Inaugurated last year by a group of Tuck students interested in pursuing careers in entertainment, the symposium is organized almost entirely by students, with "full administrative support," according to Will Vincent Tu'10, a co-founder of the expo who co-chaired this year's event with Fiona Charlton Tu'10 and Travis Page Tu'10.
While last year's symposium was only one day long, this year's event was spread out over two days, Charlton said.
"We have more speakers, panels and events going, as well as a film screening [of "Waking Sleeping Beauty"] with Peter Schneider," Charlton said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The idea for the symposium came about because Vincent and other media-focused business students were required to travel to other universities in order to attend conferences, Vincent said. The pure business focus of these conferences gave the Tuck students the idea to meld both the creative and business side of the entertainment industry into one conference.
"We started going to conferences at other schools There's a lot of conferences with just MBAs and strategy roles being discussed. Last year and this year we [decided to] have content people speaking who are doing both content and business, like Syfy's Mark Stern," Vincent said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The expo's keynote speakers Mark Stern '85, Syfy channel vice president of original programming; Miky Lee, vice chairman of the South Korea-based company CJ Entertainment and Media; and Sony PlayStation executive Philip Rosenberg were booked with the help of Tuck alumni connections, according to the event chairs. The symposium's financial sponsors, Microsoft and The Cable Center, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the cable industry, also helped draw speakers to the event.
The symposium kicked off Thursday afternoon with a panel discussion focused on entrepreneurship in entertainment. Mike Hogan Tu'99, the chief operating officer at Greenstreet Films, was joined by Jed Simmons, founder of Next New Networks and former COO at cartoon giant Hanna-Barbera Productions, to speak about their time spent at both large and small media companies.
Both panelists addressed the perseverance and patience required to be successful in the film business. Hogan, a former Navy SEAL, described sleeping on his friends' futons as he traveled up and down the California coast looking for the right job.
"When you want to go into the entertainment business, you can't expect to make a huge salary off the bat. Be prepared for futons," Hogan said, contrasting graduates who want to go into the media industry with those who look for jobs in the more traditional banking and investment sector.
Stern delivered the conference's first keynote address on Thursday afternoon. After graduating from Dartmouth, Stern rose to the level of partner at Trilogy Entertainment before accepting a job at the NBC Universal cable subsidiary Syfy then known as the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002, according to a biography provided at the event.
Stern oversees the creation of original programming for the cable network and has been involved with the production of such popular shows as "Battlestar Galactica," "Ghost Hunters" and "Tin Man."
Stern's address, "Rebranding Syfy: Imagine Greater" explained the back-room decisions behind the 2009 name-change and rebranding of the company. The switch was made in order to make the channel more accessible to viewers beyond traditional science fiction fans, he said.
"Being the Science Fiction Channel' was a barrier, no matter what we did. It didn't matter how many Eureka's' you have on the air or how much reality you give, there were just going to be a whole chunk of people who call themselves non-science fiction viewers," Stern said in the lecture.
Since its name shift, SyFy has seen a marked increase in viewership, according to Stern.
"We've moved towards a much more open, more accessible, fun place with the genre and programming in general," Stern said.
Stern's keynote address was followed by a question and answer session with Peter Schneider, the former president of feature animation at Walt Disney Studios, and a screening of his documentary "Waking Sleeping Beauty," an inside look at the highs and lows of Walt Disney's Animation Studios during the 1980s and '90s.
Lee gave the keynote address for the second day of the conference. Lee was introduced by College President Jim Yong Kim, a longtime close friend.
Lee's address, "Media in the International Space," focused on her efforts to make South Korea a multicultural crossroads of the world and a leading exporter of both goods and culture. She emphasized the importance of the exchange of cultural content.
"My goal is to have Americans see one Korean drama a week, one Korean film a year, have Korean BBQ once a month and have Korean music be 10 percent of any iPod playlist," Lee said.
Lee's keynote address marked the end of Tuck's second annual Media and Entertainment Symposium. This year's co-chairs said that planning for the next expo will begin shortly.
"By the week after the conference last year we started looking ahead to this year," Vincent said.
Although the topics for next year's conference have yet to be decided, panels on media advertising and the sports industry are being considered, he said.
