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主题：凯文.史派西：论电视行业与创意人才 -- 万年看客
家园 凯文.史派西：论电视行业与创意人才 晚上好，很高兴今天能来到这里。
我在这里发自真心地说，今年以来我的所有活动当中，为这次演讲进行准备最令我感到愉快。作为第一次参加爱丁堡艺术节的发言人，我真心不知道自己包揽了怎样一桩差事。但是我在动笔撰写讲稿之前确实进行了大量准备工作。你们应当感到庆幸，因为我目前并不在广播行业里窃据高位，也不打算利用这次演讲为自己在广播行业内谋求进一步的高位。（笑声）
自MacTaggert演讲会开办以来，从未有哪位演员登台讲话。我也不打算在此论述自己的登台资格。我为我接下来要说的话负完全责任。假如MacTagger的登台资格是一份需要竞选的政府公职，那么今天的讲台布景就应当改换成我的竞选标语以及我今天的讲话主题：“创意才是关键，你个傻X。”（笑声，掌声）
每当我想起MacTaggert开办四年来的过往，我就会想象当年的与会嘉宾回家以后将会如何践行那项历时悠久的传统，将家人召集到电视机前，在特定的时间将电视调到特定的频道，一起观看全家人最爱的电影，例如《生活多美好》。他们会感到自己何其有幸生活在科技昌明的现代，能用21英寸的电视机荧屏将全家人聚集一堂。
今天的诸位回家之后，情况可能就有点不太一样了。你可能已经用DVR录制了《生活真美好》，可能要颇费一番周章才能将全家人聚齐到用车库改建的家庭影院里。看电影的时候，你可能还会顺便在脸书上追踪一下子女的最新动态，你能会抱怨你的妻子只顾忙着给你们在网上订购的外卖拍照并且发到Instagram里，你的母亲则正忙着浏览猫咪照片，你的儿子正在鬼鬼祟祟地删除自己的浏览记录（笑声），而你的女儿则正在微博上抱怨《生活真美好》一点都不好看，因为这部电影既不是彩色片也不是3D片。家庭团聚的温馨气氛一如往昔，换句话说就是谁都不搭理谁。（笑声）
我今天想要谈一下我涉足电视行业的若干经历，这些经历怎样深刻地改变了我对于这个媒体的理解，影响我与Netflix合作拍摄《纸牌屋》的因素，以及我今天受邀在此演讲的主要原因之一——如果说不是唯一原因的话。我很幸运，我的父母热爱文学艺术，从小我就能经常出入于剧院。我也很喜欢看电视，经常和家人一起挤在电视机前等待最新一集的播出。电视拓宽的我的视野，让我见识了超越左邻右舍的全新世界。就像书籍与戏剧一样，电视也点燃了我的想象力。我不是一个特别勤勉的孩子，但是我的确一直在寻找值得我付出注意力、思想与精力的活动。我知道，我热爱故事与戏剧。我甚至还曾经和一位要好的同学一起在快餐店的餐巾纸上勾勾画画，打算日后要兴建一座属于我们自己的话剧院，起名就叫扳机街剧院——这是当时他家的住址。日后我确实掌管了老维克话剧院，而“扳机街”这个名字则被我留给了我的制片公司。
我是一个极其幸运的人，我的童年梦想如今几乎已经悉数成为了现实，就外人来看这个过程简直不亚于虚构作品。但是真正拉了我一把的人是一位育人不倦的学校老师。当时我几乎就要步入歧途，于是他将我送进了一所戏剧工坊，我在那里三生有幸地遇到了日后的导师，伟大的杰克.莱蒙。
当时是1974年，我们在莱蒙掌管的工坊里排演了《朱诺和孔雀》里的一幕，当时他正在洛杉矶上演这出戏。表演结束后，莱蒙走过来攀住我的肩膀说（开始模仿莱蒙）：“演得太漂亮了。”（笑声）“不不不我没开玩笑，你演得很好，完全把握住了剧中人物的情绪。我跟你说小子，你应该去纽约深造，因为你生来就是个演员。”顺便说一句，当时我只有十三岁。（笑声）
我听取了莱蒙先生的建议，中学毕业之后去了纽约，考取了茱莉亚德戏剧学院。之后我抓住机会参加了百老汇版本《长夜漫漫路迢迢》的演员选拔，竞争酗酒的大儿子一角。就这样，在1986年，我再次与阔别十二年的莱蒙先生共处一室共同排练。在演完了第一幕之后，莱蒙走过来说（继续模仿莱蒙）：“我真没想到我们能找到这么合适的人选，基督耶稣在上你是怎么演成这样的小子？”（笑声）
接下来的一年时间里我一直跟随杰克四处巡演，期间也来过伦敦。他也成为了我所能想到的最好的导师、尊长与朋友。我们合作拍摄了三部电影，最后一部是《拜金一族》——他喜欢将其称作《败金蚁族》，说是更顺口。（笑声）
快进到1990年，莱蒙先生邀请我和他一起参加大卫.里恩获得终身成就奖的颁奖仪式。关于里恩你们需要知道两件事，首先他导演了《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》，其次你要是不知道他的话肯定是入错行了。（笑声）我记得当时自己局促地坐在台下，听着里恩先生在台上利用自己的整篇获奖感言来敦促电影行业挖掘培养新人。他很担心、甚至有些害怕电影行业不重视培养新人的做法。越来越多的电影只顾着诉诸感官，却忘了要打动心灵。在1990年的那个晚上，他面向整个好莱坞说了这样一番话。
“我还记得当年和诺尔.考沃德一起推陈出新的境况。我们当年的做法如今全都被人反其道而行。没有人再去推陈出新了，所有人都只会因循守旧，依靠一二三四的套路。我认为这一局面太可悲了。不是说一二三四的套路就不好，但是我们不能将其当做行业的主食。我们这个行业的基础就是富有创意的开路者。我还记得——我想我们都还记得伟大的制片人厄本.科伯特，他的才能在于一手托两家，他不仅理解创意人才，也了解投资人。我们现在正面临着可怕的危局。许多富有创意的讲故事新秀正在涌现，他们将会成为电影行业的未来。我恳求你们这些身处投资部门的投资人员们，不要忘了他们是谁。我相信时至今日，投资人们完全可以冒着亏损一点小钱的风险来启用创意新人。”
“如果我们培养这些讲故事新秀，电影行业自然会蒸蒸日上。如果我们因循守旧，电影行业必将要每况愈下，直到完全被电视行业取代为止。”（笑声）
大卫.里恩在1990年留下了这番话。请各位多加上心，我们待会儿还要回头细说。
接下来我想介绍我的另一段经历。1997年，我从茱莉亚德学院毕业后正式开始了话剧演员的职业生涯并且回到了洛杉矶。CBS请我参演一部名叫《特警4587》的电视剧。你们还记得这部戏吗？看来是忘光了（笑声）。我立刻拒绝了。此前我只演过两部短片，都是让人转头就忘的配角。我是个名不见经传的话剧演员，从没面对过摄像机。但是我了解故事，了解表演艺术，也了解如何塑造角色。因此我很奇怪，拍摄现场里那一群西装革履的人物究竟是谁，他们凭什么到处指手画脚，要求我改换发型，改换领带，甚至改换表演方式。他们不是导演也不是编剧，（突然压低声音）他们是——电——视——台——的——人。（笑声）
这些家伙是电视台派来的。（笑声）
这些人到处指指戳戳，什么事都管。尽管我只是刚出道的新人，但是当时我就很清楚自己不想受这种窝囊气。于是我拒绝了这个角色。我的经纪人和经理都吵吵着逼我改变主意。这时我想到了杰克.莱蒙。当年我们一起排演《长夜漫漫》的时候，他总会提到自己在五十年代投身电视行业进行表演的经历。面对着接受这个角色的压力，我想知道他这话究竟是什么意思。他总会说当年是“黄金时代”——我们都听过这个短语。“黄金时代”究竟是什么意思呢？究竟是他一厢情愿的怀旧呢，还是说当年的电视行业确实有所不同呢？于是我给他去了电话。他是这么说的：
“小子你要理解，当时电视可是新生事物，谁都不知道这个新兴媒体究竟能存在多久，所以什么规矩都没有。头一个礼拜专门滑稽搞笑，这个礼拜是话剧，下一个礼拜又主打音乐剧。当时电视还没有遭到商业化，因为谁都不知道这个行业究竟能不能挺到那一天。所有人都在敞开了玩。”
“敞开了玩”，我以前从没将这几个字与电视行业联系起来过。但是仔细一想确实如此。据我所知，James MacTaggart本人不仅是一名充满活力与创造力的电视人，而且在个人生活当中还曾经是苏格兰伞降营的志愿伞兵。他自愿进行信仰之跃，一步踏入虚空。这种“敞开了玩”的气质也反应在了他的电视工作当中，这也正是我们今天共聚一堂来纪念他的原因。我意识到，唯有怀抱“敞开了玩”的态度，才能塑造出真正令人难忘的角色。于是我找上了制片人，他承诺绝不干涉我的创作自由。我一共拍摄了七集，留下了美好的回忆，然后编剧就把我的角色枪毙了。（笑声）
布莱特.马丁在他的新书《坏脾气的人们：创意革命幕后揭秘》（Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution）当中将过去十五年称作电视行业的“第三个黄金时代”。他讲了一个很能说明问题的故事，反映了创意人员自从电视行业面临的困境。1980年，日后将会成为热播剧的《山街蓝调》即将首映之前，NBC派人给主创史蒂文.布奇柯送来了一份内部备忘录，表达了行政层的担忧，“主流观众们认为这部戏气氛压抑、内容暴力，叙事混乱，信息量超载，主人公缺乏工作能力且有人格缺陷，在职业方面永远不可能取得真正的成功，在生活上也是一塌糊涂，结尾令人失望，剧情脱漏严重，等等”。
换句话说，这段描述在无意之中不仅集中体现了《山街蓝调》大获成功的要素，而且总结了组成第三个黄金时代的所有电视剧。如果这些行政人员当真心愿得偿，那么创新的道路就将得不到开拓，也就不会有《黑道家族》、《火线救援》、《国土安全》、《六尺之下》、《嗜血法医》、《以法之名》、《混乱之子》、《监狱风云》、《火线》、《真爱如血》、《大西洋帝国》、《广告狂人》、《权力的游戏》、《绝命毒师》以及《纸牌屋》了。假如我这里列举的剧目还不能不容辩驳地说服你相信电视行业的国王是创意人员，那我真不知道再应该说些什么了。你们可以鼓掌了。（哄堂大笑，热烈掌声）
