The Future Is Untold: Darren O’Kelly on Creativity, Culture, and Cloud-Native Storytelling

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs Podcast Transcript

Title: The Future Is Untold: Darren O’Kelly on Creativity, Culture, and Cloud-Native Storytelling

Orlando Wood (00:05)
Darren, I’m thrilled to have you on and you know, you run Untold
Studios. You and I go way back to, know, your 20 years spent at the
mill and you were managing director of the mill London, the jewel in
the crown of the mill operation.
And of course, as you just referenced, Technicolor collapsed near six
to nine months ago and leading to the end of the mill in MPC. And you
started Untold, what, is five, seven years ago now? Yeah. And Untold,
mean, from the get-go has kind of gone from strength to strength,
starting out as…
Darren (00:37)
Seven years ago, yeah, seven years ago next month.
Orlando Wood (00:46)
VFX design, you know, as well as commercials, as well as music promos.
I mean, it’s like, it feels like most companies, takes them forever to
be able to prove that they can do all of these different verticals.
And it really seemed like to me that you guys came out of the gate and
were like, by the way, we do everything on day one. I’m sure that’s
not how it felt, but like that is how it looked like from the outside.
Darren (01:12)
I think, you know, I guess we have this thought we have, it’s still
true today, we wanted to build this…
an independent creative studio. And independent was important not just
from an ownership perspective but actually from a thought perspective.
How do we challenge the status quo? How do we do things a little bit
differently? I think the world didn’t need another development house,
a production company, an agency.
visual effects studio, none of those things were needed. But if you
started to piece lots of that stuff together, you could kind of create
something a little bit unique and different. we felt we needed to do
that from the outset. I created a studio is really a very nebulous
descriptor of a company that is able to flex itself creatively in lots
of different ways. for us, wanted to, like the true line today is,
Orlando Wood (01:58)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (02:03)
when we first started, we want to make culturally impactful work,
whether that’s working, you we developed a show with Amazon, a music
show called Songline with Amazon, you know, shooting with Billy Eilish
or Imagine Dragons, you know, really kind of interesting artists to
work with, but from a cultural relevance, if you’re working on the
crown or Mission Impossible or doing…

Super Bowl spots or whatever, you’re inherently part of culture. I
think we want to make the work that audiences want to watch because
that’s the kind of work that our teams want to make, right? that’s of
self-fulfilling. You become a destination for talent. So it’s been a
fun ride so far.
Orlando Wood (02:33)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, mean, you know, it it yeah, it feels like you guys kind of
created something quite special out of the gate, you know, and and.
You know, I mean, in terms of being, you know, I mean, we just touched
on some of the the, know, you you mentioned it’s funny because a lot
of people don’t think about, know, when something like Technicolor
collapses in the mill and then PC close, a lot of people don’t think
about, where do the projects go that were, you know, that were
operating at the time? And you just kind of.
you know, so that they kind of go to places like you. But there’s an
inherent opportunity there, isn’t it? mean, a there’s one less giant
in the room to take up work, but also there’s huge amounts of talent
that suddenly, you know, that you know very well that suddenly on the
open market and you go, well, this is great. Like this is, you know,
these are some of the best VFX artists in the world. And now we can,
you know, can bring them into the fold. Does it does it feel like an
opportunity when that happens?
Darren (03:51)
To an extent, I spent 15 years in the mill.
you know, I’ve huge nostalgia kind of memories of my time there, you
know, and working with people like Pachosov as a mentor, you couldn’t
but be imbued with a kind of respect for craft and creativity. And so
when something like that collapses, there’s a kind of sadness to it,
right? ⁓ But in truth, not an awful lot of surprise because I think
Orlando Wood (04:18)
Yeah.
Darren (04:23)
You know, starting until, I think, having now spoken to lots of
entrepreneurs since then, I think the common thread I’ve found is that
there is typically push and pull factors. The push factors, in my
case, we had sold the mill to Technicolor and it was a simple question
of is life, is the next 10 years likely to be as exciting as the last
10 years?

You know, starting until, I think, having now spoken to lots of
entrepreneurs since then, I think the common thread I’ve found is that
there is typically push and pull factors. The push factors, in my
case, we had sold the mill to Technicolor and it was a simple question
of is life, is the next 10 years likely to be as exciting as the last
10 years?
Orlando Wood (04:44)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (04:44)
it was clear from sort of day two that it wouldn’t be. Now that’s not
usually enough to make you set up your own company. I think the pull
factor has ended up being like, are we excited about the opportunity
to do something different? Is there kind of elements of what we’ve
done in the past that could help shape what we do in the future? And
also are there things that we’ve learned around bringing in real deep
expertise in different areas to do new things that…
Orlando Wood (04:48)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (05:10)
and the answer to that was yes. I guess when a company, when another
business collapses, it might mean that the market is flooded with
talent, but I think you’ve still got to be really clear about what
your North Star is and yes, be able to respond to things changing,
but…
Orlando Wood (05:28)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (05:37)
Don’t lose sight of what it is you’re trying to build. I I have no
interest in recreating what the mill is until it’s completely
different kind of company. so, the reality actually of what we ended
up doing is there was one particular project out of MPC in Toronto
that was for Alien Earth that had come up. The show, I mean, there was
literally people running around with hard drives.
everybody’s trying to figure out who owns the assets. Is it the
studio? Is it the administrators? ⁓ There’s a lot of panic around and
I think…
Orlando Wood (06:13)
Right. Yeah.
Right, because they act the administrators actually own the hard
drives, but all the digital and stuff that’s on the hard drives is
owned by FX. That’s. Yeah.
Darren (06:23)
I mean just just wild right you know

anyway
know, one of the, like the reason why we ended up getting involved in
that from a VFX perspective, we’d established our credentials in
commercials doing really high-end creature work. We’ve been fortunate
enough to produce, I think, of the most outstanding creature work in
that space. And we had a very clear and good start that we wanted to
do the same in the film and episodic space. And we’ve done a lot of
film and episodic work, you know, whether it was for The Crown or ⁓
Mission Impossible, all sorts of various different projects. But we
hadn’t…
Orlando Wood (06:55)
Yeah, 1923, The Boys,
like, incredible list of shows.
Darren (06:57)
Yeah.
Loads of really good shows, but what Alien Earth represented was
creature, really complicated, challenging creature work. And it was an
opportunity to kind of accelerate a goal that we had set for ourselves
within film and episodic visual effects work. And so we were
determined to try and make that happen ⁓ and provide a lifeline for…
Orlando Wood (07:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (07:21)
effects for the show and for the people that were doing it. And we’d
made a strategic decision at the very beginning of Untold to be

entirely cloud native and have a, we were the world’s first cloud-
based studio. And that had allowed us to turn talent on very quickly.

