5 Things I’ve Learned From Running A Production Company

A Whole Lot of Mistakes, Lessons Learned, and Growth

Jul 15, 2024

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Evening edition of The Backlot. These newsletters will include stories from my recent experiences working in documentary filmmaking, helpful resources for emerging filmmakers, and other posts covering topics in the documentary industry.

NOTE - The Sunday evening version of the newsletter is free. Future mid-week posts on Wednesday evenings will require a paid subscription.

This week, I’m sharing a few of the many things I’ve learned from running a production company over the past two years…

🎞️ 5 Tips from Two Years Running A Production Company

🎬 AI in VFX & Filmmaking

🗞️ Wrapping Up & Recommendations of the Week

silhouette of person holding camera — Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

5 Tips for Running A Production Company

Over the past two years, I’ve been the co-owner and founder of the production company Camp Five Films, a documentary and commercial film studio based in Bend, Oregon.

During this time, our team has had the opportunity to work on various commercial projects, music videos, and feature-length documentary films. We’ve also produced a couple of short films, including Return to Sender, a documentary short following a group of highliners who rigged and attempted the United States record for longest highline.

Truthfully, running this company has not been easy, and we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves a true success. However, looking back on where we were when we started, I can tell you that we’ve learned much more and come so much further than I could have ever imagined.

We’ve made many mistakes, but we've learned from each one along the way, and each failure, wrong decision, or new lesson has given us a better understanding of this industry and a great toolkit to carve our way toward future success.

To say this journey has been rewarding would be an understatement. I have learned so much that it’s hard to know where to even start. But this week, I wanted to share five of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from the past two years of running Camp Five Films.

Learn About Business

In the first episode of The Backlot, we discussed the business of filmmaking and how I had to learn to view this industry and craft in a different light.

This change in perspective was one of the biggest realizations I’ve had throughout the past few years of running a production company. It completely changed my views on filmmaking, distribution, and the creative process.

To be honest, when we started Camp Five Films, I don’t think I truly understood the amount of knowledge necessary to run a production company. I quickly learned that it has a lot more to do with the business than it does with knowing how to tell a good story, lead a production, or make a good film.

It’s more about your ability to produce films, finance projects, and develop a business around your work. Skills such as networking and sales are more important for success than picking the perfect shot or finding the right lighting. That doesn’t mean that filmmaking is less important; it’s just being a good filmmaker alone won’t guarantee the success of your company.

Learning how to successfully run a business will.

Therefore, invest in new skills and learn more about what it means to run a business, sell a product, market your company, and be a leader. If you can grow your skillset and learn to be a good business owner - your production company is going to be fine.

The Company Is The Product

Building on these revelations about business, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through this experience has been the realization that a film is more than a work of art or a creative accomplishment - it’s a product.

And products have to make you money.

For a long time, I believed that funders, clients, and financers should want films because they tell great stories, are visually pleasing, and entertain the audience. Although these are important factors for the success of the film, the bottom line is that your films need to make money.

These creative endeavors need to help clients get more customers, help investors make a return on their investment, and help your company develop more business.

This doesn’t mean you should put less emphasis on the creative aspects of each project - it just means that it’s important to think in terms of money. Understand that the way you will grow is by making a profit and, more importantly, making money for others.

If you can change your mindset to think in these terms, then everything in this business suddenly becomes a lot clearer.

Choose Your Business Partners Carefully

When Camp Five Films was established, three of us were the co-founders.

Each of us owned equal shares and brought a different skill set to the team, making for the perfect mixture of talent, passion, and experience. My co-founders are highly skilled, intelligent, and charismatic individuals. They each know a lot about the different elements of their craft and have a burning passion for making films and telling important stories about the world.

With that being said, when we entered into the agreement to start this company, I don’t think any of us truly understood the gravity of the relationship we had just formed with each other.

Starting and owning a business with other people is more than just a working relationship—it’s a commitment to each other. It’s choosing to dedicate yourself to a project where each of your decisions, both in the business and in life, will significantly affect one another.

As co-owners of Camp Five Films, we've had to learn this the hard way.

Through our business, we’ve had to overcome life changes, the exit of a co-owner, issues with clients, and much more. We’ve had to have hard conversations with each other, learn how to work together, and learn to trust one another. On top of all that, we’ve had to continuously choose to remain dedicated to each other and be honest about our feelings, thoughts, and desires in our careers.

This also has meant working closely together on every aspect of each production, from development to post-production. Add in a bit of stress on set, burnout in our careers, periods of low income, and other things that plague a business in the first few years, and it’s led to some very contentious conversations.

Yet, each time, we’ve gotten stronger because we chose to work together and solve our problems.

