Speaker 1: There's a Las Vegas stands by the way up about
Speaker 1: six point eight percent here in the after hours on
Speaker 1: that news of a potential sail or exploring one. Alright,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the content industry. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carl Master along with Kaylee Lens.
Speaker 1: We know content has been disrupted big time by COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: We know content has been consumed big time by COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: Let's get into someone who understands all of this big time.
Speaker 1: The team behind Invisible Narratives. It's a digital content studio.
Speaker 1: It's co founded by Adam Goodman, former president of Paramount
Speaker 1: Pictures and DreamWorks SKG. Andrew Sugarman also is one of
Speaker 1: the co founders. Former Walt Disney Executive vice president Global
Speaker 1: Digital Media and Publishing. Adam joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. Adam, so great to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. How are you and what has COVID done
Speaker 1: to your world? It is thanks for having me. It
Speaker 1: is literally turned everything that we know about how you
Speaker 1: make something and turned it upside down, shook it and
Speaker 1: around owned and uh and turned it all around. It is.
Speaker 1: It is the most disorienting and most exhilarating at time
Speaker 1: I think that I've ever been in the entertainment industry. Well,
Speaker 1: and you were producing a movie at least through part
Speaker 1: of this. The pandemic, of course, isn't over. And Songbird, Uh,
Speaker 1: your film that's coming out was one of the first
Speaker 1: to go back into production after full lockdown. Can you
Speaker 1: just tell us a little bit about what that was, like,
Speaker 1: what kind of protocols did you have to put in place?
Speaker 1: Give us some insight. It was imagine an operating room
Speaker 1: and uh. And the system that our co producers and
Speaker 1: and and that's created in the situation was to try
Speaker 1: to mimic the amount of people and resources that were
Speaker 1: needed directly in the operating room or people that were outside.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're a little bit um less essential. They were
Speaker 1: tested a bit less frequently, They had less access to
Speaker 1: our cast, into our direct crew, and so we created
Speaker 1: these zones. And so there was a sea zone and
Speaker 1: the zone and in a zone and uh. And it
Speaker 1: was very frustrating because again, movie crews have great rhythm
Speaker 1: and great speed and efficiencies at which a hundred years
Speaker 1: of making movies has nearly perfected. And this kind of
Speaker 1: scrambled that process because now all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: couldn't get to a certain place on a set, You
Speaker 1: had to pass things along, you had to invert literally
Speaker 1: the way in rhythm of how everything was done. So
Speaker 1: it was it was really challenging, but thankfully we got
Speaker 1: through it and made a great movie in the process
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, really fascinating. I mean to hear you
Speaker 1: know kind of how you figured out how to get
Speaker 1: it done. And we've talked to some other people who
Speaker 1: have done some some filming too, and that's what it
Speaker 1: all came down to, is really creating these zones to
Speaker 1: make it, make it happen. So so where are you
Speaker 1: are you able to get new productions going give us
Speaker 1: an idea of what the flow is like. The flow
Speaker 1: is actually starting to get back to normal. I think smaller,
Speaker 1: more nimble productions are having more success and more safety
Speaker 1: on the set just simply because it's less people coming
Speaker 1: in contact with each other. But there's been a number
Speaker 1: of productions that have wrapped since Songbird with with great
Speaker 1: track records, and people are really modifying. And the one
Speaker 1: thing movie crews are is they're resilient and they're creative,
Speaker 1: brilliantly creative, and so the systems and teams that people
Speaker 1: have put together to identify the right way back and
Speaker 1: forward is really working now at this place. So I
Speaker 1: think that we're still making movies. We completed a horror
Speaker 1: movie that we actually released on Thursday, and um, and
Speaker 1: we're back. I mean we're we're back in a different
Speaker 1: sort of way. The movie theater business is upside down,
Speaker 1: but but everything else is starting to starting to move
Speaker 1: in more normal ways again. Well, on that movie theater business,
Speaker 1: you're also releasing some of this contact on direct consumer platforms.