We could get people working, you know, immediately. within 10 days of
technical collapsing,
We had taken on all of Alien Earth’s 550 shots, integrated the team
into our business and supported it with a whole bunch of supervision
and artistry.
well. you know, but it was a pretty special moment and we were so
proud of the results. it obviously came out quite recently and just
the quality of the creature work on it is pretty special.
Orlando Wood (08:05)
Wow, great.
Yeah.

Yeah.
I’ve watched it. I’ve watched all episodes so far. mean, it’s a pretty
great show.
Darren (08:24)
It’s up for the faint of heart, right?
Orlando Wood (08:26)
No, no, definitely not. Is there, mean, is there a little bit of a
sort of a sort of knowing wink? mean, just in terms of your career, I
mean, obviously Ridley is, you know, one of the directors who’s not
only big British commercial director, but obviously kind of really put
the mill on the map with Gladiator. You know, the stuff that the mill
did with on Gladiator won them an Oscar. You used to run the mill. Now
you’re doing, you know, I’m untold. Is there a kind of
nice knowing moment when an alien project comes through the door, do
you go like, this is some DNA I recognize.
Darren (09:02)
think there’s a bit of serendipity, isn’t there? What’s that
expression like, pay it forward? I think you don’t quite know what
things are going to happen. We’ve made quite a lot of what we would
think are important strategic decisions, whether it was cloud-based or
the values of the business, or investing, for example, in having a
music business from the very get-go. We didn’t quite know where they
would all take us.
Orlando Wood (09:27)
Mm.
Darren (09:29)
What we found is that opportunities that you might not expect come
towards you if you make pretty sound decisions that are creatively
interesting. People often ask, what do you think is going to happen
over the next three to five years at Untold? We’re seven years old.
Orlando Wood (09:38)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Darren (09:55)
no idea what’s going to happen in three to five years. In our
existence, we were 18 months alive before COVID and my God, like
everything everybody thought the world was about to end. And we double
in size for next two years. It’s a business that’s been forged in
adversity, but not with foresight of what’s going to happen, just by
being alert.

no idea what’s going to happen in three to five years. In our
existence, we were 18 months alive before COVID and my God, like
everything everybody thought the world was about to end. And we double
in size for next two years. It’s a business that’s been forged in
adversity, but not with foresight of what’s going to happen, just by
being alert.
Orlando Wood (09:57)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Darren (10:22)
and being future-facing. I often have said it, we have always been
trying to build a company for the future, we just had no idea what the
future would look like. And I think even today, people kind of go,
what’s going to happen in the next three to five years? Most of the of
ubiquitous AI technology that consumers are now using on a daily basis
literally didn’t exist two years ago.
Orlando Wood (10:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (10:45)
So trying to be predictive or prescient about the future seems a
slightly vacuous exercise to me. Much better to be creating a culture
that is able to respond to the opportunities that are there.
Orlando Wood (10:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (10:59)
really be alert to how, know, responding to, like if you’ve got
technology baked in, you’re able to unlock creative opportunities that
might not otherwise have been there. And that’s been important for us.
Orlando Wood (11:11)
Yeah, because I think that obviously one of the biggest, you know, one
of the biggest things I think we’re seeing is a lot of people are
saying, well, VFX is, you know, is kind of screwed in many ways. And I
don’t really agree with that. I think that like the, you know,
obviously, you know, you guys going cloud based, think that’s almost a
bigger shift necessarily than the AI shift. I think that that, you
know, means that you can set up a leaner VFX company that doesn’t have
to have, mean, you know,
For example, a Digi Beta deck used to cost 200 grand. You know, I
mean, it was that’s an expensive piece of kit to be, you know,
constantly investing in old technology. think that, you know, that
seems to be to be.

For example, a Digi Beta deck used to cost 200 grand. You know, I
mean, it was that’s an expensive piece of kit to be, you know,
constantly investing in old technology. think that, you know, that
seems to be to be.
Darren (11:48)
It’s a choice around where you put your capital, right? And I would
much rather spend on talent and technology, ⁓ but then provide that
talent with the most state-of-the-art technology. An example now, in
effect by being cloud-based, we’ve had unlimited compute and
technology firepower from the very get-go. partner.
Orlando Wood (11:52)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Darren (12:12)
very much with AWS. And I think, like, as the AI revolution kind of
starts to impact in the VFX space, you know, there will be winners and
losers in terms of how you respond to that. And some of it will simply
be determined by what is the compute power that you have available to
you to do things. And, look, I think in that kind of AI…
Orlando Wood (12:29)
Yeah.
Darren (12:33)
sort of revolution in from a VFX perspective is really important to
make a distinction between consumer facing products that are designed
for four billion people and are really powerful and fun actually and
professional grade workflows, tools and models that are about
precision control. ⁓
Orlando Wood (12:52)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (12:52)
One
thing that we have learned and I have learned in 20 years of being in
the industry is precision control is non-negotiable when you’re
working with Ridley Scott or when you’re working with AAA list
directors. I think, so our investment in AI, we’ve got a number of
different models and tools that are addressing really complex creative
problems. Like for example, we’ve built an AI model.
Orlando Wood (12:59)
Yeah.
Darren (13:17)
to tackle de-aging. So it’s a kind of common request we get in the
film and entertainment space around, we’ve got an actor who’s 45 today
and in two episodes we want them to be 25, you and we don’t want a
cast look-alike, we want to use the same actor. tackling that as a VFX
solution in the past…

