could, you know,
Speaker 1: get the attention of the executives in TV who were
Speaker 1: so busy with fall launch and and of course they were,
Speaker 1: you know, with all series coming back or new series
Speaker 1: launching UM and so for us it was a great time.
Speaker 1: But we it also sort of dawned on us that
Speaker 1: UM it is really the tail tail end of development
Speaker 1: season of of new projects that are being done studio
Speaker 1: or network level, and so the thought was as UM
Speaker 1: Studios were getting involved, the the idea was, why don't
Speaker 1: we move to the beginning of the buying season, UH,
Speaker 1: and therefore, uh there may be additional opportunity for our
Speaker 1: artists to get into business. And really that's what uh
Speaker 1: what motivated the move. And and you know right now
Speaker 1: uh and we haven't you know, we're gonna be through
Speaker 1: it in another two and a half weeks uh when
Speaker 1: we get started, but uh, it's our first time through.
Speaker 1: But I think the reaction right now has been very
Speaker 1: good and I'm optimistic uh that it's going to be
Speaker 1: a good move. How does the festival sustain itself? How
Speaker 1: do you make money? Well, I'm still figuring that part out. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, but it's it's kind of truthful. Um. We Uh,
Speaker 1: we are sustained by our partners, like all festivals, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think it's a surprise that that festivals
Speaker 1: are not really set up to make money nor nor
Speaker 1: do they uh and that there may be exceptions for
Speaker 1: for the larger festivals. Um, but we are sustained by
Speaker 1: uh A a good number of partners across the board
Speaker 1: uh in TV that have that have always been there
Speaker 1: for us and come through from us and are looking
Speaker 1: for new voices. And that's that's really how we operate.
Speaker 1: We're not by the very name nature of the festival. UM,
Speaker 1: we are we are pretty small in the sense that
Speaker 1: our partners look for us to curate down um a
Speaker 1: massive number of projects that come into a very digestible
Speaker 1: top few. And so from that standpoint, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we only have a very limited number of artists that
Speaker 1: are participating by design in the festival. UM. And on
Speaker 1: the other side, we we have a number of executives,
Speaker 1: but again that's that's sort of uh limited to the
Speaker 1: executives that are our partners or pass holders. UM. So
Speaker 1: our universe on the B two B side is not huge.
Speaker 1: And then obviously we do events and we do things
Speaker 1: that our panels are days uh that are open a
Speaker 1: little bit more generally. UM. But if I sat here
Speaker 1: and told you that, uh we have a full proof
Speaker 1: business plan, UH, that has been the one part of
Speaker 1: the festival that uh that we are uh we are
Speaker 1: still working on. But I think what we do do UM,
Speaker 1: and what we set out to do in the very
Speaker 1: beginning is UH be a place that curate and elevated
Speaker 1: the best voices for television. I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: you can always get better, but I think that we've
Speaker 1: achieved that goal. Uh that we initially set out to
Speaker 1: to achieve and and I'm very grateful that we that
Speaker 1: we have the partners that we do. But again sort
Speaker 1: of going back to the idea that we're not a
Speaker 1: huge festival that you know, that's not great when you're
Speaker 1: going to large corporations that are used to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: festivals that have a hundred thousand people coming through like
Speaker 1: we just we don't offer that as a as a
Speaker 1: general premise. It sounds like you've put a lot of
Speaker 1: sweat equity into this thing over fourteen years. It's a
Speaker 1: full time job. For it is full time job, that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: myself and I will also say my wife, who is
Speaker 1: uh the festival director, Erranda, who only runs the show. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: we both have and and it's something uh that we
Speaker 1: really believe in. And I and I think for whatever
Speaker 1: we lack on the uh financial success side, UM, I
Speaker 1: think in terms of respect and in terms of the
Speaker 1: quality of the projects and the voices that are that
Speaker 1: are coming out of ny TV f UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that we've earned that and and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and we enjoy what we do and I think we
Speaker 1: we haven't migrated away from what we tried to set
Speaker 1: up in the beginning. And I think when we talk
Speaker 1: about peak TV and we talk about a number of outlets,
Speaker 1: a vast number of outlets that are doing original programming. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we have a value to offer in that space.
