Climate change is going to affect every aspect of business, and we need to start planning for the negative impacts. How will increasing wildfires and droughts affect production in Southern California? Will schedules need to be longer to take into account inevitable delays? Or will we move to distributed production and virtual studios to eliminate some of the physical logistics? How much harder will it be to insure productions? And how are you going to tell your most bankable star that they can’t take private jets any more? The silver lining in this horrifying cloud is the opportunity for positive transformation. We know we can’t keep doing business as usual. We can complain and mope about it – and it’s natural that a lot of us will, for a while – or we can start drawing up our wish list for how we want our businesses and our industry to operate. The pandemic has been a reminder that tragedy can also open up cracks in tired methodologies and allow in new ways of working to create the content we love. In my new post at Albert, I look forward to continuing my relationship with you all and doing all I can to help you create and distribute film, TV and games that are not only models of zero-carbon, sustainable production, but also delight and inspire audiences everywhere. In the meantime, I’m excited for Verity to jump into the captain’s chair. She’s going to be great, and I’m excited to watch her take FEED to the next level.
We’ve been fortunate in being able to leverage Bright’s formidable assets as a full-service agency. In addition to great design, Bright develops brands and builds content for customers across multiple industries. This includes branding ideation, website and app development and even creating major retail spaces for companies like Fujifilm. Bright also recently acquired a signage business, which is allowing it to help customers with everything from office design to trade show booths. As we collaborate more closely than ever with our partners, particularly around conferences and trade shows, we’re looking forward to using these assets in creative ways, sitting down with media business colleagues and finding ways to help them with some of the best content creation and brand design teams in the industry. WHAT’S NEXT? Under Verity Butler, FEED will become a resource for an industry on the cusp of some major changes. There are social,
economic and business shifts happening, which will impact everything from the bottom line, to the kinds of content we create, to how audiences engage with stories and information. But the biggest challenge ahead – one that affects everything else – is the environmental crisis and the mechanisms fuelling it. Whatever scary things you’ve been told about climate change, I can assure you – and I’ve looked at the science – the truth is even more frightening. The massive release of greenhouse gases over the past century looks like a slow-motion disaster to us humans, but from the planet’s perspective it’s as abrupt and deadly as a shotgun blast to the chest. All that carbon suddenly released into the atmosphere in a handful decades – kaboom! – in geological time it’s half an eye blink. We’re all about to find ourselves in a rather difficult position. The business mechanisms we have relied on to feed and clothe ourselves, to pay for our kids’ university and vacations, to transform that
kitchen-table start-up into a major global business, are going to kill us. How do we change lanes and let go of the very things that appear to have brought us so much success? Or could it instead be that there’s a real opportunity here not to just give up, but upgrade to something better?
HOW DO WE LET GO OF THE VERY THINGS THAT APPEAR TO HAVE BROUGHT US SUCCESS?
@feedzinesocial
Powered by FlippingBook