Idwx chap 04

THE FIRST DECADE

C H A P T E R4

C O N T I N U I N G

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TA: Let’s start at thebeginning–do either of youremember who came up withthe idea for Bar Talk?

DV: You did.

RR: You came up with itbecause we were lookingto create a reality TVshow–this was whenreality TV was juststarting to take off.

TA: OK, I guess it was my idea. I think the “highconcept” was that it was going to be TaxicabConfessions meets Blind Date, which is what weultimately used in the promotional material.

DV: Yeah, it was your idea andthen I walked into your officeone day at lunch and said,“Ted, what have you beenthinking about Bar Talk? Iknow we haven’t talked aboutit in a while.” And you said,

In December 2000, IDW shot the pilot for Bar Talk,

a TV show the founders hoped to get on the air. IDW

founders Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins discuss the

show with the project’s producer, Dave Vindiola.

C H A P T E R4

47

BAR TALK

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TA: Let’s start at thebeginning–do either of youremember who came up withthe idea for Bar Talk?

DV: You did.

RR: You came up with itbecause we were lookingto create a reality TVshow–this was whenreality TV was juststarting to take off.

TA: OK, I guess it was my idea. I think the “highconcept” was that it was going to be TaxicabConfessions meets Blind Date, which is what weultimately used in the promotional material.

DV: Yeah, it was your idea andthen I walked into your officeone day at lunch and said,“Ted, what have you beenthinking about Bar Talk? Iknow we haven’t talked aboutit in a while.” And you said,

In December 2000, IDW shot the pilot for Bar Talk,

a TV show the founders hoped to get on the air. IDW

founders Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins discuss the

show with the project’s producer, Dave Vindiola.

C H A P T E R4

47

BAR TALK

10yearbook-FULL.qxd:Layout 1 3/19/09 9:23 AM Page 46

out andwent througha walk-through withus before we cameout for the final shoot.

TA: And then, from apromotional standpoint,we wanted to get asmany people as we couldinto the bar. We madeflyers for the bar to handout. We also had banners outside of the bar, andinside the bar, promoting it for a couple of weeksbefore the shoot actually happened.

RR: We also ran an ad in The Beach and Bay Press.

TA: We definitely tried to promote it and on thenight of the shoot the crowd was substantial.

RR: Yeah, there was a pretty decent-sized crowd.

TA: We didn’t pay for the booze, or did we?

RR: It was an open bar. The people that came in hadto sign a waiver that theycould be on TV at acertain time and thatthey were being filmed.

DV: The open bar, if Iremember correctly,was for our talent. Wehad an open accountthere and our talenthad an account butwe weren’t servingthe general public asan open bar. Theywere still payingregular prices.

TA: That’s right–we had some people in the crowd. I’dforgotten about that. We had people we knew in

there that weretrying to drum upconversation,right?

RR/DV: Right.

TA: So, we had ourringers, we had our film crew, we had

the sound–we had everything going. I rememberwhen the shoot was happening that it was hard totell if it was working or not. The music was loud, theambient noise in the bar was loud. We wereconcerned about the audio before the shoot, duringthe shoot, and then, as it turned out, once wereviewed the material, the sound was our bigdownfall as far as the project went. We just didn’tget good sound quality out of it. We caught someinteresting conversations but you really couldn’t hearthem.

RR: When we were doing the editing, we had topick something that looked interesting but that alsohad good sound with it. There were some things thatwe just couldn’t do because you could barely hearthe conversation. It might have been interesting, but

it wasn’t worth putting it on tape.

TA: We shot probablythree or four hoursthat night?

DV: Yeah, and we hadfour or five camerasgoing.

TA: There were a coupleof stationary cameras andat least one roaming,right?

RR: Yeah, I was running astationary camera on theoutside patio.

49

_______________________This ad ran in San Diego’sBeach and Bay Press.

____________________The bar layout showinglocation of cameras.

“Funny you shouldmention it,” because it was upon the white board–the IDWproject board. You said, “I’d likeus to take a shot at it.”

TA: So, you came aboard as theproducer.

DV: Essentially. You said, “Why don’t you see whatit’s going to take? Here’s the budget we have.”

TA: This was the early days of IDW and because wewere making money with our creative servicebusiness, the four founders decided we were goingto set aside a certain amount of money every year tostart a new business. So, we did Bar Talk in 2000 andIDW Publishing in 2001 and that was the end ofthat. We’ve continued to try new things, mostrecently with Worthwhile Books, but these days it’salways part of IDW Publishing.

