Amazon Studios’ Roy Price On Developing for ‘The New TV’

CANNES: Roy Price, the director of Amazon Studios, shared the company’s approach to developing kids’ and entertainment content for “the new TV,” a process driven by customers and creators, in a MIPCOM keynote that was followed by a Q&A with World Screen’s Anna Carugati.

Amazon offers streaming subscription services in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. In April last year, it set up Amazon Studios to begin developing original content for its users, to be deployed on Amazon Prime, Amazon Instant Video and LOVEFiLM alongside licensed content like Under the Dome and Vikings. “We act as a studio at times, we also do co-pros, so we’re super flexible,” Price said.

The approach was to “develop [content] in a way that took advantage of the realities of technology in the contemporary world. In Seattle I work in a building called Day One. With all the changes we saw in the 20th century—cars, planes, penicillin, disco—we’re going to see equal change in the 21st century in the digital world and elsewhere. The name of the building signifies that we’re just on day one of the Internet.”

In coming up with a new development approach, Price said there were three trends to consider. “One is that it’s so much cheaper to create than it used to be. Number two, it’s so much easier to collaborate, It’s easier to find other people with common interests. And it’s so much easier to communicate. People share opinions, they share, tweet, like, retweet… There’s a flood of information and opinion that is always accessible, which affects the velocity of enthusiasm. In today’s world, ideas and enthusiasm are more contagious than ever before, which can lead to a democratization of everything. The individual has more power than ever. In TV, we see a move from top-down, hierarchical, expert-driven processes to a creative bottom-down world. This changes the world for artists. As Patton Oswalt recently said in Montreal: ‘Our careers don’t hinge on somebody in a plush office deciding to aim a little luck in our direction. There are no gates. They’re gone.’ It’s a much more open world.”

He continued, “What we want to do in TV is devise a process that is driven as much as possible by customers and creators themselves. We facilitate this process.”

Price says that Amazon Studios takes its cues from customer preferences, but he cautioned about being too dependent on analytical data—“it can be too simplistic.” He also stressed the need to “perceive the difference between a show that is moderately popular with everyone versus a show that a smaller group of people passionately love. In the digital on-demand [world], the latter show, where you have some people that have a passion for it, is much more valuable than the other show.”

The kind of content Amazon Studios is developing “will be watched mostly on a TV, but is accessed differently, is not scheduled, does not have commercials, people will commonly watch 3-4 in a row… The new TV is going to be a bit more like the novel used to be. The new TV idiom will be defined by a mix of people with experience in more traditional TV storytelling and people who came up in the new way.”

The studio has an “open system for ideas,” he explained. “We’ve received 5,000 TV pilots, 20,000 movie scripts. We’ve received submissions from 111 countries so far.” It also gets “large-scale multinational feedback from all the pilots.”

Price went on to note that “Game-changing shows are also rule-breaking shows. Groups of smart executives working together tend to define some rules; they have to. They’re helpful 99 percent of the time. But the game changers are often rule breakers…. Rule sets often filter [the game changers] off. Audience members don’t have rule sets. We think that will be very helpful.”

Of the 5,000 pilot scripts submitted, 14 pilots were produced, and 11 more are in the works. “That’s a lot of filtering that doesn’t have a ton of customer input. So hopefully in the future we’ll have a much higher percentage of incoming scripts to be visualized. What audience members need is something visual.”

To assist this effort, Amazon Studios has developed a Storyteller tool that helps creators storyboard. “What if in the future, instead of producing 25 pilots a year, we could have 25,000 pilots a year?”

Following the keynote, Price sat down for an interview with Anna Carugati, the group editorial director of World Screen. She began by asking about the development process at Amazon Studios differs from that of traditional broadcasters. On the issue of global feedback on pilots, he said, “It’s different when you ask 1 million people around the world about a show versus 50 people in Tarzana. You can get more out of it.”

On scheduling, he said, “[On a linear network] there’s a lot of analysis that needs to go into the exact sequence of shows, what day they come out, and having one thing lead into another. That is not part of the new world. Each show is more of an island and you have to reach out to customers specifically for that show. It’s not about sequence. People have to reach out and discover that particular show. We don't care that people have to watch it on day one. The marketing and PR strategies become very different. If the day before you launch a show the demand is zero, that’s not a problem. We don't care if people watch it on day one or day five or day 30, so long as they eventually discover it and they stay engaged.”

On the kids’ programming front, Price noted, “Now we’re getting into 6 to 11. At one point it was just preschool. We want to come up with a great, fun preschool lineup that is educational but also entertaining and has certain experiences around the show and is really able to engage kids. The next round of pilots we’ll have four 6-11 shows.”