Culture through a frontier prism
Glass takes her Boulder perspective to Tribeca Shortlist
If Elisabeth Glass had been alive in the 1880s, she’s convinced she would have been a pioneer woman.
“I love that attitude out here that things are unwritten,” said Glass, a New York native who fell in love with the American West after moving to Texas at age 15. “You can carve out your own life and don’t have all the social rules and congestion of the East Coast.”
Formore than three decades, Glass has helped pioneer the look and feel of modern entertainment. Her senior-level jobs at premium cable networks— first HBO and Cinemax then Starz Encore, HDNet, and as a consultant for BBC America, Lifetime and other channels— have shaped what Americans value on TV and in film.
This month she staked her latest claim as senior vice president and head of content acquisition for Tribeca Shortlist, an offshoot of the New York-based company that runs the internationally acclaimed Tribeca Film Festival.
“I used to ask, ‘Will this play in Des Moines?’ ” said Glass, a Boulder resident, over the phone from the National Association of Television Program Executives in Miami lastweek. “Now we’re thinking in terms of the global marketplace. Now it’s, ‘Will this play in Bombay?’ ”
Shortlist is an ad-free, subscription-based streaming channel that costs $5 per month. Tribeca launched it in September with a rotating selection of 150 movies curated by celebrities such as Martha Stewart, Alec Baldwin and Morgan Spurlock. Industry
watchers have dubbed the boutique video-on-demand service “Netflix for indies” and likened it to a farmer’s market next to the Costco-style offerings of most digital TV providers.
It’s a “seismic shift” for Tribeca, according to Variety, following the replacement of co-founder Jane Rosenthal (who created the Tribeca Film Festival with Robert DeNiro in 2002) with advertising veteran Andrew Essex this month.
A publicist for the service declined to say howmany subscribers or howmuch money is behind Shortlist, but it boasts a powerful partner in Lionsgate, the company that bankrolled “The Hunger Games” and “Twilight” movies and TV shows such as “Mad Men” and “Nashville.”
“It’s a perfect fit for me,” Glass said of her new gig. “I’m a creative person and need that artistry, but I also really appreciate negotiating deals and working with the brilliant people bringing new technology to this business. It’s changing so rapidly, and what’s sustained me over my career is that ability to use both sides ofmy brain every day.”
Despite being based in Colorado for more than two decades, industry veterans look to Glass for international expertise.
“Elisabeth’s taste and knowledge of fantastic films is unsurpassed,” Jeff Bronikowski, president of Tribeca Shortlist, said in a press release.
Because Glass’ job involves equal parts nitty-gritty— including the complicated licensing of films— and high-minded creativity, it’s not surprising that symmetry of commerce and art is reflected in her personal life.
Glass spends half of each month working from New York (and, less often, Los Angeles) and half at her home in Boulder with husband Peter, a fine furniture maker whose Berthoud shop crafts heirloom-quality pieces like $1,200 cherrywood coffee tables and $300 decorative bowls.
“Colorado is my balance, and it’s critical for me because my family’s here and I can focus here,” Glass said. “It’s one of the reasons I left HBO to begin with — this opportunity to raise our children in Colorado.”
In Colorado and on the cutting edge
Glass left Connecticut, where she lived during her 12 years with HBO and Cinemax, for the “Wild West” of Douglas County in 1994. She had previously attended the University of Denver for two years (majoring in mass communications) before finishing her bachelor’s degree in Virginia. So when then-upstart Starz came calling, it resonated with her love of the state.
“For me, being in Colorado is key to my programming because it’s not about East and West coasts,” Glass, 60, said. “I love being in the heartland. Square states are as important to our business as coastal states. Everywhere is important.”
As an industry pioneer, Glass has relished “busting up” traditional TV syndication and distribution models.
“From there I went to start HDNet movies for Mark Cuban, which was really the first 24/7 high-definition movie channel,” she said. “So I’ve definitely been on the leading edge of technology. But even as the delivery methods have changed from TVs to laptops and phones, at the end of the day people still want to learn new things while they’re being entertained.”
That charitable view of humanity is part of why Glass cringed at the recent Oscar nominations, which failed to include any actors of color in its major categories for the second year running.
“It’s a shame,” said Glass, who for decades has brought challenging art-house and foreignlanguage films to her employers (and their subscribers). “Now, more than ever, America is such a different mix of ethnicities and voices. Hollywood is tough, but everyone needs their story told, and part of my job is to find and share those movies that don’t get nominated.”
Glass also keeps an eye on the local film scene, having served on the Denver Film Society and Film Festival boards from 1995 to 2001, among other advisory positions that have helped raise instate film incentives. She’s eager to see more TV and film creation in our “underutilized” region and finds national potential in adapting Western stories, such as the best-selling Joe Pickett novels (set in Wyoming and written by DU graduate C.J. Box).
She also envisions a life beyond TV as she watches her sons (Ian, 26, a filmmaker and photographer, and Graham, 23, a University of Wyoming student) grow along with her husband’s furniture business. Devoting more time to gardening, cycling, hiking and reading are on her horizon.
“When I moved out to Colorado to join Starz I remember asking a man, ‘Have you ever been to New York?’ And he said, ‘Why would I ever want to go east of the Mississippi?’ ” Glass remembered. “I was so struck by that, and I still tell that to every programmer I work with. It’s not all about New York or L.A. It’s my responsibility to remember this.”