Stories are always best told from the start so read Part 1 of Steve’s blog here. If you’re already up to date then continue reading below. You can also find links to each blog from the series so far at the bottom of this page.
Attending MIP – Days 4 and 5 by Steve Hanton
The next day I had even more breakfast meetings with Bardel Ent. (Canada), InMagic (Spain) and KidsCo (UK) followed by Al Jazeera TV (Global). These were all great but helped me understand that I still didn't have a broadcaster onboard. We needed a major broadcaster first and only then should we have all of these meetings. What is the use of a distributor if you don't have a show? This reminds me, here is a list of importance for who I should have met with at MIP in priority order.
1. Broadcasters
2. Major co-production partners
3. Other smaller co-pro partners
4. Writers
5. Distributors
Without a major broadcaster on board people don't take your show seriously, you can learn a lot but you will find it hard to take your show forward. It's easy to find smaller co-pro partners once you have a broadcaster on board and this is the same for international distributors, they will bite your hands off.
Realising that this seemed to be the case I felt like I had lost a little of my bounding sense of enthusiasm for the following meetings. I felt disillusioned and being close to the end of the week was confronted with equally tired people.
My final day of pitching was Thursday and I was pretty much ready to go home. Then I reminded myself that I was in sunny Cannes on the beach and was wishing for a speedy return back to cold October Manchester. What was I thinking? Even if I didn't think we could take the shows any further without a broadcaster, it wasn't in my nature to quit. So I had a word with myself and continued the last day as if it was my first. There were not many meetings this day and most people had left MIP by the morning. I met with another large studio which went well, but was worried that they were just going to steal my ideas. The statement made by them was 'We love the concept, can I take a bible? (A copy of our description of the project) Great, so we will see if our in-house team like it and if we can't do any better than this ourselves we will contact you'. I felt like I had just been mugged, thanked and so I continued to my next meeting a little confused.
I met with a few other companies to end the day and read the last line of my itinerary. It said that my last meeting was outside on a yacht. The meeting was with DHX Media, I didn't know much about them at the time but let's just say that it was the best meeting of the whole trip. The 30 minute meeting went on for 60 minutes and I came away with a big smile on my face. 8 months on we are in a co-production agreement with DHX, they have been over to visit us in Manchester, we have met them in New York and attended pitching meals with them and many major broadcasters. We are currently pitching a show with them and all is looking very positive. It seems that I may have been wrong about needing a broadcaster before attending MIP. DHX have introduced us to everyone we could ever want to meet and have acted as a big brother to us. Things have gone great so far and we have been invited to pitch on their yacht with them at the next MIP.
Without the help of everyone involved including Vision+Media, PACT, UKTI, Creatives Loop, Rights.TV, Philip Morris, Anthony Utley and Greg Childs to name only a few we would still be wondering what to do with our brightly coloured TV concepts.
The Road to MIP (Part 1): Deciding on MIP
The Road to MIP (Part 2): Preparing for MIP
The Road to MIP (Part 3): Attending MIP – Days 1 and 2
The Road to MIP (Part 4): Attending MIP – Day 3
The Road to MIP (Part 5): Attending MIP – Days 4 and 5
The full blog (Parts 1 to 5) can also be downloaded from the sidebar
If you are interested in attending MIPCOM or any of the other MIP markets, the upcoming events are as follows;
MIPJunior - 1st - 2nd October 2011
MIPCOM - 3rd - 6th October 2011
MIPDoc - 30th - 31st March 2012
MIPFormats - 30th - 31st March 2012
MIPTV - 1st - 4th April 2012
www.mipworld.com