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[Wednesday at NAB]
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Liman Presents His Vision for the Internet
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by Melissa Sullivan,
~ April 16, 2008
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TV TECHNOLOGY
Producer/Director Doug Liman is known for his work on the films, “Swingers,” “The Bourne Identity” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” But did you know that he shot the Tiger Woods Nike golf commercial where Tiger bounced a golf ball on the end of his golf club and then smacked it away?
If you watch the ad, the technique and imagination should give him away. It wasn’t a style choice necessarily; it was because there wasn’t a tripod available and he had to work with what he had.
“Sometimes greatness comes from not having resources and people having to invent. And that’s what will happen to the Internet,” Liman said.
INDEPENDENT THINKING
In the Spotlight Series session “A Conversation with Doug Liman: Redefining Must See TV,” Liman spoke about his evolving technique and interspersed it with samples of his work. He later sat down with entertainment blogger Fred Schruers to answer questions.
The session opened with a video segment that spanned Liman’s portfolio, including his early work on “Swingers.”
Liman said he had a radical idea of how to shoot an independent film in 1994. He shot a test sequence and showed it to screenwriter Jon Favreau, convincing him to use the technique with “Swingers.”
Liman said it was the techniques and ideas that he came up with in his parent’s basement that ultimately crept into mainstream media and became the foundation of a billion dollar franchise. And that is the role that the Internet can play vis-à-vis television, he said.
Liman produced the viral Internet hit “Terry Tate: Office Linebacker,” which came out of his company Nibblebox, which later became Hypnotic. Liman said it was the first hit Web series and he produced five of them.
Liman also heads up Jackson Bites, a company dedicated to creating TV-style programming for alternative distribution.
OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
Turning to “The O.C.,” which Liman executive produced, he told the audience about how quickly life changed for two of the lead actors once the first episode aired.
“The power of television to suddenly take these two kids from obscurity to fans chasing them through a mall [happened] overnight,” Liman said. “And if you think about the Internet, the Internet can do that on a global scale.”
Later in the session, when asked by Schruers why “Quarterlife,” a Web series that briefly became an NBC television series, didn’t make it, Liman said there had been unrealistic expectations. He said when they make shows for TV, only one out of a thousand make it. He said he knows he was lucky with his first foray into television with “The O.C.”
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