Three days to reflect, discuss and look for new possible collaboration scenarios. TheAVP Summit (Audio-Visual Producers Summit) held for the third edition – after Matera and Trieste – in Scilla, Calabria. Here, from 10 to 12 June 2024, CEOs and managers met Italian and international audiovisual and entertainment companies. Among the topics put forward, artificial intelligence is the one that captured everyone’s attention. The challenges and opportunities regarding the storytelling of the present and the possibilities of creating and producing local stories but with global potential, in which the spectator has the possibility of recognizing himself or of which he can become curious, were no exception. At the base of everything, there is a great desire and need to co-produce and therefore be able to think big.
The third edition of AVP Summit. Focus on co-productions and TV series
Among the notable guests of the AVP Summit was Wayne GarviePresident of International Production at Sony Pictures Television, who opened the second day by quoting the very Italian The Leopard. “If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change”: using this phrase he underlined the need to welcome the new era in co-productions. An era in which the Italian audiovisual sector must – and is partly doing so – reappropriate stories attributable to its own culture to create effective and virtuous partnerships at an international level. Is the golden age of audiovisual really over? “We are on the eve of a fourth era of television and, rather than covering our heads with the pillow, we should seize the potential offered by the new situation. If twenty years ago you had told a TV producer that fiction would be the nerve center of the channels and there would be platforms that would send them to TV all over the world, that language barriers would disappear, and that all this would become an extraordinary business model, that manufacturer would not have believed it”. And he added: “If we want the golden age to continue we must strive to make it continue rather than feel sorry for ourselves”.
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The third edition of AVP Summit. Focus on Artificial Intelligence
To talk about AI instead, among others, Stefano Salvati which, together with Maurizio Colombi, created a theater show – for the first time with AI – about 883. A show starring Mauro Repetto who tells the story of the famous band and interacts with recreated characters. The director collaborated with Salvati on the project Francesco Siro Brigianowhich highlighted the importance of Artificial Intelligence as the future of audiovisual and an opportunity, if regulated. “Artificial intelligence”, Siro Brigiano, “he has the ability to write images, an alchemical magic that allows you to create a vision from your mind that first becomes an image and then a video”. Still on the topic of AI, the screenwriter John August instead he expressed his concern: “It’s not easy to be protected, the first to be affected by AI is writing, and for this reason we were the first to strike and carry on our battle”.
The third edition of AVP Summit. What future for Hollywood?
Closing the three days of networking is the most interesting and lively round table dedicated to the future of Hollywood which – for better or worse – affects the entire entertainment industry on a global level. The screenwriter took part in this meeting John August, DeVon Franklin (President and CEO of Franklin Entertainment), Neils Juul (CEO of Not Fat Ego), Lori McCreary (CEO of Revelations Entertainment), Veronica Sullivan (Senior Vice President NBC Universal) and the producer Gary Lucchesi. A passionate discussion on possible models for innovating and supporting the major US majors: creating content that can represent the different communities that coexist in the US, investing in the training of new generations of screenwriters with innovative tools and conquering increasingly diversified targets. According to American producers, there remains a strong need to bring great stories of characters to the cinema that can be an inspiration to the American public. And to the question: ‘could Hollywood exist without the Star System?’ Lori McCreary responded: “Our motto is ‘it’s not an actor who makes a film but a film that makes an actor’. If a great actor or actress is involved in the right film, that’s when he can become a star.”.
Margherita Bordino
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