The Missing Chapter: StarBiz

For those of you who follow my blog, and I do mean both of you, you may have noticed that there was a period of a few months last year when there were no postings at all. That gap was due to an all-consuming project I was working on called StarBiz. I didn’t post about it at the time because when I say it was all-consuming, I mean I’d frequently work until I couldn’t keep my eyes open at my laptop anymore, then get up at 5 a.m. to finish what I couldn’t the night before and then get to the studio for another all-day taping session that would go until midnight.

And I didn’t post about it when it was over because I didn’t know what to say. But it was a big part of my 2011, and it feels like it would be wrong not to at least make an attempt. So here’s my attempt.

StarBiz. Strange name, but a cool concept.

It was the brainchild of Aaron Edson and David Osmond, who had recently collaborated on David’s new faith-based album, Reflections, and had previously worked with us on Jonah (Aaron was the composer and David was Jonah).

I remember it was about a year ago at this time when Aaron laid out the concept to Ken and me as we ate ice cream around the fireplace at Farr’s in Orem. The idea was that they’d bring in a group of unknown singer-songwriters, have them play their songs for a panel of coaches, who would then work with them on their songwriting and performance skills. At the end of the series of workshops, they’d perform their songs again in front of a studio audience, and a number of them would be selected to move on in the competition. So, sort of like a smaller version of American Idol, except with singer-songwriters?, I asked Aaron.

He then told us about the wrinkle, and that was that during the workshops, the singer-songwriters would be challenged to write a new song in a short period of time incorporating the theme of a different non-profit organization each episode. The winning song would be professionally recorded and released on iTunes, with the proceeds benefiting the non-profit group. In addition, the contestants who participated in the writing of the winning song would receive special privileges in the competition, the details of which were still being worked out. Aaron described the pitch of the show being that most music reality shows took young people and made them great artists, but that StarBiz would be about taking young artists and making them great people. That was pretty cool, I thought. The music world could use a little dose of that.

BYUtv was interested. They were working on expanding their lineup of original programming, and StarBiz was among the shows they were considering. After a number of starts and stops, they eventually greenlighted StarBiz, and I was brought on by Aaron and David’s company to be the story producer.

You may wonder what the story producer on a reality show does. I wondered the same. The division of responsibilities was a little fuzzy, but I had decided that I would jump in with both feet and help anywhere I could in an effort to help the show be successful enough to get a second season. That was my prime directive. Whatever it took.

It didn’t get a second episode.

I’m not going to get into the whys. I’m not convinced I even know the full story. Suffice it here to say that perhaps our reach exceeded our grasp. That’s not a bad thing, though, because if you’re not stretching yourself, how will you grow? In the words of Mario (the race car driver, not the video game character, but probably could’ve been said by either), “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” And pushing yourself means sometimes you’re going to end up off the track. This apparently was one of those times.

But when the plug was pulled, it was a major shock to the system. To be fully consumed in something, working day and night on it, and then it is suddenly gone? Like me, I know a lot of people in the cast and crew were, as my friends in England would say, gobsmacked. There was for awhile hope that it could be revamped and revived, but it hasn’t happened.

I felt bad about the cancellation in a bunch of different ways, professionally, economically, socially. I mean, I had made a lot of good friends during the seven episodes that we shot and was looking forward to continuing to working with them through the end of the 13-episode season that had been planned.

But perhaps the most disappointing thing of all to me about the cancellation was the premature demise of a very cool means to introduce to the world a new breed of talented young artists. In an era where music stars seem to be all about themselves and excess, we were finding beautiful young people with ridiculous amounts of talent, but who had a depth to them and seemed to recognize the responsibilities that came with their God-given gifts.

I was so looking forward to being part of the effort to help give these artists a little boost in the industry to see what they might go on to accomplish. And in the process, hopefully inspiring a rising generation of artists to consider looking at their talents a little differently than perhaps as a way of merely becoming a rich idol.

While the show may be gone, I’m hopeful that many of these talented young people will still be able to find a way to break into the industry. I think they would be a breath of fresh air.

I’m thinking that maybe I could use my considerable clout (thanks to both of you, my readers) as a blogger to help introduce some of these young artists who could change the music world. I’m thinking about a mini-series of posts over the next little while highlighting a few of them.

It may not be BYUtv, with its reach into 40 bazillion homes, but what it lacks in reach, it makes up for in being something within my control.