What was our budget? Dave, do you remember?

DV: $10,000.

TA: I thought it might have been $25,000 but$10,000 sounds more likely.

DV: Yeah. We spent $7,000 on the production andanother $2,000 at the bar.

TA: I guess we came in under budget–that soundslike IDW. Let’s talk about the bar. We used MargaritaRocks, a bar in the Pacific Beach community in SanDiego. I guess they’re still open?

RR: They’re still open but I think they changed theirname.

DV: It’s Bar West now. I don’t know if the originalguy still owns it. We went and looked at a few barsand some were receptive and some logisticallylooked good but the owners weren’t receptive.Margarita Rocks gave us the best option both

logistically andbecause they werevery open tohaving us dothe projectthere.

TA: So you secured thelocation and whatever permits we

needed?

DV: We ended up with a one-day insurance policyand we didn’t necessarily need a permit because wewere going to be “off-street” and the San Diego FilmCommission only requires a permit if you’re onpublic property. We talked to them and they said,“Don’t worry, you’re fine. If you get bothered, here’sthe phone number to call.” It wasn’t a problembecause we were on private property.

TA: OK, you got the location, you found out aboutthe permit, handled the insurance… next was findinga film crew. How did you find them?

DV: They were recommended by a friend of minewho had been in video production. These guys wereout of Orange County and had a full productionfacility in Orange County and they had done remotework.

TA: The film crew came in and set up themicrophones and they did the actual video shoot.

RR: Before that we went into Margarita Rocks andtalked about where we should shoot and whatdifferent camera angles to use. We talked abouthaving a roaming camera in addition to thestationary cameras. We also tried to figure out whatmicrophones were going to pick up what people andthen we drew it up and used that to talk to the filmcrew.

DV: Right–Robbie handled the creative components.He worked with the film crew to figure out how topick up the best content and then the owner came

48

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out andwent througha walk-through withus before we cameout for the final shoot.

TA: And then, from apromotional standpoint,we wanted to get asmany people as we couldinto the bar. We madeflyers for the bar to handout. We also had banners outside of the bar, andinside the bar, promoting it for a couple of weeksbefore the shoot actually happened.

RR: We also ran an ad in The Beach and Bay Press.

TA: We definitely tried to promote it and on thenight of the shoot the crowd was substantial.

RR: Yeah, there was a pretty decent-sized crowd.

TA: We didn’t pay for the booze, or did we?

RR: It was an open bar. The people that came in hadto sign a waiver that theycould be on TV at acertain time and thatthey were being filmed.

DV: The open bar, if Iremember correctly,was for our talent. Wehad an open accountthere and our talenthad an account butwe weren’t servingthe general public asan open bar. Theywere still payingregular prices.

TA: That’s right–we had some people in the crowd. I’dforgotten about that. We had people we knew in

there that weretrying to drum upconversation,right?

RR/DV: Right.

TA: So, we had ourringers, we had our film crew, we had

the sound–we had everything going. I rememberwhen the shoot was happening that it was hard totell if it was working or not. The music was loud, theambient noise in the bar was loud. We wereconcerned about the audio before the shoot, duringthe shoot, and then, as it turned out, once wereviewed the material, the sound was our bigdownfall as far as the project went. We just didn’tget good sound quality out of it. We caught someinteresting conversations but you really couldn’t hearthem.

RR: When we were doing the editing, we had topick something that looked interesting but that alsohad good sound with it. There were some things thatwe just couldn’t do because you could barely hearthe conversation. It might have been interesting, but

it wasn’t worth putting it on tape.

TA: We shot probablythree or four hoursthat night?

DV: Yeah, and we hadfour or five camerasgoing.

TA: There were a coupleof stationary cameras andat least one roaming,right?

RR: Yeah, I was running astationary camera on theoutside patio.

49

_______________________This ad ran in San Diego’sBeach and Bay Press.

____________________The bar layout showinglocation of cameras.

“Funny you shouldmention it,” because it was upon the white board–the IDWproject board. You said, “I’d likeus to take a shot at it.”

TA: So, you came aboard as theproducer.

DV: Essentially. You said, “Why don’t you see whatit’s going to take? Here’s the budget we have.”

