New York Television Festival

to celebrate the small screen. The New York Television Festival encompasses a competition for independently produced pilots and various script competitions. The goal is to bring emerging creative talents together with the network and studio executives and the talent agents that can advance their careers. As he prepares for the fourteenth edition of the festival, which runs July fourteenth through twenty, Gray spoke about the evolution of the event and changes

in store for this year's gathering. Terrence Gray, Executive director of the New York Television Festival, Thanks for stopping in to talk with us. Thank you so much for having

me excited to be here. You're getting close to the fourteenth edition of your week long festival that highlights that puts particular emphasis on independently produced projects and the networking bringing aspiring writers, directors, producers, actors together with television industry movers and shakers, people that can green light shows, people that can give them development deals, the people they need to get to that next run. Tell me, let's go

back to the beginning. What inspired you to launch this festival? UM. Well, honestly, I I came out of school and I knew uh that I always wanted to be in TV. Um. And back in the day, uh, you know, unlike what was established with the great film festivals Sundance in Toronto and can and others, um, there wasn't really a way to

make independent TV projects. And so how I sort of uh went about that in New York is we mounted uh sitcoms on stage and and back before there was a YouTube and the ability to distribute that Really, if you wanted to put your work on on its feet like, that was one of the ways to get it done because back then, uh you know, late nineties, early on

its there, there really wasn't any independent television. Um. And from that I was lucky enough uh to meet my agent and William Morris, and that's how we started our relationship and our friendship and um and so for me, it was a great way to to actually take something I had created and and get it on speed and get it in front of people, because obviously, getting material in front of people is key, right, It's key to somebody starting their career and and and and moving forward

or you know, in particular with the project they've done. Um and So in the back of my mind, I I think I always thought like there could be a great platform for television creators to get their work in front of executives. And I think as we progressed and as we got to a point where you know, I remember and and and in my career I had the good fortune of of working on shows like Who Wants

to Be a Millionaire? And during that period of the late nineties the early two thousand's, you saw some of the top producers starting to make specifically in in non scripted, they started to make their own tape, right, They started to make sales tape that they self financed to go into two networks to sell. And so I think that was the first iteration of people making their own pilots. And so I thought, oh, okay, the the ability to

use a digital camera and to edit online. Uh, with software that was available, you could start to put together your own pilots, right and and the cost of doing that where where the cost of doing a film was still you know, fairly sizeable if you were trying to get into a place like a Sundancer Toronto, big barrier

to entry, big barrier to entry. Right in that if if you were editing online yourself, and you had a digital camera and you have the ability to put these things together, I thought, Okay, we're starting to see a recipe where we could legitimately go out to an independent production community and say, bring us the best of of

your TV pilots or presentations or what have you. Um. And so I tried to get it off the ground with John Rosen, who is my who's my agent, who has been incredibly supportive over the years, and for the first couple of years, UM, people were just sort of like, look, television is made in l A. It's made in the studio. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. We don't validate

get out like I mean. It was just it was just the reaction was sort of there was a little bit of like we don't really see where this material is coming from. We don't really understand, and there's a professional way of doing this, uh, you know, on the West coast. And so we finally and it was Nancy Debuke, who was at ANY at the time, who was really the first executive UM to come in and say, I will support this vision of people making UH their own tapes.

And I think people have been probably going into any uh and and showing sizzles, but she was fantastic. She was the first one to jump in UM and and

really that that started it. And I think during UH that year, really YouTube and Lazy Sunday in particular from Saturday Night Live hit and people really realized, oh, when I make something, if it doesn't you know, get into this particular festival or or other platforms that were becoming available, UM, I can self distribute it and I can put it on YouTube and I could direct a bunch of people

to go there and watch it. Because prior to that you could like send it to your aunt, and like I mean, there was there wasn't a lot of distribution for something that you had made. So I think the the advent of YouTube was enormous to a migration of people that I think had been primarily doing independent film

to trying out the medium of television or episodic. It seems like a great confluence of timing of literally the digital tools that that people had to work with, and the you know what we now know what we now call peak TV. This just explosion of creativity and an understanding that it can I think that it can come from all corners in the US overseas. So now you know, now you're in your fourteenth year. You there are That seems crazy when I say it out lout, but yes,

we are in the fourteenth year. You know, fast forward here and you've got you've got there. There are a lot of television festivals now on the calendar. There's series fest in Denver, Austin, Texas has the a t X, there's a couple of festivals in Atlanta. But you're still the only one that really has that competition element. Can you talk about how the submissions work and how you how you determine what will be you know, actual festival selections,