to tackle de-aging. So it’s a kind of common request we get in the
film and entertainment space around, we’ve got an actor who’s 45 today
and in two episodes we want them to be 25, you and we don’t want a
cast look-alike, we want to use the same actor. tackling that as a VFX
solution in the past…
Orlando Wood (13:19)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Darren (13:36)
was pretty, like it looked pretty shit most of the time. That’s the
reality, it just didn’t look as good as it ought to look. You know, we
build a simulation model that allows you to do that. And I guess it
gets you, and I think it’s technology in the hands of innovators and
artists that, you know, it’s really complex work, but it’s a
simulation model that allows you to…
Orlando Wood (13:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm. Mm.
Darren (14:00)
de-age an actor by, for example, 15 years in a ⁓ totally credible and
controllable way that means that the director still has the freedom to
shoot. Now, it’s not push a button and hope it all works. It’s a lot
of work that goes into that. And then a lot of artistry that sits on
top of that to get you to finish pixel. And I think at the end of day,
the demand for…
breathtaking, beautiful, finished pixel is not going to go away in
either high-end commercial work or film or entertainment projects. So
I’m pretty happy about the direction of traffic.
Orlando Wood (14:25)
Mm-hmm. No.
Yeah,
it’s funny because there was an article that was posted about how
Google just ate Adobe. And I was like, this doesn’t understand the
business at all. know, Nano Banana, as great and as fun as it is, the
people who are going to see that output and be happy weren’t signed up
to the Creative Cloud anyway. They were not Adobe Photoshop users.
And I think that that’s the other thing. I think a lot of people
writing these articles are people who haven’t used Photoshop or
haven’t used Avid or haven’t used professional level tools have, as
you say, a degree of precision that is just required of anybody who’s
working in a creatively professional space.

And I think that that’s the other thing. I think a lot of people
writing these articles are people who haven’t used Photoshop or
haven’t used Avid or haven’t used professional level tools have, as
you say, a degree of precision that is just required of anybody who’s
working in a creatively professional space.
Darren (15:11)
And you know,
the phone in our hands is a pretty powerful video camera and camera
now. And often there have been occasions where we’ve shot commercials
on those phones, normally because it’s for those brands. ⁓ But
generally we’re shooting on an Arri Alexa.
Orlando Wood (15:21)
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm. Yeah.
Darren (15:37)
Despite putting really powerful camera technology, example, in the
hand of a consumer, professional grade tools are still required to
have that really nuanced control. And I don’t think that’s going away.
And actually, the AI models being built for consumers are, frankly,
just aren’t designed for the kind of finish that we are expected to
deliver, whether it’s 8K, 32-bit.
Orlando Wood (15:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Darren (15:59)
kind of resolutions, that’s just not, you’re not going to get that out
of you.
Orlando Wood (16:06)
Yeah. And I think that like, you know, I think that the other thing
that people kind of forget is that post companies have always been
full of creative technologists. I know a lot of people are sort of
putting up their hands and sort of stating they are one now, but you
know, you guys have always been kind of understanding the new plugin
that can do hair just right. Or, you know, the, the various, you know,
⁓ libraries and, and tech opportunities to improve.
just 1%, you know, one set of pixels across, you know, and that
capability is, you know, is still in house with the people you have.
And so they’re gonna be kept up to speed with everything that’s
happening, but also, you know, training Laura’s and things like that,
that’s not happening at the consumer level, that’s happening at the
professional.

Darren (16:55)
Yeah, I think the history of visual effects is technology, innovation,
compute power in the hands of really brilliant artists. And I think
that the dialogue that happens between those…
between technology and artistry and technologists and artistry is
incredibly powerful. And when you support that with really…
powerful compute, can do pretty extraordinary things. But what you’re
never doing, and I’ve watched iteration to me, you’ll remember when
doing CGI crowds became a thing of Marvel, or ⁓ doing fur or hair
became a thing of Marvel. The journey is littered with moments that
are…
Orlando Wood (17:35)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (17:42)
big big changes. I suppose anything that accelerates the first 80 % of
what you do is always going to be useful. But the truth of it is, when
we’re working on a VFX project, doing VFX work, we’re paid for the
last 20%. Because most of the people, pretty much everybody out there
can get it to 80 % good.
Orlando Wood (17:52)
Hmm.
Darren (18:11)
There’s very few that can get it to 100 % good. When you’re trying to
a fully CG, beautifully believable walrus or elephant for version
media, that last mile is the hard bit. And it’s the bit that audiences
won’t forgive you for if you get wrong. They’ll just say it doesn’t
look right.
Orlando Wood (18:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, I think, you know, and I think
that, that, you know, this, the notion that seems to be pervasive is
that certain things are going to go away. And I just don’t think
that’s true. I think that there will be more, probably more strata or
more levels to the game. think that certainly creators are going to
have access to tools that they didn’t have before. And there’s going
to be a level of, there’s going to be a degree to which they level up
a bit.

And some will, you know, hopefully, you know, reach higher and higher
points. And I think they’ll start to learn more things. But I
certainly don’t think that the desire for complete entertainment
immersion or complete storytelling immersion in incredibly well
produced, you know, worlds, both from a production and VFX standpoint,
is ever going to go away entirely. I mean, it’s just not, you know,
that I just don’t think that that’s a reality.
We like it too much. know, mean, too many people went to go see
Superman. Too many people, you know, it’s like, it’s just, you know.
Darren (19:29)
Well,
I think it’s always about, comes back to human connection. I guess you
can go back sort of to the various earliest times like from Heraclitus
onwards, you think about like the three act structure.
Orlando Wood (19:37)
Mm.
Darren (19:48)
You do.
Ultimately, we respond to story, we respond to human connection. I
think all of us have seen movies where the effects have become more
important than the narrative and they lose the audience. I think, you
know, in anything that we’re trying to do, I think we’re trying to
make work that elicits emotion, that makes you feel something.
Orlando Wood (19:55)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Darren (20:13)
And when something’s not in service of story, tends not to do that. ⁓
And so I think, from our perspective, we get a kick out of making
work, whether it’s from design, whether it’s production, whether it’s
visual effects, whether it’s creating music content that makes you
feel something. And as soon as it stops making you feel something,
it’s just noise. And audiences will reject it.
Orlando Wood (20:17)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Darren (20:38)
And so, and I don’t think any technology can fully replicate that
sense of human connection. I don’t know whether you saw it, but like
in the last year, about a year ago, you’d look at a treatment or an
image or come through from, it would be from mid-journey images in it.
And you kind of look at it and go, my God, that’s really impressive.
And a year later, people are going, my God, if I see another AI image,
like,

