Kevin Spacey | James MacTaggart Lecture 2013 | EITF

well please welcome in real life the charming the funny the sexy Kevin Spacey good evening I'm delighted to be here first I can honestly tell you that no event in my life this year has brought me more heartfelt pleasure than preparing to give this speech today as an admiral festival version I really didn't know what I was getting myself into but she'll be pleased to hear that I have done my homework before sitting down and writing a single word and the relief for all of you is that I am NOT someone with an important job in broadcasting using this speech to audition for anything more important job in broadcast I read few now since in the history of the McTaggart 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 I alone am responsible for saying it and if the new tagger were a political office that you actually had to run for then the banner hanging over this lectern would not be that one it would be my campaign slogan and theme for today and that would read it's the creative stupid now when I think about what the McTaggart lecture was like 40 years ago and what it was like for this industry 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 to a certain channel at a certain time and watch a favorite movie like It's a Wonderful Life and 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 after the festival you can sense that things are a little bit different now than they were then it's more likely you've already recorded It's a Wonderful Life on your DVR as you gain we try to gather the family around the giant movie screen that you've installed in what used to be the garage then you can try to find out where your children are on Facebook you might ask your partner to stop instagramming photos during the movie of the meal that they just ordered from the delivery service while grandma desperately depends even more pictures of cats on our 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 it's not in 3d or even in color you too will feel that warm family glow precious time when we all come together to basically ignore each other it is indeed a more complicated modern and wonderful life isn't it so a bit of cautious humor as I begin my comments today and I want to share with you a couple of experiences that I've had in television that profoundly changed my view of this medium and are some of the influences that perhaps left am i doing house of cards of 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 in the arts and as a young child I got taken to the theater all the time and I was also captivated by television I mean we loved to sit as a family and wash upstairs Downstairs or the Wild West which was my personal favorite crowd around our set for the latest episodes television showed me a world beyond my own neighborhood it introduced me to people I had never met places I had never seen it fired my imagination just like theater and books had and I was not studious kid so I struggled to find things that would command my attention and engage my ideas and my energies but I knew that I loved stories and drama not even sat down with a school friend and drew on a napkin restaurant the plans for a theater that we dreamed of opening one day a theater that we would name trigger Street after the street that my friend lived on well as it turns out I did eventually get to run a theater the old bit and I saved the name trigger Street for my production company so I am one very lucky guy because I've been able to live out my dreams almost perfectly as I look back on it now that you think I would have made it up but in fact it was a teacher who I had met and he had an idea on how to engage young people and that person saved me you see it turns out that I was drawn to acting in a very young age and this smart drama teacher pushed me toward a workshop where I was blessed to meet the man who would become my mentor the great actor Jack Lemmon and at this workshop that mr. Lemmon was running in 1974 we had new scenes from Juno and the paycock which he was performing at the Mark Taper Forum at that time in Los Angeles and after I finished doing my scene Jaclyn and walked up to me put his hand on my shoulder and he said that wasn't a teacher he said no I'm a feeling that was damaged oh really you're terrific yeah yeah he was connected to the emotional stuff in the plant and this is what I've been talking about kids you should go to New York and you should study who's your a born actor now my you I was 13 years old so I'm graduating from high school I took mr. lemons advice I went to New York and I studied theater at the Juilliard School of Drama and then later I got the chance to audition to play jacks alcoholics um in the Broadway production of long day's journey into night so in 1986 12 years after I first met him I found myself in a room with Jack Lemmon and after I finished my Ellucian we had to do like four scenes together once again Jacqueline walked up to me put his hand on my shoulder and said I never thought we find the rotten kid but Jared Jesus crash what the hell was that I spent the next year working alongside Jack every night including our run here in London at the Haymarket and he became the most important mentor father figure and friend I could have ever hoped to a pad we did three films together ending with Glengarry Glen Ross which he used to like to call gene Barry Glenn Close because he was easier to say now the reason I told you two story fast forward to 1990 Jaclyn invited me to sit at his table at the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award to Sir David Lean and two things you should know one Sir David Lean directed Lawrence Moravia and two if you don't know said David Lean is you're in the wrong business now 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 talent it turns out that 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 studio's were making that appeal only to the pulse and not to the mind and this is part of what he said that night in 1990 in front of all of Hollywood I find myself thinking that nearly everything that no power 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 in many new holes anymore we try to go back and come out of the old ones parts one two three and four and I think it's terribly terribly sad I mean all right go ahead do the one two three four but don't make it a staple diet this business lives on created pathfinders and I tell us we all miss I think somebody like the great producer Irving Thalberg he had a foot in both