The market is hungry for new content.  Networks and broadcasters are eager to show something new to their audiences and were buying up lots of stuff this time around.  This made my heart jump for joy. Over the years I have built great relations with distributors and sales agents. This year each of them said that it was their best year in a long time. I don’t think they were saying that to buoy themselves up.  It was the mantra with all the distributors I talked with.

I thought I was the only one who came to the realization that I’m not coming home with signed contracts.  As a successful producer and creator of content, she said that her expectations are the same as mine. But would she miss a market?  No. 

I am still preparing to go to MIPCOM.  I have my flight, my apartment and great room mates all arranged.  But I got a late start on making appointments.  At this time I usually have about 40 or 45 appointments.  So far, I have about 30 with 10 days counting. 

However, I must say, these appointments are ones that want to see me for the right reasons. They have business to discuss, not just a meeting to kiss on the cheeks and pass the time.  So quality over quantity is what I am going for.

When I say to friends and family that I am off to New York, France or other parts of the world, they all are envious.  They think that I am off for a couple of meetings and then off sunbathing on the Cote D’Azur or drinking at some swank place in the Big Apple. No Way!

I have been going to Comic-Con on and off since ’94 and I have seen the change.  Up to a few years ago, the Con, as it is now know, was the celebration of the comic book artist and writer.  It celebrated a genre that had sustained since the turn of the last century.

Thirty, forty and even fifty meetings in four days is nothing.  But the question is the quantity yielding the quality?  The more people you meet with the more information gathered, but if your purpose is to sell a show to a distribution company, then targeting distributors early in the appointment making is critical. 

What happens at these markets? Who goes?  Let me lift the curtain on these shows.  All of these conventions were created for the purpose of buying and selling television shows. Just so you know, there are markets for the sales of feature films, music, games and other content, which I will talk about in the future.  But let’s concentrate on the “small screen” for the time being. 

Several years ago, at another mobile conference, several speakers talked about the casual game player emerging because of the new device, the Blackberry. Sure phones did have games on them, but the playing was cumbersome. 

Now it’s time to look at the other ways of getting brilliant content in front of audiences.  Distribution is the heart’s blood of any production.  If you have a Letter of Intent (LOI) or a pre-sale from a broadcaster in almost any part of the western world you have a winner in the eyes of co-producers and financiers.   This means that your idea is not just looking great in the pitch bible, but someone likes it. . .

My ears are still ringing from attending E3 last week.  But this time I came away with a much different perspective on the industry. 

I attended the very first E3 way back in the dark ages of 1994.  I ventured into a male dominated world of shooters, racing and “boobalicous” avatars (as well as booth babes).  I was one woman out of maybe a hundred or more young men to attend.  I was there to see what the animation potential from this renegade group from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), would have for a mere mortal animation studio. 

You just don’t make animation and then play it, in the game business.  It is a unique combination of equipment, programming/technology and art.