And so, and I don’t think any technology can fully replicate that
sense of human connection. I don’t know whether you saw it, but like
in the last year, about a year ago, you’d look at a treatment or an
image or come through from, it would be from mid-journey images in it.
And you kind of look at it and go, my God, that’s really impressive.
And a year later, people are going, my God, if I see another AI image,
like,
Orlando Wood (20:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (21:03)
Yeah, it’s just making me feel queasy, right? Because it’s missing
that kind of tactile feel, right? So I think we’re very sophisticated
in our ability to detect what feels synthetic and emotionally
synthetic versus real.
Orlando Wood (21:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I always say that that, you know, when I troll through Reddit
and somebody says, I just made this amazing AI short film and you
know, every shot is no more than five seconds or eight seconds and
they’ve clearly prompted very well. Maybe they’ve got a little bit of
character permanence. That’s reasonably impressive still, you know, to
be doing on a consumer model. You know, they’ve added it together.
They’ve clearly taken some care. They’ve found, you know, they’ve
either done some Foley or some online Foley or whatever it is. And
you know, for a consumer’s product, it’s, really fairly good. I
generally glaze over. Now the, the one time, the few times that I
don’t, it’s usually because they’ve done something like the Muppets in
Mad Max world, the Muppets Thunderdome, or, you know, ⁓ the, you know,
cast of friends in, you know, in Lord of the Flies or whatever it is,
but
Usually it’s because they’ve used a piece of IP that I’ve already had
emotional connections to, you know, or they’ve said the Avengers, if
it was set in the seventies and cast with, you know, with, you know,
Bert, you know, anyway, someone great as whoever. And, and I just kind
of, I always think, yeah, yeah, of course, but that’s there. There’s a
cheapness there because I’ve connected with that IP.
on a human level because someone human created it 20 years ago or five
years ago, whatever else I’ve connected with that. Now you’re using
that to draw me into this place. And that’s fine. Congratulations. But
on its own and the storytelling and the use of it on its own with new
characters, whatever else, I just don’t care. There’s nothing to
ground me in it. There’s nothing that humanizes it for me yet. And I’m
sure someone will do something.

on a human level because someone human created it 20 years ago or five
years ago, whatever else I’ve connected with that. Now you’re using
that to draw me into this place. And that’s fine. Congratulations. But
on its own and the storytelling and the use of it on its own with new
characters, whatever else, I just don’t care. There’s nothing to
ground me in it. There’s nothing that humanizes it for me yet. And I’m
sure someone will do something.
⁓ Just like, you know, we couldn’t have imagined that Mr. Beast would
be the most watched, you know, television program in the world. you
know, things will come out of it eventually, but, you know, I still
think it shows usually to me that I’m disconnected from it as a
natural state unless they start using something that I’ve connected
with before.
Darren (23:30)
And I think there’s an element of, storytellers can use whatever tools
they want, right? And if they can make you feel something, because
they’re telling it, even through the limitations of technology, you
mentioned five second shots, those shots get longer, right? But I
think at the moment, they’re…
Orlando Wood (23:36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (23:50)
The conversation is prioritizing the technology over the storytelling
and the artistry. And I think it becomes another suite in the tool set
and toolbox of storytellers to use and to use appropriately as opposed
to be a substitute for narrative emotion.
Orlando Wood (23:54)
Mm.
Mm. Mm.
Yeah.
Darren (24:12)
And I think there will be amazing films that get made that I think the
opportunity we’ve seen in ourselves, the opportunity to do wonderful,
wild things in music video through AI are pretty special, but it has
to be grounded in an idea or in a…
Orlando Wood (24:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Darren (24:38)
you know, something that you’re trying to communicate and then it
becomes the vehicle to kind of get there as opposed to the other way
around.
Orlando Wood (24:45)
Yeah, I think especially that the commercials are going to be a little
bit safer for for longer, because I think that we’re already so
attuned to fakery in in commercials. We’re already put off by the fact
that this is even happening, that actually they’re under more of a
responsibility to lean into humanity, because if they create more of
an uncounted candy valley, more of a separation, it sort of reveals
the thing for what it is, which is

Yeah, I think especially that the commercials are going to be a little
bit safer for for longer, because I think that we’re already so
attuned to fakery in in commercials. We’re already put off by the fact
that this is even happening, that actually they’re under more of a
responsibility to lean into humanity, because if they create more of
an uncounted candy valley, more of a separation, it sort of reveals
the thing for what it is, which is
a cynical opportunity, a cynical attempt to try to change your buying
behavior and make you part from the money in your wallet. You know,
and I always thought that that was the wonderful thing about, you
know, a director like Noam Murrow is I always said that the thing that
you could count on Noam for is if your brand is about wistful
nostalgia. Yeah, sorry.
Darren (25:35)
Great Craft Service.
Great craft service.
Orlando Wood (25:40)
Yeah, fantastic craft service and good hugs. But yeah, think that
like, no, that’s all right. But I think that like that’s what he does
very well. If you want an emotion, he knows how to in 60 seconds get
you to that emotion if you’re a brand.
Darren (25:44)
Sorry, I interrupted.
Orlando Wood (25:58)
You know, and I think that, yeah.
Darren (25:59)
But I think great
stories like where there is…
I think he made small short films that had a brand made into them, you
were totally engrossed in the narrative story. Often in most cases
when Ring was making worry, there was no dialogue or anything like
that happening, but there was this incredible.
Orlando Wood (26:11)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (26:26)
empathy and understanding of the human condition and it came through
the work and a brand got to benefit ⁓ from extraordinary filmmaker.

Orlando Wood (26:27)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. mean, listen, he was an absolute master.
You know, you talked about Untold being a different kind of company.
It was funny. You know, I don’t know whether we’ll keep it in the
edit, but you gave a little tour of the L.A. office and I asked what
turned out to be an incredibly silly question was I went, ⁓ how many
sweets do you have? And you gave a very, you know, developed, you
know, new world answer, which is we don’t really think about it like
that. We don’t really think about it in terms of sweets. But, know,
you talked about Untold being a new kind of company. Obviously you.
moved completely cloud-based before anyone else. That was incredibly
prescient. Also being independent. What else do you think kind of
differentiates Untold and what have you guys done to, what makes it a
new kind of company, a different kind of company?
Darren (27:32)
I guess we’re not really defined by the capabilities that we have. And
what that means is that we share a common belief in trying to
challenge the status quo in anything that we’re doing, trying to work
with the most interesting brands, the most interesting…
studios, interesting labels, either that are at the top of the game or
the challenger ones and to kind of make work that’s impactful. And I
think what that means then is you’ve got a common DNA that can be
applied to multiple different capabilities. you know, I mean, what we
do in music, I guess when we were starting on TOL, right, we had this,
do remember this language that was being used all the time? Like
everybody was talking about
We want to be really culturally relevant. We want to be, we want to
resonate with popular culture. And we’re kind of going, yeah, that
just sounds so wanky, but I I kind of know what you mean. I kind of
think we do want to be that thing, but it was trying to like, at some
level we were trying to unpick some actions that sat behind that. And
for us, one of the things was it like, if we’re,
Orlando Wood (28:21)
Yeah. Yeah.
We
operated the speed of culture was one of the…
Darren (28:35)

