The Modern Producer: Kati Haberstock on Building Smarter, Faster Workflows

Technically Creative by KoobrikLabs Podcast Transcript

Title: The Modern Producer: Kati Haberstock on Building Smarter, Faster Workflows

Orlando Wood (00:00)
I’ve said before on this podcast that my favorite type of people to
talk to are producers. ⁓ And today I’ve got a really good one. Kati
Haberstock also happens to be my favorite kind of producer. The kind
of producer whose curiosity about production has drawn her to
different styles of production. Her career reads like a tour of the
modern production landscape. She started out as a line producer at
some of the best production companies in the world before moving into
animation and VFX at places like Buck and Framestore. And then she
made the rare choice to move agency side, clearly a glutton
for punishment. Today, she’s the head of production at Erich and
Kallman and 2024 small agency producer of the year. What I love about
Kati is that her experience can’t be faked. She’s seen every side of
the process and knows it deeply. Live action, post, agency, animation.
And she brings that hard-won perspective to everything she does. In
this episode, we talk about what it really takes to be a modern
producer, the curiosity, the stamina, the humor, and generally the
refusal to stop learning.
And we get into her views on the evolution of the producers role from
being one of the last calls to one of the first voices at the table
and how she trains the next generation inside Erich and Kallman and
how she’s already experimenting with AI driven bidding and workflow
tools. But mostly this is kind of a celebration of the fundamentals
that never change. Hard work, diligence, creativity and a love for
making great things with good people. Kati’s a breath of sensible air
in a world increasingly going mad. And I think you’ll enjoy this chat.
Here’s my conversation with Kati Haberstock
Orlando Wood (01:35)
Kati Haberstock, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. I first
saw your name when you were named the AdAge’s small agency producer of
the year, which congratulations, I should start there.
Kati Haberstock (01:46)
Many thanks, many thanks. It’s all a bit silly really, right? But it
feels good to be recognized by my colleagues.
Orlando Wood (01:50)
Yeah.
I think that, you know, what I found really interesting about your
career is that we had a different trajectory. I started agency side
and then moved production company side. You started production company
side, moved into agencies. And I think that a lot of people wouldn’t
understand the the the differences of dynamics that you work with in
that.
You obviously you started out as a line producer. You were at places
like Smuggler and Directors Bureau and Tool and some of the biggest
and best production companies in the world. And then Buck, which is an
incredible animation company. And I’ve had the pleasure of working
with and partying with Ryan Honey and the team at Buck. ⁓ And, you
know, and then as well going to Framestore. So the fact that you have
the…

You obviously you started out as a line producer. You were at places
like Smuggler and Directors Bureau and Tool and some of the biggest
and best production companies in the world. And then Buck, which is an
incredible animation company. And I’ve had the pleasure of working
with and partying with Ryan Honey and the team at Buck. ⁓ And, you
know, and then as well going to Framestore. So the fact that you have
the…
production background and the post production background and now you
know your ⁓ executive director of production operations in Erich at
Erich and Kallman I’d love to just get your perspective on that
trajectory and what toolkit it gives you of perspectives that you use
in your job now.
Kati Haberstock (02:53)
I mean, I think it’s invaluable, especially for small agencies. I
know, you know, independently held shops where, mean, I think
everybody’s struggling with staff, right? What it does is it un-silos
the experience, this collective experience un-silos the producer, my
role. And I have no need for departments that maybe other agencies
have.
Orlando Wood (03:11)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (03:17)
we
business affairs and it’s super unsilent. So I hold the cards for
pretty much everything we do from business affairs to talent to
producing to post producing, how we set up our studio, how we run
things. It’s very freeing to be able to bring a knowledge base that
covers everything from labor law to the price of a dolly to how to
work with a client to.
Orlando Wood (03:24)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Kati Haberstock (03:44)
and what those costs and challenges bring. So it’s really like a
fantastic toolkit or a grab bag of tricks that make me or our team,
because I do encourage a little bit of a broader perspective with our
producers, it makes us a lot more, hate that word that everybody’s
throwing around, nimble, but it does. You’re allowed to make decisions
and you’re encouraged to make decisions and you’re really encouraged
to think on your feet and solve problems. And I think that’s…

and what those costs and challenges bring. So it’s really like a
fantastic toolkit or a grab bag of tricks that make me or our team,
because I do encourage a little bit of a broader perspective with our
producers, it makes us a lot more, hate that word that everybody’s
throwing around, nimble, but it does. You’re allowed to make decisions
and you’re encouraged to make decisions and you’re really encouraged
to think on your feet and solve problems. And I think that’s…
Orlando Wood (03:50)
Mm.
Kati Haberstock (04:11)
what it brings ⁓ to particularly my role at this agency, which I don’t
know that traditional agency producers have quite the, all the tools
that they to be able to answer all the questions, right? And to answer
them in real time.
Orlando Wood (04:25)
Yeah.
Mm Yeah, I think that that’s what I think what would surprise a lot of
people. And just to kind of give a bit of perspective to people who
may not be as as au fait with the the production levels and different
areas. But, you know, agencies are very much like working at a studio.
You’re working on conceptual problems very early on and trying to
understand how who the right vendors are to be pulled in, what sort of
specialisms you need. It’s it’s very interesting, that
you get to play a lot more. But I think there’s always been a duality
that I think is shifting now. But it used to be that producers at
agencies, I feel used to be treated a bit more like project
management. know, it was like the in the worst way they’re used. It’s
we’ve basically figured out this problem. You go manage it and run it
and make sure that the train arrives at the station on time. Now, I
think what people are realizing with.
I think that they’ve been realizing it for quite some time. producers
now are one of the first people you call when you have an ember of an
idea. and I think that’s really exciting. And I’m sure with your
background, the more you know about execution, the more you’re brought
into those conversations. So
I think it’s a sort of, are you seeing that happen a lot more? Are you
seeing producers get brought in much earlier?
Kati Haberstock (05:44)
I think honestly, A, it depends on the producer and the skillset of
the producer. So I think if you come with a level of seniority, yes.
And you come with a level of, you know, having done the thing that’s
on the table, yes. I do feel, I’m gonna just roll the clock back just
a little bit. I’m aging myself here. I actually come from a time where
producers were actually creative producers. And they were actually,
they did have a seat at the table with the creative teams.
Orlando Wood (06:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm.
Kati Haberstock (06:11)
And that is sort of late 90s, maybe 80s, up to the late 90s. And then
it shifted to this project management style and just go do, right?
Just go execute, because we got this. We did this, so you just go do.
So I think it’s actually coming full circle back to, I think,
producers and producers with particular knowledge, which again, this
unsilored piece, are able to have that seat at the table again and be
creative producers.
Orlando Wood (06:21)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (06:38)
Yeah, I think our experience collectively is invaluable to be able to
solve the problem from a few different paths, right? You can either do
it this way or that way, or have you considered this, or have you
considered maybe changing that shot to something else so that you can
do this other thing? So I think it’s that knowledge base. the answer,
the long and short of it, yes, I do actually feel like it’s coming
back around. I certainly am that person and I do.
feel like folks come to me to ask me if something is doable or not
doable, what would I do or how would I approach it?
Orlando Wood (07:12)
Yeah, I think that’s what’s so wonderful about your background is is
knowing that you have answers across the board, because, I think that
the the shift to producers being project management was kind of a your
job basically was to say yes and figure out ways to get done what had
already been decided for you. And if you said no, you are a no can do
producer. And what creative wants to work with a no can do person? You
basically had to go, ⁓ huh, sure, we can do it. And then you sort of.
privately would stress about whether and how that might be possible.
But yes, I
Kati Haberstock (07:42)
I mean, think
honestly, I think the stress factor is still there. I think that’s
never going to, I don’t think that’s going to go away, but yeah, for
sure.
Orlando Wood (07:46)
Well, that’s true, yes. Yeah.
I think it’s about being more of an architect of your own problems
now. You you at least get a say at the table earlier on about what
level and quality of problem you’re gonna be tasked with solving.

