Bossing It: Sebastien Galina on People and Stability Over Short-Term Thinking
Sebastien Galina is an executive producer and co-founder of Boldly, the Canadian production studio. With a background in computer science, design, and visual effects, he elevates processes from pitch, to bid, to execution.
He is particularly attuned to and interested in elevating queer voices across the advertising and production industries, to better represent LGBTQ+ voices both in front of and behind the camera. With productions running across multiple provinces in Canada, Boldly is a one-stop-shop for directors, photographers, and producers.
LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?
Sebastien> I was fortunate to get to study in a secondary school that had a strong arts program. I entered the theatre program there and worked my way up in the technical departments to become the stage manager for several main stage productions.
LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?
Sebastien> Between my lifelong dreams of working in the film industry, and my experiences working in software, visual effects, and hospitality, I was exposed to all kinds of leadership, both good and bad. Ultimately, what stood out for me was leadership that was honest and fair, that put people at the heart of operations, and that maintained consistency and integrity along the way.
I remember a not-so-great experience working in a job early on where the managing directors were rotating out every three months! There was no structure, no plan, no teamwork. The writing was on the wall. That shop completely shut down a few years after I left. It motivated me to stray far away from that leadership approach wherever I endeavoured later in life.
LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?
Sebastien> Boldly was working with one of the most valuable global media brands in the world, and we ended up in a situation where I was sat on a zoom call with 49 people from the brand side, walking them through a pre pro book of over 100 pages.
Part of me was scared to death.
Their legal department was on the call after some large contract-stopping negotiations that had taken place the day prior. Creatives. VPs. VIPs. The project was moving smoothly but we were often struggling to determine which elements were approved or not: wardrobe, set builds, and other items that were non-trivial to change; and we were wholly expecting a lot of hum-hawing, curve balls, and surprises on the call.
I had to keep my cool in order to balance the expectations of our clients along with the realities that were available from the production team. Thankfully, everyone left happy and the shoot was a delight for all! We ended up doing another job with the same folks and we ran the next PPM flawlessly.
The leadership qualities I gained from that were primarily around staying calm under pressure. Hearing people out. Knowing when to listen, when to make suggestions, when to say yes, and when to say absolutely no! It’s really tough to be in that spot, but if you’re working with good people, they will also hear you when you’re speaking to their best interests. Everything amounts to how we can make a great service for our clients; so with that lens on, they can understand when we need their support on difficult decisions.
LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?
Sebastien> It wasn’t necessarily part of the plan from the get-go. I entered the industry with bright eyes and the same dream everyone else had. I wanted to be a creative person, to make things, to be an artist. I worked at that goal through music, then through documentaries, then visual effects. I don’t remember any specific individual that I looked up to as a leader to emulate.
I worked in the service industry and gained appreciation for how my elders approached customers with care and flair. They always left customers with a laugh and a smile. I still do that today. All those experiences swirl back and forth in my mind constantly. Perhaps it’s easiest to look back almost two decades later to those times and say “that’s when I knew I could do it”.
LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?
Sebastien> I think it can be taught. As a young, immature 20-something, I struggled to express myself, and through reading, work, and practice, I gained skills in communication that have helped me completely transform my way of thinking, working, and living. I feel like a totally different person sometimes! So if that’s possible for me, then leadership can be learned by others too.
It’s 90% communication, the rest is goal-setting and problem solving. On that side of things, figuring out what your goals are is its own masterclass. I wish I could see the future and set goals accordingly.
LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?
Sebastien> When you’re a leader, everyone’s problems become your problems. I laugh about it sometimes, but you become a therapist, a coach, a healer, and a babysitter. It’s stressful. It’s not always glamorous. It’s certainly thankless sometimes. I try to work through this by separating myself from the emotion of it all. Nothing is personal. And I work harder in my personal life to find fulfilment outside of work. I think that way, I don’t always tie my life’s value to my work output.
That was such a huge liberation for me, as a “workaholic” to have a safe place to escape. It’s really hard when your hobby (film) becomes your job, and you can’t just make films for fun anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I love the work I do, and wouldn’t trade this experience for anything; but it’s good to build a holistic life, too!
LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?
Sebastien> Definitely! We’ve had to reshoot things because of careless mistakes. As a producer, you often rely on your team to be experts in their role.
But this one time, we had a shot that was sharp at the start and the end, but the motion blur was causing issues of clarity in the middle. We didn’t catch it in time, and it got through the edit all the way through VFX, and on final inspection, it was rejected. It seems silly enough to say, “it should have been in focus”.
But we were all scratching our heads between measuring distances to the millimetre where the camera was, the focus plane of the subject (a flat box), and ended up experimenting with all kinds of frame rates, shutter angles, stabilisation and even AI to get the better final result.
When we address this kind of thing, we look deep into the paper trail. Where did the communication break down; where was there a gap in the process. When we identify that, we work towards a solution. If it’s something we can do within our capacity, we do it. No questions asked. Relationships are more important than money in our view. We make sure to take care of people before profit.
As for learning from those experiences, we build it into our handbook: the master playbook for how we operate. It’s decades of experience from each of us wrapped up into a neat and ever-evolving package. Now I come to set with a tape measure every time.
LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?
Sebastien> Transparency is 100% key. Nobody likes a liar and liars always get found out. When I work with our crew, I try to learn a little bit more about each department on every project. Listening to everyone and hearing them out. It helps build trust. And on the client side, the same thing: when there’s a concern or an issue, I try to state the facts and state the possible options to move forward.