camps he understood us creative people but he also understood the money people and we are in terrible danger I think there are some wonderful new storytellers coming up now they're going to be our future please you money 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 lien said the father I think if they give these new storytellers encouragement we're going to come up and up and up in the film business and if we don't we're going to go down and down and down and lose it all to television television will take over daily said that in 1990 and hold on to that thought because I'll come back to it the second experience I want to tell you about is when I made my first trip to Los Angeles as a working actor in 1987 after having studied at Julliard and then having begun my career as a theatre actor I was offered a reoccurring role on the CBS series wiseguy do you guys remember that show absolutely not anyway I immediately turn it down at this point now I had only experienced two guest starring parts in episodic one in the equalizer with it would remember them and the other on crime story now the experience and the performances that I gave in both of these shows was frankly forgiven I was an unknown theatre actor who never worked in front of a camera before but I understood story and I understood art and I knew how to create a character and I wondered who all these guys were standing around the cameras in suits I mean asking you know 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 of the writers these were I see Network people sticking their fingers and recreated decision and having opinions about everything and even though I was just starting out I already knew that I didn't want that kind of experience as a steady diet so I I turned down this offer devised time when my agents and management began to scream at me who the hell in fact I was I think to the phone and I called Jack Lemmon because I remember that during long day's journey tonight he often talked about when he first started out as an actor in television in the 1950s he often said that those were the golden years and we've all heard that phrase the golden age and I was being pressured to accept this role and I wondered what did he actually mean by that phrase I mean was he just being nostalgic or was there something different about the way television was back then so I called him and he said to me you have to understand kid the television was brand new back then I mean it was a new medium and nobody really knew if it was going to last so you could try edit it comedy one week drama the next musical I mean it was terrific it had been commercialized yet and no one knew it was even going to be around that long there was this sense of total abandon total abandon now that was not a phrase that I had ever associated with television but now it makes sense when I learned that James McTaggart in addition to being a dynamic creative force was also in his personal life a volunteer parachutist in the Scottish battalion I mean he was choosing willingly to jump into space 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 was exactly what I needed to apply total abandon in order to tackle a character that would be memorable and had an experience that would be lasting so I sat down Steven J Connell the producer and he promised that I would have total freedom to create this role of Mel prophet so I took the part and it turned into a very satisfying experience I did set up episodes and then they killed me off now Brett Martin in his new book difficult men a behind-the-scenes look at the past 15 years what he calls the third golden age of television sites a very revealing story about what creatives have had to deal with since the beginning of this medium when the hit series Hill Street Blues was about to premiere in 1980 NBC sentiment Journal memo to writer showrunner Steven Bochco with a list of their concerns following a focus group testing of that 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 are perceived as not being capable and having flaw personalities professionally they were never completely successful in doing their jobs and personally their lives were a mess audience Istanbul ending unsatisfying too many loose ends etc etc now in other words this memo was an entirely unwitting blueprint for not only what made hill street blues such a historic program but for all the shows that make up this third Golden Age if those executives that have their way the road would have never been paved for The Sopranos Rescue Me homeland Six Feet Under Dexter damages Sons of Anarchy Oz The Wire Tru Blood Boardwalk Empire Mad Men Game of Thrones Breaking Bad and house of cards and if the list I just rid of those programs is not the most powerful inescapable evidence that the king of television is the creatives then I don't know what would convince you you can applaud 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 give it a home and the kind of autonomy that the past and present of our three golden ages of television have proved it deserves I don't think we do it enough and I like David Lean and disappointed disappointed this industry doesn't do more to support Newtown and just because I've achieved success in my own career doesn't mean that I'm not also 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 storytellers the new ones coming up because I believe it's ending the elevator back down Jack Lennon's philosophy that he passed on to me is a great way that we can all use success to benefit others and because I feel this way I wonder how many of you sitting out there share this feeling despite how things might be going for you despite your own success are you still disappointed in your own reach your own bar of excellence your own ambitions your own creative courage your own ability to use this medium these platforms so that it brings out the best in yourself and the best and those you work alongside and I wonder if you are as I am disappointed that this medium doesn't always reach for the highest of excellence as much as it should or could I suspect that talent more will be said about talent this weekend then maybe anything else I mean we all know that that's what 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 usually there is a focus on young talent age is not a barrier to great stories and great ideas talent comes in all sizes and shapes and we should be over to those who have great experience and those with no experience now granted it's also true that there's a good deal of