Technicolor’s Legacy: A Post-Production Veteran’s Take on the Future of VFX

Orlando (00:00)
Here are some things that are true that are just not news. The creative industries are in flux.

Schedules are getting

Budgets are tighter than ever. And new technologies present both danger and opportunity.

I could have said any of those phrases at any time since the late 90s and they would likely be true. So actually is it business as usual for the creative industries? Just a few weeks ago though, Technicolor filed for

The legendary company behind the three strip Technicolor process.

whose highly saturated colors were synonymous with the golden age of

movies like Wizard of Oz and Gigi.

But Technicolor is also the parent company to post-production titans like The Mill and MPC. These are giants that we thought would stand forever. So what now?

In this episode, I sit down with Lee Pavy, founder of The Electric Theater Collective, one of the most creatively admired post houses in the world. He’s now the vice president of The Hogan, a full service creative music supervision house.

When I first met Lee, he was a post producer at the Mill the Oscar winning post house that with the collapse of Technicolor sadly is no more. He goes into the amazing role it and its people have had in the DNA of the advertising and creative industries. And what about that place attracted the best talent and what about it made that talent

We get into the collapse of Technicolor, the razor thin economics of running a post facility and the cultural lifeblood that makes these places special.

and what it takes to build something that survives and inspires others.

But what really struck me and always strikes me about Lee is his passion for people. He’s not just talking about machines and margins. He’s talking about craft, about culture, about why this work matters to the people doing it. And yeah, we talk about AI, not in the abstract, but in the real world way it’s affecting the next generation of talent and threatening their path to entry and development in the

So if you’re someone in the creative industries who’s nervous about the future,

This episode will give you clarity and encouragement. It’s an honest look at what it takes to adapt without letting go of what made us fall in love with this work and the legacy industries in the first place.

Let’s get

Orlando Wood (02:11)
listen, I’m psyched to talk to A, just to catch up and to see your smiling face and B,

because I’m thrilled that you were willing to do the podcast and C, because, you know, obviously there’s so much going on in the world of post-production now and you’re a

modern day legend of it, whether you would accept that or not, you are.

so I’m really keen to talk to you about it.

to give a brief summary of your career, you were a producer at the Mill, you and I had a kind of similar trajectory. We kind of came up very much at the same time, you were a junior when I was an assistant.

And then we both kind of graduated up. And then when I got the opportunity to open up the UK office of Biscuit in London, you were open up an Electric Theater Collective around the same time. And Electric Theater Collective,

I think there was a quote in Televisual that said, not since dinosaurs have walked the earth has a post-production house unseated MPC or the Mill for the top spot.

And arguably for all the time that you founded it and ran it, it was one of the most creative post-production houses in the world. So I’d like to kind of start there. mean, looking back on your career, what do you think about it?

Lee (03:18)
I think it’s like, you know, people always say it’s like the story of your life, like this decision, a bit like the sliding doors moment, like if you didn’t do this, this wouldn’t have didn’t that. You know, like I started my career, I was an aspiring animator and I was working at Marks and Spencer’s while at college.

And I was sketching in my notebook one day on my lunch break and a woman there said, oh, what are doing? Let me see your drawings. And she said, oh, my son does something like that. You should go and meet my son. And her name was Sally Knight. His name was Gary Knight. He’s one at the time he was cutting for Chris Cunningham, probably one of the most, filmmakers.

Orlando Wood (03:45)
All

Lee (03:57)
ever, like, his work is like, it’s just an absolute auteur And she said, should meet my son. And she has two sons, one was working in film and one was an editor. So I went to meet the guy who did film first and I was 17 year old kid, you know, was born in 1978, so was brought up on Star Wars. And I truly believe in fate and I go for this job interview.

Orlando Wood (03:58)
I mean ever still, yeah.

Lee (04:24)
And I was like, so what are you working on? And they were like, we’re working on Star Wars Phantom Menace. And I was like, I need to work here. really thought like the stars of it, like this is meant to have happened. I’m meant to have been in that place to do this. And I didn’t get the job. I did, that was like, it worked out quite well. Cause her office worked at an edit company, which was Inside Glassworks who…

Orlando Wood (04:38)
bummer.

Yeah.

Lee (04:47)
at the time were, in my opinion, the most creative visual effects company. I turned up in a suit, which people don’t do in a job interview in tech or creative, but I did better.

Orlando Wood (04:57)
Yeah, I turned up to my first interview at Wieden Kennedy in a suit as well. It was not the thing to do.

Lee (05:03)
one tells you and you sort of walk in like, I feel really awkward because I’m the only person in that suit. But you know, this part of being young and they saw past it and they saw the person and I started off as a runner, didn’t know what I was doing and then progressed and you know, along that way I met interesting people.

Orlando Wood (05:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (05:20)
and I really love people, just love, I wouldn’t, if it was a choice of going to the zoo or just going to sit in a park and watch people, I’d watch people, they’re a lot more interested. So I just wanted to meet everyone, and I just couldn’t believe that this was a job. Number one, this creative job was existed, and two, that I was doing it and I’d been given this opportunity. No one in my family did it, it was totally alien, none of my friends did it.

Orlando Wood (05:29)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (05:47)
And I just wasn’t gonna let it slip. like everywhere I went I was like, what do you do? What do you guys must have been so annoying? What do you do? How do you do this? And just lived the industry. I just wanted to be in it every single day like I would get up at like 7 and I would come home late into the evening and Just loved it and loved all the people and met more and more people at Glassworks I wanted to move on

But then I met someone in the street who said, oh, my friend’s starting a new visual effects company. And I just thought the opportunity to go in somewhere and see a startup, like I wanted to part of it. I joined them and then started doing.

Orlando Wood (06:21)
Yeah.

Because it

seems so unattainable, doesn’t it? When you come in at that high level of something big, there’s such a disconnect between where you’re at and how you could possibly ever begin because it’s so mature, it sort of defies belief that it could have ever started as something small.

Lee (06:42)
Exactly and I think like seeing that it was a huge learning curve. They were independent They were a breakaway from a big visual effects company. They had a client post-production. Yeah And they were a startup so I joined and I helped set up like the library system and was just there on day one and then moved into a Junior producer or there was no schedule in there. So just started picking up jobs few music videos and few years go by and I was doing

Orlando Wood (06:51)
This was Golden Square or who is this? Right. Yeah.

Lee (07:10)
interesting work. Again, was working on a, funnily enough, a video with Chris Cunningham called Rubber Johnny. So I was producing, yeah, incredible job. Like it was nuts. It didn’t have a budget, so it was working around other projects. I was working with incredible flame artist, Rachel Mills, She was doing all the hard work. I was just producing it.

Orlando Wood (07:18)
God, amazing. Yeah, unbelievable.

Lee (07:30)
someone I used to work with at Golden Square had moved to the Mill and he was like, we got a higher Lee And I didn’t want to move to be fair at the beginning. And then at Golden Square, I was judging.

Orlando Wood (07:38)
you.

Lee (07:40)
the British Arrows, And we watched the work and the Mill’s work came on. And I was like, I’ve got to go. And then I went to the Mill, I remember day one, sorry, I’m just gonna keep rattling on, day one going in there, I’m realizing I didn’t know what I thought I knew. Day this was…

Orlando Wood (07:47)
Yeah.

No, please.

Operating at a different level. Yeah.

Lee (07:59)
Another football analogy, this is like going

from the first division to like Premier League, like these are Champions League quality, like visual these are the best in the world. And I just thought, I can’t cut this. I thought I’d be here three months. It just won’t happen. And then as I was spending more time there and getting more projects and working on more stuff, again, I just felt like I stepped up and…

Orlando Wood (08:05)
Yeah.

