Who are you? What do you do? Now don't lie can't lie your profile is MAPPED !

Do you say what you do, or what you want to be?

‘How do you earn your living?’ Or maybe a more accurate pre election question is, ‘How do you pay your taxes?’ A searching question as opposed to the normal question, ‘What do you do?’

The answer to the last,the simple what do you do, allows answers like. ‘I’m an actor’ or ‘I’m a director’, when in truth you are a waiter or a bar tender but want to be the former. A number of things have inspired this blog and the first being the lies of an election. The second me being asked what I do? 

Let me briefly tackle the first, ‘lies’. As we head towards swiftly towards robotisation, my attendance of recent AI conferences and lectures have all focussed on two occupations that will be the first to be replaced by robots. The SEAL will replace carers and offer cheaper round-the-clock care for the elderly and disabled, without judgement or emotion or getting tired. The robot will be a constant companion that the owner can stroke, love and talk to it. Whilst those who are old and with Altzheimer's can be prosecuted for not caring for a living pet this cheap option solves all problems.  The LAWYER took me by surprise, but it is a profession that should (and we all know is not) governed by rules and laws applied honesty, methodically and logically with no eye on the fee and even fixed penalties for the wrong. The Lawyer did surprise me though I can see it is the most necessary to be AI and taken away from corruptible humans and since hearing this I have not just heard it repeated by seen it as a suggestion, or should I say foreshadowed in many US TV shows.

But AI will make us all more transparent, rather than honest. By that I mean people will soon no longer ask 'what you do?' because they will have seen your history on Facebook or Linked in, it will not be volunteered and corrected like Wikipedia or IMDB, but it will be an accurate record. - So you did do one day on a movie five years ago, but you actually work in the local coffee shop. Wow, the truth hurts. But is it about being honest and giving the public what they want, is the future that simple?

So, to the second, what do I personally do? The thing that got me started. I need a title, a box. It has been nearly fifty years in the entertainment industry; I have rarely been without portfolio or between jobs and never waited tables or worked in a bar. So, I have been lucky. Way over forty-five years in the entertainment industry my only other job is as an unpaid tax collector on myself. In brief, ten years in live radio starting at the BBC and covering five stations. Then going into TV and finding myself acting, then specialising in action while producing, directing and writing. The reason I am asked what I do is because they don’t know whether to write stunt man or director, writer or DJ, actor or presenter, author or producer.

I have decided to volunteer the title Story Teller, because it is what I do, what I have always done, and amuses me by still leaving them confused. I could use the even more boring Entertainment Professional, but what is that? 

Here is the real purpose of this blog, which is a culmination of muses since the annual conference of the British Screen Advisory Council of which, I am pleased to have been a part of for many years now. I felt that at that conference the guys (is used to mean either sex but those I talk about below were all men) who have willing and keen audiences wanting their product were again ignored by so many. That for me was the real observation of the day. Ignoring the facts!

There were two main areas I wish to highlight, and I will deal with the second first. The online players, the YouTubers and others. These people while have millions of viewers were in the main left to the end, again. The fascinating guy from YouTube had so little time. Every year this group forms the last section and I fear it is so the traditional broadcasters can leave the day early and they do. So, to sum up, those with a ready and keen audience for their product were walked out on by those who wish to make things and impose that product on an audience, or waste tax payers money pretending they have an audience. Ouch!

OK, so that is wildly extreme but I want to make a point that many at the conference are in safe broadcast jobs, many can waltz out their last years of employment into final salary pensions and don’t have to care about the changing media industry. What do they do? They are employed and they have a smart phone whether they can use it of not - Guilty of the last dig.

As an independent who invests in projects and films (and young talent) I recently ran with an on line drama show. It cost my company very little and I suggest was a better training ground for all concerned than many placements where interns fetch tea for the senior enablers. I did not always agree with the end product, the way it was made, but it introduced me to a new arena. I was amazed at just how many individuals are prepared to front what they do with on-line in dramas often incorrectly called web series... because series for me means 13 to 26 episodes. It also showed me how there is no real audience for this drama based product and I say that having topped the charts with the show Shades Of Bad and with Best Actress for Jean Heard in the New York based world indie series charts. I talked with those guys who are essentially the team from We Love Soaps could see that something they had supported for years was now so flooded that there are too many series to focus on (unless someone builds an online TV app channel for them). 

I then funded a travel show spin off with a focussed audience and learnt a little more of how the on-line industry works. The show Doris Visits was invited into Opera TV App and has found many advertisers wanting to be affiliated because of the following and the product. On line wealth, as I suspected it has nothing or little to do with viewers and viewing numbers, but focussed followers.

I now advise any would be actor or director to ensure they have all the usual social medias up and running. That they say interesting things and gather followers because your numbers are judged first then, maybe your talent is looked at. The world has always been like that. There is a movie on, who is in it? Named stars with followers. 

By focussing on action I had a very lucrative career after live broadcasting. My company has now become a go to for cruise travel industry on a few levels and as we have a film and media understanding we can solve some problems others may not be equipped to. We have taken a share in the media rights of the Solo Cruiser books (VirginVoyage, Perfect Storm, American Portrait, Panama Sixty etc) and have started by kicking the audio books into production while we figure out how to make the filming of a TV show work series to series; a TV show at sea and on land in a different country each day. If such a thing is possible it could be visually huge. The content and the stories we know work. Plus, as any producer will tell you, if they don’t we can fix them and when we run out we can make more. It is also like a military show, like Bond in that the Solo Cruiser, currently a woman called Violet can be changed as we feel fit. From a web series experiment we have a travel show and now full circle to a TV show.

That brings me to the other part of the annual conference which some may have taken far too lightly; football. I can even imagine some drama producers thinking there was too much football at the conference but hang on, before I move on, I have heard that games are worth 75 billion a year, sport 45 billion and drama south of 30 million. Figures aside, and even if incorrect, football was worth listening to more than we did. It found two spots this year.

First up was a Premiere League Exec who explained they are the biggest TV producer in the UK and that their product is demanded all over the world. Their job is to work out how and what to feed this constant 24/7 output. I found it fascinating how foreign markets became local (to explain, Argentina’s affiliation with Spurs which I totally got.) I personally felt the chairperson asked him to round up far too quickly, it felt an awkward moment, and I was sure he had had nowhere near as long as the drama based speakers but maybe that was my dimension on time. The others included additions the they now needed Chinese staff to try and sell their product and services to China when what they could have done was listed to football representative for a while longer. Later in the morning there was the second bite of football. The CEO of the game Football Manager, now in it’s 26^th year it has an audience that dwarfs all TV shows and a world scouting staff totally 140 that top clubs go to for stats. How he has viewers, players and managers all buying his services. It was quite amazing how these platforms have become so multi platform in ways that few could have predicted thirty years ago. 

We are full circle. Stats are the future, real stats not political poles. Given the audience what they want is a phrase that only those who part of yesterday will say, because the public consume (take) what they want, we just have to make it available. So, me the storyteller......bowing to the driver; numbers, stats and focussed audiences. I am breaking down the books to see how they might be shot for TV. The job remains the same, well, not quite. We are working on Solo Cruiser because within two years there will be at least twelve more new 5000 passenger size cruise ships on the seas and that is over half a million new cruisers a week. There are more solo people than ever, so, Solo Cruiser. It is a problem worth solving. Yes, I am a story teller and IMDB has less than half my career.