我们现在的当务之急就是维护创意革命的火焰，继续寻找新生代人才，呵护他们，扶植他们，为他们提供安身立命之所与自主决断的权力，三个黄金时代的过去与现在都已经证明了他们有资格享受这种待遇。我认为我们做得还很不够。就像大卫.里恩一样，我也很失望。我为这个行业在鼓励新人方面没能做得更好而感到失望。尽管我本人的事业取得了成功，这并不意味着我对自己就不失望。我的作品经常未能达到所处时代设立的标准。我想要做得更好，我想讲述更好的故事，表演更好的戏剧，想要更有力地扶持最优秀的讲故事新人们。我相信杰克.莱蒙的处世哲学：“上楼之后再把电梯送下去”，这样做能够使得我们每个人借助自己现有的成功来扶植他人。
因为我抱有这样的想法，不知道今天在座的各位有多少人与我有同感。虽然你们也都是成功人士，但是恐怕你们也会在各自的领域里、在各自的自我评价标准之下、在各自的抱负面前、在各自的创意胆量面前对自己感到失望，恐怕你们也会为自己没能彻底利用这种媒体与这个平台来完全实现自我与身边同事的价值而感到失望。我不知道在座的有多少人像我一样，因为电视行业并不总能达到它应该或者可以达到的标准而感到失望
本周我们谈论人才这个词的次数恐怕比任何其他词语都要更多。人才就是一切。不止是新人，因为人才是不论出处的。尽管我们往往侧重于年轻人，但年龄并不能限制好故事与好想法的出现。人才也是各种各样的。我们不仅应当尊重那些经验丰富的人，也应当尊重那些全无经验的人。当然话又说回来，有些“人才”之所以被“埋没”也并非全无原因。（笑声）但是我们要是遇到了天赋异禀的人才总归不会认错。
直到目前为止，我们折现电影与电视从业人员还能优哉游哉地坐等人才上门。因为我们掌握着进入王国的钥匙，新人们必须主动找上我们并且献上自己的故事，唯此他们的故事才能与观众见面。但是情况正在转变而且变化飞快。如今的孩子们早已不再将电视行业当做实现理想的唯一的途径了，他们可以在网络上找到花样繁多令人难以置信的娱乐方式、故事与其他吸引眼球的所在。如果他们在Netflix或者AppleTV上看到了自己喜欢的电视剧，很可能根本不知道这部戏源自哪个电视台。
我们要怎样找到这些孩子呢？十年前我接手老维克剧院的时候，我们创办了一个名叫“老维克新声音”的项目，借以支持那些有志于投身演艺事业的年轻人们。不像许多剧院、电视与电影项目通常所做的那样，我们并不将这些年轻人彼此隔绝开来，让编剧独立写作或者让导线专攻某一条路线。我们让所有这些年轻人凑在一起，因为我们相信这才是创作戏剧的正确方式。我们将编剧、制片、导演与演员们凑在一起，让他们学习彼此合作，共同发展，创作剧作，让他们意识到彼此协作的重要性。
这个计划在创作层面上取得了令人满意的成功。在这里我只举一个例子：今年爱丁堡戏剧节的28部参演剧作全都是由“老维克新声音”计划曾经的受训学员创作、导演或者表演的。但是我们还不想就此止步。我们认为自己对于社区也负有社会责任，因此我们又发起了一个社区戏剧项目，走进各个学校、社区团体与青少年活动中心，邀请他们走进老维克剧院。我们为每一个感到难以与他人沟通、对于传统教育方式感到厌倦或者受到同龄人欺负的孩子开辟了艺术创作的圣地。当听到老师们告诉我，某个在课堂上一直不能集中注意力的男孩突然能够专心听讲，或者某个内向寡言的女孩终于能够大胆表现自己的时候，那种满足感真是难以言喻。
我坚信，这些艺术项目的意义绝不仅仅是引领年青一代走上演艺道路或者培养下一代大卫.里恩与史蒂文.布奇柯，而是造福社会。我相信艺术并非生活当中的奢侈品，而是必需品。故事能够使人们相互理解，有助于人们理解所处时代的问题。剧院与电影是培养年轻人的有力工具，有助于他们培养沟通协作的能力并且提升自信心。至于那些的确对艺术胸怀激情并且意欲发声的年轻人，我相信我们有责任找到他们。如果我们不出手相助，他们可能永远无法逾越我们在剧院与工作室网络周围精心修筑的高墙壁垒，而我们将会永远失去他们脑海中的故事。
顺便说一句，刚才我说我在电视行业的第一份工作是拍短片，严格来说这话并不算对。撰写这份发言稿的时候，我想起来我首次涉足电视行业是在十七岁那年。当时我在暑假打零工，和另外八个人一起搭乘平板卡车在加州奥兰治郡游走。我们每人都领到了一张当地社区分布地图。我们的工作就是挨家挨户推销收费电视频道——当时第一家有线电视网刚刚出现。我毫不开玩笑地告诉各位，我们面向客户的开场白是这样说的：“嗨，您有兴（性）趣吗？”（笑声）我们吃了不少闭门羹。谁成想我与电视的渊源居然能追溯到1976年呢？
如果说大家对于我在《纸牌屋》中扮演的弗兰克.安德伍德这个角色存在任何程度上的钦佩之心，我想这恐怕是因为安德伍德也全盘接受了“敞开了玩”的精神。他无视规则，从不效忠于任何党派、头衔、形式、姓名与标签。他无视民主党与共和党之分，无视意识形态与理想信念。他的眼里只有向上爬的机会与空隙。的确，此人有一点恶毒，但是他的办事能力也着实不俗。所以今天我在此也要抛弃意识形态，不将本次大会仅仅视作电视行业的活动。既然观众已经不再费心区分各种媒体的差异，我们又何必以邻为壑呢？让我们抛弃掉自己身上的标签吧，或者按照安德伍德的话说（模仿安德伍德）：“至少让我们扩展一下定义。毕竟，我们不都是讲故事的人吗？”（笑声）
《纸牌屋》的制作模式富有创意地效仿了英剧的模式。英剧模式的特点在于从来不会费心制作试播集，而美国电视台则对此十分上心。当初我们和所有主要电视台都谈过合作事宜，每一家对于《纸牌屋》都很感兴趣，但同时每一家也都要求我们先播出一集试播集。我们倒不是有意托大，好像大卫.芬奇与我这样的大牌就可以客大欺店什么的。但是我们想要放长线钓大鱼，想要花费时间来塑造一个多层次的复杂故事，故事里的角色将要随着情节发展而逐渐揭露自己，角色之间的关系发展也需要空间。从编剧角度来说，试播集的问题在于必须在四十五分钟的时间里塞入好几个角色，还要人为地在末尾制造悬念，借此证明这部剧有人看。
Netflix是唯一一家表示“我们相信你们俩”的电视台。“根据数据分析，观众们肯定会喜欢看这部剧，所以你们不用拍试播集。告诉我们想拍多长就行了。”我们的反应是（做茫然无措状，笑声）“要不然先拍两季怎么样？”
相比之下，2012年全美一共拍摄了113部试播集，其中35部剧得到播出，得到续约的有13部。2013年全美一共拍摄了147部试播集，其中56部剧得到播出，续约情况目前尚不明朗。但是这些试播集的总成本大约在三到四亿美元之间。这样看来，《纸牌屋》一下子拍两季的作法就很合算了。（笑声）
Netflix将整季《纸牌屋》一次性放送的作法说明了一个问题：观众们想要控制。他们想要自由。如果他们希望一口气把一部剧追完，我们就应当满足他们的欲求。曾经不止一次有人在街头拦住我说“感谢你荒废了我整整三天的时间”。（笑声）通过这种新型发行方式，我们证明自己已经领会了音乐产业至今没有学会的教训：要向受众提供他们想要的东西，要在他们想要的时间、以他们想要的方式提供给他们，而且价格要合适。这样的话他们多半会掏钱而不会白拿。当然总还有人会坚持白拿（笑声），但是我们至少能从盗版的嘴里抢下一大块肉来。
所以我们知道观众想要什么：高质量的作品。我们也知道创意人员想要什么：艺术创作的自由。保护人才与作品质量的唯一方式就是创新。我们还知道制片公司、电视台与工作室想要什么：赚钱。我们也需要他们盈利，唯此他们才能继续投资高质量作品。他们想要尽可能多的愿意掏钱的观众。问题在于我们能否创造这样一个环境，鼓励那些被数字与数据环绕的行政人员壮起胆气来支持我们的任务，鼓励领导层冒险试水，宁肯冒着亏损的风险追求高目标，也不愿保守求稳。
史蒂夫.乔布斯之所以频繁将亨利.福特称为自己的榜样，正是因为福特早在消费者意识到自己的需求之前就为他们发明了汽车。同样，乔布斯也在我们意识到自己的需求之前就将苹果产品塞进了我们的手里或者摆在了我们的膝头。我们的创新能力必须有这么强。在某些方面，我们必须比观众领先一筹。我们要令观众感到意外，打破界限，将观众引向新世界，为他们提供越来越好的作品。我不认为我们可以在一夜之间改变行业现状，但是我们可以重塑行业结构的核心。如果我们真正以人才为重，我们或许可以在行业内取得更高更广的成功。这就是我的信念。（热烈掌声）
最近我们刚刚目睹了《绝命毒师》第五季既最后一季的播映。这部剧抓住了巨大的观众群体，也在媒体上掀起了对于Netflix效应的追捧。但是《绝命毒师》也教给了电视台重要的一课，即一定要有耐心。耐心是维护创意与质量的关键，经常遭到忽视，而领导层却往往只想投资稳赚不赔且能迅速来钱的作品。从收视率方面来看，《绝命毒师》是一部慢热剧，直到2011年下半年第才真正有了些声势。早期观众们的口口相传给出了与收视率数字不太相符的信息， Netflix的在线播出模式以及AMC对于播出时间的精明安排又吸引了进一步的观众并且吊起了他们的胃口。
尽管AMC一开始仅仅预订了五六集《绝命毒师》，但是他们相信这部剧，因为《广告狂人》教会了他们一件事：一部剧需要时间来寻找属于自己的观众群体，观众质量与单纯的数量对于打造剧目品牌来说同样重要。《绝命毒师》大器晚成式的走红告诉我们，应当将这些剧目视作需要培育的资产，不能让急于求成的电视台在它们有机会走上正轨之前将其扼杀。毕竟，《黑道家族》拍到第四季才有些声势，《宋飞正传》播出了整整五年才取得比较好看的收视率，它的最初四季甚至都没能打入尼尔森收视率前30强。
