Why Should You Start a Production House Business?

Before the five different Emmy Awards came in, Amina Moreau tells me that Stillmotion—an internationally recognized cutting-edge production house¹— “started with a boy wanting to impress a girl” while they were at university outside of Toronto. She smiles as she sits relaxed in a wooden chair of a coffee shop a few blocks from the Stillmotion “hangar,” a large building that houses Story & Heart and Marmoset, a boutique music agency for motion images.²

The love story began in the realm of photography. And if Stillmotion has a style that’s distinct from other production houses it stems from the fact that it didn’t grow from a traditional film education background. Amina had a teenager’s love of photography “infected” within her by her parents. By the time she got to university, she was studying psychology. “Patrick and I were hanging out and he thought photography was interesting mostly because he thought I was interesting,” she laughs.

Their first business venture began with Amina and Patrick selling prints of her photography at a flea market. They discussed how they really wanted to make a documentary on the exploitation “of women, of children, of animals, and of the environment,” conceived as four chapters with trips to sweatshops in Asia, factory farms, and deforestation of the rainforest. They wanted “to travel the world to do this documentary,” she explains. But as students they had no money, no “video experience,” and they lacked “life experiences,” she adds. Patrick notes how he had never touched a camera before then: “I was not a photographer, I was not a filmmaker, I didn’t dabble in it. I didn’t do anything with film. I didn’t look at it online, it wasn’t a hobby, it wasn’t even on my radar,” he explains in a separate interview.

Yes, Patrick became interested in her, as Amina notes, but as he says, he was also “captivated by the way she was able to take something that I was seeing and turn it into something so much more magical. And it captivated me because I was all into psychology because of the power of perspective, how you can see something, how you can see the exact same thing in a completely different way. And that’s what I had seen through her—her power of perspective to see the world in another way.”

For Patrick, “that’s what film allowed me to do and to explore.” So despite the fact that he had no interest in film, he says when a 77-year-old Buddhist monk visited a philosophy class he was taking, it challenged his point of view in life. He discovered that “we could say something through film.” Film would become “just a tool or vehicle to talk about these issues, these stories,” he adds.

But like many things in life, they needed to realize that their dream would develop by taking a different route, and in some ways the least logical route. It didn’t come through film school or a film major; they both majored in psychology. And when Patrick’s roommate’s boss was getting married, and the assigned photographer got sick, they needed someone fast to cover the wedding. Amina took the photo job and Patrick came along to shoot video for $350.

Although Amina’s father wanted her to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, this first wedding job became the genesis of Stillmotion and would derail their planned career paths as psychologists. They wanted to shoot a documentary, but they took on more wedding jobs in order to fund the documentary, while at the same time gaining more shooting experience. “And then before we knew it we had a wedding business,” Amina smiles. “And it’s not something that we at the beginning really tried for, it just happened, we were doing something we loved.” Their career plan to go on and get advanced degrees in psychology and start their own practice faded, although they jokingly said that they could make a two-sided business card: one for wedding photos and videos and the other for marriage counseling. In either case, it would take them nine years to make a documentary on exploitation.

Patrick mentions how he earned an award for his thesis and his professor didn’t understand why he was pursuing a career shooting weddings. But this professor was at the wedding that he and Amina shot—and Patrick, being a motivated filmmaker, edited a two- to three-minute video of the ceremony that was screened at the reception. “He’s in attendance,” Patrick says about his professor, “and he gets to see this same-day edit that we produced for a classmate and I can remember him walking up to me after that and basically just shaking his head and said, ‘I get it.’” By “seeing the emotional power, the impact on the room, how a story could effect people,” Patrick felt a sense of “validation” from his mentor. It gave him courage to move forward with filmmaking, turning his back on his original career goal.

Patrick funded gear through student loans. He read about cameras on forums and other websites, teaching himself how to use them. He bought a Canon GL2 with a 35mm lens adapter.

Patrick and Amina eventually moved to Toronto and shot over a hundred weddings. But weddings are not that exciting—especially, as Amina points out— when “the plot is the same in every single wedding, so how do you make that interesting?” That’s important for two people who don’t like doing the same thing twice. And like the rest of the most of us, “at the beginning we made it interesting geeking out with new gear.” The cinema hardware was just a “vehicle to talk about these exploitation stories and so we started making maps and plans for our original documentary.”