undiscovered talent that remains undiscovered for a reason but we all know when we come across a talent that does have the it factor and that's what I'm talking about now until now those of us in the television and film business have been able to wait for the talent to find us we have 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 that television is 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 originally aired it so how do you find these kids well when I took over the Old Vic a decade ago the way we did it was we created a program called Old Vic new voices are our program to support those entering this industry as a career and instead of separating them like many theatres and television and film programs do training writers separately or putting directors on a specific course we wanted to bring them together because I believe that's how drama is made we United writers producers directors and actors and help them learn to collaborate to develop and produce and realize their work together now it was an experiment but creatively fulfilling and it's turned into such a success that as one example 28 productions at the Edinburgh Fringe this year 28 will have been written directed produced or performed by alumni of the Old Vic New Voices program but we wanted to go for it we thought we had a social responsibility to neighborhood so we created community players we went out to every school community group 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 a traditional education was uninspiring or who struggled in their relationships with their peers and I can only tell you this it is incredibly satisfying 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 now with her own how to express herself has the words final and here's my absolute conviction this kind of program for young people is not just about whether they decide to go into the arts or not it's not just about finding the next generation of David Lean's or Steven Bochco 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 time and the tools of theatre and film can be a powerful in helping young people to develop communication collaboration skills let alone improving on their own sense of confidence and look for those who do have a passion for the Arts and have a voice I believe it is a responsibility we have to seek them out because if we don't they may never find their way over the walls that we built so effectively around our theaters our networks in our Studios and we may lose their stories forever oh by the way I said a little while ago my first job in television was doing those episodic so that's not actually true when I was writing a speech I remember that my very first job in television happened when I was 17 years old I had a summer job where we were picked up in a truck in the Santa Ana Valley in California thrown into the back of this flatbed with about eight other guys and they were driven out to Orange County and given a map area of a neighborhood and we had to go door-to-door to sell on subscription television it was one of the first paid cable systems and I kid you not but our opening line had to be high have you turned on yet yeah a lot of doors got slammed in my face I can tell you that but you know who knew I was being anybody about television even respect as far back as 1976 now if there is anything about the character that I play on house of cards Francis Underwood that I 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 titles to forms to names to labels he doesn't care whether it's Democrats and Republicans ideology or conviction what he sees is opportunity and the chance to move forward okay yeah so he's also a little diabolical but you know he's very very effective so like Francis I've come here today with no ideology I'm not viewing today's event as a television event it seems to me that since audiences are no longer making those kind of distinctions why should we so let's throw out the labels or as Francis might say at least let some problem the definition and if we have to call ourselves anything then aren't we all just storytellers now house of cards creatively actually follows the model more often employed here in Great Britain the television industry here has never really embraced the pilot season looked to buy the network's in the United States as a worthwhile effort and now look of course we went out to all the major networks with house of cards and every single one was interested in the idea but every single one wanted us to do a pilot first and it wasn't out of arrogance that david fincher and beau Willimon i were not interested in having to audition the idea it was that we wanted to start to tell the 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 need space to play out and the obligation of course to do the pilot from the writing perspective is that you have to spend about 45 minutes establishing all the characters and create arbitrary cliffhangers and basically generally prove that what you're setting out to do is going to work metrics was the only network that said we believe in you we've run our data and it tells us that our audience would watch the series what we don't need you to do a pilot how many of you want to do and we were like two seasons now by comparison last year 113 pilots were made 35 of those were chosen to go to air 13 of those were renewed but most of those are gone now and this year 146 pilots were shot 56 have gone to series but we don't know the outcome of those yet but the cost of these pilots was somewhere between 300 and 400 million dollars a year that makes our house of cards deal for two seasons look really cost-effective I know you're here Netflix I know you're here now clearly the success of the Netflix model releasing the entire season of house of cards at once proved one thing the audience wants the control they want the freedom if they want to binge as they've been doing on house of cards and lots of other shows then we should let them binge I mean I can't tell you how many people have stopped me on the street and said thanks you suck three days out of my life and through this new form of distribution we had demonstrated that we have learned the lesson the music industry didn't learn give people what they want when they want in the form they want to end at a reasonable price and the more likely pay for it rather than steal it well some will still steal it but I think we can take a bite out of piracy all right so we get what the audience is one 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 to be