Lee (08:23)
You know, the Mill was, it was going through a transitional time, a time before where like, like as a producer, you never had to do any new business or any sales or, you know, Golden Square, was like, work. That was our thing. We had to win work. We had to be more creative and come up with ideas. Yeah. And I went to the Mill and I’m like, okay, so how the scripts come in? someone phones up and they talk to the receptionist.

Orlando Wood (08:36)
Yeah, it’s all hands on deck. Yeah.

Lee (08:46)
and then they get the script and they just email production and like, who can pick this up? And I was that really happens. Like this is nuts. and scripts are just coming in, constantly coming in.

Orlando Wood (08:46)
Ha

Lee (08:56)
I sort of started doing more and more jobs, building my reputation at the Mill. And I was just gonna say earlier, the transition was happening where they were having to work harder. MPC were like…

just winning a load of incredible work, working with Dougal Wilson, making award winning ads. So it was like a little bit of a battle between and Framestore. at that time we just became a bit more sales focused because we had to be. That timing of like it becoming more salesy and me, the person I am in the way that I had an outlook on visual effects and what we should be doing.

I worked with, you know, the production team. look like, I think back at those people and I look around.

can still picture looking around the room and it’s like, again, they were like the best of the best. Those people now run, or are pretty much like every visual effects company, maybe a barring in one or two. And everyone in that room has gone on to do really, really fantastic things, know, either Electric or Absolute or, you know, wherever, Black Kite, No. 8 wherever they are. You know, these are the people who are like running the industry. So I just, again, I hit the

Orlando Wood (09:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (10:09)
timing right and then was ready to move. was getting offered a lot of jobs. So am I just, I’m just waffling. So you’re going to the history of Lee now.

Orlando Wood (10:16)
No, please. It’s so great.

mean, it’s especially because I remember that as well. I mean, I remember meeting you through Fi, you know, I mean, Fi Kilroe who was so sweet to me and kind of really, she would give me sort of tours, which were really just ways to educate me about stuff I didn’t know without lecturing me. She would come, let me show you this flame suite and explain to you how it works and give me that. You know, it was a remarkably for a

Lee (10:23)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (10:44)
For company that was moving that fast and doing that level of work, it was remarkably nurturing. And I always remember that the people there were fantastic.

Lee (10:57)
Yeah, like, you know, and…

It had a really, really good training school. Like I remember even when you went there for a job interview, I don’t think anyone does this anymore. They would give you, as a producer, they would give you a board and

bid this. You know, and at first I remember like

gave me a bit of a heads up like, don’t say, like, just say I can’t quote without an artist. And they were putting pressure on you to quote it. So you will keep battling back like, no, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna quote it. And they did, they asked you like, bid this job at, how would you do it?

Orlando Wood (11:19)
Yeah.

Lee (11:26)
And you that’s why I the producer was so good because they could be the job without an artist. They wouldn’t,

but they could. They had the skillset and of visual effects techniques. weren’t just like, they weren’t just taking data or information from flame artists or artists, 3D

and just typing it up for them. They to like produce really, or how to solve

Orlando Wood (11:52)
it

wasn’t just glorified project management.

Lee (11:54)
No, no, no,

Orlando Wood (11:55)
It was, yeah. Yeah.

Lee (11:55)
knew how to actually make the one

look.

When I went to The Mill LA, I think there was maybe 15 people.

Orlando Wood (12:02)
Mm-hmm.

Lee (12:02)
Even

though we had the Mill name, it felt like a startup, which it kind of was. We’d been for a few years, but hadn’t been successful.

So then I was out there and I was out there with Phil Crow and most importantly I was there with Giles Cheetham. So Giles was a flame op I’d worked with him in London. We were good mates.

And he went on to be my business partner at Electric. Yeah. So we were out there. I was ready to come home. But I, because of my path of like this like startup, behemoth startup, again, I’d sort of like learned what a startup was like. I’d not, not a management team by any sort of sense, but had seen the way I build it, like a company started

worked at the behemoth and just got to know everyone. So I had loads of really loyal

Orlando Wood (12:45)
you know, London where the entire ad industry is around. So or at least was back then. And, you know, I mean, at every pub, you’re meeting up with people and there’s 10 different agencies and four different post houses represented. It was a real everybody muck in and and, know, and and everybody was doing the same things and under the same pressures. And it was a wonderful place in your 20s to be to be learning that stuff.

Lee (13:09)
Like I spent my childhood, like people say to me now, if I’m walking through soho like, how do know I’m from like a market trader? It’s like, I when I was 17 and I’m nearly 47. So like this is 30 years of just like, I was here every day. So all the like, I was a runner picking up fruit and veg or picking fruit for the fruit bowls at Like you get to know that guy, you meet him every single Like you go to the same pub, you get to know the bar staff.

Orlando Wood (13:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

you know, you met Giles, let’s get into that kind of Electric Theater era, because it really did feel like you guys were doing something new. You guys tended to a little bit maybe like your experience working on rubber Johnny at Glassworks. You know, I remember you guys doing Super Atomic Turbo Ninja Rabbit with the Line and kind of going

wait, these guys are investing in things that don’t have a you know, they’re just cool. And it’s attracting incredible talent. It’s attracting a lot of people wanting to book you because just walking in and waiting for your flame session, for example, you’d be like, there’s a buzz going on here. Like this is cool shit is happening. And you’d end up walking through the lobby and you’d be like, cool, I’m going to see, you know, something we’re doing over here, like super atomic, term, and and rabbit or that.

Lee (14:27)
Yeah, yeah,

Orlando Wood (14:29)
that great music video you did with the two guys and the two little animated guys in the RC car. And you just grabbed me by the hand and be like, come look at this cool thing. And there was this sense of like excited people mucking in to yeah, do everything professionally and do it on a high level for Nike and for Ogilvy and Wieden and whoever else. But you guys were bothering to invest.

your time, attention, and resources into these cool things. And it just made you want to be there. I can’t explain it any other way.

Lee (15:03)
Yeah,

I think the Line are really special.

I can’t even put into words how fantastic they are, how talented.

they are and seeing their success you know those guys have got an Oscar written all over them if they you know they’re making a film at the moment

like it will look like nothing else people have seen. Yeah, they believe in like, that was what I just loved about them. They’re like true craftspeople. Like they could live in any era. They could 2000 years or they could have lived 100 years ago and they would be still making this incredible work. And it be like you’ve seen like, like working them was a joy. Do you know when you come into work and you think I can’t wait to go in because they would do

Orlando Wood (15:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lee (15:47)
doing like mega cool stuff and we were like, you know, I’m not saying that making ads isn’t cool, but we were doing what we knew, but then you’re right, like in the background they would just be like, we’re gonna make this game for Leonardo DiCaprio and I’m like, and then I’d go downstairs and they’d be working on it upstairs off their own money, off their own backs, like, and then I’d go up and they’d be like, we’ve launched it and look at this.

Orlando Wood (16:08)
Yeah.

Lee (16:10)
YouTube’s blowing up and like the people here on the phone trying to like talk to them and I’m like, they just did that. And that is priceless. know, they’re just you said, like there was always something cool going on at Electric know, like they made stuff in VR when they were there, they were just mega cool. Like, like they still

Orlando Wood (16:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (16:31)
you know, we piggybacked on top of that cool factor because they came in to do a job for Talk Talk. It was a bit like, you like, I don’t know, like, Andy Warhol’s Factory, like, do you want to just come and like take a room and do you want to use this? we tried to get you some work and.