Darren (28:35)
Yeah, exactly. What does that mean?
I still don’t know what that It’s crazy, But unpicking it, we’re like,
okay, let’s take music as an example. If we’re working with the music
artists of a generation that are defining and shaping culture, then we
are inherently relevant, right? And I suppose in terms of what
differentiates on top, I think what we answered about was…
bringing on board individuals who are deeply expert in their area and
their field of influence. Philly is our creative director across
music. I’d spent 20 years at Xcel Recordings working with the White
Stripes Radiohead, the XX. He is a creative director. He works with
tons of incredible projects.
since then and I think you know why Phil joined is because he
recognized that we want to do interesting creative work that is the
that is the kind of the collective
belief, let’s do work that matters. we, actually Phil was paired up,
cause there’s a kind of quite a big belief in the blend of youth and
experience. And the woman telling me he’s about the same age as me. So
he was a bit more mature as we were kind of getting going on. I don’t
tell. And he was joined by Annie, our head of music. She’s based in LA
now. And, you know, I always joke that if Drake was in town in London,
Annie would be,
at the party and she’d also be quite quick to tell you, right? But
that blend of kind of youth and experience opened up opportunities for
us in music space. ⁓ fast forward seven years later and the music
scene has evolved kind of considerably since then. like what we’re
doing in production and what we’re doing in music, what we’re doing in
technology and what we’re doing in VFX end up coming together in kind
of weird and wonderful projects that
Orlando Wood (30:06)
Hahaha
Darren (30:30)
know, artists with technology, with music, with brands. And we didn’t
plan for that, but that’s kind of how they played out. And that’s been
really rewarding, I guess. And so, and I guess there’s just lots of
examples of where, you know, what differentiates us is having a
collection of different disciplines working in close proximity and…
and sort of an all expert in what they’re doing and kind of saying,
like, if you put interesting people together, interesting things will
happen. Rather than trying to figure out what they’re going to be,
just see, you know, ⁓ and there’s so many examples of it since then.
Orlando Wood (31:01)

Orlando Wood (31:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, but how do you balance that? mean, you because obviously
everybody kind of opens up a business saying, well, we want to do the
most interesting, culturally relevant work we can possibly do and we
want to work with the best. And but how do you balance that with the
work that keeps the lights on? I mean, how do you know everybody’s
trying to get at that best creative work? mean, how do you I mean, I I
now obviously you guys are already there, but how do you do that in
those first years, especially?
Darren (31:28)
Yeah, so I get, I think we look at simple.
We did simple rule, like in everything that we did, outside of
charity, outside of pure charity, we need to make a margin on it. And
that spanned 15 grand music video to a five million project, right?
But the same discipline needed to be applied to everything because
it’s about having respect for your own contribution to it. So I
think…
Orlando Wood (31:49)
Yeah. Right.
Darren (31:59)
It’s instilling a sense of art and commerce are not automatically in
opposition. think building a really good, strong commercial business
is the license to do great work. It’s the license to be a destination
for great talent to want to work. And the better the work that you put
out in the world, the better the clients that come knocking on your
door.
do more work. I think we see that much more as a virtuous circle and I
think, you know, it doesn’t, you know, I guess one of the things we
have kind of tried to continue to do and I think we’ve done a pretty
good job of it, like one of my early observations was that
you know, this is maybe eight, nine years ago, was that I was
beginning to see creative people in lots of different walks of life
doing their most interesting work outside of work, as opposed to in
the place they work, you know.
Orlando Wood (32:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (32:54)
And then the world exploded into kind of side hustle as a kind of
phenomenon. ⁓ And everybody was doing their most interesting work
outside of work. I hear less side hustle now than I used to. But I
think what we wanted to do was make Untold a place that if you had
something interesting that you wanted to do, that we would be an
environment that would look to support that. Whether that’s
releasing…

And then the world exploded into kind of side hustle as a kind of
phenomenon. ⁓ And everybody was doing their most interesting work
outside of work. I hear less side hustle now than I used to. But I
think what we wanted to do was make Untold a place that if you had
something interesting that you wanted to do, that we would be an
environment that would look to support that. Whether that’s
releasing…
Orlando Wood (32:57)
Mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (33:16)
We did a fashion collection with a tie-dye artist. I have no idea why
we did it, but it was an interesting idea that came out of somewhere.
And we thought, yeah, OK, that’s going to be good to do. And trying to
create avenues for our own teams and staff to…
Orlando Wood (33:21)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (33:33)
express themselves creatively, but it needs to be good, right? And
then put it through the rigor of is it good? We’ve had that with
directors as well. I’m sure you’ve experienced that where you’re kind
of like, how do we help an emerging director develop their reel by
doing kind of interesting work and getting behind that work and
supporting it? I think, but doing that in a kind of professional
context so that you’re…
Orlando Wood (33:35)
Yeah.
Darren (33:57)
or you’re quite demanding of, is the script ready? Is it good enough?
⁓ know, have you, know, here are the parameters from a budget or from
a resource that can be committed to it. You you’ve now got to work
with a producer to work within those parameters and deliver something
pretty special. And a couple of our directors have done some really
interesting work as result of that.
Orlando Wood (33:59)
Mmm. Yeah.
Darren (34:20)
think that just pushing it through those kind of processes and that
thought, that sort of thought process is helpful. But yeah, I guess
I’ve never seen art and commerce as enemies. I think there’s a real, I
think the best, some of the best opportunities, particularly when you
acknowledge that we’re not.