在数字不好看的情况下坚持制作这样的剧集、坚持顶住领导层的压力是需要勇气的。但是历史一再证明，忠于创意相信人才的做法总是强过有枣没枣打三竿子的试播集体系。如果观众们忠于一部剧集，无论这个观众群体一开始多么小，难道我们不应该实现这部剧的真正潜力吗？假如这意味着抛开规则，更改播出时间表，从而加强观众的兴奋情绪并且方便他们观看，那我们就应该做好无所不为的准备。
任何一种艺术载体都需要花上几十年的时间才能得到主流认可，获得名分。小说曾经被人视为下品，因为它不是诗歌。摄影在最初五十年一直比绘画矮一头。电影花费了几十年才从杂耍园子里毕业。巴斯特·基顿如今被人视为天才，但当年也只是个满嘴胡话的丑角而已。至于大卫.里恩呢？1990年的那天晚上没有人听取他的警告，没有哪个电影从业者真心认为电视会成为足以与自己抗衡的竞争对手。然而此时距离《黑道家族》在HBO首映只剩下八年了。演员、编剧、导演与制片很快就将要纷纷离开电影行业寻找更适合创作的环境。十四年后的今天，我想在座的各位都不会否认，电视在情节剧方面确实已经赶超了电影。
在过去十四年里，电视终于成为了获得承认的艺术门类。其主要原因在于电视台愿意承担风险，而这些剧集找到了恰当的观众群，这些人渴求情节复杂角色丰满的作品，而电影无法满足他们。巧合地是，互联网在线播放技术与多平台播放技术的飞速发展恰好与电视获得认可处于同一时期。因此我们见证了如此不可思议的汇流：正当电视媒体的地位得到确立之际，这种媒体的技术却在飞速变迁。电视台与工作室如果无视叙事技巧的日益复杂或者相关科技的不断变化，必然会被落在后面。
假如他们没有听到这些警告，观众将会比他们进化得更快。观众们会去寻求能够满足他们的其他内容供应者，因为这些供应者能够在他们方便的时间、向他们中意的设备上投放复杂且聪明的故事。Netflix与其他电视台的成功关键在于将优秀的内容与对于观众收看习惯的前瞻性做法结合到了一起。在目前的十字路口上，我们的风险在于过度体制化乃至僵化，认为今天管用的做法在一年后的今天同样会管用。成功的诅咒在于赌注的累积。功成名就、薪水增加、名声与成绩都需要维护，结果就是倒向保守主义，避免承担风险。但是如果说商业与艺术有共同之处，那就是冒险者长期来看总能得到回报。
在飞速变化的背景下，这个行业可能招致失败的众多做法之一就是拘于门户之见，死守电视、电影、短片、短剧与其他什么门类，无论它们贴着什么标签。当我站在镜头前的时候，镜头并不知道自己正在拍摄电影还是电视。我预言，在下一个十年里，内容平台的分界将会彻底消失。总长度十三小时的一季《纸牌屋》与电影的区别在哪里呢？难道说长度在两小时之内的才算电影吗？这种分类未免太肤浅了。在电视上而不是在影院里观看的电影还算电影吗？在Ipad上观看的电视还算电视吗？这种区分是毫无意义的。标签是全然无用的，或许只有制作机构的行政人员与律师在开展业务的时候才会用到它们。
但是如今正在成长起来的孩子们是不会顾及这些区分的。在Ipad上观看《阿凡达》，或者在Youtube上收看电视，或者在电脑上收看《权力的游戏》，一切仅仅取决于内容，一切都仅仅是故事。受众的注意力区间就更不用提了。多年以来一直有人抱怨网络缩短了受众的注意力区间，但是人们明明可以在一天之内追完整整一季电视剧（笑声），这难道不能说明他们的注意力区间有多长吗？只要有足够好的故事，人们可是丝毫不介意一次性看完相当于歌剧长度三倍的内容呢。（笑声，掌声）
我们决不能闭门造车地臆测观众们想要什么内容或者想以怎样的方式体验这些内容。我们必须观察、适应，主动发现尚且不为我们所知的观众需求。我们尝试得越多，就会越了解观众，创意与盈利的大门都会因此而打开。有很多人都声称谁也根本不知道如何使得一部剧集获得成功，创作一部好剧纯粹是碰运气。我说这是屁话。我们很清楚成功关键是什么：成功关键一直都是向艺术家放权，一直都是“敞开了玩”。杰克.莱蒙刚出道的时候是这样，格兰特.廷克掌管NBC的时候是这样，HBO决定拍摄《黑道家族》的时候也是这样。“我说，凭什么就不能拍一个身材超重，一边杀人一边得焦虑症的新泽西黑社会头子呢？凭什么呢？”（笑声）
Netflix的用户调查与大数据分析为《纸牌屋》打开了大门。我们可是太走运了。因为Netflix以前从没搞过原创内容，他们甚至没有专门的办公室来给我们提交内部备忘录。（笑声，掌声）姑且想象一下另一家在创作层面上不那么支持我们的电视台会在备忘录上写些什么吧：“那个什么，我们有点担心，凯文在全剧打头五分钟就掐死了一条狗（笑声），这是不是有点过了？我们可能失去一半观众的。”但是任何人都没有要求我们向我们想要讲述的故事里掺水。于是第一幕的杀狗情节极具创意地奠定了全剧的基调。
所以我们一直都知道成功的关键是什么。我们所不知道的是，想要找到一位具有足够韧性、智慧与蛋子来采取这些做法的管理人员怎么就这么困难。（笑声，掌声）因为现在有一条好消息。与以往任何时候相比，与过去37年以来曾经聚集在这个会堂里的任何一群人相比，今天的你们可谓恰逢其时。你们能够制作既有钱赚又值得骄傲的作品。十四年以前我可能不会站在这里夸夸其谈，因为当时人们都认为电视已经穷途末路了。十四年以前，我的经纪人绝不会允许我在拿了奥斯卡奖之后反过头来拍电视的（笑声），更不用说什么“在线电视”了。（笑声，掌声）而且我们今天终于以前所未闻的程度摆脱了电视行业兴起以来一直笼罩电视工作者的可怖阴影，也就是收视率。在座各位在自己的职业生涯里都不必与收视率表单打交道了，这实在令人如释重负。（笑声，掌声）Netflix做了正确的事，他们回避了尼尔森收视率的呆板数字，全面接受了靶向营销的做法，相信品牌比收视率更有说服力。
更有甚者，观众们也已经发话了：他们想要故事。他们都快要想死了。他们会支持任何能给他们提供好故事的人。他们会谈论剧情，日夜追剧，在公交车上看剧，在理发店看剧，拉着朋友看剧，发微博，写博客，建立粉丝网站，等等等等。他们与电视剧的亲密程度足以令任何一部大片望洋兴叹。我们所需要做的就仅仅是向他们提供故事而已。沉甸甸的果实已经挂上了枝头，比起以往任何时刻都更加丰满多汁。如果我们在座的各位就连伸手都懒得伸一下，那也未免太丢人了。
如今的问题在于到哪里去寻找愿意扶助开路新人的第二个大卫.里恩，如何能在财务部门找到更多懂得如何呵护更高一层创作人才的人们，为他们提供信心，也使得我们能够冒险尝试新点子。在娱乐业的历史上，电视台、电影工作室以及剧院当中都出现过理解创作人才群体的领导层。你可以尽管向前追溯，曾经的经验是有目共睹的。好莱坞工作室体系带来了全盛时代，导演与演员们共同创建了美国联艺，二十世纪五十年代的伦敦皇家剧院成为了众多杰作的温床，BBC的经典剧作永远改变了英国电视的面貌，格拉纳达电视台曾经一度产出惊人，更不用说过去十四年里HBO的主管们以极大的勇气保护了艺术杰作的火焰不至于熄灭。但是更重要地是，上述这些机构的领导层都意识到，支持、呵护与保护创意人才的做法对生意有利。他们设法使得艺术与商业走到了一起，而且他们有胆量为了艺术品质与人才而斗争。
但是新一代创意人才与以往不同。今天我们已经很难说一个人是演员、导演、编剧还是制片了。今天伴随着Youtube成长起来的年轻人们可能身兼所有这些角色。我们要说服他们相信，主流当中有他们的容身之处。我们要为那些看上去已经万事俱备只欠进门的新人们腾出空间。我很乐意想大家宣读下一代讲故事高手的名单，让大家了解一下这些即将为我们的行业做出特殊贡献的新人。但是我不能。因为我们尚且不知他们姓甚名谁。但可以肯定的是，他们就在我们身边，或者正在网上合作，或者正在独自剪辑学生短片，或者正在地下室里排练，或者正在申请加入某个艺术项目，或者正在编写自己的小品剧本，甚至还参加了本次艺术节并且登台献艺。如今我们终于有了让这些新人安身立命的空间。这空间还远远不够大，但是门窗已经打开了。是否邀请他们进来完全取决于我们。就好比假如杰克.莱蒙没有在我十三岁那年挽住我的肩头，鼓舞我当演员的信心，我今天绝对不会站在这里，也绝对不会走上这条职业道路
我们都能把电梯再按下去。我希望我们现在所处的楼层不至于高到使我们听不见那些想要上楼的人们渴求机会的呼声。无论他们在这个新世界接下来想要去哪里，电视与网络肯定承担不起失去他们所有人的后果。历史是由我们创造的。凭借我们手边的资源，我们能否同舟共济，共享一个更美好的世界呢？我们依然希望与其他人共享经历，但是如今人们已经不会在饮水机周围围成一圈讨论最新剧集的情节了。如今已经不再是观众单向接收的世界了。饮水机已经被搬到了虚拟世界，因为剧情讨论都已经在线进行了。新一代受众有着复杂的口味。因为有他们在，我们再不必孤身一人追捧《绝命毒师》或者独自沉迷于《嗜血法医》了。
故事是抹平差异的伟大力量，能够穿越藩篱将观众们团结在一起。在我们这个充满冲突的世界里，国与国作战，人与人分离，而文化却能把我们联系在一起。因此我们依然是一家人，一个美好而又多样化的全球大家庭。我心中乐观的一面认为，我们只需要再努力一点点，促使人们走到一起分享共同的经历，在这段精彩的人生当中不至于过分忽视彼此。我希望我回答了你们心头的重大问题，也希望自己为本次艺术节接下来的对话奠定了基调。能够站在这里与你们分享我对于人才与新平台的看法令我十分荣幸。最后为了诠释商业与艺术这对欢喜冤家的关系，我要引用影坛名宿奥森.威尔斯的名言：“我痛恨电视。我痛恨电视就好比痛恨花生一样。但是我一吃花生就收不住嘴啊。”感谢各位。（笑声，热烈掌声）
通宝推：忧心,navyman,mezhan,Lioncat,德里克,rentg,然后203,家园 纸牌屋不错 我花了三天追完两季！