Orlando Wood (16:38)
Yeah.

But I think that that was actually quite rare. think that, you know, it happens in that time when a founder like you is at that early stage. But London space in Soho or Noho is at a premium, know, seeing the value and going, no, that’s going to be for them now and making sure that you have that creative, melting pot kind of happening. It’s what made people want to

come in for sessions with you guys. It’s what made people like me want to bid you guys in on things, because you just felt like you were also gonna get to see some cool new thing that somebody was working on, and they’d be happy to show you over their shoulder. And that just, it felt, made you feel more part of the creative process.

Lee (17:23)
Sometimes it’s nice to do something for you. And it felt like that was almost like for us, like we were paying for, owned the company. We could kind of do whatever we wanted to do, but having them in the building, like it made us excited to be there. And it was like, we are making work for other people, but also this is kind of like for us, even though we weren’t

Orlando Wood (17:37)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lee (17:44)
it, the Line were doing it, we were, we were still part of it. You know, we were sharing space and sharing ideas and certain things and just like, I would be excited to come to work. So the value of that is amazing. You know, like having, like, I was, can’t wait to see what they’ll do today. What Tim’s going to come up with, you know, he’s done something and they would just come up with the most creative ideas,

Orlando Wood (17:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It’s funny because I feel like when either when hard times come, you know, and we’ll get on those with Technicolor and things like that in a sec, but when hard times come or when something gets too big or when the founders step away, suddenly a lot of time it becomes a big about profit and process and

What people forget is it’s the culture that brought everybody in. It’s the culture that attracted people here, both amazing talent and clients. And it’s sort of then the first thing that gets chucked out when you get a little bit too big.

Lee (18:39)
Yeah, I think like, you know, that’s always the thing is like, it’s a creative business and that balance between those two words, they have to in harmony. Cause you can be the most creative company and not make any money and then you’ll be closed in six months. Or you have to be like, or you become too much of a business and like what’s going to be on your show real. Like, and you’re going to no one wants to be there. Like if you’re just doing one.

Orlando Wood (18:49)
Yeah.

Lee (19:02)
Like for every day you did an advert for, I’m trying to think of a brand that doesn’t exist so I don’t upset anyone. Whatever, brand X, and you just work on that all the time and they just make nuts and bolts. You’ll be like, how many ads can we do for this? Like you need to be excited. Because then you’ll start looking for other opportunities or your staff will. But if they come in and they’re like, this place is like creative hot shot. Everywhere I go I’m like inspired. People want to be part of that.

Orlando Wood (19:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (19:29)
And like I so we always tried to do that. And to be fair, they still do that over Electric it’s baked into the culture, like that that’s what you’re gonna be like. And we did things for ourselves. We didn’t care. Like we didn’t care, okay, if it costs money, but is it good? And do we feel proud of it? Like, and can we, we’re still talking about that.

So I think you need to keep that balance. the problem is when you run out of money and money gets tight like you were saying, that stuff does get like, are we gonna spend 30,000 pounds on this? Because we like it.

and you just can’t, it’s just life, isn’t it? So having money definitely allows you to be more creative. That’s not a new thought is it? Having to be great. yeah. That’s what it does, isn’t it?

Orlando Wood (20:15)
Yeah, but I do, I do

think that, you know, when you’re in a startup mentality, a lot of the time it becomes all about, you know, saving every single penny. And when you’re letting precious resource that you have out the door on something that doesn’t have a tangible financial benefit, that can feel very scary. But you’re right. That is the lifeblood of the creative industries. And so

Part of it is about figuring out what that barometer is internally as a company manager to figure out how to let that grow, that culture.

Lee (20:48)
Yeah, I think it’s just like,

you need to love it. You invest in things, it’s like anything like, maybe some people don’t, but anything I do, like, a friend of mine, Simon, he was like, you should look at the world through three lenses. Does it do good in the world? Does it make you excited and is it a time drain?

And like if you can answer those questions, know, I don’t want to, you know, personally, if I was offered the opportunity to invest in a company which pollutes the world, I don’t want to do that. some people are happy to do that. Some people are. Personally, me, I’m not happy to do that. That’s not where I sit in the world.

So I think those sort of tools, they were ingrained in all three of us as partners, like, well, let’s do this. James would come to me all the time, like, I this is cool, we should do this, we should do that. I’m like, yeah, I think we should, or Giles would be like, yeah, I love this, let’s do it, or Giles would be like, no.

Why are going to spend 10 grand on this? Like, no, let’s not do that. So we worked together quite well as a team, like, we should back this, we shouldn’t, you know. Having three of us meant like we didn’t make any stupid decisions. If two of us believed in it, we

Orlando Wood (21:43)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (21:55)
it off and did it.

Orlando Wood (21:55)
Yeah. Yeah.

So one of things I wanted to ask is obviously, you know, one of things that we’re doing at KoobrikLabs is, building technologies and using a lot of, you know, AI and a lot of, you know, just Python libraries and things like that as well. Obviously a kind of monumental shift is occurring, especially in post-production from, you know, the, the pressures that

the companies are under of shrinking schedules and that’s not new, but now you’ve got things like MidJourney creating incredibly lush looking visuals very quickly, but without a lot of control. How is that impacting post-production at large?

Lee (22:38)
we did a job for Coca-Cola and really, if you’d had the time,

people would have done it, but we didn’t have the time to do this. So

used AI to create a look and we did it in a certain time.

Orlando Wood (22:53)
Was this the one

in the art gallery? Right, yeah.

Lee (22:54)
Yeah, in the art gallery, which like, it replicated

like artist

and it put that look onto some images. So that is an example of it doing good, you know, of it really working and, but it really is just a tool.

people start in the industry, they start in compositor, for example, when I grew up, your entry level position was maybe you started as a runner, you worked up to the machine room, and then you started cutting mattes cutting things out, roto, and that was part of your journey to like, okay, and then you learn a few more techniques, you’re on the box, you’re learning stuff like,

Orlando Wood (23:22)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Lee (23:29)
AI will replace Roto, it will do that. So it does worry me, like, okay, how do people start and maybe, you know, people who have been to university and to art school and they’re using this kit at home.

But for people who maybe aren’t from that background, who haven’t been to school, like, know, I didn’t go to university, a lot of people at the Mill didn’t go to university. They learn on the job, they started as runners, they were exposed to expensive kit, and then they could learn it on the job. And that’s my slight worry is that that work won’t be there to enable us to hire a lot of young people, bring young people through.

Orlando Wood (23:55)
Yeah.

Lee (24:09)
So that’s a bit of a worry. Also, a lot of companies outsource this kind of work to other markets, places like India, where you could get a lot of people at a lower cost who are very skilled. They are incredible out there, like in India. are unbelievably talented. So if this AI shift happens, like…

I hope there’s a room for these artists because again, like we are trying to get as many people into visual effects, not get lost people. And personally, I heard this the other day, like I was listening to something about the Brits and they were like, okay, this Beatles song was AI, AI helped create this new Beatles song.

Orlando Wood (24:39)
Mm-hmm.

Lee (24:52)
And then something else was like, this artist, was talking about art being created by AI. And I was like, this doesn’t

like what I want AI to do. Like I don’t really want to do music and art. And then I’m like filling the dishwasher or like cleaning the pots or something. I’m like, like, I think this is the wrong way around. Like it should be the tool to make us be able to do more and enjoy, create more music. So the machine understands more because it only

Orlando Wood (25:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (25:21)
It’s only learning what we’ve taught it. Music and art and creativity is about learning about the past but also coming up with something new. So that bit keeps me like, okay, people will still be there. People aren’t gonna disappear. But I suppose it’s just how much we get caught up in the hype of AI and what it’s doing. I think seeing what it’s doing in your business and in other businesses like…

Orlando Wood (25:24)
Yeah.

