There has been some interesting activity regarding faith-based entertainment this summer, including a summit between Hollywood and faith-based production companies, an analysis by the Vatican’s newspaper of comic book superheroes, and the June 22 announcement by former U.S. senator and one-time GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum that he is now the CEO of EchoLight Studios, a Dallas company that will produce faith-based and family productions across all platforms.
I was present at the well-attended second, perhaps annual, PURPOSE: Family Entertainment + Faith Based Summit, put on June 21 by the entertainment magazine Variety in association with the international public relations firm Rogers & Cowan. The firm is placing itself solidly in the family entertainment and faith-based content producer genre, as it were, and wants to bring this kind of content “to consumers on every screen.”
Throughout the day at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, the panels and presentations focused on family and faith content, the need for the stories to be commercial and to respond to what parents want for their kids in this growing market.
The day started off with a keynote conversation with Steven Quinn, chief marketing officer for Wal-Mart, and representatives from Procter & Gamble and the Hallmark Channel, who spoke about their new partnership to create television movies for Walden Family Theater.
These corporations want to be the brands of family entertainment because, as Quinn noted, “brands built around family consumption is what advertisers depend on.”
Wal-Mart serves 85 percent of Americans over the course of a year, and is dependent on content to get across its commercial messages, Quinn said. How the Wal-Mart brand is perceived depends on those who create that content.
“Wal-Mart will align itself behind what their families want,” Quinn continued. Wal-Mart has the budget for such content, he said, but so far it’s just not there. He also said the content must be able to compete with what’s out there from a quality standpoint.
Wal-Mart was a partner with the Emmy-nominated History channel miniseries “The Bible,” which NBC has just picked up along with a sequel. A two-hour abridged version of “The Bible” has just been announced as well. Executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey captured everyone’s attention when they spoke about their experience, including the many challenges, in producing “The Bible.” The series had the highest ratings of its time slot in March as well as the highest ratings ever for the History channel.
Family programming was defined as shows that parents can watch without their kids and that kids can watch without their parents. No one mentioned age limits or singled out any program that exists today that fits the criteria. Also, just because parents and kids can watch something because of the wholesome content doesn’t mean that they will watch.
But what are family values today for television? One panelist said that means programming that is anchored in respect, honor, loyalty and doing things as a family, being a family and having a spiritual base.
Randy Testa, vice president for education at Walden Media, spoke about an upcoming film he has produced for the Walden Family Theater, “The Watsons Go to Birmingham,” based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. It tells the story of an African-American family that ends up in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 during the civil rights era. Testa said the film, in which “a family’s history collides with real history,” will be a game-changer in what family values on television means because it is about helping one’s neighbor, caring about the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the marginalized.
There was no consensus on what makes an entertaining faith-based program or movie that would appeal to a large audience. For instance ….
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An extended trailer for “The Watsons Go to Birmingham”
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