They were one of the first companies to use the Steadicam in a wedding context and many “thought we were crazy for doing it, and all of a sudden everyone’s using Steadicams at weddings so it took off.” However, using slick moves isn’t really filmmaking, Amina explains: “We made these technical decisions not because it served the story better, but because it made it less boring.” As Patrick puts it, the cinematic style “created a movie experience for those that knew the couple.” It made their work stand out because of it. However, when a bride asked why they did a shot a certain way, it was a new beginning that changed everything. Amina explains, “She sat in our studio and the client explained how she loved a ring shot we did. Normally they might ask how it was done, but the client asked, ‘Why did you do it that way?’” This got them thinking about story more than technique.

They eventually started slowly moving away from the traditional wedding style— incorporating their cinematic style of shooting and applying it to the psychology or motivation behind the characters in weddings. For example, Amina and Patrick would begin to shy away from the traditional content of shooting weddings, such as the cake cutting. “Why are you doing a cake cutting?” Amina asks hypothetically. “Well, because our parents did and our grandparents did and that’s what they want.” If she asked a client, “Why are you doing a cake cutting?” and then got an answer, “We’re not, we have caramels,” Amina immediately likes this type of client. And if they have a really great story about why they have caramels, then they would feature the caramels because “there’s a story that says something about who they are as people. It’s a representation of something deeper than just sugar on a plate,” she continues. The character motivations—the story behind their fresh approach to a wedding—is what would motivate them to continue with weddings. She explains that if you want to do those types of weddings, as opposed to the traditional style, then place examples on your website—your portfolio pieces—that express the approach and style you want to do. “If you’re not showing what you love,” Amina explains, “you’re going to be attracting more of what you don’t love. I’d rather be showing one stellar piece a year and have it be the right one than twenty of other work you don’t love.” Patrick adds how this approach evolved to a “much more intentional and thoughtful way of doing projects leading to something that’s a lot deeper.” This something deeper was story. Patrick explains:

That something else would become the “JC plus Esther” wedding video (see Figure 2.1 and https://vimeo.com/6496808). It was Stillmotion’s first project where they incorporated this new approach. And it must be noted that they were shooting live, documentary style, with no staging. Amina explains: “We made a strong commitment to never ask people to stop, slow down or re-do anything for us or any kind of acting.” In addition, by shooting with DSLRs, they were also able to gain a sense of camera intimacy, and have the ability to change lenses. Add that to their approach to a wedding that is based on story and uniqueness of characters (rather than the generic conventional styles of wedding shoots where everyone performs the same role on their wedding day), and it would eventually change everything for Stillmotion.

“A few hundred thousand views later,” Amina says about their new story-based wedding video, “we’re living in Toronto, we’re at the studio, and we get a phone call. It’s a producer form the NFL network.” Patrick had answered the phone and tells the caller, “Just hang on a second, please,” and he turns to Amina and says, “Holy crap it’s the NFL.” The producer tells them that he saw this wedding video on Vimeo and ended up crying: “I don’t know why, because I don’t know these people.” Amina explains that the NFL producer was so impressed that they could “create something so moving for a stranger about a wedding” that he wanted to “see what we can do in the football world.”

Despite the fact that they were from Canada and really weren’t into American football—in the end, the intimacy of their shooting style, their focus on characters, and the ability to capture and shape story through the lens made Stillmotion stand out and got them jobs. They would end up winning five national Emmys and additional jobs, including a documentary for the Army– Navy game, among other network live events, including shooting a brief interview with President Obama at one of the games.

Figure 2.1 The wedding film that would change everything for Stillmotion: “JC plus Esther.” See: https://vimeo.com/6496808 (Image courtesy of Stillmotion.)

By following their passions for story, they were able to set the vision for Stillmotion, eventually moving from Toronto to San Francisco, then finally choosing Portland, Oregon as their home base. The vision stemmed from their experiences and approach to working with clients, finding the story, and not creating a production house where they become a “tripod.” “You need to let the story move you before you try to move the story,” Patrick tells me at a small homey coffee shop in a hip neighborhood of Portland’s east side. He recommended the donuts that taste best when served hot.

The danger is getting stuck in the “pattern of habits” that lead you to “end up shooting you as if you are anybody else, and you just become replaceable,” Patrick says:

The result? “You become a tripod, and I became a tripod, and you become replaceable and we both devalue each other,” he adds. This was his initial approach to doing weddings. But to make Stillmotion stand out, they had to take a different approach. “When I start to see you as unique and different, and explore that and then allow that to inspire and move me, it’s different every time. It’s more work, but it’s also more fun. It’s actually challenging, but an audience connects with that approach.” This revelation, which took several years to evolve, became the mission statement—the vision—for Stillmotion.

