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 issues have changed within the past many years. The time frame from the tail end in the 20th century to present day brought us unbelievable advances in all the things we could imagine, telecom and medicine being two shining examples. Nevertheless it also ushered within the inevitable downsides of such advances - rapid off shoring of jobs, mega online retailers crushing local mom and pop shops. Get extra information about Feeding the Dragon
Possibly one of the least noticed but most pernicious trends would be the rise of your Super Middlemen. They're the “experts”, devoid of whom practically nothing appears to obtain done. They have grow to be a whole market, peopled with “professionals” that add absolutely nothing for the equation besides perpetually drive the will need for other people 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 of the extraordinarily lucrative business of cultural exchange amongst Hollywood and China. It is actually this knowledge that Fenton purports to possess which is the basis for the book - a unique know-how that couple of people comprehend. It really is particular know-how he somehow gleaned when not speaking the language or spending considerable amounts of time in China.
As such, super middlemen’s sole purpose seems to become using the status as “expert” to develop into gatekeepers to an entire business or no less than, parts of an market. The best example of those new super middlemen can loosely be called the “Hollywood Agent”, who can develop into movie producers devoid of carrying out anything more than lunch.
The job of a Hollywood agent is usually to introduce producers to studios or actors to directors - that variety of point. Inside the past, it was limited to just that - introductions. Now, they invariably get into the middle in the process, taking an active part in either the business or creative process or each, adding more layers to a deal that's normally currently a complicated process.
So, how is this doable? Agents do not develop an original idea for any film or television show. They do not write scripts. They do not direct or make the film, they do not finance something and they're absolutely not actors, at the least not ones you see around the screen. They are inside a one of a kind position simply because the agent is representing somebody or one thing that producers or studios want - an actor, director, script, intellectual property rights, etc. And that is specifically where they apply pressure and insert themselves in to the process. They know they could slow or even stop the intended project, siphoning off money without having making a factor or helping anybody apart from themselves. In quick, they proper others’ talent and labor to pay themselves.
Certainly, in the event you pay interest to credits on films you might have been asking yourself why there are actually lots of far more producers than there had been twenty years ago. The answer in one word, though perhaps a little bit oversimplified is: agents. They basically insert themselves in to the deal and viola, just like magic, a run on the mill agent has turn into a producer, in spite of they brought absolutely nothing inventive or financial towards the project. Hat, meet rabbit. This can be maybe the reason over the past handful of decades we've got noticed the number of producers on films jump from perhaps 3 or four 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 really a prime instance of an agent so lost in his personal inflated story that he truly chronicled it within a book.
The book is supposed to be about the US film studios and their dilemma with China in regards to releasing American films there. Actually, it truly is a 270 page egotistical journey, chronicling the author’s maneuvering to insert himself into the film producing process. But his story is about more than that; he implies all of the way through and in virtually just about every circumstance that he was the guiding force behind each of the results the varying companies enjoyed.
The very good people over at Terrible Book Club have study the book and have come to related opinions, observing that the author “starts looking to tie himself to higher people and events” at just about every chance. The term they use is “starfu**er”. They go on to say, “it appears like he only survived by becoming close to the people who really make the deals….”
Now, to be particular, he gives himself an out ahead of the book even gets started. He says just before chapter one:
Even though I used in depth notes along with other source materials to detail events from long ago, certain inventive freedoms did come into play, possibly resulting in some inaccuracies. My profession has focused largely in the movie business, where “showing” rather than “telling” will be the norm. The quoted dialogue from real people all through the book was inspired by my recollection of each and every event and shouldn't be taken as verbatim.
And just like that, he lets himself on the hook for each and every misstatement, exaggeration or total fabrication.
When you decide to read the book, study it meticulously since there's lots of double speak where he maneuvers the reader to assume quite a few items in the pages. For example, he implies he made the dual release tactic for the Bruce Willis film Looper, with one version for China and yet another for general world release. He does not truly say he did it, and he most definitely didn’t do it, but he certainly desires to leave the reader with that impression.
And Impressions appear to become what this book is about. So that you can reinforce his specialist credentials, he liberally lifts paragraphs from other published works, which typically leave the reader baffled. To once again quote Terrible Book Club: “I don’t ought to study 3 paragraphs of an article about how cool you will be within a book you are writing about how cool you are.”
But he does not stop there. He tends to make specific to inform the reader that he logged 140,000 air miles over the course of several years, implying that that was all involving the US and China….his second home as he calls it inside 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 expert, he admits he doesn’t speak Chinese. Definitely, someone claiming to be an professional within the way a nation goes about its business needs to be fluent in the language, ought to have lived there and know the people and its culture. But he has completed none of those items.
This brings in a different issue with agents or other so referred to as “experts”. People can self-publish articles or press releases stating they may be an specialist in a certain field. But like quite a few points on the internet, there’s no verification. You say “what’s the problem?” Effectively, none if you’re writing about the Red Sox bullpen prospects or why pencil sharpeners are intriguing. But in the event you are claiming to become an specialist on US / China Relations, your suggestions may cause real problems since US / China relations are tense pretty much all of the time.
But back for the book. Possibly the silliest but most emblematic vignette concerns the author when he was functioning as a waiter at Olive Garden. After he figures out the system for upselling patrons and winning Employee in the Month twice(!), he declares himself “an Olive Garden God” (page 41). Drunk in the hubris of becoming the Olive Garden God, he begins sneaking in to the restaurant walk-in refrigerator, ultimately 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 strengthen his business. The boss looked at Chris and pondered this and stated, yes that sounds like an incredible idea, thank you Chris. Now does anyone actually assume the incident occurred as written? Most will contact BS but quite a few will probably be left believing, “he genuinely is often a superior guy”. In spite of the truth he’s a thief and most likely a confidence man.
And there you might have it: in typical agent fashion, one gets caught performing some thing bad and embarrassing, the story gets spun into an accomplishment. Bravo!
After the Olive Garden incident, Fenton tells us, he began his career inside the film sector as an agent at the prestigious William Morris Agency. Immediately after a prosperous tenure there he moved on to DMG Entertainment, a global entertainment company that developed such films as Iron Man 3 and Looper. He worked for that company for seventeen years exactly where he attained the position of President of North American Films.
This can be what he tells us in his book though journalist Andrew Rossow, Esq. did a bit of investigating. As outlined by Rossow, this really is the actual story: Fenton did get a job at William Morris where he was fired. The cause Fenton gives is the fact that he was as well good a guy. Which means, he doesn't tell us why he was genuinely fired. Next, he got a job at MBST. There, he was fired for bring about, reportedly for attempting to steal consumers from the company. His entire tenure at MBST is mysteriously totally absent from his book. When some thing is fully left out of an autobiographical book, one has to suspect the worst.
Subsequent, Fenton began to perform freelance work as an agent for employ, his major client becoming DMG Entertainment. There, He worked as a free agent on and off for many years until they lastly hired him. His time employed there was for 5 years not seventeen. He was subsequently let go from that company and is now embroiled within a $30 million dollar lawsuit for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence.
And, there you've it, the life and profession of a Hollywood agent now, somehow, a china expert.
