"Let Me Sell You A Story" by Kevin Beggs

During the last quarter I was talking Tom Nunan`s Entertainment class which is for full-time UCLA students. Tom is incredible professor who allows attend his class for everyone who is interested in his subject.

Each class we have incredibly inspiring speakers such as Brian Grazer, Ted Sarandos (CEO of Netflix), Craig Erwich (president of Hulu), etc. Today`s speaker is Kevin Beggs who is chairman of the Lionsgate Television Group.

As a preparation for the class Tom sent us this extremely interesting piece of Kevin`s speech to students of UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. I`d like to share it with you. Enjoy!

"Thank you Dean Schwartz. This is an auspicious day and I am honored to share it with you. I

have to admit that I have absolutely no recollection of the commencement speaker at my own

graduation, so I am going to do my best to avoid platitudes and instead share with you how I

wound up in the television world.

Aside from two children, the only thing my parents had in common was their distrust of

television. My dad, a hippie living on a Marin County commune, viewed it as a tool of the

establishment. My mom, deeply religious, was afraid it would turn us into our dad. The result

was no television at either home. Entertainment was limited to going to church three times a

week or lounging by the pool at the commune occupied by very hairy and quite naked adults.

Left with these two alternatives, it was only logical that I would start acting and try to be in

someone else’s, ANYONE else’ story. I probably wasn’t very good but when it counted, I could

deliver. I recall a family counseling session in which I spun a fantastic tale about my stepfather

being an alcoholic and occasionally beating us when he was on a bender. My mom and

stepdad protested but were immediately silenced by the psychiatrist who encouraged me to

“let it all out” – which I did for the next fifteen minutes, expanding on the original fabrication

with even more detail. We never returned to counseling, which was an early lesson in the

power of story. Also, my brother gave me a Reggie Jackson baseball card. I kept on acting

through high school and into college. It was a great coping method and a lot of fun.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, I moved to Los Angeles because that is where you go if

you want to be in entertainment. By day, I was teaching elementary school, which in a way was

another acting gig, since I was pretending to be a teacher. By night I was looking for

production work. That led to a volunteer job on a small stage production of “Miss Julie”. As it

turned out, my job was to drive the European actress playing Miss Julie to and from rehearsals

and run her lines. This was not easy as she struggled with English but I must have done ok

because they kept me on for the entire production. The only reason I stuck with it was because

MGM was financing it and I figured I could schmooze my way into a job at the studio. It was

not a great production and mercifully it closed after just two weeks but it was all worth it in the

end because that led to job as a production assistant on a series called Baywatch, a job that

utilized very little of my Shakespearean drama training but nonetheless opened the door to a

different kind of storytelling opportunity.

Baywatch had originally premiered on NBC, but this beach action drama was short on plot and

long on bikinis and had been canceled. It had, however amassed a major international

following so the producers set out to revive the show in first-run syndication – a part of the

television ecosystem that is analogous to approaching a payday lender for a home loan after

being denied by Bank of America. And to their credit, the Baywatch team refused to take no for

an answer. Despite landing a deal with a syndicator that was nearing bankruptcy, they

mounted the series and moved it forward - but on the first day of production in our second

season it almost came to a crashing halt because of a jealous spouse. The producers had opted

to add some new cast members in hope of building more awareness for the show. The Tool

Time girl from Home Improvement, Pamela Anderson, was hired as a buxom new lifeguard.

Things seemed promising until she began filming her first scene with series star David

Hasselhoff, whose wife took one look at Pamela Anderson and through David’s manager,

demanded that she be fired immediately. A full morning of tense negotiations ensued with

agents, managers, and lawyers all fighting. The producers stuck to their guns and would not

relent. The kid stayed in the picture, as they say, and the show went on to become a worldwide

mega hit that aired for eleven seasons. When you know you are right, you can’t compromise.

Most of my experience in television had been on the fringes of the mainstream, so when my

attorney suggested I meet about a television job at Lionsgate, I was interested. The year was

1998 and the company was only a few months old and under different management than it is

today. My first boss was very down on the TV business overall. Lionsgate lacked capital,

distribution, an infrastructure. And while I viewed this as a challenge, he was less enthused. A

typical day at Lionsgate would start with me arriving at the office excited about the various

pitch meetings on the calendar and then encountering my boss, head in hands, telling me “It’s

over. Television is over. We have got to get out of this business and get into the Internet.”

Now that is not the way to send a salesman off to battle, so I simply let that roll off my back and

pitched shows anyway. He later invested in Twitter and has a huge house in Malibu. He was

right about the Internet but wrong about television.

When Jon Feltheimer and Michael Burns joined Lionsgate in 2000 it all started to change.

Hailing from the television and financial worlds respectively, they were as passionate about

storytelling as they were about profits. With their encouragement we started our own TV

distribution arm and took bigger creative and financial risks. Original scripted series for cable

were just starting to emerge and one of the first, suburban pot comedy - Weeds came our way

for two reasons: The network that wanted to buy the project, Showtime, had struggled to find

a hit series and many studios would not produce for them. Second, the agent representing the

writer, wanted to be paid a packaging fee over and above his normal commission. In order to

hear the idea I had to agree. It turned out to be a smart “yes” as he then handed the phone to

his client, Jenji Kohan, who told me about her pot-dealing soccer mom idea which I immediately

loved based on my own experience living on my dad’s hippie commune.