I think it’s about being more of an architect of your own problems
now. You you at least get a say at the table earlier on about what
level and quality of problem you’re gonna be tasked with solving.
Kati Haberstock (08:05)
I mean, I think producers are really often, and of course I must have
this opinion because I am one, but I think good producers don’t say
no. Good producers bring some joy and they really appreciate solving
problems. Whether they’re given a thing that they have to go do or
whether they get a creative in and are able to have a discussion about
different paths. I think a producer is,
Orlando Wood (08:15)
Mm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Kati Haberstock (08:31)
generally speaking, be, should not really, no, shouldn’t really be the
first word in their vocabulary. I think the joy of being a producer is
really embracing problem solving. I think that is the producer’s role.
And whether you have that seat at the table or not, or whether you’re
a creative producer or not, I think you need to, if you want to be a
producer, want to be a good producer, then there’s a little bit of
self-startery type
Orlando Wood (08:39)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (08:57)
thing that you have to bring to the table and you have to bring a very
healthy appetite for self-training and self-learning and not giving
and being relentless to be honest with you being a relentless problem
solver. So it’s not, it’s clearly not for everybody, right?
Orlando Wood (08:58)
Yeah.
Hmm. Yeah.
Well,
exactly. It’s interesting because you talk about the quality of the
problems that you get to solve. Is that what propelled you to make
that change? Because it is a, you know, it’s a I always when everybody
anybody ever asked me for advice, I always said, go to a production
company, go to a post house The more perspectives you can have on
production, the better your your advice will be to anybody and the
better your job will be and more interesting.

exactly. It’s interesting because you talk about the quality of the
problems that you get to solve. Is that what propelled you to make
that change? Because it is a, you know, it’s a I always when everybody
anybody ever asked me for advice, I always said, go to a production
company, go to a post house The more perspectives you can have on
production, the better your your advice will be to anybody and the
better your job will be and more interesting.
But is that what propelled you to make those changes?
Kati Haberstock (09:41)
I think the quick answer is yes, but there were also practical
considerations. I produced a lot of music videos in my day and with
music videos in my younger days, I should say fantastic training
ground for any producer. Talk about solving problems in real time and
working with some mercurial sort of folks. do I?
Orlando Wood (09:58)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can’t buy your way out of the problems.
Kati Haberstock (10:06)
But basically,
as a line producer for music videos, you really see the project
through from treatment writing to bidding to producing, all the way
through delivering it through post. And then when you become a line
producer in commercials, you really only have a tiny, tiny part in
that process. And you’re really just producing the shoot and you’re
missing all the upfront and you’re missing the backend and…
Orlando Wood (10:27)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (10:30)
So for me, it was a very truncated way of doing a job and it felt
very, very ⁓ half-baked after doing it for many years successfully and
very, I did enjoy it, obviously. I traveled the world. I got to see a
lot of things. I got to work with a lot of fantastic people. And then
there was really a practical piece of it too. It was sort of the
confluence of the, you know, the internet boom and social content and
branded content and things really splintering.
Orlando Wood (10:33)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (10:58)
And so just not the kind of work that I was wanting to produce. And so
I really wanted to get at the problem upfront, in the middle, in the
back. And so I made that transition with Mekanism actually, who were
kind of in that same space. They were a branded content shop and they
were kind of figuring out their path. And then they transitioned to be
an agency and now we just all sort of went along with it and it was a
good fit.
Orlando Wood (11:04)

Orlando Wood (11:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah
Kati Haberstock (11:28)
⁓ and it taught me a lot of stuff and I was, I was really, really
excited to be in a new space, to be learning some tools that I hadn’t
actually learned before. And it was really nice to pull back the
curtain on what it was, you know, how to work with brands and how to
work with agency creatives and how to, how to structure those, work
streams actually. So yes, it was a kind of a confluence of many
things, but primarily how do I get at a bigger problem?
Orlando Wood (11:43)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. So that happened in real time at Mekanism That’s very
interesting because it, it, did, it does seem like the, the most
anomalous part of your career because so few people who are line
producers at production companies or like move into the agency side,
because when you’re production company side, very often the agency
world kind of looks like a nightmare because you’re tend to deal with
the producers who have, you know, they are getting the most amount of
crap.
Kati Haberstock (11:55)
Right?
It sure did, yep.
Orlando Wood (12:23)
laid on them to deal with. And so you’re seeing them at moments of
sort of peak stress. And then the idea of going, yeah, I wanna move
into that environment seems like a big leap, it’s one of the things
that fascinates me most about your career.
Kati Haberstock (12:39)
It’s certainly not for everybody. will say that again. I think you
have to be a bit of a glutton for punishment and you need to be a
little bit of a workaholic to make that sort of a shift. I went from
having lots of time in between or time in between gigs and traveling
for projects and then having time off to being on all the time in a
staff job. So yeah, it was a…
Orlando Wood (12:40)
Alright.
Mm-mm.
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (13:02)
It was a very, very interesting, ⁓ it was a very interesting
transition. I can’t say that it was always easy, but I will say it was
infinitely fulfilling because of my thirst for knowledge. And I think,
you know, I think a producer, again, it’s sort of back to, if you
don’t have that thirst.
for knowledge and knowing things and solving problems on your feet.
And I think it’s a game almost for me. Maybe it’s a sort of a personal
little thing. Like I know I can do that and can I do it faster and can
I do it more effectively? So again, it’s not for everybody. There are
great producers who do certainly don’t do what I do. But for me, it
was a challenge to be able to see something else, something new,
something different, adapt, learn, learn how to make that thing
better.
Orlando Wood (13:27)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (13:49)
and better and better. And then I had the opportunity to actually set
up our own work pipelines and our own ways of working at Mekanism. I
think some of that strategy and that, mean, my title here at Erich and
Kalman does have operations in it. And I am, I am so, I’m always so
excited by how do we work smarter, not harder? How do we use tools to
our
advantage? How do we fold time? How do we get to the answer in half
the time, less work using the tools at our disposal, using our brains,
using technology in a way that it helps us become these, not project
managers, but really free up the time to solve the problem. Does that
make sense? So
Orlando Wood (14:36)
Yeah, totally.
Kati Haberstock (14:36)
So the operations
bit and how does it work inside the walls of an agency and how do we
fix some of these things that people seem to be shouting about a lot,
especially with the big holding companies being on all these silos and
verticals and the one end doesn’t speak to the other end and how do
they solve all those problems? So that was a challenge in of itself.
How do we make that better?
Orlando Wood (14:58)
Yeah.

