Producing Tomorrow's Producers: Leadership Strategies in Modern Production
Mark Chisholm, founder and executive producer of Dear Friend, is a humble yet creative leader. He’s based in the film vibrant city of Vancouver, on Canada's West Coast. With a background in directing and agency work spanning nearly a decade, Mark's journey into executive producing was a natural progression of his deep rooted passion for storytelling.
Mark has a keen eye for identifying and nurturing talent, both behind and in front of the camera. His mission is to cultivate a fresh wave of directing talent in Canada, embodying a blend of creativity and market savvy appeal.
Garth Collins is partner and managing director at Dear Friend. Under his leadership, Dear Friend has witnessed remarkable revenue growth year after year, tripling its team size and expanding its footprint continentally. Garth's strategic foresight has been instrumental in Dear Friend's Canadian growth as they plan to move into the Toronto market to open their second Canadian office and cement their national presence.
He is focused on creating opportunities for a dynamic and diverse group of next generation filmmakers, and serves on the board of The Collective Bunch - an organisation committed to elevating diverse artistic voices and reducing cultural bias in the film and advertising sectors.
LBB> What advice would you give to any aspiring producers or content creators hoping to make the jump into production?
Mark Chisholm > For me, chemistry is key when jumping into production – my advice would be to take an individualised approach to each production, and have a clear understanding on who our audience is (being the client and agency). For our roster of directors, I need to know what makes them tick, and which production heads will suit our directors needs. This starts with the line producer, but has a trickle down effect on knowing which partnerships can thrive when paired. Not only is this depicted from a creative level, but more importantly from a personality perspective. When you can understand the human layers behind creatives, you will create chemistry within your teams and the project will reap the rewards.
Garth Collins> Continuing on Mark's point, my advice would be to just be yourself, be authentic and to completely understand who you are as a person. In our industry we don’t need another producer trying to be what people think a producer is, we need people to be true to themselves.
LBB> What skills or emerging areas would you advise aspiring producers to educate themselves about?
Mark > Do your R+D on the project or brand you’re working on – When you invest time in understanding the brand's background, and where the agency has positioned the client, it just makes that whole process so much more seamless. This starts before the bid. It informs a beacon of trust that can help leverage creative ideas down the road. Secondly, stay on top of emerging technologies that can benefit your team. A lot of our job is helping directors communicate their ideas forward, so staying on top of modern technologies that can help illustrate exactly what we are trying to achieve will always yield the best results.
Garth> And I would zoom out even a little more. Be a global citizen, understand humans, listen to podcasts and consume content and media so that you understand people. The things you are producing, you're producing for someone so be that global citizen and understand people. I would just put all the work into understanding how the world works and that will inform decisions and help you achieve that ROI that the stakeholders are looking for.
LBB> What was the biggest lesson you learned when you were starting out in production - and why has that stayed with you?
Garth> I have two. No client will ever fire you for bringing them extra ideas. Front-load every project with ideas and have an open mind and just put it all out there because, and this leads me to lesson number two, if the idea is good enough, you will find a way!
Put all your energy and all your thoughts into these projects. Again, you can learn how to produce and I’m not trying to take anything away from the client craft and the artform of production. Put all the thought into the ideas, keep an open mind and explore. It's taken me a long time to learn this and to keep an open mind that there are no bad ideas, let’s explore! If we hit a dead-end, no problem. But let's explore those things and that is a lesson in creativity but it definitely trickles down into production.
Mark> I think from my perspective if you can be the person that can stay cool as a cucumber in a stressful situation you are always gonna be the voice of reason. It's very reassuring to speak to that person who is very calm in a moment when something goes wrong.
And to switch things up a little bit, understanding your audience is vital. We’ve lost jobs when we haven’t truly understood when and where to push ideas; a lot of the time briefings have been adapted by the creative team months before us and really it's just our job to execute the production. But there are other times when they need a creative solve, or will invite a new perspective. Just know your audience.
LBB> When it comes to broadening access to production and improving diversity and inclusion, what are your team doing to address this?
Garth> So we’re investing two currencies of ours pretty heavily, time and money. We are heavily involved in the Collective Bunch and the great work they are doing uniting a diverse community of creators, who are making waves in Canada and beyond.
I sit on the board and Dear Friend actually allows me to spend time on developing our network of 400+ creatives and individuals who are interested in advertising and filmmaking alike. What we do is we take the time to get to know these people.
You have got to give these people your time because it's a process. It’s a pretty beautiful thing and we are lucky to be in that position to actually affect change, we don’t take it lightly and every decision we make is in the lens of what's in the best interest for both organisations.
LBB> There are young people getting into production who maybe don’t see the line between professional production and the creator economy, and that may well also be the shape of things to come. What are your thoughts about that? Is there a tension between more formalised production and the ‘creator economy’ or do the two feed into each other?
Garth> For us I don't feel a tension, it’s actually more of a beautiful harmonious thing for that next wave of leaders. We’re not looking at anybody as a competitor or enemy, content creators are not the enemy. In fact we’re actually looking at this like an opportunity as to how we can diversify our services.
So look at the content creator economy the same way I look at AI, it’s not the enemy it's just another tool that we could use together. It’s a beautiful thing so I would actually shift the mindset of people getting into production.
It’s not one or the other, it's not a zero sum game it's actually a positive sum game and that's the way we should be looking at it. That is the way the next generation of leaders at Dear Friend are approaching it.