Lee (25:43)
We couldn’t have this, you know, we wouldn’t…

These businesses wouldn’t exist without AI supporting it. And that’s when AI is brilliant. That’s when it’s fantastic. like inventing a bicycle for the first time. Like humans weren’t the fastest thing on the planet. And then we bicycle and now we are. That’s kind of where I would like AI to go.

I’m not saying it’s gonna solve all world problems, like, know, find cures to diseases. It’s gonna like, you know, it’s gonna enable people a better quality of life and a longer life and a healthier life. And that’s exciting. That bit gets me excited. But what I don’t wanna do is, like I say, be doing the really like manual labor job while AI’s creating all the music I listen to and all the paintings I buy.

Orlando Wood (26:27)
I mean, I sort of feel like it must feel now the way it felt when, you know, when the physical editing, of film, you know, when they were gluing it together and then suddenly it moves to video,

I think there is some real beauty in the craft of those things. And I think that it’s sad to watch them go away. I think that everybody’s hope, I think, is that it won’t. I think the fear, though, is that the film industry is going through it right now. People aren’t being fired because of AI. People are being fired because the business model is broken.

and they’re having to let people go, but they still need to churn out the same amount of work. So they’re having to use AI to fill the gaps that once was filled by people. so everybody’s like, people are going to be gotten rid of. But actually it’s sort of the other way around is we’re noticing these big economic cracks in the business models. And that’s driving us into the arms of AI.

Lee (27:20)
Yeah, people now as well.

Yeah, and also machines are becoming cheaper. If you wanted a grading system, like a telecine before, you would pay over a million quid. Not too many. That was a big change for us. remember when we started, there was a…

Orlando Wood (27:28)
Yeah.

Lee (27:45)
We had a machine room, which even now sounds like archaic We had this machine and a Digi Beta machine cost 200, I think it was like 200 grand or something, it was ridiculous. We didn’t have the money. we came, like Electric was sort of funny, just on the cusp of this revolution. We were like, we had a machine room and we had a gap for the Digi Beta machine. And people would ask us, oh, can we put it on Digi? I’m like, why would you want that? Like, no, don’t need it. We can just give you a

Orlando Wood (28:10)
Yeah.

Lee (28:12)
And I was trying to save the company from just like spending 200 grand and we never got that machine in once. like if we’d opened a year earlier, we would have had to have that machine.

Orlando Wood (28:21)
I had

a similar thing where, when I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to set up the UK office of biscuit, and I sent out DVDs to all the production departments. And everybody was like, we don’t have a DVD wall anymore, dude. This is no way to, yeah.

Lee (28:37)
But you know what, this is

great sales tool because they phoned you up and you had a conversation with someone. was worth it, it was better than having a reel. But that’s the thing, you can be like, you know, there’s those great stories aren’t there about like Kodak where you can just bury your head in the sand and say, this isn’t gonna No, film is never gonna go anywhere. And then someone makes a digital camera and you’re like,

Orlando Wood (28:55)
Yeah.

Lee (29:01)
really like, digital camera. And film is still needed, but not at the, you it’s come back into fashion to shoot on definitely like, you could have had both. You could have still owned the and could have developed a digital camera. And I feel like that could be what happens with AI as well. It’s like, you have embrace it and use it, but you use it for what it’s there for. You know, you don’t, it’s that fine balance and everyone’s feeling it out. Like, is this going to be the next thing? Because we’ve been through this in the past where like,

something was gonna happen it was gonna change the like like 3d TVs how many people have got a pair of 3d glasses in the never ever put on but if someone watched avatar one and that was it you know change everything like I don’t even think they have

Orlando Wood (29:45)
Yeah, I haven’t seen a Segway

in a long time as well. That was supposed to change the world at one point.

Lee (29:49)
Yeah, you…

Mate, I’d love to have a go on one, but I think I’m just too old, I’d fall off. You know, there’s nothing more embarrassing than an old man falling off a Segway. But there’s things, I’m sure there’s technology, like that’s from the Segway.

Orlando Wood (30:02)
I think

that might be the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a man is falling off a Segway. Or it’s up there at least.

Lee (30:07)
and then sporting off a Segway.

It’s definitely got to be there because you know it would hurt. You’d be wearing that little helmet. You’d be like, you know, everyone would be looking. And then you’d probably have to pay a fine for damaging the Segway. like that there’s some tech in there that’s probably used in like military grade, like some drone somewhere that’s like using like that’s using Segway technology.

Orlando Wood (30:11)
Ha

Yeah, I’m sure.

Yeah, the magic of sort of unintended consequences, you know.

Lee (30:36)
Yeah, I

feel, yeah, so, so, there’s, and then there was VR. Everyone was talking about

know, metal, putting lot of money into like,

Orlando Wood (30:44)
an augmented reality. right.

There have been a lot of kind of over promises and misfires.

Lee (30:49)
Yeah, and that’s when like…

I don’t think AI is that, I AI probably is the the real, it 100

Orlando Wood (30:55)
Yeah, I mean, so you touched very briefly in there on kind of the economics of post-production a Digi Beta machine just even costing $200,000 and the shifts kind of reducing some of the costs for you setting up electric. Okay, so to get into this, Technicolor obviously just closed. The Mill where you worked for a long time is now kind

no more, MPC no more. mean, this to us growing up in the industry we grew up in is mind blowing. It just feels like there’s an empty hole where once a giant stood. And can you shed any light on, and I’m not asking you to reveal anything sensitive, but can you shed some light on the economics of a post-production house and what sort of challenges they’re under?

Yeah, and how they manage those.

Lee (31:43)
Yeah, it’s, you know, thing about VFX is that normally you need quite a lot of people, you know, to deliver a job. You know, there are ones who are just smaller, but…

The difficulties are that you need a lot of people and very, very talented people from a very small talent pool. you have, you every company wants all the best people. It goes back to my football analogy, you know, you want to get this player, get this player, get this person, get this person. And you want to try to build like your fantasy visual effects company. You you want to have this amazing person, this amazing like data guy. You want to have all these bits that kind of work together.

Orlando Wood (32:21)
Hmm

Lee (32:23)
and the margins in VFX are really tight you know a lot of the time the most create you know you do like but the most creative work

Orlando Wood (32:26)
Mm-hmm.

Lee (32:32)
normally needs loads of people, so I’m gonna ramble for a bit, but you know, there’s loads of people. Normally the budget isn’t always the best for those bigger projects, and you know this as well, they’re the ones, but they’re the ones you kind of invest in, because they’re the pieces that get you, show what you can do, and they get you other work. So you’re playing this game all the time, which is like, you’re…

Orlando Wood (32:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lee (32:54)
analyzing hugely and also putting your trust and your experience and your feeling behind a project like, okay, I think we would choose really wisely, like the music videos we invested in because invariably they would cost money.

So you’ve got to put your trust that this is gonna do it and everyone in that process is gonna do their job to the best of their ability to make this piece of work incredible. when we worked on music videos, it was like, is this gonna be the one? Or a big commercial, you’d be like, okay, is this gonna be the one? And like I say, that’s what…

as the people were running the business, that we would look at scripts and be like, this is the one. You can tell this director, this script, this is the one. But sometimes,

Orlando Wood (33:43)
Yeah.