We’re not fine artists here, right? What we’re doing is trying to make
the most interesting work, whether that’s for advertising or
entertainment or music, and it needs to be paid for and we need to
work. And that’s one of the parameters that will impact what that
creative output should be.
Orlando Wood (34:40)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I know, mean, I know you put your your money where your mouth is
a bunch of times in that respect. I was always amazed that that there
wasn’t more of that. I certainly saw it more when I was at Wieden and
then I went to Fallon and I actually produced a documentary that you
guys did the post on when when you know you you were very kind and and
helped me out with that when you were at the mill. And you know, you
guys conformed it and you did the titling and you did some some little
effect shots on.
on this documentary and like it won Tribeca Film Festival Special Jury
Prize. Like it did very well, but I was always amazed when I asked the
people at the agency I was at at the time, whether they might help.
They were like, well, I mean, what, why, you know, and, and you kind
of saw the benefit and you were like, listen, I know it’s a tiny
documentary film done by a, you know, a, you know, a producer over
there, but we’d like to be a part of it. We’d like to help. And, and I
was always amazed at
you know, how few people there were like you in, ⁓ in advertising who
saw the value of just going, no, I think it’s good that somebody’s
flexing that muscle and I’m going to help them. because there, there
used to be all this talk about creativity and then when you do
something different, everybody kind of shut it down a little bit. And
so I think that’s a rare attitude. And I think it’s a, it’s very cool
of you that you’ve now enshrined that in untold.
Darren (36:20)
I grew up with that Joseph, who I think Lee probably mentioned as
well. I worked with for 15 years. He was such an extraordinary
influence and mentor and inspirational person to work with, who just
taught me to believe in the power of creativity. ⁓ The places I’ve
drawn inspiration from…
Orlando Wood (36:23)
Mmm.
Mm. Mm.
Darren (36:42)

Darren (36:42)
in my life, you you mentioned Wyden’s, mean Wyden’s is such an
important part and you know we all remember those three years of
Fallon being pretty special, slightly toxic but pretty special. You
know and there’s these moments that happen where you kind of you know
you find inspiration and you realize that you know incredible work can
just
Orlando Wood (36:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, very toxic.
Darren (37:09)
just change your own personal experience, change the trajectory of
your own journey. And I think a lot of times, and I think we do that a
lot of the time, I don’t tell, is you do things not knowing what the
outcome is going to be, but because they feel instinctively like
they’re the things that are.
creatively interesting and powerful. you know, cuts it three, four,
five years later, somebody comes back in and goes, you did that thing
that was really interesting. We’ve got something that makes that
happen. you know, and I think that, yeah.
Orlando Wood (37:36)
Yeah.
I mean, wasn’t that Chris Cunningham’s entire deal?
mean, Robert Johnny and whatever else, you were just like, I don’t
know what I’m gonna do with that guy, but I hope it’s something, you
know?
Darren (37:51)
Yeah, absolutely. Wild.
Orlando Wood (37:54)
I brought up rubber Johnny. mean, you know, Glassworks is just closed,
obviously, technical. I mean, is your feeling that that the industry
at large is going to be fine? There are just some outdated.
business models within the VFX that need to go the way of the ghost
and that there is a bright future or is there just less food to go
around and you guys are protected because you’ve created just an
incredible moat of wonderful work that is attracting people at the
moment.
Darren (38:27)
I think it’s a really emotive topic because it’s always sad when you
see companies that at various points in their journey have been the
very best in the game, decline or close.

I think it’s a really emotive topic because it’s always sad when you
see companies that at various points in their journey have been the
very best in the game, decline or close.
I think it’s true of all of the kind of related businesses. There’s a
regeneration. Like, do you know, when you look at the advertising
world, there’s a world where you go, the advertising sector is, you
know, really having a really tough time. like, do I think that Rick
Brim is going to build an extraordinary agency? 100 % I do. You know,
absolutely no doubt I do. And is there a space for
Orlando Wood (39:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Darren (39:10)
the next generation and a new generation of creative people,
producers, to build extraordinary companies. Of course there are. I
think, yeah, unquestionably we’re at a point of inflection. there is,
there will be, you know, maybe it’s crass language, but there will be
winners and losers. And there are, you know, legacy.
Orlando Wood (39:14)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Darren (39:31)
infrastructure, legacy, models, legacies, way of working that will
disappear. But by the same token, there’s a whole range of really
exciting companies coming through. I left to start until seven years
ago. think since that time, there’s probably five or six companies who
I’ve huge respect for who started since then, and they’re doing
phenomenal work. And I think,
Orlando Wood (39:51)
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah.
Darren (39:58)
So the opportunity for, I guess in my view there’s always space for
excellence. And I have absolutely no deep concern about the future of
the overall industry. Look, and it goes through ebbs and flows.
There is not going to be a world that we ever live in that isn’t
highly dependent on advertising, as an example. There’s not going to
be a world we live in that’s not going to want to listen to music and
watch great movie shows and watch great entertainment shows. It’s
just, these are the things that make the world turn. if you’re not
thriving in that, it’s probably because you’re not doing it the right
way.

Orlando Wood (40:25)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s funny. People kind of always say, well,
you know, is advertising screwed? I was like, have you used the
Internet? Because that only exists because of advertising. mean, the
amount of.
Darren (40:54)
Are you aware
of what Google and Facebook have done in the last 20 years and how
they make their money? mean, two of the top five most successful
businesses in the world whose entire income is dependent on
advertising, really.
Orlando Wood (40:58)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, in terms of the, you know, your technological posture, mean,
you know, you mentioned training your own de-aging AI model. What else
are you guys doing that’s that’s that’s that’s sort of yours? Sorry.
Yeah, I just I just assumed it couldn’t be one thing. You’re.
Darren (41:19)
Is that not enough, Rolando? No, no. Is that not enough? No, I’m not.
Just one of the most complex problems that’s ever been solved. Thank
you.
I think, yeah.
Orlando Wood (41:34)
I just knew you wouldn’t stop there. Once you crack that,
it’s not like you put your pen down and went, that’s good for this
year.
Darren (41:41)
There are a couple of things that are kind of like the way we look at
kind of for taking AI as an example of the way we look at how we can
apply AI in what we’re doing. It sits really in two buckets. Like how
do we accelerate and simplify kind of relatively straightforward
tasks?
both on the production side of what we’re doing, so from a bidding
perspective and learning from our own data around what we have, what
we thought something was gonna cost to do and what it actually costs
to do, and so when we’re bidding something that’s similar, the next
time we’ve inherited knowledge around that, or accelerating kind of
more.