Mark> I think that what you make today is a reflection of what you are in this moment, and perhaps that can evolve – perhaps it wont. I myself once upon a time was that Swiss army knife that did everything and I naturally progressed into that more traditional production workflow.
I think it’s great that creators are finding new ways to serve a media buy, there’s new ways to view content and to Garth’s point I don’t find any tension.
LBB> If you compare your role to the role of the heads of TV/heads of production/ exec producers when you first joined the industry, what do you think are the most striking or interesting changes (and what surprising things have stayed the same?)
Garth> I think it has largely stayed the same from my experience. I think the role has stayed the same in terms that we are essentially ‘micro-tastemakers’ where the macro-tastemakers’ are kinda coming from up top at our partners in the agency.
But we’re kind of these ‘micro-tastemakers’ in the sense that when a director works with Mark as an EP, Mark is influencing that project, his flavour is on that. I like to think that I can pick that up if a production designer is working with Mark then his tastes will be injected into that project like seasoning!
So I think in that sense it has stayed the same in my experience.
Mark> I think I’ve we’ve always been very connected to the production process and creative landscape so I see myself as an executive producer who doesn't just onboard a line producer and check in when the job is wrapped – I feel that it's important for myself to get Involved in ways that can only benefit a project, and support my team on the back end.
You need to keep a balance of allowing your team, your line producer and director to exercise their talents, but I do feel I can be influential on production and creative solutions when needed.
LBB> How does your agency approach educating producers?
Garth> Right now at Dear Friend we are transitioning into more of a ‘training development and leadership research group’. That's the biggest opportunity for us right now. On one hand we can go out and hire the best line producer available and we can buy that bandwidth but we like doing things in a different way. Instead of going out and hiring that best person available, we think more long term and on what will benefit us in 12 months.
So to answer the question simply: hands on. Let's shadow, let's mimic some of the structure of our mentor programme. Bring them on the road, meeting, and spend those extra hours walking through everything and reflecting.
Mark> For us when we bring on producers a lot of the time we look at it as, will this be a good personality fit. Their charisma and how they get their response goes a long way.
In the process of production of course there is the whole shadowing process but we see how they take things on and allow them to learn from us in day to day situations, really to Garth’s point, this is all about having open dialogues of ‘how do you plan on approaching this?’ and ‘what's the problem you need to solve’. Hearing their answers and course-correcting when needed.
LBB> It seems that there’s an emphasis on speed and volume when it comes to content - but where is the space for up and coming producers to learn about (and learn to appreciate) craft?
Garth> Two words for me: Front. Load. Put 80% of the work in the first 20% of the project. You will have a calendar that works and there will be time for you to be creative and you will have time to work on your craft. Schedule time to reflect. Think about today and the decisions you have made and all the million other things you did.
For me, reflection has been a big realisation in this particular chapter in my life, reflecting without any particular goal in mind when I’m doing it. I don’t need to resolve, I just need to reflect.
Mark> I think that true craft in production comes from understanding that all directors have a different specific workflow that works for them. And that's something that I’ve learnt, when we get into building the production schedule which really is your whole blueprint of the shoot. It's about creating enough space and time to allow creatives to do what they need to. As soon as your team is just doing a deliverable at the bare minimum then you're not allowing them to add their own true craft to the production.
It really comes down to you to manage time, and knowing what makes your creatives tick. As producers when you understand the workflows of the people who create for you then you’ll be so much more successful.
LBB> On the other side of the equation, what’s the key to retaining expertise and helping people who have been working in production for decades to develop new Skills?
Garth> We’re really proud of our reputation we have built from being around a few years. Just hearing and being involved in our network in North America. That is something that we as a group of four of us are most proud of. Where do you even start? How you treat them from the moment you call to check on their availability to how you work with them.
It’s give and take.
I don't know if every industry is like this but my personal experience is all about paying it forward, meaning people take receipts of what you have done with them. What’s definitely not the answer when it comes to retaining expertise, is you don’t buy it.
You have to go off your reputation and it's not a hired gun industry, it definitely can be, but where is the chemistry? Where is the soul? Money isn’t the answer to solve all these problems you have but it is part of the equation. The soul comes from experience, relationships, breaking bread and actually being genuine with yourself.
Mark> I would say that the key to retaining experience is cataloguing everything you have done, especially when it is successful. We catalogue everything so we know what was successful and what could be better tomorrow.
When it comes to working with people who have been in production for decades and developing new skills I look at it kind of as a two way street. It's important to learn from them, as well as give them perspective on new tools and help them develop their skills. Knowing how to articulate why a new tool is better than a previous one in a respectful way can always help these seasoned producers learn new ideas on how to work.
LBB> Clearly there is so much change, but what are the personality traits and skills that will always be in demand from producers?
Garth> Adaptability. If you asked a hundred producers they would give you the exact same answer. You’ve got to be a good person, of course but where does that not apply? That’s just a general answer to life. Be interesting, be transparent and be adaptable.
Be interesting as a person, we’ll solve things together but be interesting as a person because your brain will look at things differently and your voice will be different. This is based on all the things you’ve gone through in your life that all came to this moment when we’re trying to solve that problem today.
Mark> I think the easy answer is, people like working with genuine people, it's so simple. It makes the whole process so much easier and transparency and honesty always wins. It's important for people to feel connected with what they’re doing on a personal level and that always makes the job better. I think it's our job as producers to be at the forefront of energy on set and make it known ‘we’re here to make something awesome”.