家园 感谢老兄的精彩翻译， 不知道是否方便给一个原文链接，想找来给孩子做英语学习材料。
家园 S1上有网友提供了原文 Good evening. I’m delighted to be here. First, I can honestly tell you that no event in my life this year has given me more heartfelt pleasure to prepare for than giving this speech today. As an Edinburgh Festival virgin I really didn’t know what I was letting myself in for so you will be pleased to hear I did my homework before sitting down to write a word. And the relief for all of you is that I’m not someone with an important job in broadcasting using this speech to audition for an even more important job in broadcasting. Since, in the history of the MacTaggart Lecture, no actor has ever been asked to give this speech, I also won’t be spending any time justifying why I’m giving this speech. If what I say today is responsible, then I alone am responsible for saying it. And if the MacTaggart were a political office that you actually had to run for, then the banner hanging over this lectern would be my campaign slogan and theme for today and it would read . . . “It’s the creatives, stupid.”
Now when I think of what it must have been like for this industry when the MacTaggart was first given almost 40 years ago, I imagine that the audience then probably went home at the end of the festival and shared that time honored tradition - when the entire family would gather around the television set – tuned to a certain channel, at a certain hour and watch a favorite movie (like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’). They probably felt blessed to be living in such a modern age with a 21-inch television that brought the family together.
Today when I think about how all of you might go home at the end of this festival, you can sense things are a bit different now than they were then: It's more likely that you have already recorded ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ on your DVR, as you gamely try to gather the family around the giant movie screen you’ve installed in what used to be the basement; then you can try to find out where your children are on Facebook, and might ask your partner to stop Instagramming photos of the meal they’ve just ordered from the delivery service - during the film - while Grandma desperately pins even more pictures of cats on her Pinterest page, as your son quietly and surreptitiously clears his entire browser history, and your daughter Tweets how boring ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ is because its not in 3D or even in color . . . you too will feel that warm glow of precious family time when we all come together to . . . ignore each other.
It is indeed a more complicated, modern and wonderful life, isn’t it?
A bit of cautious humor as I begin my comments today. And I want to start by sharing with you a couple experiences I have had in television that profoundly changed my view of this medium and are perhaps some of the influences that led to my doing ‘House of Cards’ with Netflix – one of the primary reasons (if not the only reason) I was asked to speak today.
Now I was lucky, my parents loved literature and the arts so we had a house full of books and I was taken to the theater often as a young child. But I was also captivated by television. We loved to sit down as a family and watch Upstairs/Downstairs or The Wild Wild West, crowded round our set for the latest episodes. Television showed me a world beyond my neighborhood, people I had never met, places I had never seen. It fired my imagination, just like theater and books had. I was not a studious kid and I struggled to find things that would command my attention and engage my ideas and energies. But I knew I loved stories and drama. I had even sat down with a school friend and drew on a napkin in a restaurant the plans for the theatre we dreamed of opening one day – a theatre we would name Trigger Street after the street my friend lived on. Well, as it turned out I did eventually get to run a theatre, the Old Vic but I saved the name Trigger Street for my production company; so I am one very lucky guy because I have been able to live out my dreams almost so perfectly now as I look back on it, that you’d think I’d made it up. But in fact, it was a teacher who had an idea how to engage with young people who saved me. You see, it turns out I was drawn to acting at a very young age and this smart drama teacher pushed me towards a workshop, where I was blessed to meet the man who would become my mentor, the great actor Jack Lemmon.