Kati Haberstock (15:01)
And I think that’s where my live action experience and being just
having the having my fingers on finance. How do we run budgets? How do
we run talent? How do we solve some business affairs problems? How do
we have this knowledge? Knowledge is power, right? More knowledge
anyway. Long story short, for me, it was that crossing from live
action to agency was actually hugely eye opening. And I’m still here
15 years later and I find it enormously satisfying.
Orlando Wood (15:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, it’s funny because I think of you as the first agency
producer we’ve had on this podcast, but we did have Sergio Lopez on
from Omnicom production. And it’s funny because, yeah, because, you
know, I think that, you know, obviously we’ve all heard the rumors and
there’s a lot of stuff going around and there’s a lot of things people
can disagree with or not. But I was interested in hearing what you
just said about operations being so important is that producers really
are in charge of workflows. And I do think that
Kati Haberstock (15:37)
I did listen, yes.
Orlando Wood (15:55)
Streamlining those operations can be a creative opportunity as well
because the faster you can produce things. Yeah, and the more the more
you, ⁓ deal with finance more of that opportunity, that financial
opportunity goes into creative.
Kati Haberstock (16:02)
So… ⁓
Orlando Wood (16:11)
And I think that that’s a really mature perspective that not a lot of
people have at the moment, or producers at least.
Kati Haberstock (16:16)
Honestly, think it’s enormous.
think it’s, for me, maybe it’s a control thing. Who knows? I might be
a control freak. think producers are, generally speaking, control
freaks. But I love the challenge of freeing up my time, that I’m not
wasting my time or my producer’s time on things that they can manage
quickly so that they can get to the problem.
Orlando Wood (16:20)
Mm. Mm. Yes, we are.
Mm. Mm. Mm.

Mm. Mm. Mm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Kati Haberstock (16:42)
faster and be able to solve it for the creatives faster. Don’t be
afraid to hold all the cards because if you do, you are a better
producer. that is literally that is my training at the agency as well.
I got a little boot camp going and I really bring in the threads of
live action because as a live action producer, you have to own
budgets. You have to own sort of legal knowledge. You have to own just
a lot of things.
Orlando Wood (16:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (17:11)
that in agency side you don’t. So I bring all that in for our
producers, whether they’re freelance or not. And I give them really
what I hope I’m doing is giving them the wings to operate
independently of me and be able to solve problems on their feet.
Obviously there are cross checks and there are checks and balances,
but I don’t hold up the process of them getting the job done the best
way by
Orlando Wood (17:26)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (17:38)
endless amounts of siloed cross-checking. And I mean, I can share how
we do that sort of, but it is a process and it’s a process by which
the onboarding is very, very important. If I bring on a new producer,
if I bring on a freelancer process and onboarding is very key because
you have to work a certain way to be able to disengage from me.
Orlando Wood (17:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, because I think that undoubtedly I think that when I look
at the output of Erich and Kallman it’s clear that you guys are
undoubtedly punching above your weight in terms of the budgets you’re
getting versus the impact and and and creative integrity of the final
product. even that auto glass thing that we were talking about, I
think your budget was only 100 grand, but you got

Yeah, yeah, because I think that undoubtedly I think that when I look
at the output of Erich and Kallman it’s clear that you guys are
undoubtedly punching above your weight in terms of the budgets you’re
getting versus the impact and and and creative integrity of the final
product. even that auto glass thing that we were talking about, I
think your budget was only 100 grand, but you got
Lots of material out of it. It’s incredibly well produced. I think
that that to me, that’s the the value that producers bring is it’s
that, OK, we’re going to be using every resource and we’re going to be
punching above our weight. I remember finishing a job once in an
agency and coming in 20 grand under budget. My executive producer,
Elissa Singstock, said to me, so you’re telling me this ad could have
been 20 grand better? And I was like,
I see. I now see what the job is. The job is hitting a creative
bullseye with all of the assets you have and that that is the goal.
And I think that, you know, looking at your guys output, you’re
undoubtedly doing that with whether you have lots of resource or you
have limited resource. So yes, I’d love to, guess the question is, I’d
love to know how you do that.
Kati Haberstock (19:06)
The goal is to be on budget.
The goal is to be on budget, right? Well, I want to give credit where
credit is very due. And I really would like to shout out Erich
Kallman, the Kallman in Erich and Kallman, who is our chief creative
officer, because he is just relentlessly creative. And he comes with
ideas that are really big ideas. And he just pushes that creative
envelope really hard.
Orlando Wood (19:19)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (19:34)
And that can be a challenge for some folks in the negative and that’s
just too much and too hard, or it can be a positive. And I see it as,
my goodness, here comes another one of these whopper ideas. And you
know, how do we, how do we make that? And I think really in the end,
it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a relationship game. So we really have strong
relationships out there in our.
partner, vendor, pool, and he does too. So I feel like after some
decades, I’m not going to say how many, but quite a few, between the
two of us, we rack up a couple of years and about that many
relationships and you treat people well. You bring on folks who want
to be partners and you give them the good stuff and then sometimes
you’re going to have a…
Orlando Wood (20:14)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (20:26)

you know, a financial doozy, but it’s still a good thing. So really
nurture those relationships. So outside of the big holding companies
who are really building a lot of inside pipelines to produce, we still
very much believe in who are our partners that we tap into. Okay. And
so I think the partnerships are critical for us and building those
partnerships.
has been sort of the story of my life. And I actually think it’s also
been the story of Erich’s life. And so between, like I said, between
the two of us, we have a wealth of people that we can call up who will
come and join the fray. If it’s a small budget, if it’s a big budget,
if it’s a medium budget, we have a lot of really fantastic problem
solvers out there in the industry. In fact, just yesterday,
Orlando Wood (21:08)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (21:12)
We have a thing that we have to deliver next Wednesday and it just
landed in my lap yesterday afternoon at, I don’t know, two o’clock in
the afternoon where we need to do something for a Wednesday thing. And
one of our partners, yes, we’re in and we’re getting some edits and
things out the door in four days for next week. And so that is for
like probably nothing because it’s a favor and you know, are, but this
is a partnership.
Orlando Wood (21:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (21:38)
I think it’s a partnership game. I really do. And you can obviously
build the thing in-house or you can do what we do, which is build it
out of house. And we have it out of house. And I just really respect
the people that we bring in to help solve our problems.
Orlando Wood (21:52)
were talking about the operations being in your title. Can we talk
about those workflows? What does a modern production workflow look
like for an ad agency like yours, and what do you think you’re doing
differently than others?
Kati Haberstock (22:05)
I mean, you know, I don’t really have the view into how other people
work, but the view I do have is when I bring on freelance producers
that happen to work at other agencies, I can say that all of our tools
are, and there’s not many, so we don’t work with a crap ton of tools.
We really lean into Google. We really lean into the G Suite and the
cloud-based tools.

