Veteran producer and executive Chris DeFaria, whose career has ranged from serving as a producer on Oscar-winning “Gravity” to president of Dreamworks Animation, believes the emergence of the creator economy and the ability to harnessing new technology represents “enormous opportunity” — and that drove the launch of Chronicle Studios, a new type of entertainment company that he recently co-founded with “fast access to capital,” AI tools and a unique development model.
He shared the company strategy, as well as his thoughts on the state of the business, Wednesday at film and media confab FMX in Stuttgart, Germany.
“It’s kind of chaos right now in Hollywood, it’s really difficult to sustain the model,” he admitted, noting that production is expensive, and this makes studios more risk averse. “That’s leading to really just a paucity of original content and it’s a struggle for filmmakers.”
With Chronicle, he explained, “we’re trying to invert the development process for IP” by looking at where audiences are starting to engage (such as through social media), what they like about specific content, and then taking “baby steps” in development. Chronicle is also building its own set of AI-driven tools to support this effort. “Our AI is not in producing or animating. Our AI is in the analytical tools.”
Said DeFaria, “Now, we learn through these analytics and take one baby step at a time to move out … and stop at the point at which the audience is not going to this anymore. I think what you’re doing with that is just a smarter business plan and is more responsive to the reality of the audience.”
At this stage, Chronicle has five deals and is reviewing “dozens” of potential projects each week, DeFaria reported. This starts by identifying talent and their work (not finished productions, but more than a concept), and If they enter into a rights deal, they create a short-term plan. (Using the music industry as an analogy, he suggested that they would effectively play the night clubs and build an audience before going out and booking a stadium.)
Without providing details, DeFaria cited as a Chronicle example “someone who made a short film when I was over at DreamWorks” who has written a script for an animated production. “In the short term, we’re going to design the characters and then bring those characters to life in their own content, not really addressing the story or the movie, but rather bringing them into the world on all the different social platforms in, we hope, a very intelligent way, fueled by the analytics we’re bringing in. And then see if we can get engagement, see if audiences are really going to love the characters and get some feedback.”
He suggested they could build on this to a point where, if they want to make a feature, it could be financed independently or they take it to a studio, and be able to say “look at the size of this audience, but more importantly, look at the quality of this audience. They clearly want to go on the journey with us.”
Another example was “someone” who has written music for a musical. “It’s become a bit of a sensation with TikTok and some other platforms where people are just adopting it and having their own fun with it. The power of the community around that is something that we are plugging into; we like very much.” Defaria also cited a deal with an Italian artist who “has been generating characters and artwork from his own story, and by his followers, he is ready to scale it in a way to bring them together and we’re looking at creating original animation around that.”
“We talk about the creator economy. I’m looking at this and I think it’s the engagement economy,” he said, offering advice to the audience: “Begin building things. … Maybe you don’t have to deliver the complete product day one. Rather, start with incremental steps. And if you genuinely believe what you’re working on, it’ll be a joy to do that, first off, but secondly, you really will get meaningful feedback, which will give you the confidence to do what you do need whether it’s financing, or whatever. Whoever you’re talking to will see that you’ve really gone out there and made something that you believe in and that you can sort of say audiences believe in as well. I think this is the first time we’ve had that opportunity.”
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