I was reading a book entitled Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business by Chris Fenton and it created me curious how items have changed in the previous several years. The time frame from the tail end from the 20th century to present day brought us unbelievable advances in all the things we could visualize, telecom and medicine being two shining examples. However it also ushered inside the inevitable downsides of such advances – rapid off shoring of jobs, mega online retailers crushing local mom and pop shops. Get a lot more details about Feeding the Dragon
Possibly one of your least noticed but most pernicious trends would be the rise of the Super Middlemen. They’re the “experts”, devoid of whom nothing at all appears to acquire performed. They have turn out to be a whole market, peopled with “professionals” that add practically nothing to the equation other than perpetually drive the require for other individuals to work with their services.
Such is the tale woven by author Chris Fenton in Feeding the Dragon, a posterboy for appropriations of other peoples work. It’s a book set against the backdrop from the extraordinarily lucrative business of cultural exchange involving Hollywood and China. It’s this experience that Fenton purports to possess that is definitely the basis for the book – a particular information that couple of people recognize. It is specific know-how he somehow gleaned whilst not speaking the language or spending substantial amounts of time in China.
As such, super middlemen’s sole purpose seems to be using the status as “expert” to turn out to be gatekeepers to an entire sector or a minimum of, parts of an market. The most beneficial example of these new super middlemen can loosely be called the “Hollywood Agent”, who can come to be movie producers without having carrying out something much more than lunch.
The job of a Hollywood agent would be to introduce producers to studios or actors to directors – that sort of factor. In the previous, it was limited to just that – introductions. Now, they invariably get in to the middle of your process, taking an active part in either the business or creative process or each, adding extra layers to a deal that is ordinarily currently a complex process.
So, how is this achievable? Agents do not generate an original notion for a film or tv show. They do not write scripts. They don’t direct or create the film, they don’t finance anything and they’re certainly not actors, a minimum of not ones you see around the screen. They’re inside a exclusive position since the agent is representing an individual or something that producers or studios want – an actor, director, script, intellectual property rights, etc. And that is precisely exactly where they apply pressure and insert themselves in to the process. They know they will slow or even quit the intended project, siphoning off money without having making a issue or helping anyone aside from themselves. In quick, they appropriate others’ talent and labor to spend themselves.
Indeed, when you spend focus to credits on films you could have been wondering why you will discover a great number of additional producers than there have been twenty years ago. The answer in one word, though perhaps slightly oversimplified is: agents. They basically insert themselves into the deal and viola, just like magic, a run of the mill agent has grow to be a producer, in spite of they brought practically nothing creative or financial to the project. Hat, meet rabbit. This is perhaps the reason more than the previous couple of decades we have observed the number of producers on films jump from possibly 3 or 4 to ten, fifteen even twenty.
But back towards the book that triggered these observations. Released in 2020 and entitled, Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business by Hollywood agent, Chris Fenton is usually a prime instance of an agent so lost in his own inflated story that he truly chronicled it inside a book.
The book is supposed to be in regards to the US film studios and their dilemma with China in terms of releasing American films there. Actually, it really is a 270 page egotistical journey, chronicling the author’s maneuvering to insert himself in to the film creating process. But his story is about far more than that; he implies each of the way by way of and in just about each and every circumstance that he was the guiding force behind all the results the varying companies enjoyed.
The very good people more than at Terrible Book Club have read the book and have come to equivalent opinions, observing that the author “starts wanting to tie himself to greater people and events” at each and every chance. The term they use is “starfu**er”. They go on to say, “it seems like he only survived by becoming close for the people who in fact make the deals….”
Now, to be certain, he offers himself an out before the book even gets began. He says before chapter one:
Although I used extensive notes and other supply components to detail events from long ago, certain inventive freedoms did come into play, possibly resulting in some inaccuracies. My profession has focused largely inside the movie business, exactly where “showing” rather than “telling” could be the norm. The quoted dialogue from real people throughout the book was inspired by my recollection of every occasion and should not be taken as verbatim.