Lee (33:46)
this is where I think certain companies, know, like the people who run those companies are like,

They know what they’re doing, but the problem you have, so I’m trying to phrase this in the right way, is there are people above them in a country somewhere else who aren’t on the ground and they’re not living the industry.

Orlando Wood (34:04)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah. So are you speaking specifically about let’s let’s, you know, a company less less like electric and more like the technicolor thing where you’ve got a kind of a holding company that owns lots of different companies. And then you’ve got an on the ground company like the Mill that’s just trying to do good work and stay relevant in its local market. And it can’t really respond in the same way because it’s sorry to paraphrase, but is that what you mean?

Lee (34:18)
owned by private equity.

Yeah, like, I was

trying to find the right words because like I say, everyone there is incredible. Like if I knew I was up against the Mill, I would feel dread. I’d be like, they’re on it because you knew they had like amazing people, an amazing show reel. They had all the bits behind them. know, we were, it’s like anything. If you’re, I don’t know.

David versus Goliath, like, you know, if that kind of battle, we knew we were more nimble. That was the one thing we had. They had money and power and history and all these incredible people. had like 4,000 people and like, oh my God, there’s 12 of us. How are we gonna take on this big guy? But we knew we were like nimble, quick. We were on every single project that the owners were on, had their eyes on everything. So when something came in, we were like.

Orlando Wood (35:16)
Hmm

Hmm.

Lee (35:26)
this is the one, we believe in it, let’s make a decision quickly, we’re doing this. Whereas a bigger company, not to talk about the Mill, but just anyone, any company where you have like a chain of command, know, lots of people, you if it was gonna cost us 20 grand, we were like, okay, it’s gonna cost us 20 grand, let’s just do it, not gonna make anything on this one, but we know it’s gonna.

Orlando Wood (35:44)
And you say it’s

a decision-making group of three. It’s, you know, yeah.

Lee (35:47)
And we’re like, let’s do it. And we could do that.

then they would take other companies, this isn’t end of the

but any company who’s big would be like, it would take two, three days to get an answer back. And by then they like, well, electric won it. So we’re going to give it to electric. And that was

Orlando Wood (35:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Lee (36:04)
like,

Orlando Wood (36:04)
By

the time you’ve got the post bid in and between the post bid coming in, finalizing your bid and sending it off to the client for approval, that’s 48 hours

Lee (36:13)
client is putting pressure then on the big company with like chain of command to say give us an answer and they can’t, they couldn’t do that. anyone big we went up against, that was our outlook, like go quick, make decisions, stand by it, put good people on it. I think sometimes we took projects on when…

We just wanted to do it, but we didn’t have the right people. And that was always a mistake. Like learning to say no is almost if we don’t work with this director, they’ll go and work somewhere else. We’ll never see him again. So we were in, so there’s lots going on in that post-production world, but you’re competing for people, going back to your original point, like competing for people and the way you compete is looking after them better, giving them a culture, like a culture which, a business around them, which they’re excited to be part of.

and money, you know, and you’re buying.

Orlando Wood (36:57)
Yeah.

Lee (37:00)
a lot of really expensive kit. There’s a whole load of people behind the scenes at visual effects companies, not just the artists, the CG artists and the compositors. You you have people running the machine room, like, you know, making copies. You have a receptionist, you have a team of runners, you have producers across the board. have, you know, you have a lot of people to make that business work and it needs a lot of infrastructure. You know, you’re investing in like data, you know,

Orlando Wood (37:14)
Mm.

Hmm.

Lee (37:30)
like

cables in and out of the building, you’re investing in pipelines to make the CG and the 2D teams like connect. You’re investing in everything from like bananas in the fruit bowl. You’re constantly like spending money.

Orlando Wood (37:31)
Hmm, yeah.

Lee (37:46)
that’s why it’s a really tough industry because like I say, know, somewhere new opens. I’m sure we did it. Like, you know, you want to get the best people so you have to pay them. And all of a sudden everyone’s money starts going up. You’re working on razor thin margins a lot. I am on the, especially the most creative work. Um, so it is really, really tough and you get in, you know, you can get into a thing where clients don’t pay for 90 days. So your bank rolling in jobs, you know, even

Orlando Wood (37:58)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Lee (38:14)
You know, that’s when it becomes like the pressure’s on. know, someone doesn’t pay you, someone’s like, you’ve got to your staff, you pay them late, you pay them on time.

Orlando Wood (38:17)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Lee (38:23)
And so there’s a

Orlando Wood (38:24)
Yeah.

Lee (38:24)
huge risk in having in visual effects companies. And once you start getting into debt, and I don’t think this is limited to visual effects companies. I think this is anyone, like a person. It’s really, really hard to get out of it. You know, it’s hard to yourself out, you know, if you’re earning a certain amount of money, you know, and you’re, I don’t know, if you’ve got, if you’re five grand overdrawn you know, paid five grand off, like it’s hard to pay your bills

Orlando Wood (38:39)
Yeah.

Lee (38:52)
to pay off a debt and you end up slipping into that. And it’s the same with businesses, you know, we’ll get this money later. And then you decisions then become about money, not about having that creative freedom. So it is mega tight. I think like there were outside problems with Technicolor from what I can hear. I don’t know the truth, but you know, I…

I would believe that the Mill and the MPC were profitable. I don’t think they weren’t. I think they were Other parts of their business, know, like, from what I know, like, they were making DVDs not long ago.

Orlando Wood (39:17)
Mm.

Lee (39:25)
They were making And that was a huge part of their business. And when that disappears, you need to like fill that gap. What you can’t do is take a hit on revenue because you have shareholders who say, well, we make, I’m just picking numbers out of the air, we make 200 million a year. And you go, okay, we’ve lost this part of our business, it’s 10 million. You have to be like, okay, how are we gonna fill that 10 million gap?

Orlando Wood (39:34)
Yeah.

Lee (39:48)
take a hit and we just pile it on the other businesses because the businesses are doing the best they can. And you know, like I saw some of the Super Bowl work the Mill put out and the MPC put out. It’s incredible. You know, those people still did that. You know, they all did it and…

Orlando Wood (39:58)
Yeah, always.

Lee (40:03)
I think there’s problems higher up, reading every article that’s come out and all the other stuff. There was a lot of restructuring, renaming, get separations of businesses. think there was a problem with encoding. They owned an IP for a certain encoding system that disappeared. I don’t know the points and outs, but if you have a contract with someone for 100 million quid, and they go, well, we’ve got our own encoding system now. Okay.

Orlando Wood (40:22)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (40:33)
And you got a platform

and the problem is then you put more pressure on the Mill more pressure on MPC to keep making more money and eventually people break and The wheels fall off or people want do it themselves like we did, know, I didn’t I loved the Mill I it breaks my heart what’s happened because still work there loads and loads of people I really genuinely care about who like, you know, I still see them date Yeah, I still in touch with them even now like

and I’ve been gone for 14 years. I still talk to those people. So it makes me very sad that they’re not around. yeah, like I say, just think there’s other things that have gone on. don’t think the blame solely lies with MPC You also…

Orlando Wood (41:14)
No, and I think that

that felt very clear even from the outside. think that, you know, it felt like, yes, a shift has happened that post-production houses are under threat, but it didn’t seem like the Mill or MPC would be the weak links in the Technicolor chain.

Lee (41:32)
No, don’t think, but like I say, if the group is a billion pounds in debt, they can’t survive. I’m guessing that they were probably looking for a buyer right up to the end to try to save it and try to get those people, okay, but it’s a lot.