At this workshop – that was being run by Mr. Lemmon in 1974 – we had to do scenes from Juno & The Paycock, which he was performing at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. And after I finished my scene, Jack Lemmon walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “That was a touch of terrific. You should go to New York and study because you are born actor”. Mind you, I was just 13 years old.
So after graduating high school, I took Mr. Lemmon’s advice and went to NY to study at the Juilliard School of Drama. And then I later got the chance to audition to play Jack’s alcoholic son in the Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Days Journey into Night. So in 1986, 12 years after I first met him I found myself in a room (once again with Jack Lemmon) and after I finished my audition, in which we did four scenes together, once again Mr. Lemmon walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I never thought we’d find the rotten kid, but you’re it. Jesus Christ, what the hell was that”? I spent the next year working every night alongside Jack – including our run in London at the Haymarket; and he became the most important mentor, friend and father figure I could have hoped to find. We did 3 films together, ending with Glengarry Glen Ross.
Fast forward to 1990 when I was invited by Jack to sit at his table at the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award to Sir David Lean. And for those of you who haven’t heard of Sir David Lean, two things you should know; one - he directed Lawrence of Arabia and two - if you don’t know who David Lean is – you’re in the wrong business.
Anyway, I remember being on the edge of my seat as Mr. Lean dedicated his entire acceptance speech to the idea of promoting and supporting emerging talents. It turns out he was concerned, perhaps even frightened, about the film industry’s lack of commitment to developing talent and the greater and greater number of films that the studios were making that appealed only to the pulse and not to the mind. This is part of what he said that night in 1990 in front of all of Hollywood:
“I find myself thinking that nearly everything Noel Coward and I used to talk about in doing new things and nearly everything I learned in those early days seems to be contradicted today. We don’t come out of many new holes anymore. We try to go back and come out of the old ones. Parts 1,2,3 and 4 and I think its terribly, terribly sad. Okay, do the old things - Parts 1, 2 and 3 - but don’t make them a staple diet. This business lives on creative pathfinders. I terribly miss; we all miss, I think, somebody like the great producer Irving Thalberg. He had a foot in both camps: He understood us creative people. And he understood the money people. And we’re in terrible danger. I think there are some wonderful new storytellers coming up now. They are going to be our future. Please you chaps in the money department, remember what they are. I think the time has come, where the money people can afford to lose a little by taking risks with these new filmmakers”. And then Lean said the following… “I think if they give these new storytellers encouragement, we’re going to come up and up and up in the film business and find the new ideas. But if we don’t - were going to go down and down and down and lose it all - to television. Television is going to take over”. Hold onto that thought, because I’ll come back to it.