Creating a Business Model that Reflects your Vision and Mission

Without a unique vision that taps into who you are and the passions that drive you, then you’re in danger of creating a company full of tripods, as Patrick Moreau would say. You should have your own story as to why you want to start a cinematic-style production house, which shows that you’ve thought deeply about it. If that’s the case, then you really need to determine the vision for the company, its mission, and this really involves creating a plan. A plan that involves discovering who your competition is and what makes your approach unique.

Andrew Hutcheson of Zandrak recommends that you need to have a sense of vision for you company (even if it’s a one person setup)—“establish who you are, what you’re doing or want to do, where you’re going to do it, how you’re approaching it (is it going to be with a team or is it going to be you and you’re going to hire directors, are you a one-man band, do you want to expand?)”

In many ways, Andrew adds, “You’re figuring out what you’re going to specialize in, who you can target that to. What’s your client audience, that demographic? Is it insurance companies that specialize in life insurance policies? Are you really good at doing car commercials? Are you really good at doing these things?” It’s not just the passion that’s needed—but you really need to be good at it. And from there, branch out to similar areas to market your skills and passions.

“Find that and then you’ll discover how to look at it like spheres of influence,” Andrew explains. “You have your main circle. If you throw a rock into a pond, it creates a main ripple—those are your key clients. It might be weddings. What’s a wedding like? It’s kind of like a bar mitzvah—boom—that’s one degree of separation away from weddings that you can branch out into. A wedding’s kind of also like a graduation, or a commencement, or any sort of big event. You could document that. So now you’ve found not just weddings you specialize in, but you specialize in event videography. That’s a broader umbrella. You can now branch out from working with your base pool of weddings to see what are the things related to that. What are the type of clients you could work for?”

This is the type of thinking you need to do before you jump into business. It’s great to get excited about it, but Andrew feels that “the most important thing you can do for yourself is to take the time to write a business plan before you start. Too often people will say, ‘I’m going to go into business and I’m going to start doing video production, and I’m just going to target clients that need music videos.’ Great, but what’s your plan?”

Andrew says to ask the hard questions: “What is different about you than anyone else? You can have it in your head, but the actual act of writing it down, anywhere from a one-pager to an actual business plan that defines who your audience is, how you plan to be profitable, what you project you’re going to have to spend . . . the more you can write that down, the better sense it’ll give you for what you’re doing.” This plan becomes the road map for your present and future course. So the first steps involve your vision and mission.

Mission and Vision Statement Case Study: Stillmotion (http://stillmotion.ca)

Stillmotion’s vision and mission statement is the means by which clients can read about what the company feels is important to it. The statement is short, quickly showing examples, but the primary material is in the two sentences: “Our approach is rooted in what social science has shown to be the foundation of emotional connection. We guide the heart to move the mind. It’s educating the client about what story means to Stillmotion—it’s not facts. It’s people being impacted by events that change them. So if a client wants a story that is character centered and will potentially move and change their audience, then Stillmotion is one of the best in the business.”

My sense of Stillmotion’s mission statement rests in this last sentence: “We guide the heart to move the mind.”

This is their vision. If we look at Stillmotion’s portfolio examples, we can see how each one stems from this vision and mission—which revolves around the heart of the company.

Stillmotion is about creating moving stories cinematically in order to help their clients make social and personal changes in the world. Their aesthetic and their philosophy reflects a sensibility that “emotion is what people are looking for these days,” Amina explains. Although they may have to take on projects that don’t necessarily reflect their passion and vision in order to meet the bills, Amina is adamant that as creatives they cannot be just a “human tripod” (as explained earlier by Patrick)—just stand here and shoot. They’re interested in developing stories. She feels that companies—clients—are looking for “emotional connection and human interest.” “It’s not just about the product anymore, it’s not about the service, it’s not about the facts,” she adds. And when companies hire tripods, then those projects are “the boring commercials that are soon forgotten.”

At Stillmotion, they don’t want their clients’ stories forgotten. They want their stories to reach to the heart of their clients’ audiences and enact change. Therefore, Amina says, the projects they do tend to express “an emotional quality that is remembered and shared, and if you have a million views on YouTube for a commercial, you know that company is getting a lot of exposure.” And with exposure comes the audience that connects to these stories with “a human interest, emotional aspect—whether sentimental or happy or angry”— the emotion gets the attention of an audience. Their aesthetics and their philosophy—their style of shooting isn’t about telling, but showing, engaging an audience through the emotional connection they make through the psychology of the lens of their camera (see Chapter 1).

