Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sore Points

If y'all pop over to this here page, you'll see the nominees for the 35th International Emmy Awards. Take a look under "Children & Young People" and you might find something surprising.

Nevermind. Here it is:
35th INTERNATIONAL EMMY® AWARDS NOMINEES

CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE

The Arena
Mediacorp TV Singapore Pte. Ltd.
Singapore

The Magic Tree
TVP SA
Poland

Mortified
Australian Children’s Television Foundation / Enjoy Entertainment
Australia

Nutty Boy
TVE Brasil / Ministry of Education / Petrobras / Ministry of Culture
Brazil
Being a co-creator of this show (guess which one - I can't be that obvious), you might think that everyone would be more congratulatory. Unfortunately, the truth is far from it. No one even knows we had anything to do with it.

The creators were not from the department that usually produces shows of this genre. Hence it was given to two executive producers in that department to produce. They were not the ones who came up with the concept, the gameplay format, the rules, and so on. They were not the ones who presented the idea tirelessly, time after time, to people that didn't really believe in it. They were the executors of that project; nothing more, nothing less.

Yet when the show finally went to air, the creators were surprised that their names were not in the credits at all. They found out that their previous boss has said that he didn't need his name on it. But how could he speak for them? they argued. We need some recognition, you know.

And they finally relented and put the three creators a "Concept By" credit that rolled by so fast you could hardly see it. But the executive producers had the gall to place their names on top of the three creators under that credit, when all they came up with was a tacked-on segment that added nothing to the show as a whole.

The creators have received nothing so far for their contributions. No bonus, no profit-sharing, no accolades, no praise, no commendations, no pat on the back, nothing. And definitely no flying to NYC to attend the ceremony. The glory has been taken from right under their noses. Yet they're not surprised. This is how it goes over here.

But we'll see who has the last laugh.