Orlando Wood (41:36)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I’m surprised they couldn’t sell the pieces off. I’m surprised they couldn’t just sell the Mill off for, you know, portion. guess maybe it’s just a drop in the bucket and, you know, and it doesn’t move the needle, but.

Lee (41:54)
Yeah, that was great.

Yeah, I mean, thank you, yeah.

And if you sell it, it doesn’t clear your one billion pound debt and you still go into, you still become bankrupt. And then that money just goes into administration, so it just gets shared amongst the debtors anyway. So it’s probably loads of work to sell it and it’s probably time ran out. I said, think there’s, it seems like in America there’s a company called ARC that’s starting with a lot of really talented Mill people who I work with in LA.

Orlando Wood (42:04)
Yeah. Receivership, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I saw that.

Lee (42:25)
But then also you look at the other companies that, you know, we were a break away from the Mill, know, Selected Works, break away from the Mill.

Orlando Wood (42:31)
Hmm.

Lee (42:34)
know, Black, Black, breakaway from MPC. I’m trying to think of all these new companies. Like there’s so many, like in America you have Blacksmith in New York, you have Parliament in LA and New York, there’s so many. And I think that really like is the history of the Mill. That’s the way it will be remembered. Like all these companies were formed because out of this one thing.

Orlando Wood (42:34)
Yeah.

I

know, yeah.

Lee (42:54)
You know, and goes back to what as well, like those huge behemoth companies, it’s like turning around an oil tank. It takes a long, long time. But if you’ve got 12 people, you know, I know what, you know, when we lived through COVID, you know, we made decisions really quickly. Some were really tough, you know, they still hurt. There’s one decision in particular. It’s kind of a bit like, you know, I wish we had that done, but we were living through a time where we had to make decisions and there was, there’s some were really, really horrible decisions you had to make, but we had to save the company.

Orlando Wood (43:03)
Yeah.

Lee (43:24)
and that was like, and that was difficult enough and we had maybe 60 people at that point, maybe a few more.

But like, imagine having 4,000 people like, how do you solve this problem, you know? And go back, the industry changed, you know, like we, Electric were very lucky that our rent was up at the building we were in. So we moved into a cheaper premises so we could keep the client, you know, we could keep everyone, as many people as we could on, we could keep our fixed costs down and deliver for our clients. know, by keeping our fixed costs down, it didn’t mean we just made loads more money.

Orlando Wood (43:46)
Mm-hmm.

Lee (43:59)
it meant we could go back to making the right creative decisions. We used that money, well, let’s invest in these jobs, let’s invest in this, because we didn’t have to make as much. But for some companies, maybe the Mill for them, they had two huge offices in central London and overnight the industry changed. People were working So you’ve got these two huge buildings, it’s like.

Again, it’s a fixed cost before you’ve turned the lights on. You’re having to pay for it and you’ve got a contract. You can’t leave that. you know, it was really tough for them, I’m sure. It was really, I really felt for those guys. And still do. And when I say the guy, I don’t know the people who run Technicolor, but I know the people who ran the Mill on MPC and I feel for them. They’re the good guys. They’re really good people.

Orlando Wood (44:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (44:46)
also like we talk about you talk about margins and the way visual effects companies run like We haven’t even really spoke about film, you know, you 600 people working on a film, you know The writers strike or there’s a change or someone doesn’t like character that’s in it, you know

If I’ve got four people on a job and it overruns by a week, I’m like, if you’ve got 400 people and it overruns by a week, that’s a huge amount of work.

Orlando Wood (45:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (45:14)
And it’s, you know, the margins in long form seem to be even smaller, you know, but it’s rewarding when you get it. You know, if you bring something under or you, you know, you deliver it to that number, it’s incredible. You can make, you know, can make money and it can be profitable and successful. But when it starts over running, it becomes tough, you know, really, really tough.

Orlando Wood (45:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well,

also, because doing it all just to break even is really hard because it means, you know, you’re you’re doing it for the opportunity of the work and you’re doing it to get the people around. But then you need to have some breathing space. Or you’re right, you immediately go into this this place of of, you know, fear and making decisions based on money, which is just not going to lead to the best creative work.

Lee (45:56)
Yeah, you know, you know, this isn’t,

though it’s shocking, because obviously we know the people, you know, you know the Mill.

It’s like, there’s been signs that this is gonna happen. Like, Rhythm & Hughes won an Oscar for Life of Pi, and went to administration two weeks before they won an Oscar. know, an incredible studio, you know, we’ve like, Digital Domain and like, other people, you know, have gone through these challenges in, you know, over the world, they’ve gone through that.

Orlando Wood (46:23)
Mm.

Lee (46:25)
So it’s not really surprising. It’s just, you know, I think it’s just when something big in your life changes like that, that’s always been there, it’s kind of a bit, you know, and especially something you’ve been part of, it’s like, shit, that’s not there anymore. Technicolor did Wizard of Oz, but Jesus, like that’s, you know, would have thought back then after, you know, that this company wouldn’t be around anymore. It’s

Orlando Wood (46:34)
Yeah.

Lee (46:51)
Yeah, I don’t really, like, I’m sure everyone there had a headache. I’m getting anxiety just

about what the meeting was be like towards the end. you know, I just feel for the people. That’s the most important thing. Those people are good. And industry, you know, there’s a whole load of new talent out there now. You know, again, it’s like supply and demand, isn’t it? Like, now there’s loads of people and people are getting high, like, does it mean that people will take lower for their rates? You know, will people start playing those games?

That’s a bit scary as well, you know, because people have a…

Orlando Wood (47:20)
Well, we’re hiring

right now and I’m scouring those lists for everybody in LA and, you know, and because I just know that’s incredible talent that’s there that we would be so lucky to have. mean, all you need to tell me is that you worked at the Mill for a while and I know you are world class.

Lee (47:37)
But that’s what it meant. I think that’s why, even when we spoke earlier about my decision to go there, it was like, if I go there for six months, I’ve got the Mill on my CV, this is gonna open every door. People will just be like, this guy’s good, because you don’t get a job somewhere like that unless you’re world-class.

Orlando Wood (47:51)
Yeah.

Lee (47:53)
But like I say, the margins are thin and it’s hard work in VFX. It is not easy. It used to be like, it is fun and the people are amazing. You get to hang out with your mates all the time and the culture and businesses are good. like I say, it’s just becoming tougher and tougher. will become easier now. Maybe there’s a…

there’s still the same amount of work. The other thing we’ve got as well is clients spending their money differently. see them like, don’t know, you know exactly what before if you had a hundred million budget to

Orlando Wood (48:20)
Yeah. Diversification across media platforms and yeah.

Lee (48:27)
and make TV ads through, that’s where it would be spent. It was on TV ads and that’s where it went and Nike would spend all their money. I’m sure now they still probably, they’ve probably got more money. They’ve probably got 150 million. They’ve probably got a lot more.

but they’re spending it on social and other platforms. And they’re still making TV, but just not as much. There used to be stellar ads like every year. They’re becoming fewer and fewer where you

Orlando Wood (48:51)
One one just one more just staying in the post production world is what are there is there something you wish somebody like me who is booked post production so many times? I mean, both as an agency producer and then in a production company.

What’s the kind of, is there one thing that you wish producers knew about post-production when they kind of came to the table, either technically or just the margins, as you say, is there anything particular?

Lee (49:19)
Do you know what I would say? The one thing you can’t buy is time. There’s nothing worse. I don’t always know the insides of an agency. I haven’t got the experience in agency world as you have, we would get given stuff and it’s like, okay,

someone’s watched The Matrix or whatever new film was out. show’s like, they’d watch this and they’d go, okay, we wanna recreate this effect.