I mean, you know, I don’t really have the view into how other people
work, but the view I do have is when I bring on freelance producers
that happen to work at other agencies, I can say that all of our tools
are, and there’s not many, so we don’t work with a crap ton of tools.
We really lean into Google. We really lean into the G Suite and the
cloud-based tools.
We really lean into Slack and we have our email systems on Microsoft,
on Outlook. And that’s sort of the crux of what we do. We have Box for
some storage and file sharing. But basically everything that we as
producers, all the templates and the tools and the bidding processes
and the business affairs-y things, they all live in Google. There
are…
Everything is set up there. And so I have a little onboarding doc and
follow the breadcrumbs. So everything is structured so that I hand
over the package. So to those freelancers out there that might be
listening to this, if you’re not Google savvy, don’t apply. So it’s
really a G Suite and the G Suite is really our backbone. And I spent
some time just cleaning up.
docs and forms over the course of every year. Everything is rebooted,
you know, every fresh year we get a fresh, I have fresh eyes on it and
reboot our systems a little bit. But basically everything lives there.
You have a backwards view, you have a current view and you can carry
everything over into a new year, into a new job. There is historical
data at your fingertips. So you can literally look at any job, any job
across any year, across any client.
Orlando Wood (23:22)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (23:47)
super fast, so you have historical data at your fingertips. have to
ask people, it’s right there, you have access. So there’s no excuse.
If you didn’t do your homework and you don’t go in there and you don’t
look and you don’t check and you don’t pull up an old job, if you’ve
got a job, that’s a repeat of a previous year. There is no excuse for
a producer not to look at the previous year and see what was done. So
everything is built for speed.
Orlando Wood (23:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (24:12)
So you can duplicate a doc, you can duplicate a form, and then just
adapt. So everything is built for speed. It is remarkable how fast we
can work and how fast we can work across any piece of the pie. Talent
budgets, live action budgets, no problem. It’s all there. Just almost
command D and you’ve got another one and you’ve got another one and
you’ve got another one and then you just adapt.

So you can duplicate a doc, you can duplicate a form, and then just
adapt. So everything is built for speed. It is remarkable how fast we
can work and how fast we can work across any piece of the pie. Talent
budgets, live action budgets, no problem. It’s all there. Just almost
command D and you’ve got another one and you’ve got another one and
you’ve got another one and then you just adapt.
Orlando Wood (24:28)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I’m so happy to hear you say that, because I feel like I am banging
that drum every day at our job. All of our clients, we say exactly
that. Capturing and organizing your existing data. I think that,
listen, a lot of the laziness around producers not having access to
that information is born out of really lovely thing. It is a
professional courtesy. If one producer is to call up another producer
who’s worked on a job, it’s sort of a professional courtesy to get on
the phone with them and say, ⁓
Here’s how I solved that problem and this is who I spoke to. know,
it’s, and, what that’s created is this silo data environment where
everybody goes, well, I have someone I can call for that. It’s like,
well, actually you also have the documentation for that. So why aren’t
you accessing it? And why aren’t you speeding up that process?
Kati Haberstock (25:20)
There is,
Yeah, absolutely not. also, and this is said with great love because I
come from physical production, but I also find that working with my
physical production producer partners and their sort of production
managers and coordinators is often wildly frustrating for me because I
move so much faster than that industry still does. And I find that
production, especially in the commercial space, is still stuck
emailing Microsoft Excel sheets and they don’t work in shared
documents. I don’t even know why or how. Are you sure there are some

security issues and you have to be mindful of things and make it non-
downloadable if that’s the thing for that doc or whatever. You have to

be a little bit self-policed that way and you have to understand your
client and the rules around security and data security, of course, so
I’m not poo-pooing that.
Orlando Wood (25:53)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (26:14)
But the way that our commercial production companies work from another
century. And I find it absolutely mind blowing because I come from
that world and I’ve trained a bunch of line producers now to work sort
of our way and say, no. And so we just hand over the decks and we say,
work in this. And we do a lot of the work for them because this is
just how it’s gonna go and it’s gonna go a lot faster.

But the way that our commercial production companies work from another
century. And I find it absolutely mind blowing because I come from
that world and I’ve trained a bunch of line producers now to work sort
of our way and say, no. And so we just hand over the decks and we say,
work in this. And we do a lot of the work for them because this is
just how it’s gonna go and it’s gonna go a lot faster.
Orlando Wood (26:24)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (26:41)
Responses usually like, wow. So I think it’s, it, is absolutely no
excuse for lack for being slow or lack of speed. think you just need
to embrace that. Hey, it’s 20, 25, and we have tools available to make
things go faster.
Orlando Wood (26:47)
Mm.
Yeah.
mean, that’s one of the things
that we’re, we’re talking to some production companies about, about
building is, know, obviously at a production company, know, you’re
bidding, you’re probably winning, you’re part of a triple bid process.
You’re probably winning one out of three. The two, the, the two thirds
that you don’t win are actually still bids that you’ve paid a
freelancer to put together or you paid your head of production.
Those are sitting there and they have bids from legacy effects, bids
from an animation organization like Buck or Framestore or, well, I was
gonna say the mill, all of that is incredibly valuable data and it’s
all just locked in someone’s brain. If an executive producer leaves,
they’re not gonna remember three years ago that there was this bid
that they did for something that was demonstrably similar.
And that there’s all of that data there and they’re going to restart
the bid all over again. And, you know, I think that that’s a real
shame. And that’s the wonderful thing about a lot of these AI tools is
the ability to have your institutional knowledge accessible to
somebody who walks in on day one. They have that ability to have a
tool that helps them manage and understand that. And you’re right. If,
they’re, if the production companies I’m talking to, if that data was
in a Google drive,
rather than in Excel spreadsheets, I’d be starting on third base.
Kati Haberstock (28:15)
we have all of that data as well, our bidding data, all of our bids. I
would never start a job unless I’m looking at something and we’re
actually talking to a company now who’s building a really fantastic AI
sort of quick bidding tool called Wabi and that can pull in all that
data and we can bang it. Like when I get a deck, creative deck, you
know, five o’clock before a client presentation the next day at 10
a.m.

we have all of that data as well, our bidding data, all of our bids. I
would never start a job unless I’m looking at something and we’re
actually talking to a company now who’s building a really fantastic AI
sort of quick bidding tool called Wabi and that can pull in all that
data and we can bang it. Like when I get a deck, creative deck, you
know, five o’clock before a client presentation the next day at 10
a.m.
Orlando Wood (28:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (28:40)
and it’s a 200 page deck and there’s like, you know, 10 different
platforms and whatever it is. And the account person is like, okay,
any watch outs? I’m okay, people, I’m good. I’m not that good. So, you
know, it would be nice to turn that through ⁓ if we had, you know,
some sort of an AI tool, which like I said, we are actually in
discussion and we’re beta testing something now.
Orlando Wood (28:44)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Kati Haberstock (29:02)
Either you know, that would be a great way to to churn that through
our Wabi tool and say, okay, Wabi, you know, give me some high levels
and then it’ll, you know, and with some watch outs and and it’ll churn
that thing out in half an hour and I’ve got a you know, I’ve got 10
budgets with some watch outs that I can send through that that would
be a great that’s a fantastic way to you know, for an AI, you know,
for an AI tool to get involved, I think bidding smaller jobs.
Orlando Wood (29:24)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (29:29)
You know, I’m still sort of probably the best person there to take a
look at it or the producer is. I don’t know that I need an AI tool for
that, but for volume, yes.
Orlando Wood (29:30)
No, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓
Kati Haberstock (29:42)
That’s not a producing tool. It’s a bidding tool. what it is, is you,
so what it does, what it does is it trains on your, it trains on your
client data on your bids. It doesn’t look at, it doesn’t look at sort
of proprietary, any things. It doesn’t need a, it doesn’t need
strategy or even a brief. Basically Wabi, really what Wabi is looking
at is prior bids.

