On Production Companies

Lately, I've been thinking about the sundry production companies I've worked with and my decision to found my own. These reflections started with a message I received from a fellow who was exercising due diligence on a business deal with someone I know, and who asked why I left.

What I've come to is that production houses are like playing with someone else's toys. There are some very cool houses to visit in the neighborhood. Some people's moms let you eat things you're not supposed to, some kids have the super duper playset, and some kids have cool friends. Some kids have a great TV, or the best Nintendo collection (Tennyson is dated thusly), and a small handful of kids and their parents may as well be family.

Still, playing at someone else's house means playing by house rules. There are things you would do in your own home that you can't do here, and it's not a big deal.

Maybe you want your own basement to be a cool place to hang out, and maybe you don't. If you do, it's not necessarily about having rich parents. If you build a fort down there, that's cool. If you think up fun things to do, that trumps everything else. Building your own production company is more or less like that. There's a group of people that hang out in your basement, because the things they do down there are things they can't do someplace else. Not the way they'd like to, at least. Also remember that just because folks like hanging out in your basement doesn't mean it's not cool to go someplace else.

That other kid's mom still makes good meatloaf, and you really can't argue with a strong Nintendo collection.

Cultivating an environment like that is how you make yourself relevant in the Hollywood community. Start there, and the money will come.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Sawyer on October 15, 2011 at 10:26am

So are you saying to have the best of all worlds that you need to strike out on your own? That way you can be the cool kid with good food and a decent Nintendo set-up with all the cool toys, while BEING cool, BUT the only rules you have to play by are your own? That way it doesn't matter who comes by, because they are now following your rules? If this is a correct assumption, I like it! If I am incorrect, please explain in a bit more detail your original point for my clarification, please?

--Jay

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on October 15, 2011 at 6:26pm

Honestly, I advocate both approaches. The cool kid on his own may not be able to afford the Nintendo, you know? But there's a lot to be said for building your own future - obviously, it's a practice I embrace wholeheartely.

My point, in the end, is that people are confusing issues of principle with what ultimately is a pragmatic, moment-to-moment issue. If someone wants to do business with me, that's great. At the same time, it's probably going to be the work I do independently that makes me one of the cool, desirable kids in the first place. In turn, you have to keep in mind that at least for me, working independently is it's own reward. I'm not doing this for the studio deal. There may never be a studio deal... but there probably will, at some point. For something.

At any given moment, the right thing to do is the thing that advances your own projects and goals. In my opinion, sticking to a rigid set of regulations only really works to your advantage if you're in charge on a system-wide basis. There's no need to play by any particular set of rules - even antiestablishmentarian rules - unless you make the rules for everyone else.