what what projects are actually screened? Yeah, and I can maybe uh go back a little bit if if that's helpful, Like when we started the festival, the the ideas that we were standing on the shoulders of Sundance and others UM that had created and obviously those guys are much bigger, but they had created this dynamic platform for storytellers and filmmakers UM to present their story in whole and in front of a very important audience. And so that's how

we began too. It was sort of the idea of saying, um, if you and and we're still open to this, but if you have a TV show in any genre, right, so it could be animation, it could be comedy, it could be live action, it could be non scripted drama, we are open to it. We are open to whatever

your interpretation of whatever show you want to do. And we in the beginning we messed around with with different lenths of time, and over time we realize that the timing framework that you put out there is really less important than giving a representation of the world of your show, the characters, the tone, the pacing. So that used to be a big thing in the beginning, UM, but so

we were open. It was it was it was bring us your best stuff, UM, and then we will connect to you with agents and executives and people in the business um around the third it's either third of the fourth year of the festival um and again another one of our great board members, Kevin Riley, was at Fox and we crafted a partnership where we were going to look for sitcom scripts for Fox, and Kevin was fantastic and supportive, and as part of that partnership there was

a guaranteed Fox script deal, which is an enormous deal for any young writer to be able to get a deal at the network, to get a ton of interest from agents and managers as a result of that, and really get to that next level of their career. Um And from that one deal with Kevin and Fox, we ended up doing annually anywhere between twelve to twenty guaranteed

deals with different networks and studios and platforms. And the realization that we had was that online film, TV and the people that distribute TV, the networks and the platforms, what have you, they have a particular brand, they're looking for a particular type of show, and they are serving uh constituency or an audience that is going to them

for a particular thing. And so at first we were a little I was a little nervous, like if if we defined, uh, the sort of creative brief of what somebody was looking for, would that take away from the creative projects that we were getting in. But what we found was that the independent community was starved for information. So you know, as a producer, I would get priests from William Morris on like what is this network want

or what does that studio want? So the idea and the support of of the End Street and networks and studios that they were willing to create a brief with us that we could share with the independent community was amazing. And and then the idea that they were going to take the best of the best projects that that they found UM and get into business with them and give them a deal is um. You know, it's still extraordinary and and it really helped us build a really dynamic

and and very talented community. And it helped us establish a season right that people understood when submissions opened, when they were due by, when the festival was so it really got people into a frame of mind of when

they had to hit deadlines. And clearly, you know a lot of festivals and and and like screenwriting competitions, there's a cash prize at the end, but clearly for for people that want to get into the business, more than a thousand dollars is fifteen minutes with Kevin Riley, that's right. And I think you know, at the end of the a UM, it's it. It doesn't even really matter what

the size of the deal is. If you are getting into business with Lions Get or you are getting into business with Comedy Central, well now you're where you want to be. And and it's also if if you're not represented. And as we've grown, we've we've had more people who are who are represented coming into as as independent television.

The movement itself has matured. There are more and more people doing independent TV projects and some of those people have agents and managers and they're they're more uh experienced, or they're further along in their career and it's a passion project that they make something independently. So the number of people that are represented has gone up, to dismay of some of the agencies that were partnered with UM.

But I I feel like for the people that aren't represented, and I still think that that's like you know, roughly for to your of the people that are in the festival. If you do get a deal with one of with a true TV or you know who any of our partners that is going to attract UH agents and and managers to say, oh, well, this person made the festival.

Then they got the attention of True. Oh we should definitely check in and ultimately whether or not that deal turns into a pilot or a series, if it gets you on the radar of a representative that can work with you going forward in your career, that is a home run, right. You know, somebody a development executives read something in a in a spec script that has a

great voice. That spec script may not be right for them, but that voice might be a you know, a staff writer on an on an on a emerging pilot or something. I think that's exactly that's exactly right. So in the case whether it's a scripted show or whether it's you know,

a comedy format. As we were we were talking about true, the idea that a creator, creator, writer or a producer gets to go into the network and sit down and and go through that development process with an executive and go through that firsthand, that experience of being able to get that feedback work with that executive um try to bring and progress that show forward, whether or not that actually happens, their ability to go back into a place

like true. First they're going to establish that relationship with that executive, but they're going to be much better prepared in terms of their next creative idea about how to framework that and deliver it back to the to the network. Yeah. Absolutely. And so you have various levels of competition. You have competition in various genres for projects and now you you even I think last year moved into a script competition

that's just at the script level, not for something on video. Um. How and you get submissions from literally all over the world of steps mission process work. Uh, well, I will I guess I would go through the submission process in general as a as a broadly applause. But as you said, we do individual initiatives with with different industry partners as well. Um. But a call will go out around either a specific partner brief or Uh. We have the independent Pilot competition.