TA: This was the early days of IDW and because wewere making money with our creative servicebusiness, the four founders decided we were goingto set aside a certain amount of money every year tostart a new business. So, we did Bar Talk in 2000 andIDW Publishing in 2001 and that was the end ofthat. We’ve continued to try new things, mostrecently with Worthwhile Books, but these days it’salways part of IDW Publishing.

What was our budget? Dave, do you remember?

DV: $10,000.

TA: I thought it might have been $25,000 but$10,000 sounds more likely.

DV: Yeah. We spent $7,000 on the production andanother $2,000 at the bar.

TA: I guess we came in under budget–that soundslike IDW. Let’s talk about the bar. We used MargaritaRocks, a bar in the Pacific Beach community in SanDiego. I guess they’re still open?

RR: They’re still open but I think they changed theirname.

DV: It’s Bar West now. I don’t know if the originalguy still owns it. We went and looked at a few barsand some were receptive and some logisticallylooked good but the owners weren’t receptive.Margarita Rocks gave us the best option both

logistically andbecause they werevery open tohaving us dothe projectthere.

TA: So you secured thelocation and whatever permits we

needed?

DV: We ended up with a one-day insurance policyand we didn’t necessarily need a permit because wewere going to be “off-street” and the San Diego FilmCommission only requires a permit if you’re onpublic property. We talked to them and they said,“Don’t worry, you’re fine. If you get bothered, here’sthe phone number to call.” It wasn’t a problembecause we were on private property.

TA: OK, you got the location, you found out aboutthe permit, handled the insurance… next was findinga film crew. How did you find them?

DV: They were recommended by a friend of minewho had been in video production. These guys wereout of Orange County and had a full productionfacility in Orange County and they had done remotework.

TA: The film crew came in and set up themicrophones and they did the actual video shoot.

RR: Before that we went into Margarita Rocks andtalked about where we should shoot and whatdifferent camera angles to use. We talked abouthaving a roaming camera in addition to thestationary cameras. We also tried to figure out whatmicrophones were going to pick up what people andthen we drew it up and used that to talk to the filmcrew.

DV: Right–Robbie handled the creative components.He worked with the film crew to figure out how topick up the best content and then the owner came

48

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getting it perfect–it wasn’tfunny. But I think at the end,we felt great and I think wewent to a local Hollywoodbar right afterwards.

TA: Yeah, I rememberthat, too. We all feltlike we had a prettygood pitch piece andwe were pretty excitedto go out and start thesales process to try andget somebody to pickup the show or at leastto get somebody toinvest some biggermoney into it to develop it further with us. Let’s talkabout that–the next step was to try to go sell thisthing to a network or to a TV producer. This was inthe days before IDW had done any entertainmentdeals so we didn’t have an agent, we didn’t have aHollywood attorney. It was just basically me andDave going out and trying to figure out a way to getour video in front of people.

DV: Somewhat concurrent to post-production wewent to Vegas, to the NATPE convention. And wegot the big-ass directory and we just started cold-calling people–agents, production companies,producers–anyone that we thought could help usmove it forward. Also, at that time, Robbie wasputting together the material for the submissions.

RR: We were hand-making the material–printingthem out, cutting them down, gluing it down–making a brochure that was included with thevideotape.

TA: And we did other marketing collateral that wesent people–Bar Talk coasters, hats, t-shirts, stickers,ballpoint pens. We did all kinds of marketing stuffand we took all that and put it with the videotapeand then sent out hundreds of them. It was definitelythe IDW approach to business–trying to put together

as good a package as we could to market it, tryingto make it as interesting as we could for the personreceiving it. But, ultimately, we were just flat-outcold-calling people. We had no reputation at thetime. Nobody knew us–IDW didn’t have a public

reputation, period, let alonehave any entertainmentdeals set up. It wasprobably a little naïveto think we weregoing to getanybody to takeus seriously.

DV: But therewas a recognition

on our part that we were going against the modelthat Hollywood had in place. To some extent, it wasnaïve, but at the same time we recognized thedecision we were making and knew it was going tobe harder than normal. You had some friends of IDWthat tried to penetrate certain places and people whogave us some leads but, in essence, we were anunknown quantity.

TA: I don’t think we got one single person interested,did we?