And you’d like, okay, we told the client it’s gonna cost 20 grand and we’ve got two weeks to do it. then like, VFX is like the bad guy for saying, you just can’t do it. And they’re like, well, you must be able to do it, come on, you must be. And then you’re trying to solve a problem like, I would always say like, get in touch early with a VFX house and just be like, how long do I need? And bake that into the time because.

Orlando Wood (49:47)
Yeah.

Lee (50:03)
There’s nothing, once an agency said to the client, we’re gonna do this in two weeks, like, then you phone and you’re like, we can’t do that. And that number one, you don’t wanna go back to your client and say, we can’t deliver this. So I think it’s always just like, engage early, like roughly how much you think this will cost and how much time do you need. Like, answering those questions and feeding that back to the client and.

Like using that talent, like you just wouldn’t do that with any other part of your life. were building a house and you didn’t even talk to the builder and was

I’ll make it like, you couldn’t do me a four bedroom house, could you? grand and you can do it in four days, you can do that. It’d be like, what are you mad? You’re crazy. But that’s kind of what VFX gets asked

do.

By asking that question and giving yourself the right amount of time, like money can always be negotiated or people might want to take a hit, it’s creative. the time you can never get back. my business partner, it’s one of my favorite says, he was like.

A baby takes nine months to get pregnant. You can’t just get nine women pregnant and expect a baby a month. doesn’t work like that. You need to make things as they and perfect.

Orlando Wood (51:01)
me.

Lee (51:11)
And I think that’s a good start. That would be my one tip.

And you know, it’s a process as well. You wanna all be in it together. That’s my other thing. There’s nothing worse than going into a room and thinking, everyone here hates Whatever job you are, the agency producer is thinking, everyone here hates me. Everyone in the VFX room is thinking, the agency hates us. If you’re in it together and you’ve got this community spirit, we all want the same thing. We want this ad to be incredible.

Orlando Wood (51:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (51:38)
Most people are like, you’re not gonna get the best out of people if you’re being shouted at every day. So should I work for free for a couple of hours to be shouted at some more? You you get the best out of people and people work so hard in every aspect of the industry. But from my experience, there was times where I didn’t have a weekend off, I it was for like four months, didn’t have a day off delivering an ad. And I wasn’t doing that because like,

Orlando Wood (51:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (52:07)
I was being pressured into doing it. I it because I wanted the ad to be brilliant and I wanted it be good and it needed to be, those hours needed to be put in. You know, people were nice and friendly and I went in and I was like, know, towards the end I’m like tired thinking I must be able to do another

There’s got to be something else I can do. then you meet up.

Orlando Wood (52:24)
yeah, the amount that you just don’t want to let anybody down. I always say that like, you only have to remodel a kitchen to really appreciate how the advertising community is a self-regulating, incredibly hard-working industry of people who deliver on time, deliver on budget and care deeply and work very hard. And it really gives you an appreciation the moment you try to do anything else in any other industry.

Lee (52:49)
Well, that’s the other thing about VFX as well. In the process,

made a really good point actually, which is the deadline is here. Like this is the playout, this never moves. But like…

you know, this is your timeline, the shoot, if it overruns and then the edit overruns and everything overruns, this deadline never changes. So like, this was our VFX time, all of a sudden everything has pushed into it. And we’ve, you know, we end up not, you know, instead of having two weeks, we’ve got four days because someone didn’t sign something off or a prop turned up late or whatever it is, like, you know, the edit is longer.

You know, we all.

Orlando Wood (53:24)
Yeah, you can negotiate

with a brick wall.

Lee (53:26)
you cannot negotiate, it’s coming towards you,

Orlando Wood (53:29)
I have another one that I’ve been kind of asking everybody, but Dan Wieden had a quote where he said, you’re useless to me until you fail big at least twice.

Can you think of, and would you be willing to share a time where you failed big or small and what you learned from it?

Lee (53:45)
When we opened in LA, We were doing, we opened in London, we were a bit under the radar. No one really took us seriously and we did, And we were, as my business partner’s dad said, we were farting silk. Everything was just fucking going good. Like everything we did, it was just great. Anything bad we did, it was just brilliant. And we’d come from LA.

Orlando Wood (54:09)
Yes.

Lee (54:11)
and we knew people there and we were slightly seduced, like we were doing music videos for people in London. I’d been there, like I knew people there and Giles knew people there and then we, and I remember we were working with these

Orlando Wood (54:17)
And you had had that experience at the Mill out here. Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (54:28)
talented music video guys and we were working on a job, it had like hardly any money and they were like, we’ve just put this super bowl job, it’s like half a million quid for like VFX. We were like, we should be there. Why are we not there?

So we opened and we opened, we made two mistakes. We didn’t follow the success pattern what we did in London. We opened too And the second thing was me and Giles knew people, we didn’t go. and it impacted the business at that time because…

It was just knackering we were working hard in London my end of the day I’m like knackered and all those people are looking to you to be excited and to be like let’s go let’s do this and we were so It was becoming like tougher and tougher to keep that energy going for another eight and When times were tough over there, they had a massive impact people in America

and in the VFX industry get paid a lot more than the UK. So if you win, you win big. But when you fail, and we were fully independent, it was us, we didn’t have any money, there was no secret millionaire in the background going, eh, don’t you have some losses, we’ll ride that out. It was on us. So when we had losses,

Orlando Wood (55:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee (55:40)
they were like, that was tough. And I remember going into a room and seeing like the P &L and then walking out and my mate was like, you’re all right, you look fucking like shocked. And it was my and I was like, we gotta close, we gotta close it now. And that was

tough But coming out of it.

Orlando Wood (55:58)
And how long

was that from starting to the realization just, this is not, we gotta cut and run? How long was that?

Lee (56:05)
I think it was about, I think it was, we were open for about two and a half years, maybe three years I think we were open. And we had really like, some of my favourite jobs came out of that office, they were really, really good jobs. And it just got tough. I think people took us very, like, they weren’t just like,

they’re idiots, they’ll go away, which is what I think they thought in London.

They were like, we’ve seen what they’ve done in we’re not gonna let them do that here, we’re gonna hang on to clients, we’re gonna fight and we’re gonna

and we’re gonna get them out of business as quickly as we could.

Orlando Wood (56:35)
really, I see. So it was just

a more mercenary environment here. And because you didn’t kind of set up lean like you had in the UK, you were sort of more at risk of market forces.

Lee (56:47)
there

was a point where LA had half the

of staff, but they cost more to run than London. And that was like, this is quite crazy. We should have just opened, started smaller, lower risk, less fixed costs. You don’t get a massive office, don’t do all these things. Grow organically rather than trying to force this on people. And it was a mistake, but I think learning that lesson,

I’m glad we made it earlier in electric history because the success that came after that in London, you know, we knuckled down, we focused on the good thing we had.

Orlando Wood (57:15)
Mm.

Lee (57:22)
We had Michael, our chairman, who’d been through stuff like this before, and Steph working in finance, and obviously the partners and all the staff. Everyone just focused on, this is what we need to do today. This is what we need to focus on the good thing we’ve got. And that was like, all of a sudden, it was like the rocket had been strapped to us, and the losses we incurred, we got to wipe away pretty quickly.

And it was just really successful.

And towards the end, my job changed. I like being part of the creative part of it, The worst part is I literally felt like sometimes I would, the buck stops with you as a partner and as of the business. So things that I had nothing to do with, you’re apologizing for, that’s tough. wheeled out Hannibal Lecter into a room, like, these people are gonna

at you now and tell you about it.

Orlando Wood (58:11)
You’re right.