Speaker 1: Is that the future? Is it going to be not
Speaker 1: just in theaters, but you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: access it online right away. I can't speak to, you know,
Speaker 1: to big budget productions, which I've certainly been involved with
Speaker 1: and have my fair share of experience with, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you that there has never been a greater
Speaker 1: generational shift between consumers and people who are content consumers
Speaker 1: and people who are making content decisions. Now, you know
Speaker 1: the amount of time that young people have spent during
Speaker 1: this pandemic watching gaming online, or influencers online, or making
Speaker 1: TikTok videos or Instagram stories. It's unparalleled. And it's time
Speaker 1: for content creators on a professional side to understand that
Speaker 1: traditional is shifting. So we're really trying to blend a
Speaker 1: trae digital mode, which is take the best of storytelling
Speaker 1: and and content creation through years of practice and experience,
Speaker 1: but do it in ways that are specific to audiences
Speaker 1: that really are underserved right now and give it big
Speaker 1: events that can be things that are different than what
Speaker 1: they would get because the movie theaters aren't open in
Speaker 1: their towns. Adam, we left off talking about this generation,
Speaker 1: the TikTok Instagram generation, and how you have to reach
Speaker 1: them differently. Your company focuses specifically on that gen Z audience.
Speaker 1: How is their taste and consumption different they there, This
Speaker 1: is the first generation that that has no gatekeepers in
Speaker 1: front of them. When they want to tell a story
Speaker 1: or they want to publish something, they can distribute directly
Speaker 1: to an audience of friends, and sometimes those friends become fans,
Speaker 1: and sometimes those fans create superstars. And this audience is
Speaker 1: is used to watching things in a different way and
Speaker 1: they're used to consuming things in a different way. So
Speaker 1: we decided that what made most sense was to go
Speaker 1: after stars that were not stars in a traditional sense.
Speaker 1: But we're stars for our kids and young people. So
Speaker 1: we partnered with Phase Plan, which is of the biggest
Speaker 1: gaming lifestyle groups on the planet right now, and made
Speaker 1: a movie with Phase. Rug is one of their biggest,
Speaker 1: one of their biggest stars, that's got over thirty million
Speaker 1: followers across his various social platforms. But we paired him
Speaker 1: with a guy named Greg Pokin, who I made all
Speaker 1: the Paranormal Activity movies with. And so I was really
Speaker 1: trying to combine, you know, great storytelling but also next
Speaker 1: generation storytellers, to put those two together and try to
Speaker 1: do something a little bit different. And what kind of
Speaker 1: stories do you find that they're most interested in? I
Speaker 1: noticed Songbird, the movie you have coming out is a
Speaker 1: thriller Crimson. The other one is a horror film. Is
Speaker 1: that what's hot right now? It's storytelling is storytelling, And
Speaker 1: if I knew what was going to work in storytelling,
Speaker 1: I would I would be on my yacht from this
Speaker 1: song called not Second Office right now. I think that's
Speaker 1: the one thing. I think, the one thing I do
Speaker 1: feel strongly about though, is the way content is consumed
Speaker 1: is different, and therefore the way we make things have
Speaker 1: to be different. You can't make things and try to
Speaker 1: reach as broad of audiences as you used to. You
Speaker 1: need to make things that are much more local in
Speaker 1: terms of their scale and spirits. So you're making things
Speaker 1: for a small audience of highly engaged fans. And additionally,
Speaker 1: it can't be created with so much artifice that you
Speaker 1: have a food stylist who's putting sesame seeds on the
Speaker 1: bun to make the bun and the hamburger look delicious.
Speaker 1: Instead with kids that they're used to reel now, and
Speaker 1: so we spent a hundred years in the movie business
Speaker 1: trying to make everything look perfect, and now when kids
Speaker 1: can shoot things from their backyard, they just wanted to
Speaker 1: look real and authentic. But they still need storytelling running
Speaker 1: throughout it. So how do you see content than evolving?
Speaker 1: Because I do feel like you still have the major
Speaker 1: studios and the big franchise is right, and they're spending,
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars a lot of money. And yet I
Speaker 1: agree with you that you could go after a niche
Speaker 1: audience and do really well um in terms of content.
