Mark Burnett delivered the keynote address. Some takeaways:
“There’s so much spin in America that’s untrue. I read my own press releases and ask, ‘Is that really me?'”“Canadians are like Americans with manners.”“In America, you can come from nothing and have a chance.”
“Only idiots try to communicate to everybody with a canned approach.” There are four kinds of people: the engineer kind of person; the artist; a passive person; and the aggressive person. “Analyzing those four kinds of people is how I’ve moved forward in my career.”
“Looking at our world, the only thing that won’t change in the next five years is movies – people will still go the movie theatre. Television will change. More and more people have access to broadband at work. Five years from now, the new prime time may be between 9 to 5 during the day.”
“Doing the same thing won’t work. You always have to be ready to fall on your face. Playing defensively is boring. You have to be willing to take chances in order to win.”
A very entertaining, totally engaging personality. I think I’ll tune into one of his shows. Maybe the one coming up this autumn that he’s produced in collaboration with Stephen Spielberg…