Why the web is Perth Television's Dream.
By George Wilkinson.
Online television is a media frontier. Like previous technological shifts in the media/entertainment industries, this forum is accessible to start-ups. There exists broad access to a spectrum of producers and the industry is likely to grow and proliferate. When all is said and done, a number of dominant production companies (experts in a new field) will be left standing. Furthermore, the profile of Perth nationally and internationally, is ripe for revolution.
Ego Creative is one of the few production companies based in Perth that is directly involved in WA-born television. Our expertise and the experience we offer to our cast and crew is unlike most other offers in Perth. Despite these noble strides, competition from larger television networks is unsurmountable; so much so that our hosting network, Access 31, has in recent history, questioned its viability in the future. Online television looks good to Ego Creative.
For any budding industry, innovation is key and Perth is predisposed to a potent sort of innovation due to favourable natural and social circumstances. While a comparison to early Los Angeles as geographically and culturally (a fellow dominant west coast city) similar to Perth seems casual, many of the same industrial developments that emerged in early Los Angeles and its home state, California, are unfolding in WA as well. The comparison is in fact not casual, but a comparison between two similar organisms at different ages (Los Angeles being older).
The film industry in Los Angeles first emerged due to Southern California's favourable climate. Logistically it was easier to make movies in Hollywood. At the same time, Los Angeles was also isolated from what were far more dominant players in media and entertainment. Many of the "innovations" used in early Hollywood were by definition illegal to the heads of New York media. Some legal skirmishes sent Hollywood producers to Mexico for brief periods of time. The state of California and federal government of the USA however looked after Californian innovators mainly because their craft was extremely popular. The rules changed in favour of the innovators.
Perth experiences a similar sort of isolation. Isolation in California translated into freedom; the freedom to develop new practice in industry free from overbearing competition. Online television offers great freedom in addition to the fact that it will never be cheaper or more easily accessible than it is today.
It was not just technological innovation that sold Hollywood to Americans and later the world. A combination of favourable circumstances helped the city of Los Angeles to rise to fame.
The illusion of and imagined California were fuel behind the popularity of Hollywood made movies. People not only watched movies for the content, but also to catch a glimpse of a movie star, the California lifestyle (assumed to be wealthy) or the famed California scenery. Made famous through photos and writing following the mineral boom, motion pictures gave Americans the opportunity to watch something most of them had only heard about; CALIFORNIA. This word, at the time a new word, one that brought about little preconceived notion beyond ‘frontier,' ‘mining' and ‘opportunity', became associated with the entertainment industry that made it famous. This enhanced the ability of producers to create a California for audiences that did not necessarily reflect the reality of the place.
In many ways the Californian film industry made Hollywood the celebrity in order to empower the industry in general. This reveals an important and unexpected ingredient to the success of Hollywood; cohesion.
While companies within similar and comparable contexts compete, they also may share similar rivals. Companies in such circumstances should join forces to combat all shared rivals before turning upon one another. The Perth online-television industry FIRST requires cohesion and cooperation. There is enough success to go around, and definitely enough labour to go around, to ensure the survival, growth, and success of the industry we intend to pioneer.
George Wilkinson is Ego's Business Development Manager. To discuss this article email george@egocreative.com.au
George's Blog is located at www.perthection.com