Uh that goes out every year in January, and that it got moved up a little bit this year, and we'll talk about sort of the change in the calendar. But the but but that competition will open if there are partners within UH that competition. There, briefs will also go out so that people UH and that artists will will be aware of them. UM. And then there's a a a period of development and and producing or writing your show, UM, which will last anywhere from say three

months to six months. There'll be a deadline. All of those UH materials will come in UH, they will be vetted by our programming committee. UH, and ultimately what we're looking at is probably the top four or five percent on the pilot side UH and UH with ny TVs scripts that you talked about, UH, that is usually less than the top one percent. So the you know, it's very competitive both in the pilot stage and in the

script stage. UM. But the but the voices and and and the artists that we have coming through, UM, you know, in my view that they've now had this equipment or there's been platforms as you mentioned other TV festivals as well out there. We're you know, fourteen years old, but certainly in the last decade there and and other film

festivals have moved into episode as well. So I feel like the movement is maturing because there are a lot of opportunities for people to try to get in and show off their work and get in front of people. How do you guard against the concern that somebody sends in an independently produced pilot or or a script, and the concern that that somebody might steal the idea or

steal the concept. One of the ways that that that we combat it, I guess is by by being as transparent as we can UM and by not holding anyone to anything. I mean, when you come to the New York Television Festival, UH, you're free to take a deal or not take a deal, or what have you. Like,

you sort of hold the fate of your project. And I think it's it's gratifying to know that the level of projects that we get and the quality people that are involved in them, that we've built a layer of trust with the creative community over fourteen years because we worked very hard to make sure that one everybody's treated like a professional and and and taken seriously in this endeavor, UH, and to to make sure that they have the freedom

to do whatever they want to do. The festival, I think, since its inception, has been in October, but this year you're moving to July. Why did you make that calendar change? Yeah, the festival. I believe it's always been. It may have been one or two years, like the last week of September,

but you're right, it's always been in October. And I think initially it was just like October is a beautiful time in New York, and it was sort of like we we wanted to make sure that UM September when everybody comes back UH from summer break, I feel like there's so many things that happened in New York in September to try to compete with any of that is

very difficult. And we felt like as we edged towards UH the second half of October, we could, you know, get the attention of the executives in TV who were so busy with fall launch and and of course they were, you know, with all series coming back or new series launching UM and so for us it was a great time.

But we it also sort of dawned on us that UM it is really the tail tail end of development season of of new projects that are being done studio or network level, and so the thought was as UM Studios were getting involved, the the idea was, why don't we move to the beginning of the buying season, UH, and therefore, uh there may be additional opportunity for our artists to get into business. And really that's what uh

what motivated the move. And and you know right now uh and we haven't you know, we're gonna be through it in another two and a half weeks uh when we get started, but uh, it's our first time through. But I think the reaction right now has been very good and I'm optimistic uh that it's going to be a good move. How does the festival sustain itself? How do you make money? Well, I'm still figuring that part out. Uh,

I'm kidding, but it's it's kind of truthful. Um. We Uh, we are sustained by our partners, like all festivals, I don't I don't think it's a surprise that that festivals are not really set up to make money nor nor do they uh and that there may be exceptions for for the larger festivals. Um, but we are sustained by uh A a good number of partners across the board uh in TV that have that have always been there for us and come through from us and are looking

for new voices. And that's that's really how we operate. We're not by the very name nature of the festival. UM, we are we are pretty small in the sense that our partners look for us to curate down um a massive number of projects that come into a very digestible top few. And so from that standpoint, uh, you know, we only have a very limited number of artists that

are participating by design in the festival. UM. And on the other side, we we have a number of executives, but again that's that's sort of uh limited to the executives that are our partners or pass holders. UM. So our universe on the B two B side is not huge. And then obviously we do events and we do things that our panels are days uh that are open a

little bit more generally. UM. But if I sat here and told you that, uh we have a full proof business plan, UH, that has been the one part of the festival that uh that we are uh we are still working on. But I think what we do do UM, and what we set out to do in the very beginning is UH be a place that curate and elevated the best voices for television. I think that, you know, you can always get better, but I think that we've