The second experience I want to tell you about is when I took my first trip to Los Angeles as a working actor in 1987; after studying at Juilliard and having begun my career in the theatre, I was offered a re-occurring role on the CBS series Wiseguy, which I immediately turned down. At this point I had only experienced two guest starring parts in episodic’s: one on The Equalizer and the other on Crime Story. The experience and the performances I gave in both these shows was, frankly, forgettable. I was an unknown theatre actor, who’d never worked in front of a camera, but I understood story, I understood arc and how to create a character and I wondered who all these guys were standing around the camera in suits; asking why my hair was that way, or why I was wearing that tie or why I was acting “that way”. These weren’t the directors or writers; they were . . . network people. “I see network people”. Sticking their fingers in creative decisions and having opinions about everything. Even though I was just starting out, I already knew that I didn’t want to have that kind of experience as a steady diet. So I turned down this offer to do Wiseguy. When my agents began to scream at me - who the hell did I think I was, etc., I picked up the phone and called Jack Lemmon.
I remembered during Long Day’s Journey Jack used to talk about when he first started out as an actor in the early days of television in the 1950’s. He often talked about those days as the “Golden Years” – we’ve all heard that term – the Golden Age. As I was being pressured to accept this role, I wondered what did he actually mean by that phrase. So I called and asked him; were you just being nostalgic or was there something different about the way television was back then? And he said to me . . . “You have to understand, kid, that television was brand new back then. It was a new medium and nobody really knew if it was going to last - so you could try anything – comedy one week, drama the next, a soap, a musical, it was terrific. It hadn’t been commercialized yet and no one knew if it was even going to be around long. There was a sense of total abandon”.
“Total abandon” . . . Now that was not a phrase I had ever associated with television: “abandon’. But now it makes sense to me when I discovered that James MacTaggart, in addition to being a dynamic creative force, was also in his personal life a volunteer parachutist in the Scottish Battalion. He chose to jump into space, willingly and bravely – literally taking a leap of faith - and his work reflects that sense of ‘abandon’, which is why we honor his memory today.
And so it struck me that this was exactly what I needed to apply – ‘total abandon’ - in order to tackle a character that would be memorable and have an experience that would be lasting. So I sat with Stephen J. Cannell and he promised I could have total freedom to create this role of Mel Profitt. So I took the part and it turned into a very satisfying experience. I did 7 episodes. And then they killed me off.
Brett Martin, in his new book ‘Difficult Men’ - a behind the scenes look at the past 15 years of what he calls the 3rd Golden Age of television - cites a very revealing story about what many creatives have had to deal with since the beginning of this medium. When the hit series Hill Street Blues was about to premier in 1980, NBC sent an internal memo to writer & show runner Stephen Bochco with a list of their concerns following a focus group testing of the program: “The most prevalent audience reaction indicated that the program was depressing, violent and confusing. Too much was crammed into the story. The main characters were perceived as being not capable and having flawed personalities. Professionally, they were never completely successful in doing their jobs and personally their lives were in a mess. Audiences found the ending unsatisfying. Too many loose ends…” - etc;
In other words, this memo was an entirely unwitting blueprint not only for what made Hill Street Blues such a historic program, but for all the shows that make up this Third Golden Age.
If those executives had had their way the road would have never been paved for The Sopranos, Rescue Me, Weeds, Homeland, Dexter, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Damages, Sons of Anarchy, Oz, The Wire, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and House of Cards.
If the list of programs I just read isn’t the most powerful and inescapable evidence that the King of television is the creatives – then I don’t know what would convince you. And our challenge now is to keep the flame of this revolutionary programming alive by continuing to seek out new talent, nurture it, encourage it, challenge it, give it home and the kind of autonomy that the past and present – of our three Golden Ages of television - has proved it deserves.
I don’t think we do enough. And like David Lean, I’m disappointed. Disappointed this industry doesn’t do more to support new talent. And just because I have achieved success in my career doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed in myself. Disappointed that I haven’t done better – that my work hasn’t always stood up to the challenge or the time. I want to do better. I want to produce better stories. I want to do better plays. I want to encourage the best of the storytellers coming up in this industry; because I believe ‘sending the elevator back down’, Jack Lemmon’s philosophy he handed down to me, is a great way we can all use success to benefit others.
And because I feel this way I wonder how many of you sitting here today also feel this way; despite how well things might be going for you, despite your success. Are you still disappointed - in your own reach, your own bar of excellence, your own ambitions, your creative courage, your own ability to use this medium - these platforms - so they bring out the best in yourself and in those you work alongside? And I wonder if you are - as I am - disappointed that this medium doesn’t reach for the highest of excellence as much as it should, or could?
I suspect more will be said about talent this weekend than anything else. We all know that it’s always been about creative talent, right? And I’m not just talking about emerging talents, because talent can come from anywhere and anyone. Although there is usually a focus on young talent, age is not a barrier to great ideas or good stories. Talent comes in all shapes and sizes; we should be open to discovering those with alot of experience and those with no experience. Now, granted it is also true that there is a good deal of undiscovered talent - that remains undiscovered for a reason. But we all know when we come across a talent who does have the ‘it’ factor and that’s what I’m talking about. Until now, those of us in the television and film business have been able to wait for the talent to find us. We had the keys to the kingdom and folks needed to bring us their stories if they wanted to find a route to an audience. But now things are changing and changing fast. Kids aren’t growing up with a sense of TELEVISION as the aspirational place for their ideas; all they know is the incredible diversity of entertainment, stories and engagement that they can find online and if they do love a show on Netflix or Apple TV you can bet they probably don’t know which network it originally aired on. So how do we find these kids?
家园 第二部分 When I took over the Old Vic a decade ago the way we did it was, we set up Old Vic/New Voices – our program to support those entering this industry as a career. And instead of separating them like many theaters, television and film programs do, training writers separately, putting directors on a specific course etc; we wanted to bring them all together in groups, because I believe that’s how drama is made.
We united writers, producers, directors and actors and helped them learn to collaborate, to develop, produce and realize their work together. It was an experiment but creatively fulfilling and has turned into such a successful one that (as an example), 28 productions at the Edinburgh Fringe this year will have been written, directed produced or performed by alumni of the Old Vic/New Voices program.
But we wanted to go further. We also had a social responsibility within our neighborhood. So we also created community plays. We went out to every school, community center/youth group and invited them in to the Old Vic. We built a creative sanctuary for kids who found it hard to communicate, where traditional education was uninspiring or who struggled in their relationships with their peers. I can only tell you how satisfying it is to hear from teachers that the boy who has never been able to concentrate in class suddenly has a sense of focus, or the girl wrestling with her identity now has the words to express how she’s feeling.
And here is my absolute conviction. This kind of program for young people is not just about whether they go into the arts. It’s not just about finding the next generation of David Leans or Stephen Bochco’s. It’s also about our society. I believe culture is not a luxury item, it is a necessity. Storytelling helps us understand each other, translate the issues of our times and the tools of theater and film can be powerful in helping young people to develop communication/collaboration skills, let alone improving their own confidence. But for those who do have a passion for the arts and have a voice - I believe that we have a responsibility to seek them out, because if we don’t they may never find their way over the walls we’ve built so effectively around our theater’s, networks and studios and we may lose their stories forever.
By the way - I said a little while ago that my first job in television was doing those episodics but that’s not actually true. Writing this speech I remembered that my very first job in television happened when I was 17. I had a summer job where I was picked up in a truck, in the San Fernando Valley in California, thrown into the back of this flatbed, with about 8 other guys and then driven out to Orange County, given a map of an area in some neighborhood and we had to go – door-to-door - to sell . . . On Subscription Television (one of the very first pay-cable systems). I kid you not but our opening line had to be, (Knock, knock, knock) . . . “Hi, have you turned On yet?” Alot of doors got slammed in my face. But little did I know that I was being innovative about television even as far back as 1976.