Figure 2.2 Vivian from Stand With Me works on a poster for her lemonade stand—an intimate story about a girl who wants to help end childhood slavery. Rather than focus on facts, Stillmotion wants to grab your attention through emotion in a story, in order to effect social change. (Image courtesy of Stillmotion.)

Vision and Mission Statement Case Study: Zandrak

While Stillmotion is most famous for telling stories through honest and emotional interviews in a documentary style, Zandrak’s approach to story is a bit different. They do documentary-style work, but they also create stories through a narrative approach found in fiction filmmaking. It fills a niche, Andrew Hutcheson, who founded Zandrak, explains to me in their office across the street from Fenway Park in Boston. From their homepage (http://zandrak.com):

We work with agencies, companies, brands, and independent creators to tell their story when it’s not enough to just showcase a production. We cultivate whole experiences that invite people to engage rather than tune out. We don’t make commercials: we tell branded stories.

Their mission statement is: “We work with agencies and brands to create experiences that present their identity in an engaging way.”

• What do we do? Tell branded stories.
• For who? Agencies, companies, brands, and independent creators.
• How do we do it? By cultivating whole experiences that invite people to engage

Andrew, who also serves as the producer and colorist, says that their aesthetic comes from minimalism and narrative storytelling. The cursive Z became their logo to represent their style. This helped define the business. Previously, Andrew explains, when they were asked what they did, they used to say, “Well, we are an independent film company that does feature films and commercials and music videos and all this stuff.” It was too generic. It didn’t differentiate the company from others. Their team came from filmmaking and with a love for filmmaking, and were inspired by Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson, who make “really awesome films.”

One day Andrew realized, “That’s really the way to work with commercials.” He asked himself, “How can you tell the best narrative of this company, how can you tell their story, their brand story?” By offering “a narrative approach and taking those sensibilities as narrative filmmakers to our commercial broadcast work” would be what separated them from the competition. Once they had defined their aesthetic, Andrew says, they told people that they “do branded storytelling.” And they discovered that over the past few years, “branded content short films really took a big rise.”

This became the answer to the why question. They lay it out on their homepage beneath the word WHY: “Films are how we speak. Collaboration is how we find words. Zandrak is how we have a voice.” Why does Zandrak exist? “To apply the inspiration of filmmaking and the sensibilities of narrative filmmakers to commercial broadcast work in a collaborative way.”

But this approach required building the right team. It was not a solo venture. Charles Frank, the director and editor at Zandrak, says that by shifting the company to a branded storytelling house, it was “such a natural transition for all of us, because we had all come from narrative storytelling.” Each person at Zandrak came from a narrative sensibility. Charles says, “We dedicated our lives to building our narrative sensibilities. We found a solution for all of us to apply it to—branded storytelling—that was actually profitable and could help other people.” This became the business model for their company. “That was just the most mind-blowing find that we could all imagine,” Charles says.

Teamwork became the pieces “that when put together and rearranged, turned into something that we never would have found without each other.” Going it alone might not have worked necessarily, because despite the fact that they had the gear, space, and philosophy, Andrew says,

without the team we wouldn’t have anything and that is what is so, so important. I feel like the tendency is to work with the people you have always worked with, or work with the person who you know has the most connections. Or work with the person who has the most toys or the most money. But really it was just that we all have a similar and shared vision and out of that philosophy it just gelled.

Finding the right person doesn’t evolve from those who win Emmys or those who went to film school; it’s about the philosophy, a shared aesthetic, then “we know that’s the person for the job,” Andrew explains. They are looking for the right attitude and a willingness to collaborate. Even though you may do projects solo—and there are small projects and multimedia journalists who do a lot of solo work (and it may be how you start out your company), ultimately, getting a good team together will take you to an entire new level of work.

Why do they have this company? As stated on their welcome page:

We love storytelling

It’s how we understand the world around us and how we find out place in it. We believe that there is a meaningful way to tell every story, in any circumstance. Films are how we speak. Collaboration is how we find words. Zandrak is how we have a voice.

Come share a story with us.

In order to test their mission and vision for the company—to share a company’s story where they would apply narrative style to commercial work—Andrew entered a contest for a Hasbro commercial. A lower-end marketing executive wanted to change how commercials were done at Hasbro, Andrew explains:

For thirty years, Hasbro has been making thirty-second and fifteen-second commercials with the same production company. The same company. They literally have to have a thousand people within the Hasbro company to approve a concept before they move forward. It takes a huge level of approval for them to pass something through. And it’s something they call the red tape syndrome. There are constraints, and it has to be this way, has to be cookie cutter.

