Tip for movie makers: keep up profile

Michael Eisner

Former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner has a simple message for New Zealand movie makers, game developers and artists aspiring to make it on the world stage: put yourself out there.

Speaking ahead of his visit to Auckland in late February as a keynote speaker for the Global Business Forum leadership conference, Eisner said local artists should: "Keep toiling away in the field [they] are working in and maybe once in a while take a vacation to New York or Hollywood and bang on a few doors to remind people there is a vibrant industry in New Zealand."

New Zealand's English language, its vibrant culture of content production and success stories such as Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy gave local content producers a head start over many countries.

"A lot of countries the size of New Zealand have a language where there is no exportable product ... People are doing well so it proves it can happen," Eisner told the Business Herald.

Eisner ended more than 20 years with Disney at the end of September. He said last year he would step aside after dissident investor Roy Disney, nephew of the company's founder, mounted a shareholder revolt.

But during his reign Eisner transformed Disney from a company with revenues of US$1.5 billion ($2.18 billion) to US$30.8 billion.Net profits rose from US$294 million in 1984 to US$2.5 billion last year.

The company went from running an animation studio and a pair of theme parks to one running 11 theme parks, television, publishing, radio and retail outlets, a cruise line, online services and one of Hollywood's largest movie studios.

He said new technologies such as the broadband internet, MP3 players, 3G mobile phones, and huge increases in the availability of cheap computer memory were creating voracious demand for new content.

Meanwhile the rising influence of Asia demanded new and creative approaches from western content producers.

Eisner will share the podium in Auckland with Carly Fiorina, former chairman and chief executive of computer hardware manufacturer Hewlett Packard.

In his first visit to NZ, Eisner will tell executives - and, at similar events in Sydney and Melbourne, Australian bosses - how to lead and foster a creative, long-lasting, ethical, engaged, accountable corporate culture. But he promises no simple rules of thumb.

"In a sense if you create a rule of thumb to live within a creative environment then you have broken it." Over the years he had arranged to visit several movie productions in New Zealand, but always been called away.

Since leaving Disney he has looked around the world at a variety of opportunities in content production, but he would not be more specific.

"I am working very hard, harder than I worked in my last few months at Disney because I do not have 130,000 people to do things for me."

* Walt Disney last week posted a near 30 per cent drop in quarterly profit, weighed down by a string of weak performances by movies such as Proof and Dark Water. Net income fell to US$379 million in the fourth quarter ended October 1, down from US$516 million.

- REUTERS