both on the production side of what we’re doing, so from a bidding
perspective and learning from our own data around what we have, what
we thought something was gonna cost to do and what it actually costs
to do, and so when we’re bidding something that’s similar, the next
time we’ve inherited knowledge around that, or accelerating kind of
more.
Orlando Wood (42:13)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (42:19)
basic rudimentary kind of tasks and using AI to accelerate that. And I
think lots of companies will look at that. And actually a lot of,
depending on who you’re working with, a lot of the software providers
that you’re working with will start to integrate more and more of
those services into their product anyway. And the second part, I
suppose, is…
Orlando Wood (42:32)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Darren (42:38)
is really about what are the tools that we think are going to be
really very useful on a recurring basis for our clients, for projects
that we inhabit. So de-aging is an example of one. There’s another…
tool set that we’ve developed, basically can take a live action plate
and split it, split it into all of its various different depth passes,
which it’s taking the knowledge that we would have from CGI where you
can, where you, in the making of that CGI image, you split it and then
you composite it back together again. What we’re doing is taking live
action imagery, splitting it through
Orlando Wood (43:08)
Yeah.
Darren (43:16)
built and then have the ability to relight those scenes completely. So
you can then go,
Orlando Wood (43:21)
Wow. See that, that,
mean, if you don’t mind me saying, Darren, that sounds a whole lot
less, a whole lot harder than the de-aging. it’s yeah, it sounds
harder. And to me, that sounds a lot more useful. mean, because that’s
useful on every shot potentially, whereas de-aging is okay. If
somebody’s got a flashback, like,
Darren (43:30)
They’re both pretty tricky. ⁓

Yeah,
think in episodic TV, by the way, there’s a lot, like what you see is
a lot of episodic TV that spans periods of time. So that’s why that’s
a kind of repeat one. I think you’ve got to be careful with the
rewriting. I think it’s about…
Orlando Wood (43:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (43:58)
I can’t remember when it was, about 10, 15 years ago there was a kind
of innovation in color grading that meant there was a bunch of
different kind of technology solutions that allowed you to import
maths into the grade, right? And that meant that you could grade very
particular areas. But what it also kind of did is it took away some of
what the compositor had done and put it at the hands of the colorist.
And actually,
Orlando Wood (44:14)
Yeah.
Right.
Darren (44:24)
There’s often a reason why a compositor has done something in a
particular way and why a colorist has. They have different
complementary skill sets. What I mean really is that I don’t think we
want to be sitting here relighting what Chivo has shot in camera. That
would seem quite a wild thing to do. But there will be occasions where
there is a need, there is a requirement because…
Orlando Wood (44:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (44:51)
light died and we ran out of light or different kind of things so we
can do things. You can do more interesting things. Exactly. These
models are really, really powerful but we’re still iterating on it.
Our approach then is to spend
Orlando Wood (44:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, cloud cover for the wrong five minutes. know, mean, yeah, and we
need to make our day. So, you know, we do have to move from here, you
know.

Darren (45:19)
hell of an intensive time building the models in, for want of a better
word, very, very powerful high-compute GPU systems. But parsing them
out so they become, I suppose, a tool set that can be done on a
regular workstation. So you do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of
developing the model, and then you’re able to…
Orlando Wood (45:40)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (45:43)
put it into a workflow where many, many artists are able to utilize
those things. But again, I think you’ve got to be thoughtful about how
you, and when you use technology and how you use it, that you don’t
solve problems that weren’t really problems, that you solve real
problems, right?
Orlando Wood (45:46)
Yeah.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot
of, know, the tech companies kind of coming in from a really
generalist perspective. And I think that like, you know, in the
professional world, you have to be using a scalpel for the right cut
and you have to be using the right tool for the right scenario. And
but when you talk about sort of model training, I think that like the
colloquial understanding of model training is like we said, sort of
very generalist.
Sounds like you’re doing a lot of machine learning, know, basic
machine learning work. How, you know, in what sorts of environments
are you doing that, you know, training? What, what tools are, being
used there?
Darren (46:39)
You’re going to get beyond my pay grade pretty fast. guess the things
that we’re very conscious of is where are the data sets that we’re
working with coming from. So I think about two weeks ago, Netflix
released their guidelines on the age.
Orlando Wood (46:41)
Okay, totally fine. Yeah, mine too. Mine too. I only know enough to
ask the question.
Mm-hmm, I saw that.

Darren (47:02)
of AI, you know, and we were really pleased to see that we were
compliant with everything that they had in there already, but I think
there’s a natural caution, both legal and ethical, around the data
sets that you’re using, and I think a lot of what…
Orlando Wood (47:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Darren (47:18)
often thinking about is how do you make the data set as limited, find
the sweet spot, the optimum place around what is the amount of data
that you need. And so for example, in the de-aging model, one of the
really powerful parts of that is that we don’t need a target
historical reference to work with.
Orlando Wood (47:23)
Mm.
Yeah.
really, that’s interesting.
Darren (47:41)
I think because it’s working on a simulation basis, it’s doing it
based off the current one. And if you imagine trying to do a celebrity
actor, actually licensing that material from 20 years ago can be not
only expensive, but also incredibly legally cumbersome and time
consuming. And so it’s recognizing what our actual production.
Orlando Wood (47:57)
Yeah, tricky. Yeah.
Yeah.
Darren (48:04)
issues in
a professional environment and kind of go, okay, let’s try to solve
problems that we see on a repeating basis. And then look, there ends
up being tools that we develop for very particular and specific
projects, typically in the film and episodic space, because they might
be a year two year long projects where you’re trying to do different
things. Like we’ve been…
Orlando Wood (48:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Darren (48:25)
I suppose leaders and advocates in the ⁓ adoption of USD, is a way, a
universal scene descriptor, it’s a way of sharing files of creature
characters across multiple vendors so that if we create a perfect ⁓
version of Sonic,
did for Sonic 3, we can then provide that to studio who can have
multiple vendors, multiple partners working on it, knowing that the
quality will be the same. Historically, what used to happen with every
single company working on it would have their own version of that
character. And you would see huge variability between shots, right? So
you go, oh my god, that’s the company that did that one, right?
Orlando Wood (48:52)
Yeah.
interesting.
Wow.
Right. that’s interesting. I didn’t realize that you sort of imagine
that it’s all being created centrally and then pushed out. And so
you’re now doing that for the studios. And then they give it out as
part of their kit of parts to anybody who’s coming on.
Darren (49:15)
And what happened actually?
And
what happened also is in order to kind of preserve that quality they
would sometimes then go to like who’s the largest company, which
wasn’t necessarily highest common factor, was like who could cater for
two and a half thousand shots rather than who were the best people at
building the character and deploying it. And I think we would, we’re
probably less interested in doing five thousand shots on one.
Orlando Wood (49:35)
Yeah.
Darren (49:39)
show, we might be interested in taking on 500,000, 2,000 of the most
complex, most interesting ones, knowing somebody else doing other
work. And we can be partner on that by developing out the character in
a way that can then be shared with other companies that working on the
project. Because in the film and episodic space, there’s nearly always
multi-vendor shows for anything kind of above $20 million.
Orlando Wood (49:44)
Yeah.