innovative and we also get what the corporation's want what the studio's want what the network's one they want to make money and we need them to be profitable so that they can continue to fund high-quality production they want the highest possible audiences with the greatest impact we get it we all get it the challenge is can we create an environment where executives who live in data and numbers are emboldened and empowered to support our mission to have an environment that leadership will take risks willing to experiment be prepared to fail any 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 that they needed or wanted a car until he invented one and we didn't know that we needed and wanted all that Apple has brought our lives and so Steve Jobs put it in our laps or put it in our hands we need to be that innovative and 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 and better quality we might not disrupt the status quo overnight but we can mold structures at the center of our businesses because if we really truly put a talent at the heart of everything we do we might just be able to have greater highs across a broader spectrum of this industry that's what I believe you guys are so quiet for a while I'm very glad you do that now bringing us right up today 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 a very important lesson for the networks and it's about patience a much overlooked quality needed in creative development and not virtue found by a rule and hype executives hidebound for decades by pressure to find surefire hits quickly Breaking Bad was a slow starter ratings wise and his biggest gains came after the series debuted on Netflix in late 2011 and early viewers of the network airings helped spread were giving more awareness than those first season rating numbers suggested while the Netflix streaming and clever scheduling of repeats by AMC began to win more fans and build anticipation AMC believed in that show even though they only originally gave it something like 6 or 7 episode order because Mad Men had taught them that shows can take time to find an audience and positive buzz and quality of audience were as important as sheer numbers when building a brand and while Breaking Bad's rather late in life explosion and 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 had a chance to find its feet I mean after all The Sopranos audience took four seasons to reach its apex Seinfeld took a nearly five-year route to the big-time ratings its first four seasons didn't even make it into the Nielsen top 30 and it requires guts to stick with a show when the numbers don't come in curry courage to not buckle under the pressure from the executive floor but history proves their commitment to ideas and keeping faith in the talent has to be preferable to a pilot system that just throws everything up on the wall and hope that something sticks if the audience is bonding to a show no matter how 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 rule book 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 its footing and to find it's being recognized as a legitimate art form novels weren't taken seriously first because they weren't poetry photography was seen as inferior to painting for its first 50 years it should have decades for film to graduate from cheap Nickelodeon entertainment for the masses to something considered a fine art form Buster Keaton is now seen as a genius but at the time was a lovely clown in the flickers a nestra 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 the television could ever become its biggest competitor and yet it would only be eight years later that The Sopranos would debut on HBO and the tide of actors writers directors and producers seeking and finding a more fertile playground in the film industry was offering them would begin and I do not think that 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 last 15 years that television has finally been seen as a legitimate artform mostly because these pioneers and cable took chances and those stories found audiences thirsting for more sophisticated narratives and characters than the movie theatres were offering them in the warp speed of technological advancement the internet streaming multi-platform happens to a coincided with the recognition of television as an art form so you had this incredible confluence of a medium just coming into its own as technology for that medium is drastically shifting studios and networks who ignore either shift whether the increasing sophistication of storytelling 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 and they will seek out 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 forward-thinking approach to viewing habits and appetites and the risk at this juncture is becoming too institutionalized too schematic thinking that something that's working now will work a year from now the curse of success is that the stakes get higher careers are made salaries increase people have reputations and track records to protect and the end result is a shift toward conservatism away from risk-taking and if there's one thing that overlaps between business and arts it's that in the long run the risk takers are rewarded and one way that our industry might fail to adapt to the continually shifting sands is to keep a dogmatic differentiation in their minds between the various media separating film TV miniseries webisodes or however you want to label these narrative formats it's 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 stringing camera it's just a camera so I predict that in the next decade or two any differentiation between these platforms will follow it is 13 hours watch this one cinematic hole really any different than a film do we define film as being something two hours or less surely it goes deeper than that if you're watching a film on your television is it no longer a film because you're not watching in the theater if you watch TV show and your iPad is no longer a TV show the device and the length are irrelevant the labels are useless except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers who use these labels to conduct business deals but for kids growing up now there's no difference watching avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV or watching Game of Thrones on their computer it's all content it's just story to say nothing of the audience's attention span for years particularly with the other end of the internet people griping about you know lessening attention spans but if someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day doesn't that show an incredible attentions man because when the story is good enough people can watch something three times the length of an opera what did you last weekend we can make no assumptions about what viewers want or how they want to experience things we must observe adapt and try things to discover appetites we didn't know we're there the more we try things the more we will learn about viewership the more doors will open both creatively and from a business perspective you know and there's been a lot of myth it's been around for a while that nobody knows anything that making good programming is just a crapshoot but frankly that's just we do novice 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 badly when grant tinker birth the shows of the MTM studios it was that way when HBO true of its hands and thought well why not a show about an 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 open the door to house of cards and boy we got lucky in the creative Department 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 that we would have gotten if we've been with a network it didn't support us artistically we're a little concerned that can strangles a dog in the first five minutes of the series we're 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 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 is it 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 time and any other group gathered in the 37 year history of this lecture you in this hall today are in position to make it happen to do both work that you can prosper from and go home proud of now 15 years ago I might not admit up here talking to about this because television was considered a lost cause Oh frankly 15 years ago I would've been up here lecturing you because my agent would have never allowed me to do a TV series after winning an Oscar let alone something streaming and to an unheard-of degree we are finally free from that hoary old shadow cast over television since its inception the shadow of ratings not one of us in this room will ever see a 30 share in our lifetimes and it's a wonderful freeing thing Netflix did it right and focused on the things that have replaced the dumb raw numbers of the Nielsen 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're 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 gifs and God knows what else about engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of and all we have to do is give it to them the prize fruit is right there shinier and juicier than it's ever been before so we'll 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 Lean's who will support the Trailblazer more men and women in the money departments who understand how to nurture liberate the next level of thrilling talent give them confidence so we can risk finding the new ideas and write down through the history of entertainment there have 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 the lessons there for us to see whether it was during the heyday of the Hollywood studio system the group of actors and directors that created United Artists the hotbed of creative extraordinary work out of the Royal Court Theatre in London in the 1950s the great eras of BBC drama that changed the face of British television the efforts had grown on television during those years of remarkable output there and the ability that HBO and it's brave executives have shown in keeping the flame of artistic excellence alive these past 15 years but crucially those in the positions of leadership at all of 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 art and commerce come together and have the guts to fight for quality and for talent but the new generation of creatives is different we're no longer operating in a world where someone has to decide if they're an actor writer director or producer these days kids growing up on YouTube can be all these things and 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 seem to have it all together and all they need is a door to be open the Lina domes of our world now I would like to read to you the names of the future storytellers who will make their own thrilling contributions to our industry but I can't because we don't know who they are yet but you can be sure they're out there working away online cutting together a first student film rehearsing in some basement theater trying to put on our new work applying for an Arts Council grant filming their own Funny or Die comedy sketch we're standing on this stage doing stand-up at this festival and it strikes me that there is at last a space for this new wave of talent to occupy it's not nearly as large a space as it could be but the door is ajar and the windows are open and it's going to be up to us to decide to invite them in just as I would not be standing here today or have had the career that I have had 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 floor is we live on are not so high that we can no longer hear the voices of those who just want to get on and come up 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's at our fingertips can we still find a way to gather together and share a more frank capra like world we all still create shared experiences but these days the water crew a moment where people gathered at work to talk about what they seen on TV the night before has been we no longer live in a world of appointment viewing so the water cooler has gone virtual because now the discussion is online and it's a sophisticated no spoilers generation and because of that we 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 so much that pulls us apart it is culture that unites us so we are still a family a beautifully diverse global family and the optimist to me would argue that maybe we just have to work a little bit harder these days to make sure we actually share these experiences together and try not to ignore each other quite so much in this wonderful life so I try to address the big questions that might have been on your mind today and I hope that I have set the tone for the conversation as this festival gets underway it has been an honor and privilege to stand before you and give you some of my thoughts about talent this industry and these new platforms and I want to leave you with the words the man as good as any to address the Nexus of Commerce and art mr. Orson Welles who once said I hate television I hate it as much as peanuts but I just can't stop eating peanuts [Applause]