That is because, truthfully, I couldn’t have asked for a better co-founder (and originally co-founders). Even though we’ve had our differences and had to make some hard decisions, the lessons I’ve learned through our relationship have been absolutely priceless.

At the same time, I would strongly advise anyone who is looking to start a business with other people to really think about the commitment required to maintain and grow this kind of relationship.

The decision to enter into this agreement should not be made lightly. Make sure you feel comfortable before moving forward. The relationship between co-founders can truly make or break a business, especially in the first few years.

You Will Wear All Hats

In a small production company, there is one thing that will become incredibly self-evident when you start working on projects - you will be doing everything.

In our few years in business, my co-founder and I have had to work nearly every position on a film set. We’ve been our own production assistants, sound engineers, interviewers, field producers, location scouts, writers, and editors. Each of us has directed projects, produced videos, and even filmed various scenes.

This also extends outside of the production process. As in any small business, we’ve had to be the accountants, HR department, sales team, and public face of this company. We’ve had to learn about every facet of running a production business, from pitching a commercial to filing taxes at the end of the year.

Truthfully, when finances are tight in any small company, this is one of the easiest ways to cut costs and stay within our budget. Although this necessity to wear all the hats during our projects and in the business has been taxing at times, it’s also offered the greatest opportunities for growth.

Unlike working on a set for other people or working for an employer, these experiences have allowed us to learn about each facet of filmmaking and experience many different things. We’ve gotten the chance to try various positions, learn about different roles on set, and expand our own skillset in filmmaking.

These experiences and opportunities to develop different parts of our filmmaking skillset have been incredibly rewarding. And although it has taken much trial and error, running your own business is an excellent chance to learn—and that’s the greatest gift you can receive.

You Either Become Leaders or Choose to Follow

One of my favorite things that has come from running Camp Five Films is the Greenlight Guild.

Our newly started filmmakers meetup has held several meetings over the past few months, during which we’ve had the opportunity to bring together filmmakers in the local community to connect with each other, share their experiences, and form the foundation of a film community in Central Oregon.

Through this project, my co-founder and I have had to assume the role of leaders in the local film community. This isn’t because we are the most skilled or experienced individuals in filmmaking—it’s because we wanted to strengthen the community, and the only way to do that was by leading the way.

As opposed to working for a company where you are being told which actions to take, we are solely in charge of the future of our business. We are the ones who have to act if we want the company to succeed and prosper. We have to find new projects, cultivate funding for those projects, and produce them under our own guidance.

This means we’ve had to renounce any reservations we had toward being passive members of the film world who wait to be told what to do and, instead, become leaders who choose to make things happen.

Whether that’s developing a relationship with a new subject for a future documentary film or starting a community meetup to grow our network and build community in our local region - we are in charge of our own path.

Running a production company requires you to lead - in business, filmmaking, and life. You are now the master of your own success, so you have to truly act like it.

*Transformers: Age of Extinction* (2014)

AI in the VFX Industry

Over the last few months, I've been reporting on the role of artificial intelligence in the film industry for my newsletter and other outlets.

The growth of this new technology signifies a massive moment in human history, and the conversations we have today will shape the future of the film industry.

That's why it's important to understand more about AI and be transparent about its benefits and disadvantages in filmmaking. The more we can learn about the ways these programs operate, the way we use them, and how they affect our livelihoods as artists, the more we can have honest discussions about the way we should approach and handle this new technology.

For these reasons, I’ve been working to investigate and understand more about artificial intelligence and its role in the film industry. This interest recently led to working on a piece for Cone Magazine on the presence of artificial intelligence in the VFX industry.

Through this article, I spoke to several different filmmakers, including a VFX artist who worked on Transformers and an indie filmmaker who uses VFX to enhance his filmmaking abilities.

They offered many interesting perspectives on how these programs are used in the VFX industry, which gave me a glimmer of hope for the future of filmmaking in this era of artificial intelligence.

Will AI Replace VFX Artists In Film? Experts Weigh In

Wrapping Up & Recommendations of the Week

This week, we’re sharing a movie of the week and offering a few other recommendations from across the industry…

Sugarcane (2024)

Getting straight to the point—this film has not been released yet. National Geographic has just released the trailer for the new documentary, which chronicles the story of a local community at the center of the widespread abuse that occurred in many of the First Nation’s Boarding Schools across Canada.

During the International Documentary Association’s Getting Real Conference, I had the opportunity to listen to filmmakers Emily Kassie and Julien Brave NoiseCat speak on the development of the documentary. NoiseCat, specifically, is a member of the community at the heart of the story, and his own journey throughout this film is incredibly moving and powerful.

The film is coming to theaters in August and will be shown in select locations around the country. It’s also being considered the early frontrunner for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Check out the trailer below.