Korean council facilitates creativity, collaboration, and clarity

The Arcadia Ballroom at Loew's Hotel in Santa Monica held an enraptured audience last night for "Creative Convergence for Collaboration," a presentation of the Korea-U.S. Vision Council. The gathering was an official part of fall, 2009 Digital Hollywood Forum. The Visual Effects Society hosts the Forum twice per year, and the confab typically attracts visual effects producers, supervisors, and technologists from around the globe. Interestingly, the Korean "Convergence" event yesterday related less to animation and effects contractors; instead, the program targeted content creators. The seminar proved enlightening on the subjects of digital distribution, Korean content development, and international media relations. So, if said effects contractors ever contemplated creator careers, then they probably benefited from the presentation!

Chris Marlowe, a Los Angeles-based digital media consultant and founding member of the Korea-U. S. Vision Council, moderated the evening. Chris acknowledged her fellow Council members and then introduced Marty Shindler, Council co-founder and CEO of the Shindler Perspective, Inc. Shindler shared his thoughts on the forward movement of Korea-U. S. co-productions and other collaborative media efforts.

The first featured speaker was Gabriel Marano, Vice President of Digital Programming for Fox Television Studios. Marano spoke at length about 15 Gigs, a small, relatively new division of Fox TV. 15 Gigs is a television incubator initiative that tests new properties on the web and on other new media platforms. The experimental department has been very pro-active in seeking international partners. Marano cited local language production in Argentina and Mexico (with Televisa, for instance) as examples of same. He also mentioned that Bogotá, Columbia posed as Los Angeles in one recent production, thereby emphasizing the openness of Fox to consider international co-conspirators in many incarnations!

The second speaker was Jean Chung, co-founder of the Korea-U. S. Vision Council and President of Better Communications, Inc. Chung was the first of four authentically Korean voices of the session. She applied concepts from Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind to the current state of Korea-U. S. media joint ventures. The conclusion she drew was that content is king, relevancy is queen, and creativity is the wizard that manipulates everyone behind the scenes.

Third in the speaker lineup was independent film producer and e-Pictures CEO Paul Yi. Yi enthralled the audience with clips of three festival circuit, live-action feature documentaries about different aspects of North Korea: The Game of Their Lives; A State of Mind; and Crossing the Line.

An unscheduled guest appeared near the end of the festivities. Sung Lee, Director of Strategic Planning for Radio Korea Media Group, spent a few minutes explaining the growing appeal of his company's Arirang channel, Korea's premiere multi-lingual television network. Arirang has established a branch office in Los Angeles and is seeking opportunities to develop new programming in English for worldwide consumption.

Finally, a bubbly Tammy Kim of MBC (and its subsidiary MBC America) presented the proverbial crown jewel in this Korean network's broadcast schedule and DVD library. The smash hit sophisticated soap opera The Great Queen Seondeok boasts a huge fan base with the largest concentration of viewers in Nigeria. The plot is based on the true story of Korea's first female monarch. The cliffhanger clip which played last night reminded viewers that pulpy period drama a la The Tudors is not simply a western phenomenon. Clearly, passionate relationships, political intrigue, fancy costumes, and big hair comprise a universal language.

Attendees of the festivities left the hotel with a new sense of clarity about Korea, an understanding of the future of digital distribution, and most important, heavy gift bags full of Korean food and drink from Jay One, Inc. Among the esteemed guests were comedian/actor Grace Fraga, actor and voice over artist Hank Garrett, production designer Alan Muraoka (Little Miss Sunshine), Patty Mayer, Esq., real estate moguls Dawn and Gary Bluman, and strategic communications consultant Rochelle Winters.