#9 Beyond the Brief: Focused Beats Big
Let me be straight with you about something.
We’re not a big production company. We don’t have a sprawling roster, a corner office, or a lobby with an espresso machine serving burnt coffees and a receptionist who won’t quit scrolling TicToc. And we’re not going to pretend otherwise. We do however have a pretty sweet rooftop patio at the studio and a cooler waiting for happy hour, but I digress…
What we are is focused, and in this industry, focused beats big more often than people think.
Here’s where being big starts to break down. Large operations carry large overhead. Large overhead means large minimums. Large minimums mean a certain type of client and a certain type of project and everything else gets squeezed into that same mold whether it fits or not. Flexibility isn’t really in the vocabulary when you’ve got a roster of 40 people who all need to be deployed somewhere.
We keep our overhead low on purpose. It gives us the ability to scale up or down based on what the production actually needs and not what the company needs to justify its existence.
Does the production need drones, car rigs, specialized equipment (1000fps anyone?!), and a crew of twenty? We can do that. Does it need a great location, a few strong talent, and a really good idea executed with precision? We can do that too, and we’ve done both.
But here’s the thing about flexibility, it only works if the core team is exceptional.
We had a production with a wildland fire crew in the rolling hills of northern Missouri. Controlled burns across 400 acre plots of prairie land. We did our safety briefing, worked alongside the firefighters, and for a while things were moving along at a reasonable pace, but then the moment came where things started moving.
Fast.
When a 400 acre field goes up in flames there is exactly one opportunity to get the shot. No second chances. No “can we reset that.” The fire moves when the fire moves and your job is to move with it. A big crew with big company logistics would have missed half of it just trying to reposition.
Our tight, focused team moved when it needed to move. We captured everything and honestly it was probably the best all around production I’ve ever been on. Not the most exotic location. Just the right crew, the right subjects, the right client, all completely aligned. Long days, dirty clothes, smokey conditions, and laughs the entire time.
That’s what focused looks like in the field.
Now here’s the important part.
Focused doesn’t mean limited. I’ve spent 20 years in this industry building this network of amazing talent, and it runs deep. Need beautiful drone work? We got a guy for that. Need a camera mounted on the side of a car ripping down the road? We got a guy for that. Need a stylist who understands your brand AND knows what’s going to land against current trends? We got you covered.
What we bring to every production is a core team that knows each other, trusts each other, and has put in enough reps to get into that flow state where the work starts taking care of itself. When a project calls for something specific like specialized equipment, a particular skill set or a unique capability we go into that 20 year network and pull exactly the right person for exactly that need.
We have the ability to tailor our crew to the specific demands of every project and keep expanding our network to give our clients something a big production company with a fixed roster can’t always offer.
Flexibility without sacrifice.
That’s not a limitation. That’s the whole point.