DV: We had some agents show a little interest and wegot on the phone with them–that’s where we had themajority of the interest. It was probably less than halfa dozen. We also had one or two production housesrespond. If you remember, there was one thatindicated they had a similar concept that they hadnever shot.

TA: I don’t remember that. Where did all that net outthen? How come none of those ever came toanything?

DV: Well, the production company, because of thesimilar concept, I think we both mutually backedaway. I think at that point in time, the concept of BarTalk was a little edgy for the general market. It’sproven out in later years that it’s acceptable. We had

51

DV: We had two lipstickcameras at the bar and twohandheld cameras that wereroving.

TA: We did all that, we got the materialand then the film crew producedvideo tapes for us. I remember,Dave, you and I went throughthem–it seemed like hundredsof hours of videotape.

DV: It was about 28 hours.

TA: I remember going throughthe tapes and I think we weretrying to put a good face on thematerial but it was pretty obviousthat it was pretty poor qualityat least from a soundstandpoint.

DV: Right. We endedup with about adozen separatevignettes. All ofthem looked likedecent contentbecause the cameraswere following ourtwo or three ringers andduring the production westarted miking some of thegeneral public because they weredoing things that seemed of interest. We ended upwith about a dozen stories that had various levels ofquality to them as far as the audio and the videowent.

TA: I remember that part of the process just beingunbelievably tedious, going through those tapes. Wewere sitting at my house and it just seemed like nightafter night after night for a long time. We reviewedthe material, we identified the pieces that we thoughtwere right and then the next step was the post-

production process. Wewere trying to chop itdown and cut it into a15-to-20 minutepilot which wouldinclude the introsequence and atheme song. Thethree of us went upto an LA post-production house and

we were there a full day.

RR: Yeah, we werethere from when theyopened until late inthe afternoon.

TA: They took ourrough material andchopped it down forus. We’d already hadthe logo because we

used that for themarketing material and then

they did the title treatmentwith the…

RR: A neon flashing light typething.

TA: We used a Violent Femmes songfor the theme and we added subtitles to

some of the segments where we thought thematerial was good but the audio was bad. We endedup with, what was it, maybe 15 to 20 minutes?

RR/DV: Yes.

TA: I think we all felt pretty good at the end of thatprocess.

RR: It was exciting at the beginning, when we wereworking on it, laughing at everything. But then, onceyou see that same clip like 30 times–rewinding it,

50

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getting it perfect–it wasn’tfunny. But I think at the end,we felt great and I think wewent to a local Hollywoodbar right afterwards.

TA: Yeah, I rememberthat, too. We all feltlike we had a prettygood pitch piece andwe were pretty excitedto go out and start thesales process to try andget somebody to pickup the show or at leastto get somebody toinvest some biggermoney into it to develop it further with us. Let’s talkabout that–the next step was to try to go sell thisthing to a network or to a TV producer. This was inthe days before IDW had done any entertainmentdeals so we didn’t have an agent, we didn’t have aHollywood attorney. It was just basically me andDave going out and trying to figure out a way to getour video in front of people.

DV: Somewhat concurrent to post-production wewent to Vegas, to the NATPE convention. And wegot the big-ass directory and we just started cold-calling people–agents, production companies,producers–anyone that we thought could help usmove it forward. Also, at that time, Robbie wasputting together the material for the submissions.

RR: We were hand-making the material–printingthem out, cutting them down, gluing it down–making a brochure that was included with thevideotape.

TA: And we did other marketing collateral that wesent people–Bar Talk coasters, hats, t-shirts, stickers,ballpoint pens. We did all kinds of marketing stuffand we took all that and put it with the videotapeand then sent out hundreds of them. It was definitelythe IDW approach to business–trying to put together

as good a package as we could to market it, tryingto make it as interesting as we could for the personreceiving it. But, ultimately, we were just flat-outcold-calling people. We had no reputation at thetime. Nobody knew us–IDW didn’t have a public

reputation, period, let alonehave any entertainmentdeals set up. It wasprobably a little naïveto think we weregoing to getanybody to takeus seriously.

DV: But therewas a recognition

on our part that we were going against the modelthat Hollywood had in place. To some extent, it wasnaïve, but at the same time we recognized thedecision we were making and knew it was going tobe harder than normal. You had some friends of IDWthat tried to penetrate certain places and people whogave us some leads but, in essence, we were anunknown quantity.

TA: I don’t think we got one single person interested,did we?