achieved that goal. Uh that we initially set out to to achieve and and I'm very grateful that we that we have the partners that we do. But again sort of going back to the idea that we're not a huge festival that you know, that's not great when you're going to large corporations that are used to uh, you know, festivals that have a hundred thousand people coming through like we just we don't offer that as a as a general premise. It sounds like you've put a lot of

sweat equity into this thing over fourteen years. It's a full time job. For it is full time job, that's right, Yeah, myself and I will also say my wife, who is uh the festival director, Erranda, who only runs the show. UM. Now, we both have and and it's something uh that we really believe in. And I and I think for whatever we lack on the uh financial success side, UM, I think in terms of respect and in terms of the quality of the projects and the voices that are that

are coming out of ny TV f UM. You know, I'm hopeful that we've earned that and and uh, you know, and we enjoy what we do and I think we we haven't migrated away from what we tried to set up in the beginning. And I think when we talk about peak TV and we talk about a number of outlets, a vast number of outlets that are doing original programming. Um, I think we have a value to offer in that space.

Have you explored any kind of with all the material that you have that you have have fielded over the years, have you explored any kind of partnership with a with a YouTube or somebody that could maybe showcase some of what you've YEA and unites might be tricky. Yeah, you know, you're right it It does often come down to a rights question. I think we've we've been down the line,

you know for over a decade. We had an incredible partnership UH with Microsoft and all of its different divisions, and you know, I think they've they've had a little bit of a change of direction when it when it comes to entertainment in the last couple of years. But um, you know, one of the things that is UH and and look, we would remain open to the idea of

a showcase of of our top pilots. And I think what we'd want to make sure again, having worked on a reputation for the last fourteen years is that uh is everything fair with the artists and the producers that are making the work um, And regardless of of of what a partnership like that might look like, UH, does their project itself remain open to the market. And that is that is the key, uh of the entire festival.

So as long as we could do something uh that was promotional but didn't tie anyone up, um, we'd be We'd be very open, I think to that conversation. So the festival does not have an ongoing relationship if somebody sells a pilot or gets you know, gets a really cool development deal, that the festival does not have an ongoing connection to that pack. Yeah, that is correct. Um. Probably from a business point that that is uh not great.

But I think look, I would go back to the idea that we we we wanted to be a place where where everyone feels safe uh in in submitting and you know we we sometimes talk about uh pilots in the abstract. But but having been a producer and a writer for a long time, you know you have you just have the knowledge of what goes into making a project and what goes into making a project when you

have no budget and no money. I mean, you call on a lot of friends and you're editing in the middle of the night, and you're putting it together with with with gum and wire and like everything that you can do, UM, and you're giving your heart and soul and so you when you then take this your baby, what you've made and you and you put everything you have into it, you want to know that you're giving it over to somebody who has your best interest in mind, right,

And so that's what we try to do. Now. There are certainly instances with partners on the other side where a partner might say, oh, hey, whatever we're taking out of the festival, we would like you guys to stay with it and oversee that project. Now, if everybody feels good about that deal, then that's exactly what we've done. And in cases we have done that UM and it's exciting and I've done a lot of development work and

so I like doing that. But but it first has to be the partner that would sort of approach us, and then we want to be very clear with the creator and the artists, like this is what we're talking about, and and and everyone is usually very cool with that arrangement because most of the shows coming through the festival would ultimately be partnered with someone that has a little

bit more experience of our track records. So that definitely happens. UM. But again, I I really do believe in the idea that, uh, that there's there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into each one of these projects, and that uh, when someone is letting go of that, they want to know that it's in a good space. Right. Do you have a favorite success story or two of people that have come from the festival and really grown careers in the business.

I would say that the creators that came through UH with the show Animal Us uh is a which is on HBO, the animated series produced by the d plus brothers. Yes, that's right, and and Mike and Field. The creators came through the festival, UM and they just had a a a typical festival story where they were working I believe it was at an advertising agency and and they were getting this done on the nights and weekends. But they made the and and it was again blood, sweat and

tears to make this show. Uh, that was singularly in their voice and when we received it, and that's the other thing like we get thousands of submissions a year um and as you're as you're going through and you stumble on things where you're like, oh man, that's awesome, and and you just know this person or these creators this week could fundamentally change their life. And they have so much talent and they and they produced this with their own money and their own their own tears and

sweat and all of that stuff. That's a great story. Well, the career Making Opportunities begin a new July four through the nineteenth in various venues at New York City. Looking forward to covering it again this year. Terence Gray, thank you so much for coming in and sitting down with us, my honor, Thanks for listening. Be sure to join us next week for another episode of Strictly Business