Speaker 1: Have you explored any kind of with all the material
Speaker 1: that you have that you have have fielded over the years,
Speaker 1: have you explored any kind of partnership with a with
Speaker 1: a YouTube or somebody that could maybe showcase some of
Speaker 1: what you've YEA and unites might be tricky. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you're right it It does often come down to a
Speaker 1: rights question. I think we've we've been down the line,
Speaker 1: you know for over a decade. We had an incredible
Speaker 1: partnership UH with Microsoft and all of its different divisions,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think they've they've had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a change of direction when it when it
Speaker 1: comes to entertainment in the last couple of years. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that is UH and
Speaker 1: and look, we would remain open to the idea of
Speaker 1: a showcase of of our top pilots. And I think
Speaker 1: what we'd want to make sure again, having worked on
Speaker 1: a reputation for the last fourteen years is that uh
Speaker 1: is everything fair with the artists and the producers that
Speaker 1: are making the work um, And regardless of of of
Speaker 1: what a partnership like that might look like, UH, does
Speaker 1: their project itself remain open to the market. And that
Speaker 1: is that is the key, uh of the entire festival.
Speaker 1: So as long as we could do something uh that
Speaker 1: was promotional but didn't tie anyone up, um, we'd be
Speaker 1: We'd be very open, I think to that conversation. So
Speaker 1: the festival does not have an ongoing relationship if somebody
Speaker 1: sells a pilot or gets you know, gets a really
Speaker 1: cool development deal, that the festival does not have an
Speaker 1: ongoing connection to that pack. Yeah, that is correct. Um.
Speaker 1: Probably from a business point that that is uh not great.
Speaker 1: But I think look, I would go back to the
Speaker 1: idea that we we we wanted to be a place
Speaker 1: where where everyone feels safe uh in in submitting and
Speaker 1: you know we we sometimes talk about uh pilots in
Speaker 1: the abstract. But but having been a producer and a
Speaker 1: writer for a long time, you know you have you
Speaker 1: just have the knowledge of what goes into making a
Speaker 1: project and what goes into making a project when you
Speaker 1: have no budget and no money. I mean, you call
Speaker 1: on a lot of friends and you're editing in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, and you're putting it together with
Speaker 1: with with gum and wire and like everything that you
Speaker 1: can do, UM, and you're giving your heart and soul
Speaker 1: and so you when you then take this your baby,
Speaker 1: what you've made and you and you put everything you
Speaker 1: have into it, you want to know that you're giving
Speaker 1: it over to somebody who has your best interest in mind, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's what we try to do. Now. There
Speaker 1: are certainly instances with partners on the other side where
Speaker 1: a partner might say, oh, hey, whatever we're taking out
Speaker 1: of the festival, we would like you guys to stay
Speaker 1: with it and oversee that project. Now, if everybody feels
Speaker 1: good about that deal, then that's exactly what we've done.
Speaker 1: And in cases we have done that UM and it's
Speaker 1: exciting and I've done a lot of development work and
Speaker 1: so I like doing that. But but it first has
Speaker 1: to be the partner that would sort of approach us,
Speaker 1: and then we want to be very clear with the
Speaker 1: creator and the artists, like this is what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: and and and everyone is usually very cool with that
Speaker 1: arrangement because most of the shows coming through the festival
Speaker 1: would ultimately be partnered with someone that has a little
Speaker 1: bit more experience of our track records. So that definitely happens. UM.
Speaker 1: But again, I I really do believe in the idea that, uh,
Speaker 1: that there's there's a tremendous amount of work that goes
Speaker 1: into each one of these projects, and that uh, when
Speaker 1: someone is letting go of that, they want to know
Speaker 1: that it's in a good space. Right. Do you have
Speaker 1: a favorite success story or two of people that have
Speaker 1: come from the festival and really grown careers in the business.
Speaker 1: I would say that the creators that came through UH
Speaker 1: with the show Animal Us uh is a which is
Speaker 1: on HBO, the animated series produced by the d plus brothers. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, and and Mike and Field. The creators came
Speaker 1: through the festival, UM and they just had a a
Speaker 1: a typical festival story where they were working I believe
Speaker 1: it was at an advertising agency and and they were
Speaker 1: getting this done on the nights and weekends. But they
Speaker 1: made the and and it was again blood, sweat and
Speaker 1: tears to make this show. Uh, that was singularly in
Speaker 1: their voice and when we received it, and that's the
Speaker 1: other thing like we get thousands of submissions a year
Speaker 1: um and as you're as you're going through and you
Speaker 1: stumble on things where you're like, oh man, that's awesome,
Speaker 1: and and you just know this person or these creators
Speaker 1: this week could fundamentally change their life. And they have
Speaker 1: so much talent and they and they produced this with
Speaker 1: their own money and their own their own tears and
Speaker 1: sweat and all of that stuff. That's a great story. Well,
Speaker 1: the career Making Opportunities begin a new July four through
Speaker 1: the nineteenth in various venues at New York City. Looking
Speaker 1: forward to covering it again this year. Terence Gray, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming in and sitting down with us,
Speaker 1: my honor, Thanks for listening. Be sure to join us
Speaker 1: next week for another episode of Strictly Business