Ball's Role in The Company
Ball's contribution was more on the artistic side. Ball had developed a sense for making many Desilu program proposals which would be popular to broad audiences and be successful in both their original broadcast and syndication re-runs. Before starring in I Love Lucy Ball had starred in many "B" movies before helping start Desilu Productions, and based on that experience, she had a good idea of what television audiences wanted.
High quality (i.e., high cost), original production concepts (such as The Untouchables or Star Trek) were approved by Ball for development into broadcast series. She assessed proposed projects based on how the public would enjoy the production and their potential for long-term acceptance and enjoyment. This ensured a profitable revenue stream from the programs through re-runs, which would recover the studio's initially high development and production costs. As a result, even decades after the absorption of Desilu Productions, and the production end of all of the original television series Desilu approved for development, the series have all achieved enduring success and redevelopment into feature length motion picture franchises in their own right, or both (e.g., Star Trek, Mission Impossible, and The Untouchables).
Read more about this topic: Desilu Productions
Famous quotes containing the words ball, role and/or company:
“The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“But however the forms of family life have changed and the number expanded, the role of the family has remained constant and it continues to be the major institution through which children pass en route to adulthood.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)