Hmm.
Yeah. Well, dude, thank you so much for doing this. I do have one more
question if you have the time, but it’s a question I’ve been asking
everyone, which is the late great Dan Wyden had a quote where he said,
you’re useless to me unless you fucked up big at least twice, which I
always loved because it sort of gave you a lot of protection on your
first two fuck ups. But I was wondering, could you would you know, can
you remember and would you be willing to admit a time where you fucked
up?
Darren (50:12)
Go for it.
Orlando Wood (50:31)
whether big or small and then what you learn from it.
Darren (50:35)
I mean, I think I kind of fuck up all the fucking time, right? You
know, think that, think making mistakes is… I can’t stand the
language of it, the kind of like fail fast sort of something and it
makes my skin crawl. by the same token, I completely believe that if
you’re not trying things…
Orlando Wood (50:46)
Mm. Yeah.
Darren (50:55)
you’re not improving. Unless you’re making a lot of mistakes, you’re
not going to get better. And I think, like, I do remember when we
first opened, like, then we got a whole bunch of small things wrong.
We were doing our first client call, like literally first client call.
We were actually in the space that we’re in London now, which is
amazing space on 14th floor of Old Street. But client knew they were
in the line, literally, you had no idea whether we were sitting in a
garage and had a couple of boxes. we had a new telephone system, and
we hadn’t tested it.
Orlando Wood (51:31)
Mm-hmm.
Darren (51:31)
And the
first time we switched it on was during the call. An A-list director
who we have worked with many times since Matthias, we did the call,
call dropped like three times. And I don’t quite know why, but I think
he kind of went, I think the feedback was, we’ll come back to you guys
when you’re ready, right? We just weren’t sure. Anyway, like we threw
out the file system, restored it again.

first time we switched it on was during the call. An A-list director
who we have worked with many times since Matthias, we did the call,
call dropped like three times. And I don’t quite know why, but I think
he kind of went, I think the feedback was, we’ll come back to you guys
when you’re ready, right? We just weren’t sure. Anyway, like we threw
out the file system, restored it again.
Orlando Wood (51:34)
Right.
Yeah
Yeah.
Darren (51:55)
I also had this of great idea that when we were starting that we
shouldn’t have any internal email and we didn’t, we don’t, we’ve never
had it. We’ve never had it. But for the first week and a half, nor had
we figured out how to use Slack, which at the time people didn’t know
about and how it worked particularly using it. There was not many
people to train you or show you how to use it. This was seven years
ago. And so we basically shouted at each other for about two weeks as
we kind of figured out, like.
Orlando Wood (52:03)
Really? Wow.
Right.
Darren (52:21)
You know, the truth of it is that there was a lot of little mistakes
that we made at that very early stage. But my overriding memory,
particularly at that beginning stage, like just, you know, and it
still remains true today, just that sense of optimism, that sense of
like, you know, at that stage we were six, then 12, then 16 people
that are, we are going to change the way everything gets done. We’re
going to do things in a different way. We’re going to create
something.
powerful and interesting. We’re sitting here, like 450, people later
with…
It feels like that same energy is still there, but it was electrifying
in London at that time. I’m in LA now, we’ve got 45 people in the
studio here and it’s got that same sort of fizzing energy. You know
people just want to do great stuff and I’m pretty sure we’ll make a
load more mistakes as we come along. But it’s sort of part of it,
right?
Orlando Wood (53:04)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.
That brings that brings up a question though.
Like how do you keep that? How do you as you grow into multiple
offices? How do you keep that cultural connection? How do you make the
LA office feel similar to the London office in the Toronto? How do you
do that?
Darren (53:34)
Yeah, well, think one thing that we… There is no suffix to untold
except studios. There’s no untold LA or New York or London. And I
think operationally that’s reflected in how we work. you know, what we
do, we’re not trying to sell wear, as we try to assemble teams to work
on a project.
Orlando Wood (53:41)
Yeah, right.
Darren (53:54)
for a customer or a client that has a need. And that will mean drawing
from the very best talent globally. Typically, if a project coming
into LA, we’ll obviously make sure that the people who are dealing
with our client locally are based here. But we will look across the
whole business to go, how do we make the best piece of work? And that
will involve a myriad of people from all the different…
to the studio and I think and so that means what I suppose what that
means is quite different to a Wydens approach which is very kind of
deliberately siloed an individual kind of personality basis but what
it means is there’s a high degree of communication and cultural
sharing and collaboration required just to exist so that’s a good
starting point and then I think I think I think you’ve got to have a
pretty good view that culture is culture is not owned by
Orlando Wood (54:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Darren (54:47)
founders of a company. It is dynamic. And what you want is that it
gets stretched and pulled in new directions by bringing in new and
interesting people. But I think you can also…
as leaders within the company set the agenda for what’s important. And
I think consistently talking about the things that we believe in, we
genuinely believe in creativity, we genuinely believe that if you have
great people doing great work, that is self-fulfilling and virtuous as
a circle. And that kind of generates a kind common DNA.
with different accents and different voices and different expressions,
but that have a singular kind of belief in the same things. And I
think that’s what ties us together, really. And I’m excited to go to
different parts of this from studios and experience it in different
way, but know that there’s a kind of common truth that we all care
about doing good work.

with different accents and different voices and different expressions,
but that have a singular kind of belief in the same things. And I
think that’s what ties us together, really. And I’m excited to go to
different parts of this from studios and experience it in different
way, but know that there’s a kind of common truth that we all care
about doing good work.
Orlando Wood (55:30)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, dude, that’s fantastic. I think that’s that’s a great
place to end on. Thank you so much for for doing this. I just so
appreciate it. I’m also so glad you’re in L.A. I’m going to see you
soon. That’s all just terrific. Awesome, man. Thanks so much.
Darren (56:07)
Yeah, I can’t wait to see it. Listen, thank
you Orlando, thanks a million, lovely to see you and I look forward to
seeing you. Yeah, take care.
Orlando Wood (56:12)
You too,