Sub Navigation:
Secondary Navigation:
Main Content:
Breadcrumb Navigation:
Home>Australia>News>News Detail
News Detail
Heinz Alum Presents at TV Industry Festival
Release Date: Oct 21, 2009
Adam Wright, a 2009 graduate of Heinz College's Master of Entertainment Industry Management (MEIM) program, recently had the opportunity to speak at the 2009 New York Television Festival. He submitted the following report on his experience:
There is a twisting path that takes me from my Masters of Entertainment Industry Management Capstone to speaking at The 2009 New York Television Festival panel on "Developing for the Web." The New York Television Festival (http://www.nytvf.com) is the first recognized independent television festival. It was created as a launching pad for new content creators. I was dispatched by a leading WebTV blog Tubefilter.tv to cover the week long festival. After speaking with festival director, Ned Canty, he asked if I could be a guest speaker for the special development day panel. This brought me on stage with a number of distinguished colleagues in front of hundreds of eager content creators using my research to inform them on best practices in developing for the web.
This all started with the capstone project [What is a capstone project?], "Facing a New Digital Era: Research and Development for a New Kind of Digital Studio," a lengthy work composed by myself and two other classmates, Stephanie Yeager (MEIM '09) and Jeanne Park (MEIM '09). We took an interesting approach to this capstone project as each of us had very different interests in the web video space. Stephanie was creative and wanted to write an actual web series and TV pilot. Jeanne wanted to look at things in a macroeconomic level. I wanted to look at things at a micro level and try to make sense of it all. We all separately did our own research for our distinct sections, and together, we worked on some key parts such as creating a business plan and giving notes to Stephanie. Accordingly, our capstone was broad and covered a large swath of information. All of us gained immensely as our disparate viewpoints collided and worked their way out on the page.
I was proud of the work we did as a team and thought my specific section, "What Works on the Web and the Translation to Television," could have interest to others. I shopped it around in the hopes of getting it seen by a larger audience in the web video space.
I stumbled upon Tubefilter.tv co-founder and serial entrepreneur, Brady Brim-Deforest. Brady read my thesis and was impressed. He brought me onto their new research division, where I have spent the last few months working with Tubefilter to gather more hard data and expand my research into a full fledged white paper strictly focusing on Up-selling Web Content to Television.
A lengthy trip back east, this fall, coincided perfectly with the New York Television Festival. When Tubefilter (a west coast company) discovered I was going to be on the east coast, they asked me to cover the festival for them. It was a great experience both from a learning perspective and a networking perspective. On top of this, it was a great way to gain exposure for myself and my thesis work.
The panel I was a part of included the Ilsa Berg, Director of Programming at Fox Television Studio's 15 Gigs, Mark Grande of Little Grande, Inc, and Tina Santamauro of Atom.com. During the panel, we touched on a number of key issues I researched, such as: What lengths work best on the web? What are the key demographic verticals for web content? Do stars have a big impact in making a web series a success? And much more.
WATCH...
Video of the development day panel.
More of Adam's coverage from the NYTVF.
(Photo: Adam Wright [far right] sits on the "Developing for the Web" panel at the New York Television Festival.)