Presenting a look at media's future

For their semester projects, students in my media class developed proposals or pilots in one of the seven media businesses – books, movies, magazines, newspapers, radio, recording and television – and then pitched them to me in class as if I were the media mogul who would buy the project.

I can’t provide specifics. We all signed non-disclosure agreements, and I told the students, truthfully, there is no reason why an idea generated in this class can’t go on and make a bazillion dollars in the industry. If one of them DOES, trust me, you will hear about it in this blog. I can tell you that the projects reveal a lot about the future of media. When my kids were little, if I wanted a peek into what was going on in their culture, I could watch “The Simpsons” and “MTV.”

Same thing now. Students know things about media that would draw blank stares in Geezerville (over 40). These guys are already their own TV producers and directors, thanks to YouTube and MySpace, and in class they used these online resources to present their TV pilots and movie trailers that, when we were their age, would have required months of work and thousands of dollars. Watching this, I get a clearer conviction that, in media, the Web is changing everything.

One student, who has some prior acting and producing experience, has already pitched his project to genuine moguls. He won an audience with them last week in Los Angeles. I asked in him class if that pitch was different from pitching to me and the class. Yes, he said, it was. There was an oval table. He sat on one side, and three cable TV execs sat on the other. They didn’t speak, he said, or make gestures, or smile, or ask any questions at all.

So I stopped him and asked the class. “These three guys had one thing on their mind. Do you know what that is?” From four or five places in the class, there rose the word: “Money.” Either they learned something this semester, or they knew it already. I know I learned a lot. Question: how is prime time television the same as being stopped at a railroad crossing?