According to Andrew, this executive went to legal and asked “if he was going to get in trouble for this and they said it might not be a good idea, but there is nothing they can do. This is your budget and you can do what you want with it.” He took his small pool of money, and without consulting with anyone else—circumventing the red tape syndrome—he put his budget into Tongal.com, a site matching creatives with businesses whereby a community of creatives pitch ideas and the winning idea is chosen by a company. In essence it was a competition. He wanted something fresh and new for Hasbro.

Charles found the competition by coming across Tongal, a company that becomes a “catalyst to help independent filmmakers get in touch with big brands,” on the web. Charles interacted with the client.

Figure 2.3 The Hasbro commercial placed Zandrak on the map and defined their narrative-based cinematic style for branding companies. (Image courtesy of Zandrak.)

This executive felt that “people don’t often know what they want until they have it or see it.” Andrew explains that it was “something fresh.” After Zandrak made the 60-second commercial, the executive went to his bosses and asked for forgiveness: “I went behind your backs and made this 60-second commercial but I think it is really powerful.” The higher-level executives loved it so much that they “decided to invest in broadcasting it and it was their best 60-second commercial of all time,” Andrew says. Zandrak earned an award for their commercial and cemented their style.

Andrew Hutcheson, Zandrak Productions

A lot of people think there is this door that you are supposed to stick your foot in, and once you get your foot in the door everything works out. I don’t know of any person that has had a bio written on them who have stuck their foot in the door and opened it slowly. You read the bio of people who kicked the door in, who came in guns blazing and that’s the way to stand out in this industry. What can you do that is going to blow everyone out of the water?

“What I have learned from the Hasbro commercial,” Andrew tells me, “is that there are huge companies that are entrenched in their views, but there has got to be at least somebody that believes in a new movement. And if you can convince one person, you can convince many.” That’s the Zandrak mission— to help change the face of advertising through narrative-based stories. “We took this cinematic commercial from Hasbro, and applied it to other clients. It established our brand,” Andrew states. A case study of their Moodsnap app commercial comes later in the book—from pitch (in Chapter 6) to production (in Chapter 9).

In fact, Andrew explains, his primary goal is “to build a relationship and build a connection.” In the example of Moodsnap, he sent the client work samples, “so he saw what we had been up too. It is always better to take the approach of letting what you do speak for you and not having to explain what you think are your best qualities.” He met up with the client for pizza the following day. “Super casual. We went out and we started chatting and I don’t even know if it was really us talking about business as much as we were just talking about, ‘Wow, you get it.’ We started talking about if we can find clients who are willing to buy into this new methodology, this narrative approach to advertising.” Ultimately, Zandrak wants to start to “build a revolution that will help change the way people see advertisements, and it became a bigger conversation about advertising in general,” Andrew says. He brought it home when he told the client, “I think we have a great opportunity to exercise what we are talking about. With our companies together. And immediately, it clicked and it made sense to him. And we both understood each other’s philosophies and that translated well into actually doing work together.” By finding the right client— with shared values—Zandrak was able to produce a project based on the vision of their company.

Although not every project reflects this narrative style, it is the mission, the vision that sustains their creativity. They may have to take on other projects, such as editing films for HBO, but they keep their eye on their unique creative approach.

Once you have your mission, the vision for your company set—the desire to do the company and the talent to support the vision—you need to turn that idea into a legal entity, produce contracts for projects, think about music rights, and purchase insurance, which is covered in the next chapter.

Worksheet: Starting Your Business

1. Why do you want to start this business?

   What motivates you to do this kind of work? This is where you need to be honest with yourself and discover if this is something you want to do more than anything else.

2. What is your niche?

   What makes your video production house different from others? What will be your approach? Research other types of production houses in your city. Determine how you can make a difference. You need to make sure there’s a market for competition.

3. What is your vision?

   If you’re not sure what you’re really about, then think hard about how your style and your type of storytelling is different from anyone else’s. See what kinds of styles and approaches the competition does and describe how your approach is different.

4. What is your mission statement?

   Similar to the vision statement, this is the public description of what you’re really about.

5. Who is your audience—the potential clients?
6. What are you planned expenditures? (See Chapter 5.)
7. How will you become profitable? (See Chapter 5.)