Industrial Show Biz

Even before the current television and screenwriters strike, corporate communication shows have been an outlet for frustrated and would-be scriptwriters, directors and production crews. Paul Kielar, creative director of Jack Morton Productions for the past 30 years, originally sought a Broadway stage career. But when it proved elusive, he turned to corporate stage productions at Morton’s New York headquarters and felt instantly at home.

Here in Los Angeles, where Kielar now directs Morton’s West Coast creative operations, the ties with Hollywood are as strong as those between Wall Street and Broadway.

In most cases, Kielar reports, ample free-lance talent is available for most productions. The sole exception, he complains, is comedy.

Even with the sizable pool of situation comedy writers (and would-be writers) working for local television production companies, Kielar says, humor is the most difficult of all emotions to deliver in a corporate setting.

“About 70% of the humorous events fail,” says David Samec, West Coast vice president for Jack Morton Productions. The reason, he speculates, is that for humor to be successful, it must be pointed, inside humor that accurately reflects the client’s corporate culture.

Kielar recalls that the most successful humor show he directed involved a paper towel maker that had just endured a series of marketing debacles. The new marketing director commissioned a sales show lampooning the flops as a means of showing the sales force that the home office knew it was fallible.

The sales force roared with approval, Kielar says, and proceeded to push the new product line with renewed vigor. “When it’s done right,” he says, “humor is the experience of a lifetime.”

What’s beyond the corporate video? Plenty.

Production companies report a variety of novel industrial uses for their talents, offering yet more proof that the videocassette recorder--already in more than 50% of American households--is becoming as ubiquitous as the telephone at home and in the office.

Levi Strauss, for example, is evaluating an interactive video experiment at retail stores nationwide that is designed to boost sales. The “Jeans Screen,” as the machine has been dubbed, offers a variety of information about the company’s many lines of pants, both denim and otherwise.

By simply pressing the touch-sensitive screen, a viewer requests the information and is then treated to a video display. Another part of the experiment allows customers to actually order and pay for their pants through the video machine.

When Syntellect, a Phoenix maker of sophisticated telephone response systems, was ready to start selling its products two years ago, it faced the daunting prospect of hiring an extensive nationwide distribution team to get its wares to prospective customers.

Instead, the company decided to produce a video sales call and turned to William Mauger of Sunbreak Productions in Hollywood for assistance. The result was a series of short video shows specifically targeted to the business uses of the prospective customer. Banks received one video; retail establishments got another.

Mary Ann Johnson, Syntellect’s marketing communication manager, said the shows immediately caught the attention of their audience and helped get the company on its feet quickly.

The real Hollywood entertainment industry might be dominated by mega-sized studios, but it is far different in the industrial theater business. The large companies probably can be counted on one hand, experts say.

The second tier--companies billing more than $10 million annually--includes more than 50 production houses. And the vast majority of the rest, which probably account for well more than 50% of the industry, have annual revenues of less than $2 million.

All of which makes competition pretty cutthroat, complains Chris Korody, president of Silver Strand Films. Korody ought to know. Fifteen months ago, a severe drop in business forced him to liquidate his first corporate entertainment company, Image Stream. “It’s difficult to make a buck,” he says. “The cost of entry is low. All you need is a 35-millimeter camera and access to a dark room to call yourself a multimedia show producer.”