That’s not a producing tool. It’s a bidding tool. what it is, is you,
so what it does, what it does is it trains on your, it trains on your
client data on your bids. It doesn’t look at, it doesn’t look at sort
of proprietary, any things. It doesn’t need a, it doesn’t need
strategy or even a brief. Basically Wabi, really what Wabi is looking
at is prior bids.
Orlando Wood (29:45)
Right, yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (30:06)
If you can give it prior, if it’s a repeat client, prior bids,
calendars and creative ideas. And then what it does, you train the
tool on and then any sort of things you can add to it. So it’ll train
on whatever data you feed it in terms of budgets, any specific budgets
or anything you’ve done. And then what it’ll do, and then you give it
a prompt, say, give me.
Orlando Wood (30:12)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (30:30)
Check these three creative platforms. mean, again, it’s about your
prompt and how your prompt goes in, but check these three platforms.
I’m looking for bids for platform one, two, three, please give me some
watch outs. And then Wabi will go away and it’ll not only check your
data, the data that you fed it, but it’ll also look at industry wide
data and compare it to what you fed it. And then it’ll spit out.
Orlando Wood (30:34)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (30:56)
just sort of a high level, right? It is still very much up to the
producer to then check that. But this is for me when I’m doing a big,
big package that involves, you know, maybe multiple day shoot, lots of
different things, or are there any watch outs on these many ideas that
we’re going to a client with that we need quickly? The other way that
it’s super useful is, you know, if we’re doing our social studio work
where we have just volumes of resizing and
Orlando Wood (31:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (31:24)
you know, where it’s just like hundreds of assets where we can go in
and we can say, okay, again, it’s training on very specific data that
we give it and maybe our studio rate card and you know, what happens
there, but that is another great way of getting very quick feedback
from the tool to say, here’s what you’re looking at. And you can get
pretty close, the more information you give it. mean, these LLMs are
all super data hungry, right? So the more data you can give it and the
more it has, the more accurate these things are.

you know, where it’s just like hundreds of assets where we can go in
and we can say, okay, again, it’s training on very specific data that
we give it and maybe our studio rate card and you know, what happens
there, but that is another great way of getting very quick feedback
from the tool to say, here’s what you’re looking at. And you can get
pretty close, the more information you give it. mean, these LLMs are
all super data hungry, right? So the more data you can give it and the
more it has, the more accurate these things are.
Orlando Wood (31:43)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (31:54)
your eyeballs are still needed. But yeah, so we’re beta testing this.
We’ve been at it for a couple of weeks. I know a couple other agencies
are looking at it too. That would be one super helpful way for an
agency to get high level bids. Again, this tool can, by the way, can
also act as a cost consultant. It can get really deep into the weeds.
So hey, maybe move over cost consultants because potentially you can
Orlando Wood (32:13)
Wow, that’s interesting.
Kati Haberstock (32:19)
you can have that tool be the cost consultant. I’m not trying to undo
jobs, but it does a really good job at line item dissemination.
Orlando Wood (32:22)
Yeah, that’s interesting.
I mean, my
first question will be how much over budget does MJZ tend to bid? I
want to sort of go.
Kati Haberstock (32:34)
Well, they have, they have very,
I love my friends at MJZ. I’ve produced for them. They’ve run a
really, really solid ship for many years. know, David Zander, David
Zander, here’s to you. I hope you retire well. But, you know, they’ve
made some very specific rules around what they’re willing to do and
what they’re not willing to do. And I mean, they have fantastic
talent. So their, their approach to AnyBid is we.
Orlando Wood (32:39)
Ha
⁓ of course. Zander’s very impressive. ⁓
Kati Haberstock (33:01)
we do it this way, we will not change our rules even for you and we
will pass if it doesn’t make any sense for us. We’ve got the great
directors that you want, so take it or leave it. And that’s how they
do it.

we do it this way, we will not change our rules even for you and we
will pass if it doesn’t make any sense for us. We’ve got the great
directors that you want, so take it or leave it. And that’s how they
do it.
Orlando Wood (33:11)
Yeah, sorry. was, that was just,
that was a, you know, probably PTSD from being agency side with, with
MJZ and then as well running biscuit and bidding against them so many
times. And it was actually, yeah.
Kati Haberstock (33:22)
You just know, you know, when you’re
working with that caliber of company that you need to match with that
caliber of budget. You don’t, let’s not waste time and go with things
that they just simply can’t and won’t or can’t afford to do. So, I
mean, you know, you just have to have a little bit of realism there,
right? So.
Orlando Wood (33:28)
100%.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, sorry not to get lost in an MJZ, but but because as well, like
you said, I deeply respect them. And and Zander is is undeniably a
force of nature ⁓ and, you know, their talent’s unbelievable. But yes,
I mean, you know, I’m interested, you know, because obviously, Erich
and Kallman, you guys are based in San Francisco. Do you find the
being in San Francisco, you know, obviously it’s a tech town. Do you
find that that, you know, and I mean, I feel like
Kati Haberstock (33:54)
Here he is.
Orlando Wood (34:09)
You can, you know, like the streets of Calcutta, you can sort of open
up the door and coders are just sort of sitting around, ready and
available to work. Do you find that San Francisco has an impact on
your tech posture? when it comes to how you guys are running your
workflows.
Kati Haberstock (34:26)
No, 100 % no. That comes 100 % no. And primarily again, back to Erich,
it’s about the idea. It’s about the creativity. It’s absolutely not
about the tech, but the tech is there. I’m an enormous fan of some of
these AI workflows and how to solve some of those problems. But that
doesn’t mean I’m gonna make everything with two.

No, 100 % no. That comes 100 % no. And primarily again, back to Erich,
it’s about the idea. It’s about the creativity. It’s absolutely not
about the tech, but the tech is there. I’m an enormous fan of some of
these AI workflows and how to solve some of those problems. But that
doesn’t mean I’m gonna make everything with two.
Orlando Wood (34:27)
No, okay. Okay.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (34:53)
with a bunch of LLMs, that means idea first. And we are very much idea
first. If the tech manages to make it a better workflow, sure. But we
are like everybody training teams on, and when I say teams, I mean
everybody on how strategists can utilize the tools and how, I think
that’s just industry wide. I don’t think that has anything to do with
San Francisco.
Orlando Wood (34:56)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
so much of the discussion around Gen A. I has been around its ability
to output at a certain level or its use in the output. I’ve I’ve said
up until this point that I think the major transformations are
actually coming in either backroom operations in creative development
and ideation. And then actually people are.
shying very much away. mean, we we, you know, are Warner Brothers
Accelerator company, and they are certainly toying with with the gen
AI tools, but they’re not the copyright concerns. Just put them in a
position where they’re like, listen, fascinating, happy to play with
it. Definitely are not touching it for outputs. Where are you guys in
your approach avoidance to to Gen AI in your final product?
Kati Haberstock (35:58)
Honestly, think it’s sort of, ⁓ I think A, it’s client led, are the
clients even open, right? So there are clients who are absolutely dead
set against using any AI tools. They have all the concerns, you know,
around IP infringement and bias, ethically, you know, ethically
sourced material and assets and you know, all those things that are
making the rounds.
And then there are the clients who are like, yeah, maybe show us. And
then there are the clients who are like, yeah, sure, whatever. So I
think it’s, it depends on the client. depends on the budget. depends
on their openness to be able to do that. But again, you know, we’re a
creative first agency. And you know, if you look at Erich’s work,
Erich is very much, there’s a lot of comedy dialogue. You know, I can
say with huge assurance that comedy dialogue is definitely not an AI
handleable.

