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Micheal Flaherty is the co-founder and former president of Walden Media, a production company which focuses on films that entertain and educate. Through Walden, he has developed educational materials and programs that incite enthusiasm in the classroom and connect learning to entertainment.
Jan 13, 2012 · Tufts University. About. I love animals, books, and movies. So In 1999, I co-founded Walden Media with a mission to create films from books that celebrated the transformational power of education...
- 500+
- 1.9K
- Think Again Studios
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Nov 19, 2011 · Micheal Flaherty is a former educator who is now the head of Walden Media, which produces films and books with moral and educational value. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News. By Jamshid Ghazi Askar. 'We need a motley crew to change the world,' Flaherty says of his belief in uniting believers of different faiths.
- jaskar@deseretnews.com
- Technology and Media
- Selecting A New Movie
- Motivation For New Projects
- The Film vs. The Book
- The Importance of Reading
- The Financial Model
- Business Measurements
- Publishing Role
- A Bicoastal Business
- Future Products
I think there is tremendous potential with technology to give everyone an opportunity for a good education. You are born into a school system and no matter how hard your parents want to work at it, you are going to that school even if it’s a bad fit. And a good education can make all the difference. We are making a film right now called The Miracle...
What is your approach to finding a new movie?
We just go out and talk to as many parents, teachers, and librarians as possible to ask them about their favorite stories. What kind of movies would you like to see? Traditionally what Hollywood would do is to decide for themselves what movies they are going to make and then try to figure out a way to sell them. We do it backwards, by first finding out what people want to see and then making the film.
But you don’t make just any film. How do you define your niche?
The overwhelming majority of our films are based on either great books or great people, so we don’t have a broad general mandate like most other companies. Ours is a very specific one, finding mostly great books, and some great individuals like Ray Charles[produced by Walden Media sister company Bristol Bay Productions], and then building comprehensive educational campaigns around the films. We are in our comfort zone with books, but it was nice to get some relationships going with music teac...
Tell us more about what you did with Ray Charles.
We created an educational program around the music of Ray Charles, trying to get kids interested in this kind of creative expression. This was something we did for the classroom, making this tool available to the teachers.
As you consider a project, do you focus on what you are for, or what you are against?
Entirely what we’re for. For us it is always about finding great stories that the whole family will enjoy. Our goal is to inspire and get kids reading. We will leave the criticism to the critics.
Others produce films that you would never produce. Do you see an important place for them as well?
Certainly. There are a lot of films that we would never produce that are on my list of all-time favorites. For example, Saving Private Ryanis one of the best films I have ever seen. We’d never make a film like that because it carries an R rating and has intense violence. So it wouldn’t fit our family profile. But it’s a terrific film, and I think it’s fantastic that it was made. I had just gotten married, and I told my new wife that I wanted to quit my job and write a business plan! Brave Hea...
What is the relationship between a good book and a good movie?
In both cases, they help you appreciate life, and they both help you understand that your best days can still be ahead of you. But a book and a movie are very different things. It is no slight if someone tells us that they liked the book better, because we are not competing with the book. In fact, if the film gets people to read, then we believe we have accomplished part of our mission.
You have produced a special issue of Charlotte’s Webafter the movie came out, including a teacher’s edition. Is this another part of your link between books and movies?
Yes, we are doing this in conjunction with the publishers, creating guides that are independent of the movie. We try to gear everything toward the book rather than the film. We will use the images from the film as illustrations, but everything is geared toward the book and the story. We just want to make sure that it is something that teachers will use. We distribute the guides at a lot of conferences — the American Library Association conference, the midwinter librarian conference, and a num...
Why is reading so important to you?
Literacy and a love for literature is the gateway to learning. Many are talking about the big crisis that we have in education, but for me it all starts with reading. If our young people don’t have that passion and love for literature and for great stories, a lot more than reading could perish. Did you know that those who read have a greater likelihood to be engaged in their communities? They are more likely to volunteer and to engage in the arts. So I believe that reading is critical for a d...
How does the financial part of your business fit with the motivation you have been describing?
We are definitely a double bottom-line company. If our movies aren’t profitable, then we can’t keep making them, and that is the critical thing for us. You can do well by doing good. And we encourage imitators. If we can prove that making films based on these kinds of stories is profitable, then there will be more of these films available for families to see. So we really feel the responsibility to prove that this kind of venture can be profitable.
When you talk about a double bottom line, does it ever pull you toward a project that doesn’t quite fit your values, but could make a lot of money?