And just like that, he lets himself with the hook for each and every misstatement, exaggeration or full fabrication.
In case you decide to study the book, study it cautiously simply because there is certainly lots of double speak exactly where he maneuvers the reader to assume lots of issues in the pages. As an example, he implies he developed the dual release tactic for the Bruce Willis film Looper, with one version for China and one more for general world release. He does not seriously say he did it, and he most unquestionably didn’t do it, but he definitely desires to leave the reader with that impression.
And Impressions seem to become what this book is about. To be able to reinforce his professional credentials, he liberally lifts paragraphs from other published performs, which typically leave the reader baffled. To once more quote Terrible Book Club: “I don’t must read three paragraphs of an article about how cool you will be inside a book you’re writing about how cool you’re.”
But he does not quit there. He makes specific to tell the reader that he logged 140,000 air miles over the course of some years, implying that that was all involving the US and China….his second home as he calls it within the book. But other published reports say he was only in China a handful of instances – undoubtedly not 140,000 frequent flier miles worth or sufficient to justify calling it you are second home. In trying to make himself into an professional, he admits he does not speak Chinese. Certainly, an individual claiming to become an professional within the way a country goes about its business should be fluent inside the language, ought to have lived there and know the people and its culture. But he has performed none of these factors.
This brings in yet another problem with agents or other so named “experts”. People can self-publish articles or press releases stating they’re an professional inside a specific field. But like several points on the internet, there’s no verification. You say “what’s the issue?” Effectively, none if you’re writing in regards to the Red Sox bullpen prospects or why pencil sharpeners are exciting. But should you are claiming to become an professional on US / China Relations, your assistance may cause real problems for the reason that US / China relations are tense just about all the time.
But back towards the book. Maybe the silliest but most emblematic vignette issues the author when he was working as a waiter at Olive Garden. Once he figures out the system for upselling patrons and winning Employee of your Month twice(!), he declares himself “an Olive Garden God” (web page 41). Drunk from the hubris of being the Olive Garden God, he starts sneaking into the restaurant walk-in refrigerator, sooner or later stealing and consuming 273 tira misus.
But even as his manager fired him, Fenton spins the story in his favor, telling his future former employer strategies he could increase his business. The boss looked at Chris and pondered this and stated, yes that sounds like a terrific idea, thank you Chris. Now does anybody essentially assume the incident occurred as written? Most will get in touch with BS but a lot of might be left believing, “he definitely is actually a fantastic guy”. Despite the fact he’s a thief and probably a self-assurance man.
And there you have got it: in common agent fashion, one gets caught doing some thing bad and embarrassing, the story gets spun into an accomplishment. Bravo!
Immediately after the Olive Garden incident, Fenton tells us, he began his profession in the film industry as an agent in the prestigious William Morris Agency. Following a effective tenure there he moved on to DMG Entertainment, a international entertainment company that created such films as Iron Man 3 and Looper. He worked for that company for seventeen years where he attained the position of President of North American Films.
That is what he tells us in his book despite the fact that journalist Andrew Rossow, Esq. did a bit of investigating. As outlined by Rossow, that is the actual story: Fenton did get a job at William Morris exactly where he was fired. The explanation Fenton provides is the fact that he was also good a guy. Which means, he will not inform us why he was genuinely fired. Next, he got a job at MBST. There, he was fired for cause, reportedly for attempting to steal consumers from the company. His entire tenure at MBST is mysteriously fully absent from his book. When anything is completely left out of an autobiographical book, one has to suspect the worst.
Next, Fenton began to accomplish freelance work as an agent for employ, his principal client being DMG Entertainment. There, He worked as a free agent on and off for a number of years until they finally hired him. His time employed there was for five years not seventeen. He was subsequently let go from that company and is now embroiled inside a $30 million dollar lawsuit for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence.
And, there you have it, the life and profession of a Hollywood agent now, somehow, a china expert.
