He exists to prove me right

I'm beginning to wonder if my producer reads my blog and then adapts himself to prove my points. The very day I write about undervaluing talent, he comes in with a show pitch from, well, some guy. I don't know if he's really a gentleman of the road or not but what I saw doesn't exactly instill confidence.

It was effectively a collection of walk cycles.

They were nice walk cycles but rarely do walk cycles make a whole show. It may well happen. But it's rare.

There's a strange reasoning at work that I don't quite understand. Or perhaps it's a total absence of reason. My own personal projects aside, I've seen a couple of guys in the studio make well thought out pitches with some good ideas and stories, albeit stories that would need considerable development, and I've seen the producer find reason after reason why he can't fund the show. No, that's not right. It's that it would be difficult to fund the show. I've been around long enough to know that it's difficult to fund any show so some of his reasoning I can understand.

But then something comes in that is totally underdeveloped and really, with all due respect (ie. next to none), is pants, and suddenly the producer is gripped by what is not enthusiasm, but fear.

Fear that he could say no to something that may go on to be a hit.

And maybe I've just hit on the difference - he already has the guy in the studio. Perhaps he feels that person won't go anywhere else. He owns us. But that's not true. I know a person employed in this studio developed a show concept with a rival studio on the side and it went on to get made, has launched and, who knows, could turn out to be rather successful.

So... why does it bother me?

Well, purely for selfish reasons. I have some things I want to develop, see a structure here for providing the means to do that and yet encounter nothing but walls. So I feel I have to be underhanded and bring pitch documents with me in case I can steal some contacts along the way and that doesn't actually feel right. It actually preys on my conscience. Like I feel a sense of duty to this man who is bringing in walk cycles from vagrants.

And I do feel a sense of duty.