No, but there are a lot of those! Sometimes we get pulled in the opposite direction. We see a story that could be a real challenge to make money with, but we still feel it is an important project. We tend to go for it because of the story first. That was the case for the two films that came out within a week of each other, Bridge to Terabithia and Amazing Grace [produced by Bristol Bay Productions]. Bridge to Terabithia was a terrific book written by one of my favorite authors, Katherine Pate...
I personally enjoyed Amazing Grace. How did that film do for you financially?
It did great for that kind of picture, as a historical drama or period piece about William Wilberforce and his work in England to abolish slavery. Another film in that genre came out in the same year, The Last King of Scotland. It won an Academy Award, but Amazing Gracemade more money, and it is doing really well internationally. There is a more important, more gratifying thing to come out of that film, however. We hired an independent polling company to do an objective poll for us several mo...
Can you be a bit more precise in how you measure this “double bottom line?”
Yes. One of the big things we do is look at book sales to see if our film “moved the needle” in terms of getting people to read this specific story. In all of the cases of recent films, including Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Bridge to Terabithia, and Charlotte’s Web, we have seen the sales of those books increase exponentially. So we do know that we are getting more people not just into the movie theatre, but also to read the story. Further, we hope tha...
The film industry has an interesting business model. For example, many of the people who make a film do not work directly for Walden Media, is that correct?
Yes, they all do. But they work on a project-by-project basis. Each film is its own business that we operate and manage. We have a full-time staff of about 70 people to identify and develop projects and to market the films. Our staff also develops partner relationships, and does administration and the back-office thing. But when we start a project, the number of people can grow to thousands. Each of these people work for us on that particular project. We have never had a year like the one com...
Where does the growth come from?
It is a sign of a market need. It is also a sign of our growth and a new distribution partnership with Fox. So now, with the exception of the Chronicles of Narniaseries, all future movies will be distributed through a co-venture with Fox to market and release films. It has been really exciting to have that expertise in house. Disney will continue with marketing and distribution of the Narnia series.
Describe your publishing work.
We have a joint venture with Penguin Publishers to co-publish books. We have a series coming out in a couple of weeks by Mike Lupica, a sport columnist who writes books for young boys. This is a group we would like to inspire to do more reading. We also published a book called The White Giraffe, which takes place in South Africa. There is a lot of ignorance about Africa in the U.S., and not just among young kids. This book is both a terrific story and teaches about Africa. The team that did B...
Most media companies are located in Southern California, but you are here in Boston, Massachusetts. Why?
We have two offices, one in Southern California and one here in Boston. You can see video-conferencing equipment there in the corner that gets quite a bit of use. We have a much bigger office in Los Angeles, managed by Cary, my former college roommate. We go back and forth to L.A. and we are on video conference and conference calls several times a day. But I just like being in Boston for a couple of reasons. First, my brother, Chip, is the executive vice president and publisher, managing the...
I remember reading somewhere that you do not follow the traditional grand style of travel like some other media companies do.
It comes from spending a year after the dot-com bust of trying to raise money and spending money carefully, like it was your own. When we first started, it was with the money my wife and I got from our wedding. So we would go online and find the best price for a hotel, and shop carefully for the best price on a rental car. There is no reason not to continue to apply that just because we are now making good money. It has become a part of our culture, and is actually a lot of fun. It starts wit...
What is coming up in your future products?
Prince Caspian is next in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Everyone seems to remember reading that series growing up. Many people think of reading as a solitary experience, but at least with this series, people remember the books being given to them by a friend and being read to them. Great stories are shared. That will be coming out in May. Then the following May, Voyage of the Dawn Treadercomes out. We are very excited about those films. Right around that time, we also release a book writte...
Do you plan to do all the Chronicles of Narnia series?
Right now we are committed to all of them, but currently we are focused on only the next two. One of the challenges we face in a long series is the aging of the children. In the stories, they reappear in the last book, The Last Battle, at the same age they were in the first story. Andrew Adamson, our director, has a great way of dealing with the aging of the children within the films. And Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C.S. Lewis, has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Narnia, and has p...
Micheal Flaherty is Co-Founder and President of Walden Media, a Production Company, which focuses on films that entertain and educate. Through Walden, he has developed educational materials and programs that insight enthusiasm in the classroom and connect learning to entertainment.
Micheal Flaherty (educator) explained. Micheal Flaherty is the co-founder and former president of Walden Media, a production company which focuses on films that entertain and educate. Through Walden, he has developed educational materials and programs that incite enthusiasm in the classroom and connect learning to entertainment.
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