Channel: Edinburgh Television Festival

Views: 118,138

Rating: 4.9713054 out of 5

Keywords: Kevin Spacey (SNL Actor), Edinburgh International Festival (Film Festival), James MacTaggart (Film Director), kevin spacey, edinburgh festival, television (invention), edinburgh tv festival, the tv festival, house of cards (tv program), house of cards, edinburgh tv festival 2018, mactaggart lecture

Id: oheDqofa5NM

Length: 46min 52sec (2812 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/culpfiction]

I love the idea of throwing out distinction between writers, actors, camera operators, directors... Television, film, miniseries, etc.

We're all content creators, storytellers, and at the end of the day, any new piece we bring to audiences is all about building a brand.

Now I have to go watch house of cards!

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks! I heard the pull-out quotes but the whole talk was really good.

[u/[deleted]]

Pretty inspiring. I like the idea of media becoming synonymous. Its good to see an actor who realizes all the distinctions between Film, Television, Netfix, Youtube, ect are all pointless. We're all just trying to tell stories.

[u/fameistheproduct]

Great talk. thanks for posting.

[u/[deleted]]

That was amazing. One of the best talks I've seen on any subject.

[u/ohbehavekenobi]

Awesome. A little more optimistic than the Spielberg one.

[u/drphildobaggins]

Cheers that was a fantastic talk.

I think one of the most powerful things he said is how good drams have a following that blockbuster movies could only dream of. Very bloody true.

[u/Pizza_as_fuck]

After just beginning my first ever film related job out of college, this really really inspired me. Thanks for sharing.

[u/[deleted]]

Someone else said that content providers have to compete with free.

I just bought the two new Star Trek movies as a double feature for 25$. A great price for two movies and the connivence of iTunes.