And then there are the clients who are like, yeah, maybe show us. And
then there are the clients who are like, yeah, sure, whatever. So I
think it’s, it depends on the client. depends on the budget. depends
on their openness to be able to do that. But again, you know, we’re a
creative first agency. And you know, if you look at Erich’s work,
Erich is very much, there’s a lot of comedy dialogue. You know, I can
say with huge assurance that comedy dialogue is definitely not an AI
handleable.
thing at the moment. So we’re definitely still shooting with actors
and we’re shooting with directors who can iterate on that. I think
that where are we on it? We are certainly like everybody else,
unpacking how the tools can help. And so from strategy to account
management to production, I think the production is potentially the
furthest along. We’re currently and actually we are in a training
program.
with some folks with the creative team and with us in a, let’s all be
the best prompt managers we can and figure out a workflow so that we
can address some of those clients we have that just simply don’t have
the budgets and we actually need to do some of this stuff in-house.
And so some of our designers might become prompt engineering
proficient and our producers know how to do things. And so I think
that’s
Orlando Wood (37:23)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (37:41)
inevitable and I think you have to do that and based on where we’re at
in the industry. I again, I’m also I’m also knowledge hungry. So for
me, it’s like it’s a it’s a non-starter not to do this. And so I want
to know all these things. So we are actually I think and then of
course, with production, we’ve just done a couple of various upstream
sort of animatics, boardamatics with our friends mise en scene. That’s
David Lyons. He used to have run M.O.V.E. studios and animation
studio.
Orlando Wood (37:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (38:08)
And that was super fun and very different to do, very different
workflow in AI. Certainly sped up everything, but it sort of goes back
to the data hungry nature of these LLMs and how you kick this stuff
out and how it becomes consistent. Consistency is obviously a big sort
of catchphrase with AI, but how are we? We are definitely embracing it
where clients are embracing it, where we find it useful for us. I
am…

Orlando Wood (38:19)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (38:35)
thinking that just based on all the sessions I’ve attended and
trainings I’ve done in this space over the last year and a half, I
think it’s going to show up in post-production pipelines and that’s
where I’m expecting it to show up. Hey, ARC or parliament or whoever
we like to use in this world, give me a fuzzy creature for this ad and
don’t charge me a million and a half and make it take a year and a
half.
Orlando Wood (38:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (39:00)
charge me a fraction of the price and make it take two months or a
month and whether you’re still using traditional tools or whatever. So
I think that’s where it’s going to show up. And I’ve had a few little
things where I’ve challenged the post teams to fix some stuff with
some tools to actually great success and just to see if it would work.
So I think it’ll show up in post-production big time.
where again, where clients are allowing us to do it. I also think I
was chatting with our friends over at Cut and Run the other day and I
sort of, I’m challenging everybody just so you know, saying, okay,
bring me your new workflows. How are you integrating this stuff? I
want to hear from you. So we had one of those chats with Cut and Run.
We use them a lot for editorial. We also use their post house jogger
for some of our clients very effectively. So I had the same discussion
with them. How are you doing? know, what’s happening?
Orlando Wood (39:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (39:50)
And so we had a really great chat and I thought the most interesting
part of that is how we can, know, AI and gen AI tools are very
iterative, right? You can just iterate and iterate and iterate. You
didn’t get your five feet of a dolly moved, generated. Your sun went
down, generated. You know, you didn’t get that light the right way,
generated. So, you know, there’s ways to solve some problems pretty
quickly. However, what I find super interesting because I’m an
operations gal too, and because I love workflows, is I love the idea
of bringing in an editor.
super early and upfront in the work stream to be able especially for
those clients who, you know, we’re testing as a thing or copy testing
as a thing or does it work? You know, you can bang out the upstream
with an editor to make sure that you’re getting some pacing in there
so that when you end up going to the shoot, you’ve got a whole bunch

of things ironed out. So you’re moving editorial up into pre-
production.

super early and upfront in the work stream to be able especially for
those clients who, you know, we’re testing as a thing or copy testing
as a thing or does it work? You know, you can bang out the upstream
with an editor to make sure that you’re getting some pacing in there
so that when you end up going to the shoot, you’ve got a whole bunch

of things ironed out. So you’re moving editorial up into pre-
production.

Orlando Wood (40:20)
Mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (40:45)
which
or previs or whatever you want to call it. like, I love that idea
where you can solve some of the problems where you’re not sitting in
the bay and you’re going like, God, we didn’t get that or shit or
whatever. You know, we can move it upstream to solve some of those
problems. That’s that’s and of course, how do we manage pitches now?
Right? Do we go in with videos? Anyway, I’m a fan.
Orlando Wood (40:55)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, the mood film is dead. You
know, like, you know, that’s that’s over now. If you’re bringing a
mood film into one of your pitches, I think you can just admit you’ve
given up.
Kati Haberstock (41:16)
I mean, I don’t know. the net net here is, you know, I could go on
forever, but I’m quite a fan from a, know, from a producer
perspective. I also think it helps solve some financial bottlenecks
that we’ve had for decades that industry-wide, we haven’t really been
able to solve other than, let’s go find the next place to shoot where
people don’t get paid much and we can keep our production budgets down
and we can shoot non-Seg. I don’t know that that is, I don’t know that
that’s a great, great.
Orlando Wood (41:24)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (41:43)
option anymore i mean people why would i fly 10 hours 20 hours to go
somewhere to suffer an enormous jet lag leave my kids behind leave my
life behind for two weeks so i can pay less i don’t know i’m that may
have been fun 20 years ago i don’t know that that’s super fun i don’t
know that that’s a great solve now let’s shoot here let’s
Orlando Wood (41:45)
Yeah.
Yeah.
You
Yeah. Well,
and to give some context for people who might not understand about
that is that production, you know, with budgets driving down,
production has had this ever expanding new territories. It started
with the Czech Republic and then it moved to to Budapest and and
Poland and Romania and Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia. Well, actually,
South Africa was was on the heels of
Kati Haberstock (42:11)
for
Romania, Slovenia.
Should.
Orlando Wood (42:31)
closer to the front end of all that. ⁓ Yeah. And, and as well, those
first productions took big risks because, you know, the heads of
department down there weren’t particularly the crews were just
learning. so, you know, and, then when those crews get good, they’re
equally as expensive. And so you sort of have to keep going and start
building, ⁓ you know, production communities in all of these places.
And you’re right. I mean, it’s, it requires that strategy requires an
Kati Haberstock (42:33)
Chile, Argentina, yeah, I mean, you
Orlando Wood (42:59)
ever expanding production community of, I don’t want to say third
world, but but certainly third world from the production standpoint,
where you’re just constantly building these small production
communities and it’s just not sustainable. know. Yeah. All right, OK.

