March/April 2013 From Cover 38 Paramount and Worldvision. We had meetings and screenings in the special screening rooms (by different types of programs), as there were no cassettes. It was much better when those big U-Matic cassettes appeared. “I attendedMIPonly a fewtimes in the oldPalais, and then the new one was built. Overall, I went to MIP-TV and MIPCOMmore than 50 times. “Today, theMIDEMorganizationhascompletely forgotten me but I’m happy that the TV Festival in Monte Carlo didn’t forget me. Last year I was invited to be a member of the International Preselection Committee for drama and I am invited again this year. “I used to be quite popular among the sellers. I remember that one BBC sales executive used to call me ‘Mr. P,’ which was, by her opinion, ‘Mister Popular.’ I was always on time to the meetings and was never promising something I couldn’t do. I liked my work. It was my job and my hobby. [The TV station] is still sending me VideoAge, which I read with big interest, while I’m thinking of the ‘good old times.’” Charles Falzon’s first MIP-TV was in 1978 as a seller for Canada’s CBC covering the Caribbean, Latin America and South East Asia. “We were the new young people in town and facing the ‘old-boy network’ was really tough. I remember when a few buyers from South Africa’s SABC came to our Telepictureswas in 1979. Our standwas in the third basement of the old Palais. I remember nailing the Telepictures sign myself over a desk in a tiny space that had no room for chairs. The most decent product we had was The American Film Theatre, which was 14 features of plays which I thought I would never sell. Lo and behold, the head of film programming for the BBC came looking for us to license these 14 films, which I did and I thought I died and went to heaven. That sale literally started our journey to become a very major player in the world of international distribution.” Dom Serafini attended his first MIP-TV in 1979 as International Editor of Television/RadioAge. “My boss, Sol Paul, sent me to MIP with two specific orders: do not upset Sandy Frank, who ran his own company,andTelepictures’MichaelSolomon.Frank bussed half of MIP to an out-of-town orphanage where he ceremoniously donated a large check. Solomon organized a press luncheon during MIP’s busiest period and monitored who attended. Since they both were very large advertisers, no one could afford to miss them. “WhenVideoAgeDaily at NATPE rananad for the Monte Carlo TV Market in 1983, Bernard Chevry was soupset that he tried tobanme fromMIP.What I used to dread the most, however, was meeting MCA’s Colin Davis in the mornings. Inevitably, he carried a copy of VideoAge Daily at MIP streaked with a yellowmarker. Puffing cigarette smoke into my face, he would proceed to analyze line-by-line every single article! ‘Don’t try to be The New York Times,’ he used to say. Exasperated, I finally told him to just look at the pictures! To save money on ad production, in 1987 Davis sent a magenta color proof for a metallic silver ad. The printer matched the color and the ad came out reddish. In 1989, Warner Bros. paid the expenses of having parts of VideoAge’s MIP Issue reprinted overnight because the ears of Buster Bunny in the ad weren’t spaced properly.” Dick Lippin of The Lippin Group: “For a guy who was born in Brooklyn and only dreamed about going to the South of France, setting foot in Cannes for the first time in 1983 was magical. I have been to MIP countless times, but every time I go it is like I have never been there before. “In one very memorable moment at MIP 1993 I was with Cindy Crawford, and we were about to hold a news conference in the lobby of the Carlton Hotel to launch her new program. Boy, did we underestimateher popularity! Thepress conference was postponed because the crush of photographers and reporters was so great. We wound up being ushered into what was an oversized closet until it was safe to come out again.” stand and, a fewminutes into the screening, while I was happily waiting outside the room, they all walked out rather annoyed. Without realizing it, I had them screen an anti-apartheid music concert. But the most memorable moment for me was in 1987 with my own company, Producers Group. While pitching a buyer, his chair was slowly sinking. In order not to fall, he held onto the wall, which collapsed. While this was going on, I kept on pitching.” ArmandoNuñezSr.: “My firstMIPwas in1979. At that time I was at ITC in charge of sales for the Far East, Latin America, Canada and Israel. If I’m not mistaken, our small booth was on the second floor of the Malmaison, next to the old Palais. I remember my British colleagues warning me that the building had no air conditioning, but they said, ‘our booth is next to two big windows,’ which was nice early in the morning. At that time people were allowed to smoke everywhere, and they did, so the windows had to be kept open all the time.” Bernard Majani’s first MIP-TV was in 1979. Today he’s M6 TV’s director of acquisition in Paris, but then he was in sales at Plateforme 2000: “It was the year we launched the French cartoon WattooWattoo. We droveMIP-TV organizers crazy because we were putting stickers of the cartoon right on the photographs on the badges, rendering impossible the identity of the participants. The organizers made us stop, but at the end of the first day everyone knewWattoo Wattoo!” Michael J. Solomon: “My first MIP-TV at MIP-TV at 50: Remembering The Good Ole Days VideoAge’s first Latin American gathering at The Sunset Marquis Hotel’s tent at MIP-TV 1999 20th Century Fox TV’s press conference at MIP-TV 1997 MIP-TV 1997: Greg Phillips with Anat Birnbaum VideoAge’s pre-L.A. Screenings breakfast meeting at MIP-TV 1991 We all had a history of being threatened by our clients, but none of us had ever been threatened by a supplier.
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