V I D E O • A G E 52 After an earthly buffet lunch and afternoon screenings, buyers are sent back to their hotels, which are scattered around Los Angeles. They reach their rooms at about 5 p.m. looking disheveled and blurry-eyed after a good five hours of screenings in cold, dark theaters, just in time to get ready for the evening parties. This year, possibly as a reaction to an article in VideoAge’s NATPE Daily, where buyers explained how they cope with the freezing screening rooms (How to Dress For the L.A. Screenings), Sony Pictures TV International offered screeners a warm blanket. Traditionally, the L.A. Screenings are not just about dark rooms lit by light-up pens and flickering red-eyes after hours of screening new U.S. studios shows. There are also light moments, like luncheons and parties, presented in a festive setting. During the Screenings, the studio lots get dressed up as if it were Christmastime all over again, with welcoming banners and carefully positioned signs with directions. The Screenings offer all involved the opportunity to mingle with the stars of the new shows and for the studios’ international executives scattered around the world to meet as a group. It all starts in the morning with a good, healthy breakfast for the 1,500 or so buyers that attend the annual May ritual. For a full week, each day every studiowelcomes about 240 international acquisition executives, except during the Latin general screenings when some 300 buyers are invited. Invitations are important because security guards at the studio gates check all names when people drive in. Or, if they take the buses or mini-buses the studios use to shuttle them about, studio representatives check for intruders. SE P T E M B E R/ OC T O B E R 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 2 - 1 3 U . S . T V S e a s o n Some Light Moments at The L.A. Screenings A BIG welcome from CBSSI NBC Universal’s welcoming banner The big bosses mingle with buyers: NBC Universal International’s Jeff Shell (center) with Belinda Menendez (right) and Maria Munoz (left), entertaining Televisa’s buyer Alberto Ciurana (far right) and others Disney Latin America’s team, from l. to r.: Leonardo Aranguibel, Gustavo Sorotski, Jack Morera, Fabiola Bovino, Fernando Barbosa, Heather Harris, Henri Ringel SPTI’s Alexander Marin kept buyers busy until the last minute with an end-of-the-day business card draw for prizes A record of 22 TV executives participated in the 7th annual Veterans L.A. Screenings luncheon, held, as usual, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City at the end of the Screenings. Coordinated by Tony Friscia, the luncheon was started by Gary Marenzi, Jim Marrinan, Friscia and Dom Serafini. SPTI wanted buyers to warm up to their new shows. CBSSI’s president Armando Nuñez Jr. (right), with the stars of Elementary, Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller, welcoming M6’s top buyer Thomas Valentin A well-defined path to lunch
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