DV: We had some agents show a little interest and wegot on the phone with them–that’s where we had themajority of the interest. It was probably less than halfa dozen. We also had one or two production housesrespond. If you remember, there was one thatindicated they had a similar concept that they hadnever shot.

TA: I don’t remember that. Where did all that net outthen? How come none of those ever came toanything?

DV: Well, the production company, because of thesimilar concept, I think we both mutually backedaway. I think at that point in time, the concept of BarTalk was a little edgy for the general market. It’sproven out in later years that it’s acceptable. We had

51

DV: We had two lipstickcameras at the bar and twohandheld cameras that wereroving.

TA: We did all that, we got the materialand then the film crew producedvideo tapes for us. I remember,Dave, you and I went throughthem–it seemed like hundredsof hours of videotape.

DV: It was about 28 hours.

TA: I remember going throughthe tapes and I think we weretrying to put a good face on thematerial but it was pretty obviousthat it was pretty poor qualityat least from a soundstandpoint.

DV: Right. We endedup with about adozen separatevignettes. All ofthem looked likedecent contentbecause the cameraswere following ourtwo or three ringers andduring the production westarted miking some of thegeneral public because they weredoing things that seemed of interest. We ended upwith about a dozen stories that had various levels ofquality to them as far as the audio and the videowent.

TA: I remember that part of the process just beingunbelievably tedious, going through those tapes. Wewere sitting at my house and it just seemed like nightafter night after night for a long time. We reviewedthe material, we identified the pieces that we thoughtwere right and then the next step was the post-

production process. Wewere trying to chop itdown and cut it into a15-to-20 minutepilot which wouldinclude the introsequence and atheme song. Thethree of us went upto an LA post-production house and

we were there a full day.

RR: Yeah, we werethere from when theyopened until late inthe afternoon.

TA: They took ourrough material andchopped it down forus. We’d already hadthe logo because we

used that for themarketing material and then

they did the title treatmentwith the…

RR: A neon flashing light typething.

TA: We used a Violent Femmes songfor the theme and we added subtitles to

some of the segments where we thought thematerial was good but the audio was bad. We endedup with, what was it, maybe 15 to 20 minutes?

RR/DV: Yes.

TA: I think we all felt pretty good at the end of thatprocess.

RR: It was exciting at the beginning, when we wereworking on it, laughing at everything. But then, onceyou see that same clip like 30 times–rewinding it,

50

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a number of passes we made on our side with theagents we were talking to.

TA: I guess ultimately it just fizzled out. It’s funny tothink that when we shot this, in 2000, this kind ofidea was just getting started and today this type ofcontent is being created all over the place. This is thekind of thing that, had YouTube existed back then,we could have focused our energies on trying tomarket this thing there and do those kinds of things.I know we tried that recently–to try to bring it tothe YouTube audience and relaunch it that way.

RR: I think it goes back to the sound quality. It’s justhard to get across what we’re trying to do.

TA: Here we are almost 10 years later, IDW is well-established in the world of entertainment. We do TVand movie deals all the time–we’re represented byCAA, the biggest and best entertainment agency inthe world, we have a great management team inHollywood and even with all those great people inplace we can’t get it set up. Every time we doanything with a new agent or a new manager, Ialways send them a copy of Bar Talk and the silenceis just deafening. I always explain it wasn’t executedas well as we’d hoped it would be–there are soundproblems–but if you can get past the sound, I thinkthe core concept is solid. But, I send the tape off andit’s just silence. You can tell people don’t even wantto talk about it–they don’t want to hurt my feelings.I get the same kind of things sent to me all the time.People give us blind submissions every day and a lotof times they come through friends or family. Thehardest thing is when you get something that youknow you don’t like but it comes through your uncleor your mom and it’s hard to tell this persongracefully that I don’t want to touch their idea.I think that’s what’s happened over the years withBar Talk.

DV: And yet it appears that others have experiencedthe same technical difficulties. When you guys weretalking about YouTube, some of the stuff I’ve seen,

which is extremely similar in concept, had the sameproblems–where it had to be subtitled, you couldn’tunderstand what was going on, the lighting was bador the shots just weren’t there.

