Big Hollywood names and long-time storytellers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard took the stage at Imagine 2011 with Microsoft’s Stephen Kim, GM Global Creative Solutions.

Grazer and Howard are the Academy Award-winning filmmakers and founders of Imagine Entertainment, which has given us TV programs like 24 and movies like A Beautiful Mind.

They discussed their partnership and how they play off of their strengths. Grazer often taking an idea and pushing the limits like playing out a TV show in real-time and creating an experience like 24 and Howard finding and building provocative stories and narratives.

Howard explained that film as a medium allows him to build a narrative moment by moment for the audience. For Howard, stories awaken possibilities and pique curiosity. For Grazer, the medium allows for something that is very intangible to become real and elicit emotion from the audience.

When asked why movies continue to succeed in the cluttered media landscape they commented that people love being transported emotionally and that people continue to enjoy sitting back and having a story told to them.

They commented that at the core stories are not really changing, but that we are seeing the same archetypes. What is changing are the new forms and technologies that are driving the way they are delivered, like 3D. While in Redmond, Grazer and Howard were able to explore some of these advancements while touring Microsoft’s research labs.

Closing out the session Stephen Kim asked them a series of questions:

Q: Are you on Facebook?

A: No. Howard commented that he already has friends.

Q: Have you watched a movie on your mobile?

A: No, but commented that they are thrilled if the story is experienced no matter the screen size.

Q: Are they on Twitter?

A: They don’t actively use Twitter. However, immediately following the session Grazer viewed our hashtag #imagine11 and witnessed all the chatter about their talk. Grazer then tweeted, “I loved doing this conference. It was fascinating getting into Research Building 99. I love that I am tweeting about it.” I guess you could say, we inspired him.

Q: What movie would you want to remake?

A: Colossus

Q: Which actors would they want to work with?

A: Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman were at the top of the list.

Enjoy the clip of the session.

Cheers,

Jenny

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