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Thursday 12 April 2012

What did the smartest-guys-in-the-room have to say? (2012 industry predictions)

Proving that successful reunions aren't just the preserve of grown up boy bands and brit pop veterans, 3 year's worth of former Fast Trackers got together recently for the schemes first official alumni event.  With speakers - and wine! - generously provided by Deloitte!

It's great to see people we identified back then as ones to watch, are now well and truly established in the industry.  

We've re-branded Fast Track as 'Ones To Watch' because that's who We select on the scheme each year -The new wave of TV's talent.

People like 2009 alumnus David Chikwe. Here are his thoughts on the evening:

One To Watch (nee Fast Track). Arriving at Deliotte for the first Fast Track Alumni meeting and I’m struck with how quickly time flies in TV (Moi: Fast Track Class of 2009). People talk about a week in politics, but they should try working in TV.

In 2009 James Murdoch was the fiery heir apparent in his MacTaggart and now, well, not so much. My own case of having gone from Script Editor to Development Producer with two feature films in funded development and series commission with CBBC proved the point in the opposite direction. But the Murdoch lesson of what goes up, must come down is one to never forget.



And what did the smartest-guys-in-the-room at Deloitte have to say? There were some interesting factoids eg: overall, the entertainment industry loses money, which seems counter-intuitive given that we're all consuming more media, but unsurprising when you witness sure-fire flops like ITV's Titanic or Disney's John Carter. It's an art, not a science.
Scarily, one universal is that the pace of progress is just going to increase - something about Moore’s law, though I suspect the next crop of One's To Watch won't have a problem keeping up.
Interestingly, the one thing absent from Deloitte's predictions is the very thing that drives the industry: creativity. Deloitte's narrow focus on metrics and technological change failed to factor in the wild card of artistic endeavour.
So while it appears that the future has already arrived and we're living it, the creative imperative remains something that resists the neat cells of an excel spreadsheet or powerpoint presentation.



For more read:
 http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/tmt/predictions/index.htm
David Chikwe  
Development Producer.



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