Now if there is anything about the character I play on ‘House of Cards’ - Francis Underwood – that suspect people might admire is that he too has embraced a sense of total abandon: abandonment to the rules. He has no allegiances, to party, to titles, to forms, to names, to labels: he doesn't care whether it’s Democrats, Republicans, ideology or conviction. What he sees is opportunity and the chance to move forward. Okay, he’s a bit diabolical but he’s also very effective.
So like Francis, I’ve come here today with no ideology – and I’m not viewing todays event as a television event. It seems to me since audiences are no longer making those kinds of distinctions, why should we? So lets throw the labels out. Or as Francis might say, “at least let’s broaden the definitions – and if we have to call ourselves anything then aren’t we all just storytellers?”
House of Cards - creatively - actually follows the model more often employed here in Great Britain. The television industry in this country has never really embraced the pilot season so looked to by the networks in the United States as a worthwhile effort. Now, of course we went to all the major networks with House of Cards and every single one was very interested in the idea… but every one of them wanted us to do a pilot first.
It wasn’t out of arrogance that David Fincher, Beau Willimon and I were not interested in having to audition the idea, it was that we wanted to start to tell a story that would take a long time to tell. We were creating a sophisticated, multi-layered story with complex characters who would reveal themselves over time and relationships that would take space to play out.
The obligation of a pilot - from the writing perspective - is that you have to spend about 45 minutes establishing all the characters, create arbitrary cliff-hangers and generally prove that what you are setting out to do will work. Netflix was the only network that said, “We believe in you. We’ve run our data and it tells us that our audience would watch this series. We don’t need you to do a pilot. How many episodes do you want to do?” And we said . . . “Two seasons?” By comparison, last year 113 pilots were made. 35 of those were chosen to go to air. 13 of those were renewed, but there’s not many of those left. This year 146 pilots were shot. 56 have gone to series and we don’t know the outcome of those yet. The cost of these pilots was somewhere between 300/400 million dollars each year. Makes our House of Card’s deal for 2 seasons look really cost effective.
Clearly the success of the Netflix model - releasing the entire season of ‘House of Cards’ at once has proved one thing - the audience wants the control. They want freedom. If they want to binge - as they’ve been doing on ‘House of Cards’ - then we should let them binge. Many people have stopped me on the street to say, “Thanks - you sucked three days out of my life”. And through this new form of distribution, I think we have demonstrated that we have learned the lesson that the music industry didn't learn: Give people what they want - when they want it - in the form they want it in - at a reasonable price - and they’ll more likely pay for it rather than steal it; well, some will still steal it, but I believe this new model can take a bite out of piracy.
We get what audiences want - they want quality. We get what the talent wants - artistic freedom. And the only way to protect talent and the quality of our work is for us to be innovative. And we also get what the corporations want, what the studios want, what the networks want - they want to make money and we need them to be profitable so they can continue to fund high quality production. They want the highest possible audiences with the greatest impact. We all get it. The challenge is can we create an environment where executives, those who live in data and numbers, are emboldened and empowered to support our mission; to have an environment with leadership that is willing to take risks, experiment, be prepared to fail by aiming higher rather than playing it safe.
It’s like Steve Jobs. Why did he continually cite Henry Ford as an inspiration? Because Ford anticipated that people didn’t know they needed and wanted a car until he invented one. And we didn’t know we needed and wanted all that Apple has brought to our lives until Steve Jobs put it in our laps and hands.
We need to be that innovative. In some ways we need to be better than the audience. We need to surprise, break boundaries and take viewers to new places. We need to give them better quality. We might not disrupt the status quo overnight, but we can mould structures at the center of our businesses; because if we really put talent at the heart of everything we do, we might just be able to have greater highs across a broader spectrum of the industry. That’s what I believe.
Bringing us right up to date we've just seen the release of the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad - capturing a huge audience and sending the media world into a frenzy of excitement about the Netflix effect. But this example also teaches us I believe another important lesson for the networks - and it’s about patience - a much overlooked quality needed in creative development and a virtue not found as a rule in network executives, hidebound for decades by pressure to find sure fire hits - quickly.
Breaking Bad was a slow starter, ratings wise and its biggest gains came after the series debuted on Netflix in late 2011. Early viewers of the network airing helped spread word, giving more awareness than those first season ratings suggested, while the Netflix streaming and clever scheduling of repeats by AMC began to win more fans and build anticipation. AMC believed in the show (even though it only got an original order of 6 or 7 episodes), because Mad Men had taught them that shows can take time to find an audience and that positive buzz and quality of audience were as important as sheer numbers when building a brand.
What Breaking Bad's rather late-in-life explosion in audience teaches us is that these shows need to be treated as assets to be nurtured, protected from the quick network trigger that can bail on a show before it has the chance to find its feet. After all - The Sopranos audience took four seasons to reach its apex, Seinfeld took a nearly five-year route to big time ratings - its first four seasons didn't even get it into the Nielson top 30.
And it requires guts to stick with a show when the numbers don't come, courage not to buckle under the pressure from the executive floor. But history proves that commitment to ideas and keeping faith in the talent has to be preferable to a pilot system that just throws everything at the wall in the hope that something sticks. If an audience is bonding to a show, however small that audience is to begin with, isn’t it worth investing the time to help it find its true potential? And if that means ripping up the rulebook and scheduling in a different way, or playing with windows to build excitement and availability, then we should be prepared to try anything.
It takes every artistic medium a number of decades to find it’s footing and be recognized as a legitimate art form. Novels were not taken seriously at first because they were not poetry. Photography was seen as inferior to painting for its first 50 years. It took decades for film to graduate from cheap nickelodeon entertainment for the masses to something considered to be a fine art (Buster Keaton is now seen as a genius, but at the time was a vaudevillian clown in the flickers).
As for David Lean - no one paid any attention to his warning in 1990. No one took him seriously that night. The film industry didn't believe that television could ever become its biggest competitor. And yet it would be only 8 years later that ‘The Sopranos’ would debut on HBO; and the tide of actors, directors and writers seeking and finding a more fertile playground than the film industry was offering would begin. I do not think anyone today - 15 years later - (in terms of character driven drama) can argue that television has not indeed taken over. So it’s really only in the past decade or so that television has finally been seen as a legitimate art form. Mostly because these pioneers in cable took chances and those stories found audiences thirsting for more sophisticated narratives & characters than the movie theaters were offering them.
The warp-speed of technological advancement - the Internet, streaming, multi-platforming - happens to have coincided with the recognition of TV as an art form. So you have this incredible confluence of a medium coming into its own JUST AS the technology for that medium is drastically shifting. Studios and networks who ignore either shift - whether the increasing sophistication of story telling, or the constantly shifting sands of technological advancement - will be left behind. And if they fail to hear these warnings, audiences will evolve faster than they will. They will seek the stories and content-providers who give them what they demand - complex, smart stories available whenever they want, on whatever device they want, wherever they want. Netflix and other similar services have succeeded because they have married good content with a forward-thinking approach to viewing habits and appetites.
The risk at this juncture is becoming too institutionalized, too schematic - thinking that something which is working NOW will necessarily work a year from now. The curse of success is that the stakes get higher. Careers are made, salaries increase, and people have reputations and track records to protect. The end result is a shift toward conservatism, away from risk-taking. And if there is one thing that overlaps between business and art, it's that in the long run, THE RISK-TAKERS ARE REWARDED.
- 复 第二部分
家园 第三部分 One way that our industry might fail to adapt to the continually shifting sands is to keep a dogmatic differentiation in their minds between various media - separating FILM and TV and MINI-SERIES and WEBISODES and however else you might want to label narrative formats. Its like when I’m working in front of a camera . . . that camera doesn’t know it’s a film camera or a TV camera or a streaming camera. It’s just a camera. I predict that in the next decade or two, any differentiation between these formats - these platforms - will fall away.
