I am a big Entourage fan and I’ve watched every single episodes of the series and can’t wait for the next season to start. If you haven’t watched Entourage before, it is ultimately a show about male friendship. Like Sex and the City (if you can see pass the sex and talk of sex), it is a show less about sex than one about female friendship.
Anyway, I was looking at some of my videos captured at the 2008 nextMedia and Banff, I realized I haven’t posted the following videos interview of Doug Ellin, creator and exec producer of Entourage by author Bill Carter. I figure some Entourage fans might find the videos interesting to watch.
For 2008, I had to cut my Banff attendance short and came back to Calgary for another assignment so I missed a few a few sessions that I would love to have attended (and there were also a few sessions that had a time conflict with other interesting sessions that happened at the same time).
As a big fan of the original Sex and the City TV series (which I watched every single episode the day it aired in Canada), I was a bit sad to give up my chance to meet Kim Cattrall (the one and only Samantha Jones of Sex and the City). Here is a video clip of Kim being interviewed at Banff. And some newspaper coverage of her in Calgary Herald here, here and here, and from Canadian Press here.
Jon Plowman was at Banff 2008 to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as former head of BBC comedy. I am watching one of Jon‘s executive produced comedy series on DVD (season one of “The Vicar of Dibley”) and it is still absolutely brilliant 14 years later. And Ricky‘s “The Office” is another master piece that Jon executive produced and commissioned. Jon had no idea who I was, but I took time to shake his hands and congratulated him on his lifetime achievement award.
Six Feet Under & Swingtown creator Alan Poul was interviewed at Banff and he also gave a Banff master class which I attended and found insightful.
Now, here are some pearls at Banff 2007 that you might enjoy,
Interview/chat with the veteran Canadian actor Colm Feore (an hour long) – A great chat. And the Q&A at the end was absolutely wonderful. (note: Colm will be part of the up coming season of 24.) – P.S. I am so glad that I finally got to watch this. I had to miss it last year because of a schedule conflict. Great stuff.
July 18, 2016 Update: I found this brief award acceptance speech by Jon. A 2002 Guardian article “Office to return, says BBC boss” featuring Jon’s comment.
I first chatted with Jane Mote (Director of Lifestyle & Factual programming, UKTV) at 2007 Banff (here is a video). As I have been an admirer of the creativities from UK, and in particular UKTV, so it was particularly nice to chat with Jane again this year to get an update of the cool happenings at UKTV. We also talked about the bold, imaginative, and genius in the rebranding of UKTV G2 to Dave. In my humble opinion, if there is such a thing as an instant Lovemark, I think Dave (with its great brand and contents) qualifies as a Lovemark for many people in UK.
For more info on the rebranding and freeview launch of Dave, see Dave’s Wikipedia page. The jump of the TV viewership and the power of rebranding is just so cool, a great lesson for us all.
I’ve been a fan of David Shore‘s award-winning House (starring English actor Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House) since season one. So I was really excited when David Hoselton, Producer of House, agreed to an interview with me with me at Banff. You see, the two Davids are actually buddies since their University of Toronto Law School days (both LLB 1982, see this insightful UT Magazine article about David Shore) so it was my great pleasure to talk to David Hoselton.
Here is my interview with Paul Bloore (Idee’s Founder, CTO & Inventor). Paul has worked on the underlying technologies for years and is one really insightful inventor and businessman.
I am definitely going to pay close attention on the latest development at Idée inc. It is amazing to note that, “Idée’s visual search solutions are the foundation for some of the world’s leading imaging firms, including Adobe Systems Inc., and the most widely adopted solutions in the stock image industry.” They even have Idée Labs for their new new stuff (like Google Labs).
Food and wine are waiting for me so I am going to keep this post short.
* Attended the CRTC breakfast and saw the new chair and met some people. I will blog a little later.
* Finally met Richard Florida in person and listened to his really good speech. Some of the contents he covered were similar to the ones he delivered in these Google Talks. Will blog more later.
* Attended a wonderful master class by Alan Poul (executive producer of the new series “Swingtown” and the acclaimed “Six Feet Under”). I will blog a lot more later.
* Conducted an real insightful interview with David Hoselton, producer of House, one of my favourite show. Will post my chat with him later. I will also be attending his master class tomorrow, so stay tune.
* Attended a wonderful master class by Doug Ellin, executive producer of Entourage, one of my favourite show.
OK, thats all for today. I am looking forward to my food and wine now. :)
P.S. I am going to conduct one more interview tomorrow and attend David Hoselton’s master class and a few sessions. Then I will be heading home. Will blog afterwards.
* Finished my last interview last night at 10pm. It was a great chat but I was completely exhausted.
* 7:30am – 8:30 attended the comScore Media breakfast and presentation. Got to meet and chat with some interesting people in table. As one of the fellow breakfaster is a lawyer, I bought up issues (release forms, E & O insurance) bought out by the film Redacted and the legal troubles of Borat (release forms). (big smile)
* Canada’s Hotest Digital Media Innovators. CEOs from four different companies companies presented. Afterwards, I had the great pleasure to interview Leila Boujnane (CEO of idee) and Paul Bloore (CTO of idee). The tech geek side of me was particularly fascinated by a chance to meet and talk to Paul, the inventor of the technology. I will post my interviews and a longer post later. By the way, I blogged about their cool technology in Apr 2007.
* Got a chance to preview the first two episodes of the controversial CBS new show “Swingtown” last night. I love the acting of Molly Parker (I quite like her in Deadwood and I first found her great acting in the controversial Kissed) and Jack Davenport (his UK original Coupling is a must see for edgier comedy lover).
* I will get a chance to attend a master class given by Alan Poul, executive producer of “Swingtown“, so I will blog more later.
* Quick note for tomorrow morning’s breakfast. I will attend a breakfast with the Chairperson of CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein. From what I have heard of Konrad, I know I am in for a treat of a well prepared and straight talking speech.
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P.S. I wished there were more sessions available in nextMEDIA so I can pick ones that fits my interest better and I can blog about.
And if you are really keen and have nothing better to do (smile), then check out another hour long video of Rich speaking at Google, Headquater in CA (essentially the same speech but with a different set of Q&A starting at 48:45).
P.S. On a personal note, Rich reminds me of some of the great U of Toronto professors that I had. Great job in bringing Rich to Toronto. And I am looking forward to listening to Rich live at Banff World TV Festival.
P.P.P.S. I wonder if Rich gets some money from this BMW ad? (smile) By the way, I think I actually first read about Rich here in this UT magazine article.
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