Most people are very reasonable and when they hear the reality of a situation, they can wrap their heads around it and pitch-in to the solution.
On the other hand, I think transparency can have its double-edge. Too much info can be overwhelming. It’s like choosing from thousands of options on Netflix: you get decision paralysis.
Careful and considered isn’t really the antithesis of transparency, though. We take a lot of pride in coming to the table with several well-thought plans and carefully offering the pros and cons to each. Our clients see the value in that and buy into our expertise, which usually leads to better collaboration. That trust building is so important for making bigger work.
LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?
Sebastien> I’ve had several mentors over my lifetime. When I first got into filmmaking, I was taken under the wing of Chris Edwards, who was a director and cinematographer who has lived an incredible life, touring with bands like Nirvana and Blind Melon back in the '90s. He taught me so many things about cinematography, but also just about being an artist and free spirit.
Then in my theatre days, it was Candace Radcliffe and Richard Harmon, a directing duo who ran the programme at my school. They were so encouraging, and really gave me the freedom to bring ideas to the table.
Later on when they co-founded a community theatre event that took place under the stars by a local beach, they invited me to take on what was new for me at the time: the marketing department. They let me take the reigns overseeing all website, social, content creation, and even some key artwork. It was a huge project, but I led that for almost eight years. Ultimately they taught me how to delegate and showed me that you can trust someone to do a good job when they feel encouraged and empowered.
LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?
Sebastien> We’ve been around now for ten years, and have been fortunate to see big years with lots of work, as well as slower times with uncertain advertising landscapes. I think good financial management has been an under-discussed part of our success.
We prioritised our people and stability over flashy short-term thinking. But in addition to that, we haven’t really changed our approach: if everyone feels respected and part of the team, they’ll bring their best work to set, and the end result will look better. It’s the simplest maths formula.
On the flip side, leading a team through the murky waters of the future does weigh heavy on the psyche.
We’re all people at the end of the day. Nobody is inherently more special than anyone else and yet the responsibility is real: people have families, costs of living are going up, advertising still has a stigma of manipulation and the film industry doubly has that stigma too. I go to therapy to cope. I speak openly with my friends and close ones when I’m feeling down. When I’m feeling existential about career stuff.
Having that kind of support group within the company, within the city I call home, and then feeling blessed enough to have these kinds of conversations across continents too is so heart-warming. It fuels me up again, and I get right back into the process.
LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?
Sebastien> I think all of the questions above have built towards this. The work we do to empower our team, our heads of departments, directors, and clients essentially results in more varied and diverse backgrounds and points of view coming on board our projects. These days, we don’t have to ask as much, which is a sign of shifts happening.
Our heads of departments are doing the work to bring on more trainees, keeping them, growing them into bigger roles. Our directors are doing the work to invite shadows into their workflow. Some of our clients are doing the work to offer mentorship opportunities, but we’d love to see even more leadership here too.
In addition to that, since we do so many narrative projects outside of advertising, we often use those as leverage points for training new producers under ‘the boldly way’. Those young producers will run a project, but have our entire facility, team, and resources at their disposal to really get a rounded experience.
We advise, encourage, and support with our doors open: everything from funding to production and even the dreaded wrapout. Then it becomes so much easier for us to bring these young producers onto commercial projects, train them up further, and keep the cycle going. One of my mentees is now training his next protégé in commercial land, and it kind of brings a little tear to my eye to see that.
LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?
Sebastien> A lot of people talk about culture as branding or public image. We feel good about that side of things, but lately we’ve been working towards the really tangible culture of our company. Though we have the ability to work remotely, we all love being in our communal space. There’s a ritual to it. The close collaboration we do there is so central to a project’s success.
We have a dedicated café lounge in our studio that we always keep uncluttered as a downtempo place to relax, get some sun, bask under the beautiful Boston ferns, and take a breather from fast-paced filming.
When we come to the office, there’s a certain energy that’s felt. Like we’re all on this epic rollercoaster, building a thing together from scratch. It’s exciting! Every day feels like a puzzle, but we always solve it. We celebrate the big wins together, because a little glass clink is easier done IRL. Plus the neighbourhood, Mount Pleasant, is the best in Vancouver for post-work social gatherings: food, bars, restaurants, central and close to the sea wall, parks, breweries. All our guests here love it too.
Lastly, our non-profit Filmable is literally the independent film community hub of Vancouver, and we host a happy hour at our studio every month or so. The guest list reaches nearly 200 people most nights. I think that says it all when everyone wants to be in this room together, with friends, building the culture of care, community and vision on a regular basis.
LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?
Sebastien> Untools is a fantastic resource for better thinking and communicating. I especially like the six thinking hats and second-order thinking. Been using those both a lot lately. I can also recommend a book called 'Say what you mean' by Oren Jay Sofer that has a handy chart of emotions and adjectives that are really helpful for, well, expressing what you mean!
I also love listening to podcasts about the industry (or industries) we work in. advertising, film production, finance, AI, but I also leave the door open for curiosity and higher-order thinking. I love science and stories about outer space. Carl Sagan type stuff. Vsauce. It just opens my mind in ways I can’t describe. It makes our world feel so small by comparison, and in turn it helps me stay grounded when I’m working through the tough times.
There’s plenty more that I don’t want to bore everyone with, but if anything vibes above, I always like to keep my inbox open for folks who just want to chat about the big picture (and not just short term work, but that’s alright too).