Lee (58:12)
and can you make it all better and then we’ll get back on with the job. We’re just trying to manage. It’s a bit like being a politician. Yeah, I’m like, just use me as a bad guy. Just kick me. Put me on the floor. come and kick me for a little while. But you know what? That’s part of it as well. Just taking it. I remember being at the Mill.

Orlando Wood (58:14)
Yeah. Yeah. And then when you leave, we’ll slide you off after you leave.

Lee (58:32)
and someone said, this job was going really badly, can you come in and produce it? And I went into the room, the director hated everyone in the room. he said, I think, did he say to me was gonna, I went to say, he said to one of the producers who he was having a row with, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna kick you. And I was like, hang on, wait, we’re not gonna start kicking people. And he was only saying, he didn’t mean it, wasn’t really gonna kick someone. went, hang on a minute, and he was like, no, I’m gonna kick you as well.

would just come in the room, I’m just turned up, and then everyone laughed about it, but I would think for a second, yeah, okay, I’m gonna get like, I’ve never been kicked before because of just trying to help. That’s the story of VFX. someone gives you a kick. I’ve never been kicked, I wanna say that, I’ve never been kicked in a VFX, but just nearly, just threatened with a kick, was, yeah, for something I didn’t do, but that’s fine, part of life.

Orlando Wood (59:01)
I’m out of

Okay. Just nearly. Yeah.

Lee (59:28)
people were showing at me, I’m used to it. Just going numb behind the eyes, like, just like, can’t even find, people are screaming, I’m good in a crisis, Orlando I’m good in, that’s what it is.

Orlando Wood (59:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, always. I’ve seen you in quite a few. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s that that the producers trick is you got to be the one that stays calm. I’ve always felt like you’re a lot better at it than I sort of go quiet. Try to look calm. You very often will break the tension with a joke or or be

Lee (59:40)
There’s still a bit of those ones there.

Thank

Orlando Wood (1:00:01)
you know, you’ll calm everybody else down. I kind of go calm and just leave the room quietly.

Lee (1:00:07)
No, I learned.

I

learned a really good trick which was I’ve got a dog. She’s been, like I said earlier on the call, she’s been snoring and making noise and she just taps me and hits me all the

But I read a study that when you stroke a dog it calms you down. So I’d have the dog with me in the office like all the time and if I knew it was getting a bit tense in somewhere I’d just like creep the door open and just push the dog in and the dog would just walk in. She loves people so she’d go in, everyone would stroke her. I could hear everyone go, whose dog is this? And being happy I’m like, I’ll go in the

and I go in and I’ll be like, is everyone okay? They’ll be like, yeah, it’s great, it’s great. And they just stroke the dog and out. And it was like a real calming influence in the office. So I’m learning all the skills

Orlando Wood (1:00:42)
Lee.

Lee (1:00:48)
like.

Orlando Wood (1:00:48)
That is the greatest hack I’ve ever heard in my life. I imagine edit houses around London, if anybody watches this, which of course they won’t, but I imagine if they do, edit houses around London will be getting office dogs immediately.

Lee (1:01:02)
Mate,

I don’t want to get too political. When I saw the

Trump thing, I did think to myself, Zelensky should just bring a dog in. Just let it into the room. And JD Vance and

would get distracted by it. Let’s start stroking. And then the wall would be like, all the tension in the room would have just disappeared. sound of all the collie had come in. Everyone would have been like, OK, let’s get back to being serious and just calm down a little bit. Take the emotion out.

Orlando Wood (1:01:27)
That’s the greatest

producers hack I’ve ever heard. I might actually add to these things, you know, what’s your personal hack for doing your job right and whatever else. Cause that’s phenomenal.

Lee (1:01:35)
Like get a dog distracted.

Yeah, get a dog, get distracted. It has to be a cute dog. The cuter it is, the more stress it can get rid of. and yeah. But just also like the most important thing, I know we’ve talked about like the problems and stuff. It is the most like it’s given me so much in my life. I’m so thankful for like.

the people I’ve met, the that have been given. the most amazing thing is no matter what you’re into, if you’re like…

and mathematical genius, or if you’re like a guy who worked on a market store selling flowers, there’s a job for you in this industry and everywhere between. know, you, whatever you’re, if you’re artistic, if you’re into like writing, whatever you do, there’s a room, room for you in advertising in some way. And I think that is pretty incredible. You it’s that get these people together in any other walk of life. You know, you just hang out with them.

Orlando Wood (1:02:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (1:02:36)
and they’re the people they’re the like friendships I treasure like you know when I was out in LA like like me and like hanging out at some bar somewhere or like how did I get here with like all these amazing people like it’s just wicked love it love it it

Orlando Wood (1:02:46)
Yeah.

It’s

one thing I think film studios suffer from is they get so big that departments are in different buildings on different floors and whatever else. I do think that you’re right. and, you know, that being so connected to everybody, you know, an agency and a post house and a production company and, know, everybody being so close, there are industries that kind of put everybody in a pot and just

Lee (1:03:13)
Yay.

Orlando Wood (1:03:13)
shake

it up and then go, all right, how are you guys all gonna cope with this together? And you’re like, well, by finding common ground and by getting along with each other and by laughing our way through it and by working hard, like, you know, because everybody’s looking over everybody’s shoulder and knows what everybody’s doing. You can’t hide in in advertising you you’ll get called out very fast.

Lee (1:03:33)

think that’s what’s really been so heartening in this horrible time, like what’s going on at Technicolor and people losing their work, is that I’ve seen people in London, you know what it’s like, there’s a Soho, studios aren’t invariably

Soho, but it is the place we still gravitate to. And that’s where friendships and communities, it’s like living in a commune. When you go to Glastonbury or a music festival, everyone’s into a band, or you go and see someone, everyone there has got this shared experience.

Orlando Wood (1:04:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lee (1:04:03)
Soho I was a bit like that, think, where it’s like a of people, everyone can go there, even though you’re competing against people, they’re still your friend and you want to see them And I think that’s what makes like, and seeing the way that the communities come together for this technical closure in London, you know, from the things that the APA were doing to support people that have worked, like that is the best of us. Like that kind of sticking together, let’s do this. Because people could have just been like, well, I don’t like The Mill

Orlando Wood (1:04:27)
Yeah.

Lee (1:04:31)
I’m glad they’re closed more work for everyone, but people didn’t say that they’re like I want to help and that is really really amazing and I think it’s the perfect storm of like you said the industry and the way that Where advertising was in London in or in East London that shifted but you know there’s communities you see people on the street who work in your industry and stop and go for a drink and chat and

Yeah, pub community is a big thing as well, and hanging out. So yeah, even though it’s a dark time, I think it’s pretty amazing seeing all these people band together for a good cause.

Orlando Wood (1:05:07)
For sure. Well, dude, on that note, I mean, that’s a fantastic place to wrap up. Thank you so much. mean, covered a lot of ground and I just so appreciate your, you know, getting to chat to you and just generally to get to get in to see you. It’s such a treat.

thank you so much, that was awesome. I really appreciate it. Like, you’re the best. Thank you for doing this. I don’t know if anybody’s gonna watch it, but I hope they do, because you said a lot of incredibly fascinating things.

Lee (1:05:31)
Mate,

two handsome men like us, who’s not gonna wanna watch? Yeah, mate, so good to chat and I hope to see you soon in London or I’ll be in LA I’m sure. All the best, bye mate, bye.

Orlando Wood (1:05:34)
Let’s hope, yeah, good point. I don’t know I’m selling myself short. You too, Absolutely. Much love, dude. Good to see you.