Is 13 hours watched as one cinematic whole really any different than a FILM? Do we define film by being something two hours or less? Surely it goes deeper than that. If you are watching a film on your television, is it no longer a film because you're not watching it in the theater? If you watch a TV show on your iPad is it no longer a TV show? The device and length are irrelevant. The labels are useless - except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers who use these labels to conduct business deals. For kids growing up now there’s no difference watching Avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV and watching Game of Thrones on their computer. It's all CONTENT. It's all STORY.
To say nothing of the audiences’ attention span. For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans. But if someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day, doesn't that show an incredible attention span? When the story is good enough, people can watch something three times the length of an opera. We can make NO ASSUMPTIONS about what viewers want or how they want to experience things. We must observe, adapt, and TRY NEW THINGS to discover appetites we didn't know were there. The more we try new things, the more we will learn about our viewership, the more doors will open both creatively and from a business perspective.
There has been this myth of “nobody knows anything,” that making good programming is a crapshoot. But frankly, that’s just BS. We do know how this works and it’s always been about empowering artists. It’s always been about total abandon. It was that way when Jack Lemmon began. It was that way when Grant Tinker birthed the shows of MTM Studios. It was that way when HBO threw up its hands and thought, “Why not a show about overweight, mob boss in New Jersey who kills people but also suffers anxiety attacks? Why not?”
And for all of Netflix’s big data and mathematical research, it was there when they opened the door to ‘House of Cards’. And boy we got lucky in the creative department because since Netflix had never done an original program before, they didn’t even have an office to give us notes. Can you imagine the notes we would have gotten if we’d been at a network that didn’t support us artistically…“Umm, we are very concerned about the fact that Kevin strangles a dog in the first five minutes of the show… we are afraid we’re going to lose half our audience”.
But we weren’t asked to compromise or water-down the story we wanted to tell by anyone. Not at Netflix and not at MRC, our production company. And that first scene - creatively - set the tone for the entire series.
So we know what works and the only thing we don’t know is why it’s so difficult to find executives with the fortitude, the wisdom and the balls to do it.
Because here’s the thing. And it’s good news. More than any other group gathered in the 37-year history of this lecture, you - in this hall today - are in a position to make it happen. To do work that you can both prosper from and go home proud of.
Fifteen years ago, I might not be up here speaking to you about this, because television was considered a lost cause. (Frankly, fifteen years ago I wouldn’t have been up here lecturing you because my agent would never have allowed me to even consider being on a television series after winning an Oscar, much less something “streaming.”)
To an unheard of degree we are free from that hoary old shadow cast over TV since its inception: the shadow of ratings. Not one of us will ever see a 30 share in our lifetimes. And that’s a wonderful, freeing thing. Netflix did it right and focused on all the things that have replaced the dumb, raw numbers of the Neilson world - they embraced targeted marketing and "brand" as a virtue higher than ratings.
And the audience has spoken: they want stories. They’re dying for them. They are rooting for us to give them the right thing. And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, Facebook, make fan pages, silly Jifs and god knows what else about it, engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of. All we have to do is give it to them. The prize fruit is right there. Shinier and juicier than it has ever been before. So it will be all the more shame on each and every one of us if we don’t reach out and seize it.
The question is how can we find more David Leans who will support the trailblazers; more men & women in the money departments who understand how to nurture and liberate the next level of thrilling talent, give them confidence so we can risk finding the new ideas?
Right down through the history of entertainment there has been leadership at networks, motion picture studios and theater companies - who understood the value of the creative community. Go as far back as you want and you will see the lesson there for us: whether during the heyday of the studio system in Hollywood, the group of actors & directors that formed United Artists, the hotbed of creative output at the Royal Court Theatre in the 1950’s, the great eras in BBC drama that changed the face of British television, the efforts at Granada during those years of remarkable output or the ability that HBO and its brave executives have shown in keeping the flame of artistic excellence alive in these past 15 years.
But, crucially, those in the positions of leadership at all those institutions also knew that these policies, of supporting, nurturing and protecting their creative communities, was good for business. They found a way to make the art and commerce come together and had the guts to fight for quality and for talent.
But the new generation of creatives is different. We are no longer operating in a world where someone has to decide if they are an actor, director, producer or writer - these days kids growing up on YouTube can be all these things; We have to persuade them that there is a home for them in the mainstream. But we also have to make space for those single-minded geniuses that just have it all together, and all they need is a door to be opened - the Lena Dunhams of our world.
Now I would like to read to you the names of the future storytellers and trailblazers who will make their own amazing contributions to our industry…but I can’t because we don’t know who they are yet. But you can be sure there out there. Working away online, cutting together a first student film, rehearsing in some basement theater trying to put on a new work, applying for an Arts Council grant or filming their own Funny or Die comedy sketch.
It strikes me that there is at last a space for this new wave of talent to occupy. It is not yet as large a space as it could be, but the door is ajar and the windows are open. It’s going to be up to us to decide to invite them in. Just as I wouldn’t be standing here today if Jack Lemmon hadn’t put his hand on my shoulder at the age of 13 and gave me the confidence to seek out a career as an actor.
We can all send the elevator back down. We just have to make sure the floors we live on are not so high that we can no longer hear the voices of those who want to get on and take a ride up to our level - calling out for opportunity. Wherever they want to go in this new world - television and the Internet surely cannot afford to lose them all.
History will indeed be what we make of it. With all that is at our fingertips can we still find a way to gather together and share a more Frank Capra like world? We all still crave shared experiences. But these days the water cooler moment (where people gathered at work to talk about what they’d seen on TV the night before) has vanished. We no longer live in a world of appointment viewing. So the water cooler has gone virtual, because the discussion is now online. And it’s a sophisticated, no-spoilers generation; and because of that we need never be alone with our Breaking Bad habit or our crazy obsession with Dexter. And stories are the great leveler - capable of crossing borders to unite audiences. And when there is so much conflict in our world as countries go to war, with all that pulls us apart - it is culture that unites us.
So we are still a family - a beautifully diverse global family - and the optimist in me would argue that maybe we just have to work a little harder these days to make sure we actually share these experiences together - and try not ignore each other quite so much - in this wonderful life!
So I have tried to address the big questions that might have been on your minds today and I hope that I have set the tone for the conversation as this festival gets underway. It’s been an honor and a privilege to stand before you all and give you some of my thoughts about talent, this industry and these new platforms.
And I want to leave you with the words of a man as good as any to address the nexus of commerce and art, Mr. Orson Wells - who once said: “I hate television. I hate it as much as much as peanuts. But I just can’t stop eating peanuts”
家园 youtube链接如下 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oheDqofa5NM
您的孩子学得很深啊。
家园 国内完全看不到油管（有人放到国内网站了）， http://www.56.com/u74/v_MTA2MTUxMzgz.html
麻烦您给一个英文标题，我想办法找一下。（不麻烦了，再次感谢。）
这么说您完全是听译的吗？我看文字不像啊。
其实孩子的水平还完全达不到看这个程度的英文，我只是看见您的译文很精彩，而且内容给孩子看也没什么问题。
我是根据自己的个人经验决定给孩子学习这类材料的，不需要搞懂，接受语言刺激而已。
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http://news.sky.com/story/1132310/kevin-spacey-gives-mactaggart-memorial-lecture
这里有一个完全版的，国内可以看到，但是我刷新了很多次才看上的。
为了找这个视频，我才知道搜索引擎都不一样的，同样的关键词找到的东西不是都一样的。