Kati Haberstock (43:12)
I find it exhausting. I mean, I’m actually here in Hollywood. I’m not
up actually up in San Francisco. My base is here in Hollywood.
And so I have great love for our city and our city as the OG film
capital of the world. And so back to the AI piece, why don’t we try
and find these? There are some solutions here where we can potentially
keep shoots at home, even if the production, the post-production
budget is cheaper. So I can throw some things back into the live
action budget.
Orlando Wood (43:31)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (43:40)
I don’t know, find it refreshing that, look, we’ve got the producer
part of me has another arrow in my quiver that I can use to maybe
solve a problem and keep people working here at home and make the jobs
more effective and better for clients. I don’t know, I’m an embracer
of the tech for this narrow scope here that we’re talking about.
Orlando Wood (43:48)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I agree, because for as exciting as it was to, you I spend a lot of
time in Budapest, I spend a lot of time in Romania, you know, and for
as exciting as it was, what I found is that when you get to shoot in
LA, it’s like getting into a really comfy bed. You’re just like, ah,
everything is, everything’s gonna be okay. You know, like the
excitement was also anxiety of, I don’t know about this, but.
You know, the greatest crews in the world are here and, know, and
yeah, there’s no place like home. You know, it’s interesting, you
know, you were talking about, we’ve talked a lot about your role in
operations and what’s interesting to me about, you know, the workflows
that you get to use with Gen. AI is prompt and pray still isn’t a
professional strategy and like, yes, everything’s a lot cheaper. But
if you’re constantly just iterating and hoping and.
Kati Haberstock (44:32)
There’s no place like home.
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (44:57)
just figuring everything out. You wouldn’t go into a shoot without a
call sheet or a shot list. So I’m a big advocate that you shouldn’t
actually be getting to the video model that you’re prompting without
key frames and potentially a LoRA and things like that is that what
you wanna make sure is that your most expensive part of that process
is the most highly controlled because prompt and praying can still be
expensive, cheaper than a shoot.
but still an expensive way to go about creatively executing.
Kati Haberstock (45:29)
I also, you know, there are ideas that lend themselves or perhaps
platforms that lend themselves well to maybe a prompt and pray, which
is all that low hanging social fruit and maybe you, but you know, as
Paul Trillo said in his speech the other day, I don’t know, I was at a
couple of conferences that he was speaking at, he’s a director, he’s
a…
Orlando Wood (45:40)
Mm-hmm.
Right, yes.
Kati Haberstock (45:54)
at Asterea and he was saying, know, there’s just so much slopaganda,
right? Like, so you still need all that creative control. And so
prompt and pray, sure, maybe, but it’ll probably give you just a
tremendous amount of slopaganda. ⁓ So you need to come in with control
and creativity and you need people looking at, you need humans, the
human in the mix, right? You need humans looking at it, whether it’s a
budget or whether it’s the creative idea, you know, you can’t let it
go.
Orlando Wood (45:59)
Yeah.
Mm-mm.
Kati Haberstock (46:22)
got to cross check the same way we’d QC anything, right? So, and so
the workflow has to reflect that, I think.
Orlando Wood (46:24)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because.
Yeah. And so, mean,
because I think that, you know, you’ve got two ends of that spectrum.
You’ve got the slop again to where everybody’s like, this is the
answer for every production problem. And then you’ve got people who
are really reticent. And I’ve been shocked at how many creative
directors, especially usually at that level or higher or and producers
who are against the tools. And what I found really strange about that
is it’s always seemed to me that.

because I think that, you know, you’ve got two ends of that spectrum.
You’ve got the slop again to where everybody’s like, this is the
answer for every production problem. And then you’ve got people who
are really reticent. And I’ve been shocked at how many creative
directors, especially usually at that level or higher or and producers
who are against the tools. And what I found really strange about that
is it’s always seemed to me that.
producers and creatives and creative directors, when new tools come
out, there’s this excitement. When the drones came out, it used to be
called the Octocopter, I but I feel like there’s been a lot of
pullback from these tools now.
Kati Haberstock (47:09)
because I think, you know, think, so if anyone is on LinkedIn
recently, you know, it’s like a prompt wizard out there going, look
what I made for no money or, you know, so I think creativity,
creatives feel like maybe they’re under threat. And then of course
there was this,
Orlando Wood (47:16)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (47:24)
What was it that really, really got my goat is that, ⁓ look, we’re
democratizing creativity. Again, somebody else said this better than
me. No, these tools are absolutely, a whole bunch of BS. These tools
are not democratizing creativity. You can always be a creative, either
a good one or a bad one. No, what they’re democratizing is actually
production, like how to make it. So there’s access to how to make
something.
Orlando Wood (47:43)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (47:50)
So I think initially, perhaps all that, like those headlines were
perhaps creating anxiety in the space that, you know, the industry as
we know it is dead and everybody’s gonna lose their jobs. And I think
with any new technology, you will find adopters, you will find people
who are absolutely dead set against it. You will find sort of a mess
in the middle. I think it’s a tool.
Orlando Wood (47:55)
Mm.
Kati Haberstock (48:14)
the same way Q-Take was a tool. Look, look in the pandemic, we figured
something out and then all of a sudden we could shoot in South Africa
and sit here in LA in the middle of the night and watch the shoot.
Remember that? That was awful. But, you know, that was just terrible.
But, you know, so there are always going to be the one known.

the same way Q-Take was a tool. Look, look in the pandemic, we figured
something out and then all of a sudden we could shoot in South Africa
and sit here in LA in the middle of the night and watch the shoot.
Remember that? That was awful. But, you know, that was just terrible.
But, you know, so there are always going to be the one known.
Orlando Wood (48:18)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah
And people did say there
was a moment where people said, is how it’s going to be moving
forward. And that certainly didn’t happen.
Kati Haberstock (48:38)
I know, no,
no, no, no. People actually like sitting in their crappy director’s
chairs and under a tent sweating in a tent and watching the monitor.
No, I think these are tools. I think they’re very powerful tools. They
will not solve everything. They will cause some ruckus, yes, they have
clearly caused some ruckus. I think the jury’s out on…
how much is going to be made. I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot, it’s lot
of propaganda, but I think, you know, I really am a firm believer that
if the creative isn’t there, this is just gonna fall flat like any
other bad idea that you end up shooting. So I think they’re tools, and
I think as a tool, I think there are fantastic merits to them to free
up a creative’s time, perhaps, to get at the better idea, because you
can use, say, chat GPT, you can use chat GPT as like a,
Orlando Wood (49:05)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (49:30)
As an assistant, right? a second creative to bounce ideas off and
maybe it’ll spit out some thoughts and then you’re like, nah, I hate
all of them. But maybe within like, you know, one 700 page prompt
bucket, you get two or three good nuggets and you’re like, let me
build off that one. You’re just doing the same thing as you would be
doing maybe with a partner or somebody else. And you should be doing
that anyway. And as a producer, you should be unpacking. And I mean,
of course, at the moment,