TA: I think if I could get somebody interested, there’sstill a chance we could get it going. I remember whenwe did a deal on the movie side with the guy whoproduced The Bachelor TV show. I met him right atthe height of that show being successful and we gotinto business with him on a movie project that endedup not going anywhere. But, I thought, “All right,this is the guy–finally! I’ve got a guy who makesreality TV shows, I’m going to convince him that thisis a good idea.” And, it was the same thing, I talkedto him about it, I sold him on the idea and then Isent him the videotape and that was that. It was justthe same dead-end. Maybe the answer here is thatwe should stop sending the videotape and just sellthe idea.

RR: Good thing we weren’t living off that project.

TA: Well, I guess that’s kind of a bummer way to endit but not everything works out, right?

RR: And we learned a lot. We had a good time. Wedid a TV project. I thought it was a cool thing to dosince I studied film in school. I had a good timerunning a camera again. We lost our money but atleast it was fun.

DV: And I think there are some components youcarried forward into your post-Bar Talk Hollywooddeals. We proved that cold-calling alone wouldn’twork–we knew that agency representation was key,and now you have one of the best in the industryand that’s been key to your ongoing success in thatarea. Without Bar Talk, it would have taken you guysa little bit longer to get up the learning curve there.

TA: True–every cloud has a silver lining. And, ifthere’s a TV show runner out there who wants to talkto me about Bar Talk, I’m easy to find.

53

IDW

52

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a number of passes we made on our side with theagents we were talking to.

TA: I guess ultimately it just fizzled out. It’s funny tothink that when we shot this, in 2000, this kind ofidea was just getting started and today this type ofcontent is being created all over the place. This is thekind of thing that, had YouTube existed back then,we could have focused our energies on trying tomarket this thing there and do those kinds of things.I know we tried that recently–to try to bring it tothe YouTube audience and relaunch it that way.

RR: I think it goes back to the sound quality. It’s justhard to get across what we’re trying to do.

TA: Here we are almost 10 years later, IDW is well-established in the world of entertainment. We do TVand movie deals all the time–we’re represented byCAA, the biggest and best entertainment agency inthe world, we have a great management team inHollywood and even with all those great people inplace we can’t get it set up. Every time we doanything with a new agent or a new manager, Ialways send them a copy of Bar Talk and the silenceis just deafening. I always explain it wasn’t executedas well as we’d hoped it would be–there are soundproblems–but if you can get past the sound, I thinkthe core concept is solid. But, I send the tape off andit’s just silence. You can tell people don’t even wantto talk about it–they don’t want to hurt my feelings.I get the same kind of things sent to me all the time.People give us blind submissions every day and a lotof times they come through friends or family. Thehardest thing is when you get something that youknow you don’t like but it comes through your uncleor your mom and it’s hard to tell this persongracefully that I don’t want to touch their idea.I think that’s what’s happened over the years withBar Talk.

DV: And yet it appears that others have experiencedthe same technical difficulties. When you guys weretalking about YouTube, some of the stuff I’ve seen,

which is extremely similar in concept, had the sameproblems–where it had to be subtitled, you couldn’tunderstand what was going on, the lighting was bador the shots just weren’t there.

TA: I think if I could get somebody interested, there’sstill a chance we could get it going. I remember whenwe did a deal on the movie side with the guy whoproduced The Bachelor TV show. I met him right atthe height of that show being successful and we gotinto business with him on a movie project that endedup not going anywhere. But, I thought, “All right,this is the guy–finally! I’ve got a guy who makesreality TV shows, I’m going to convince him that thisis a good idea.” And, it was the same thing, I talkedto him about it, I sold him on the idea and then Isent him the videotape and that was that. It was justthe same dead-end. Maybe the answer here is thatwe should stop sending the videotape and just sellthe idea.

RR: Good thing we weren’t living off that project.

TA: Well, I guess that’s kind of a bummer way to endit but not everything works out, right?

RR: And we learned a lot. We had a good time. Wedid a TV project. I thought it was a cool thing to dosince I studied film in school. I had a good timerunning a camera again. We lost our money but atleast it was fun.

DV: And I think there are some components youcarried forward into your post-Bar Talk Hollywooddeals. We proved that cold-calling alone wouldn’twork–we knew that agency representation was key,and now you have one of the best in the industryand that’s been key to your ongoing success in thatarea. Without Bar Talk, it would have taken you guysa little bit longer to get up the learning curve there.

TA: True–every cloud has a silver lining. And, ifthere’s a TV show runner out there who wants to talkto me about Bar Talk, I’m easy to find.

53

IDW

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