Speaker 1: So how do you see it kind of playing out
Speaker 1: over the next years. At them, they're over six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people right now that have social media reaches of
Speaker 1: over a million people. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: traditional studios or streamers, they're barely scratching the surface of
Speaker 1: that six thousand group of people. Maybe there's a comedian
Speaker 1: here and there, but all these really talented people with
Speaker 1: with with massive fandoms are looking for reasons and and
Speaker 1: opportunities to create events. They can't do it on their own,
Speaker 1: you know, on on YouTube or Instagram because outside of
Speaker 1: their AdSense or brand deal, there's really no financial incentive
Speaker 1: for them to do it. And they can't get recognized
Speaker 1: that the big studio system because they're not big enough
Speaker 1: where they don't have the Q factor that young executives
Speaker 1: know who they are. So we're really trying to establish
Speaker 1: an opportunity for these creators to have something in the
Speaker 1: middle that kind of exists between Netflix and YouTube. So
Speaker 1: when they have something that's a bigger scale or event
Speaker 1: that there's an opportunity. And then it's not just about
Speaker 1: buying a movie, it's about buying a sweatshirt. It's about
Speaker 1: buying something that that merch of some sort that goes
Speaker 1: with to allow them to really be proud of who
Speaker 1: they support and to see something that comes along with it,
Speaker 1: but to have something tangible in their hands, to walk
Speaker 1: away to say I was there for this event. It happened,
Speaker 1: and I was a part of it. So one thing
Speaker 1: I do want to ask you, because we've just seen
Speaker 1: so many new streaming services come on board in the
Speaker 1: last six months, I feel like it's been maybe a
Speaker 1: year um and also the news that Disney is just
Speaker 1: kind of all in on digital, how do you think
Speaker 1: this impacts kind of the world here in terms of
Speaker 1: content creation. I think theatrical is under great jeopardy right now.
Speaker 1: I think it becomes very difficult. If you're in a
Speaker 1: movie studio job and you don't have a digital distribution
Speaker 1: arm in your in your arsenal, then you can't green
Speaker 1: light movies when there's no distribution path to get those
Speaker 1: films out. So studios that don't have, you know, don't
Speaker 1: have an HBO Max or a Peacock or whoever it
Speaker 1: is that they can release something online Disney plus, then
Speaker 1: it becomes it becomes stalling and and and they're frozen,
Speaker 1: and so it forces them to become production companies for streamers.
Speaker 1: Which is really you know, it's it's it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of bizarre to think about considering how fast this shift happened. Yeah, right, Well,
Speaker 1: one streaming company we saw that it hasn't worked out.
Speaker 1: We got news just this week Quimby is winding down
Speaker 1: that short form video streaming. So clearly streaming doesn't always
Speaker 1: work right. There are some formats of it that don't
Speaker 1: have that take up. So how do you how do
Speaker 1: you differentiate yourself so that your content does have that pickup?
Speaker 1: And you're part of the DreamWorks SKG team, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Katzenberg, I'm just curious, like what happened. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't speak to that. I can tell you Jeffrey
Speaker 1: is honestly one of the smartest and those men of
Speaker 1: people I've ever worked with, and so I don't I
Speaker 1: can't speak to the Quimby story. I can answer our
Speaker 1: story in that we don't have to find our audience.
Speaker 1: We're we're advertising, and we're working with stars who we
Speaker 1: know exactly who their fans are, where they subscribe, where
Speaker 1: they live, and so our whole content you know, kind
Speaker 1: of strategy right now is to make content for audiences
Speaker 1: that we know where they are. We're not trying to
Speaker 1: tap new people or trying to convince someone to show
Speaker 1: up for something they don't like. We're going after an
Speaker 1: engaged audience and and and hitting them up in a
Speaker 1: place where they already are. We're not asking them to
Speaker 1: to to move someplace until until the event time, but
Speaker 1: before that, we're really creating. The reason why the company
Speaker 1: is called Invisible Narratives is we're creating invisible story arcs
Speaker 1: that live on these kids channels so that they start
Speaker 1: to build a story propulsion. So they're driving to Invice
Speaker 1: dot tv, which is our platform where we combine merch
Speaker 1: and the content. But they're going there because it's a
Speaker 1: curtain that they want to get behind, because they've been
Speaker 1: taken up in the storytelling right and the sort of
Speaker 1: and and so they are moved to it by their
Speaker 1: interest in story. Adam, come back. As you guys continue
Speaker 1: to do things and you've got new developments, come on
Speaker 1: back and tell us how it's going, because it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Like this whole space just being disrupted,
Speaker 1: Uh significantly. Adam Goodman, former president Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks
Speaker 1: skg Uh, co founder of Invisible narratives joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from l A. I mean, man, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of interesting how it's all changing. You made it.
Speaker 1: You made it for hours I did. Monday is over, Carol.
Speaker 1: It's always a tough one, all right, everybody for Kaylee Lines,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Have a safe evening. And you, of
Speaker 1: course are listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.