Orlando Wood (49:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-mm. Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (49:58)
It’s like open season on, you ⁓ looks bright, shiny light, new tool.
You know, I’m going to let others figure out which ones are the best
ones. I’m not chasing after every one. I think there are some that are
better than others. I’m a firm believer in ethical use. So I’m a big,
believer in Moon Valley and the folks at Moon Valley and the Mari
system and what they’re building over there, I think is sort of a
fantastic way in.
Orlando Wood (50:02)
Hmm. Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (50:21)
But again, back to my, think it’s going to show up in post, I want to
see it in post-production. I don’t want to see another million dollar
budget come at me from a post-house that I know is using these tools
and can do it for a fraction of the price. And I want to see them used
responsibly and in a way where we can cross check, does the idea work
in 30 seconds? You can check that now. I mean, you should be using a
stopwatch, but you can so use them to support what you’re already
doing.
Orlando Wood (50:26)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (50:50)
That’s my POV and maybe cut some time out of it. And then maybe you
can get a good idea out of it and maybe you can finish something up
and maybe it can solve a problem that you didn’t get on the shoot. Is
it gonna solve everything? I don’t think so.
Orlando Wood (50:52)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s funny. One of the things that just talking to you, I think,
you know, and I felt this before just researching you, and it’s become
evidently clear now is that your superpower is, you know, your
experience, your your interest in a lot of different parts of the
production pipeline, your experience certainly having done it
demonstrably from line producer to post production to animation.
to now running a production department. Agency producers very often
have such a limited sphere of reference because they are very high up
in the ideation. They usually have to rely on vendors for their
expertise and there, if they don’t leave that environment, it’s hard
to get that expertise. How do you, you know, how do you…
get an agency producer to cross that divide or learn that stuff
without just sending them away and going, go work at, know, know,
untold for, you know, two years or, or a biscuit or MJZ or, know, how
do you, how can they learn that where they are?
Kati Haberstock (52:06)
It’s a challenge for sure. It is a challenge. But I make them look at
budgets, I make them look at budgets front to back. I explain and make
them look at risk management. I go through talent rate sheets. I work
through labor laws with them. I make them understand why there are…
Orlando Wood (52:07)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (52:29)
things like eight hour days and 10 hour days and 12 hour days. So what
I’m trying to do is cram, like I think, I said it early on, it’s a
little bit of a boot camp. So I’m bringing in a lot of those threads
from live action and I actually train them and I train them and I
insist that they sit in on sessions that they may, especially the
younger ones, right? They sit in on sessions that they may not be
managing. Like go, sit in a session and then I wanna see the
questions. Like I make them do homework.
which is a little dull sometimes, but I make them do the homework
because really, you know, we are, we’re small. And so there isn’t like
years and years and years of time for you to doodle around and produce
one job and then sit on, sit on your hands and then produce another
Orlando Wood (52:58)
Yeah, smart.
Kati Haberstock (53:14)
we have obviously status meetings and things, and I’m pretty
relentless in trying to fold time in the learning and the teaching,
because we’re a small agency. I don’t have endless staff. I don’t have
that time. You can’t hide behind a gray wall in an office and wait for
a job. You actually have to just get in there and roll up your
sleeves. What I don’t believe in, which I think the ad industry does
with

we have obviously status meetings and things, and I’m pretty
relentless in trying to fold time in the learning and the teaching,
because we’re a small agency. I don’t have endless staff. I don’t have
that time. You can’t hide behind a gray wall in an office and wait for
a job. You actually have to just get in there and roll up your
sleeves. What I don’t believe in, which I think the ad industry does
with
Orlando Wood 2 (53:21)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (53:40)
wild abandon, is that sort of sink or swim method? I don’t think
that’s effective either, which I think is actually quite cruel. think
everybody needs a mentor and everybody, I’m a huge fan of training.
And so I have very specific training tools that I use to get folks up
to speed and in a fairly quick timeline.
Orlando Wood 2 (53:42)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (54:02)
And not just, you can join me on this shoot. I make them do homework.
They actually have to do homework. They have to do things. I want to
see it. I want to see how they prep a budget. I want to see how they
run a session. I want to see how they do public speaking. And then I
give feedback. then I let them at things. They need to produce stuff
because you don’t learn until you make a mistake, right? Because then
you know.
Orlando Wood 2 (54:26)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (54:29)
Yeah, it’s a lot. mean, I’m a bit relentless. But the teaching and the
training and the until they’re ready to go is really critical for me.
⁓
Orlando Wood 2 (54:38)
That’s so smart because
there is no college for it. There’s no university program for it. And
it is remarkable how fast we expect people to just learn it overnight.
Kati Haberstock (54:48)
You know, I mean, I went to film school. Oh yeah, I did. But they
didn’t teach production. Yeah, they certainly did not teach
production. You know, I remember when somebody asked me on one of my
very first jobs, but there were no like production manager and
production coordinator. I was a PA, producer, coordinator, everything.
And you know, somebody asked me for a Kino Flow or a Xenon. And I’m
like, what the hell is that? And you just figure it out, right? You
just like do it. And so,

Orlando Wood 2 (54:50)
Yeah, me too. No, no. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Yeah ⁓
Kati Haberstock (55:16)
Yeah, one of the biggest, biggest foundational tenets of my teaching
is don’t ask me, do the research. I think coming out of physical
production and the time that I was doing physical production and no
Google, no internet, no anything, you know, no cell phones, no fax
machines. I’m dating myself. I think I had a pager for a while there.
Was that that
Orlando Wood 2 (55:34)
Mm-hmm.
Kati Haberstock (55:39)
absolute need to sit down and go through the Yellow Pages and go to
Hennessey and Engels. Yes, they were around that lovely bookshop in
Santa Monica and whatever the other one was called, I can’t remember.
But, and actually sit and look at art books and look at photo books
and do the research, pick up the phone, talk to people, the question
answered. And if you don’t get the question answered from the first
person you talk to, find somebody else. And I think that drive is
Orlando Wood 2 (55:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (56:08)
missing a little bit these days. So I teach, I teach just embracing
doing the research and going after that answer because that’s the job.
Orlando Wood 2 (56:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that is the whole job. I mean, it’s, know, you’re you’re you’re
not expected to know it upfront. Hopefully you’re going to be working
on things that haven’t been done before. And if that’s the case,
nobody has the answer. Your job is to call as many experts as you can
find and get the answer. You know, you’re right. That muscle is the
most important muscle to be flexing.

Kati Haberstock (56:36)
And I think again, sort of back to our earlier conversation, know,
it’s a producer is a special, a good producer is a very special,
whether you’re an agency producer without the live action experience,
I still think you can bring, you can bring that curiosity and that joy
of solving problems. And if you’re not curious, and if you don’t like
solving problems, I would say don’t apply, don’t do this job.
Orlando Wood 2 (56:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (57:04)
because this
Orlando Wood 2 (57:04)
Yeah.
Kati Haberstock (57:04)
is all we do all day long and you kind of need to do it with a smile
on your face and you need to do it with you know joy and appreciation
because that is actually your job and then get a kick out of the out
of the fact that you solved a problem I mean that I get a kick out of
that right
Orlando Wood 2 (57:14)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well,
I mean, on that note, I Kati, thank you so much. That was so fun. I
love talking to producers, especially ones as as articulate and
knowledgeable as you. This was this was a really good time. mean, I
could have taken up your whole next hour with this, but thank you so
much.
Kati Haberstock (57:36)
Well, thank you Orlando and Audrey and here’s to the producers out
there and cheers and keep on solving problems and yeah, and stay
curious because that’s what we got. Anyway, have a great day.
Orlando Wood 2 (57:49)
That’s one, what a great thing to end on. Thank you so much.