Meet Your Makers: Learning by Experience with Rob Dunham

Rob Dunham is the driving force behind the productions at A-MNEMONIC Music, serving as executive producer with a wealth of experience garnered from pivotal roles at McCann London, Havas London, Radical Media and Animated Storyboards.

LBB> What first attracted you to production - and has it been an industry you’ve always worked on or did you come to it from another area?

Rob> I studied music production at college and then university, after graduating I knew that I wanted to work in media, but wasn’t exactly sure in what area. It just kind of fell into place!

LBB> What was your first role in the production world and how did this experience influence how you think about production and how you grew your career?

Rob> 2024 is a landmark year, as it’s the 20 year anniversary of my first job in the industry, eek!! It was 2004, and I applied for my first job at Radical Media as their front of house receptionist. I had always been great with people, so it seemed like the ideal first job to get into production.

Back then, Radical Media had a big office on Wardour Street - it was such a cool place to work. I met so many different creative people there, and it really opened my eyes to how production works. There were so many different people coming through the door every day - producers, production managers, directors, film crew, even pop stars and celebrities. It really taught me so much, how to be organised, and how to work in a professional way.

LBB> How did you learn to be a producer?

Rob> It’s been a continuous learning process, even now, something new occasionally pops up that I don’t have knowledge of. It's something you learn by experience rather than by a textbook. Obviously courses such as the APA masterclass and the IPA production course really do help. But the most lessons I’ve learnt are from working alongside others over the years.

LBB> Looking back to the beginning of your career, can you tell us about a production you were involved in where you really had to dig deep and that really helped you to grow as a producer?

Rob> I’ve worked in all areas of production through my career. For the last 10 years: as exec producer at A-MNEMONIC Music, which is my calling.

Before that, I worked in a post-production house for TV shows, account handling at McCann, animation production at Animated Storyboards, and TV production at Havas. During my time at Havas, I was working on a huge global project for Vanish. There were multiple language versions, with multiple scripts and so on. My part in the production process was to produce the adaptations of the foreign language versions. It was an overwhelming project, especially as they weren’t in English. The project went on for weeks and weeks, and was a real eye opener on how to manage multiple things at the same time.

LBB> A good producer should be able to produce for any medium, from film to events to digital experience. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why/why not?

Rob> I’ve worked in all different areas in my career. So yes, I can draw on many transferable skills. I don’t like winging it, so to do a proper job, it helps to have the relevant experience and knowledge in that particular area - which takes time to learn.

LBB> What’s your favourite thing about production and why?

Rob> I love the diversity of the projects, and how every day can be completely different. How each project can be so contrasting. It’s definitely something that keeps you on your toes.

LBB> How has production changed since you started your career?

Rob> I’m sure others have said the same - smaller budgets, and shorter schedules.

It’s funny, I was having a chat the other week with Laura Swinton, editor in chief here at LBB about how things have changed since we started out. We reminisced about all of the beta tapes that clogged up every production department, and how it was crazy that you had to wait for a script to be faxed to you - not so great if you had run out of paper.

LBB> And what has stayed the same?

Rob> The smart and creative people. It’s such a great industry to work in, it’s fun.

LBB> What do you think is the key to being an effective producer - and is it something that’s innate or something that can be learned?

Rob> Be organised, be flexible, write things down, and listen!

LBB> Which production project from across your career are you most proud of and why?

Rob> I'm always most proud of the most recent project. It’s a terrible cliché. Last year our clients were ABBA! That was very unexpected, we re-orchestrated and produced some great re-imaginings of their big hits. Awesome.

LBB> And in terms of recent work, which projects have you found to be particularly excitingor have presented particularly interesting production challenges?

Rob> We worked on a big project to produce a sung mnemonic for food delivery company Getir. It was slap bang in the middle of lockdown, so client, agency, musicians, producers and composers were all in different locations.

The client wanted to be involved whilst we were writing and recording the mnemonic! Yikes, so we decided to get everyone on a massive all day Zoom recording session.

We had the CEO of Getir and his top executives calling in from Turkey. We also had the UK Getir clients on the call, along with the account and production teams from the agency. Plus all our musicians and singers. We spent the entire day on Zoom with everyone, writing all kinds of different ideas. It was great as we not only wrote some brilliant stuff, but we also managed to get an approved mnemonic signed off there and then at the end of the day.

LBB> What advice would you give to people who are interested in becoming a producer?

Rob> Pay attention to absolutely everything. Ask questions. If you don’t know something ask for help. Be nice to everyone, it’s a relatively small industry, you never know when you may meet again.