Comedies are the most financially risky series in television. Often they don’t travel and they

generally command lower dollars than dramas in ancillary markets. We stalled for time.

Finally, the president of the network called me at home on a Friday night to say that if Lionsgate

was not prepared to go forward, he would produce it without a studio. Panicked, I set about

writing a weekend long Jerry Maguire-like manifesto about how Weeds was going to transform

Showtime, elevate Lionsgate, and lead the way to a sea change in the television business. I hit

send and imagined myself standing on a table in Jon Feltheimer’s office the next day until he

agreed. As it turned out, he simply responded with two letters to my missive: OK. He wanted

to know I was passionate about the project and would defend it. Sandra Stern, our COO, then

negotiated a favorable business deal between Lionsgate and Showtime, we cast Mary Louise

Parker as Nancy Botwin, and eight years later we indeed had transformed Showtime, elevated

Lionsgate Television, and ushered in a new era in comedy for cable.. I have never regretted

saying yes to the agent that day and he too has a huge house on the beach. So, again, we were

both right.

We could have easily lost out on Mad Men as well. Interestingly, the show was introduced to

me because of an experience I had on another less successful series years earlier. The

development executive on that series, Rob Sorcher, became the head of programming at AMC

– a network known primarily for re-running classic westerns. Rob called me to ask if I would

read a script about advertising executives in the early 1960’s from writer Matt Weiner. We

immediately loved the material but the economics were challenging. The series was expensive,

almost half a million more per episode than other cable dramas, and the subject matter was

very specifically American and might not sell overseas. We couldn’t make the numbers work

and AMC wound up financing the pilot themselves. Fortunately for Lionsgate - Matt Weiner

made a brilliant pilot and AMC gave us a second chance to get involved. Seeing the incredible

cast on screen in the pilot was all we needed to come aboard as the studio partner and the rest

is history and part of television’s second “Golden Age”. It’s rare to get a second chance, but if

you get one, grab it.

And while Don Draper was building the Sterling/Cooper business, we were growing Lionsgate

faster than ever. Valued at under $100 million dollars when I started, Lionsgate today has a

market capitalization of over 5 billion dollars. But there was one activist investor dead set

against Lionsgate succeeding on our own terms - Carl Icahn. For four long years he attempted

to take control of Lionsgate and in one memorable instance all of the company leaders were

summoned to New York City to meet with him. He questioned each member of the Lionsgate

team about their areas of responsibility. Flanked by his wife and his son he sat in an elevated

chair towering over the room. At times he reminisced about his takeovers of Gulf and Western

and TWA and how they slashed advertising budgets dramatically to reduce overhead. Since

both of these companies were no longer in business I had to wonder about the relevance of

these examples, but who was I to question a billionaire?

After grilling the film executives, Mr. Icahn set his sights on me. I braced for punishment, but

suddenly his face lit up like a Christmas tree, he gave a loving glance to his wife, and declared

that I was worthy of a “gold star” for being a part of such a fantastic series like Mad Men. He

watched each episode religiously and in fact asked if I could get him new episodes ahead of

time. It was a timely reminder that our business is about great storytelling. Even the most

battle-scarred corporate raider wanted to talk about Don Draper and the stories of

Sterling/Cooper instead of business strategy. It was only then that I looked down the table at

every single one of my colleagues who were staring daggers at me for basking in Mr. Icahn’s

praise. Needless to say, I flew coach back to Los Angeles. In another year Mr. Icahn gave up on

trying to control the company, our stock took off, and film releases of Twilight and The Hunger

Games propelled Lionsgate into the ranks of the major studios.

And nowhere has the growth of Lionsgate been more evident than in television. An

afterthought when I started at the company, it is now a substantial part of our overall business

and inextricably linked to our creative culture that celebrates provocative storytelling, distinct

voices, unexplored worlds, and relentless originality. With a line-up including Mad Men,

Nashville, Nurse Jackie, Deadbeat, Manhattan, Casual, Graves, Chasing Life, and Orange is the

New Black, we serve up an eclectic blend of compelling series across two dozen networks. In

fact, Orange is the New Black represents our second series with Jenji Kohan, and and we just

completed a new pilot from Jenji for HBO entitled The Devil You Know – a post modern

examination of the Salem Witch Trials.

The Devil I know is television, and it’s never been more exciting or available. Some of you may

remember a scene in Mike Nichols’ classic film “The Graduate” in which a man whispers into

Dustin Hoffman’s ear one word “Plastics” Today that buzz word is “Television”. It’s taken

almost twenty-five years but I can finally tell my parents what I do for a living.

My hope is that you can proudly tell your parents about your chosen profession. Graduating

from the world-renowned UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television represents a huge

accomplishment. And whether you write, act, direct, design, curate, teach, or produce theater,

film, television, or digital stories – I urge you to be fearless in your pursuits and ignore the

naysayers. Follow your instincts. Follow your passions. Follow your dreams. That is a story

worth telling and a story worth living.

Congratulations. Good luck. And thank you.

K"

*Sourse of the picture: http://variety.com/exec/kevin-beggs/

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