"The Timing Expert"
This week my conversation with Shannon Lords of Great Bowery Film. We talked about the importance of casting when assembling talented teams, about working with world class directors and about the art and timing of saying no.
Three Takeaways
- Be willing to jump in and try stuff.
- Put people at the center of your leadership.
- Show your human side.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 51: "The Timing Expert" Shannon Lords
I’m Charles Day and this is Fearless!!
This week, my conversation with Shannon Lords, which is called -
The Timing Expert
“You have to have your timing down with talent and with creative people. You just do.”
When Dan Pink was on the show, we talked about his latest book, When - the scientific secrets of perfect timing. It’s a fascinating analysis of how much influence time of day or the timing of a situation has over us.
Suddenly, the ability to bend time a little more to our will seems like a realistic possibility.
When you’re working with talented people, timing is almost everything. Exceptional leaders develop the ability to recognize when to push and when to take the pressure off.
That skill is not an accident. It’s the direct result of a couple of attributes that are present in the best of the best. A willingness to listen and the intention to make a difference.
That combination is undeniable. The first creates an environment in which people are confident their contribution matters. The second ensures their contribution does matter.
We haven’t talked much yet on the show about the art and act of making content.
I was happy to have the chance to begin to do so with Shannon Lords of Great Bowery Film.
We talked about the importance of casting when assembling talented teams, about working with world class directors and about saying no.
Charles:
Shannon, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for being here.
Shannon Lords:
Thank you for having me.
Charles:
What's your first memory of creativity? When did you feel like creativity first show up in your life?
Shannon Lords:
Let's see. I was a creative kid. I was that kid who would grab coloring books and crayons and go sit by myself and do that for hours and hours. I was pretty easy that way. I could self-entertain very easy. But beyond that I think I was lucky enough my mom was involved in a western art auction. I'm from Montana, so she was very involved with the Charles Russell auction every year. I got to go to the museum and see the pieces that were coming in for auction, and smell the paint, and be in the room with these incredible things that were created that, with my sad watercolor kit, I knew I was never gonna be able to come close to.
That was really fun for me. I'd get to go to the auction some nights and my mom would introduce me to these artists. I just found it fascinating. I got the bug of creative people and being around them at a pretty early age.
Charles:
You said you grabbed painting sets. Was that something your parents wanted you to grab? Do you have a sense of-
Shannon Lords:
I asked for them.
Charles:
You did?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah. I was definitely that ... Yeah, I did. My older brother taught me how to color and would literally hit me if I went outside the lines, so-
Charles:
What does he do today?
Shannon Lords:
He lives in Montana still. He's actually not an artist, but I kind of took that over and ran with it.
Charles:
Is he still coloring inside the lines?
Shannon Lords:
He's still coloring inside the lines. I get to hit him now. No, but that was something I always wanted. When we would go to the store or whatever, I'd always gravitate toward, "Oh, I want this paint set," or, "I want this coloring set," I had to have colored pencils. As my friends can attest to today, I'm still like, "Oh, shiny things! Colored pencil!" I can't say that I'm much of an artist or drawer, but I still enjoy those kinds of things and playing with them for sure.
Charles:
And you studied what in school?
Shannon Lords:
Photography.
Charles:
Oh, really?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, my major in university was photography. So I gravitated toward that, I'd say, in high school. I started really ... My camera never left my hand, I would say, for about five years, in my last year of high school and all the way through college.
Charles:
How old were you when you took your first picture, do you remember?
Shannon Lords:
Oh, well, my grandparents always had the Polaroid. They thought that was the coolest thing ever, so I would-
Charles:
Well, and it was, right?
Shannon Lords:
It was, right?
Charles:
Certainly was the coolest thing ever.
Shannon Lords:
It was kind of amazing. Yeah, probably six or seven. I thought it was really fun, so I'd always be like, "Can I take one? Can I take one?"
Charles:
Did you have the ones with the film on it, where you had to time it?
Shannon Lords:
Oh, yeah.
Charles:
If you got it wrong, it didn't work.
Shannon Lords:
Yep, it was totally wrong, yeah. Then all the way through all the iterations of it. I still have them today. I'm obsessed with my ... I have the little Fuji Instax and I have my eye on the new little Leica mini Polaroid, too.
Charles:
I was sad actually as a kid when they stopped with the film peel back and they just produced the thing, because it was gonna happen. The magic was, "Did we get this right?" Right? The reveal.
Shannon Lords:
Exactly. Oh, yay! I actually got something.
Charles:
And there's another two dollars and fifty cents gone, right? Those things were expensive!
Shannon Lords:
And they are again!
Charles:
Are they?
Shannon Lords:
Trust me. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Charles:
I know, my dad, like, "Don't take that picture!" It was really sad.
Shannon Lords:
Don't take a bunch of pictures that are really bad! Yeah.
Charles:
Make sure ... Give that camera to me.
So, from college and university to where?
Shannon Lords:
From college and university then I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and-
Charles:
Join the club.
Shannon Lords:
Yep, exactly! Shocker. So, I ran away to Club Med and worked for Club Med for three years as a G.O., a Gentil Organisateur.
Charles:
Which Club Med?
Shannon Lords:
I was in Cancun, Sonora Bay, Turks and Caicos, and then Copper Mountain, Colorado in the winters.
Charles:
Wow. So full time?
Shannon Lords:
Yep. Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Charles:
What was that like? I don't think I've ever met anybody who worked at Club Med.
Shannon Lords:
It was incredible. In the summer I taught summer sports: wind surfing, sailing, and water skiing. In the winter I taught snow ski. God, it was incredible, as you can imagine. I remember Cancun was the first village that I worked at. At 10:00 A.M. and at 2:00 P.M. you had to go do the sun dance, which was, you had to gather around the pool and they'd play this silly music and you'd do the silly dance. I remember looking around going, "I'm being paid to do this! Yay!" You were in shows at night and you taught your sports during the day. I met some of my best friends that I have from all over the world. That's actually how I came to work in the film business, too, through connections that I made while working at Club Med.
Charles:
Were you still taking pictures?
Shannon Lords:
I was taking pictures but that wasn't my main job. No, I was teaching sports.
Charles:
So, Club Med led you to where?
Shannon Lords:
It led me to Los Angeles. I made a connection in the film business, because you hung out with the guests. It's not like a cruise ship where you're not allowed to talk to people. You actually were made to. You sat with people and you just talked to them and had dinner with them.
There was a guest at Club Med who was working in the film business. He was quite high up at Panavision Hollywood, and offered a job to me if I ever decided to move back to the United States and work for real. I called him up when I was coming back from the island and he followed through on his word and offered me a job at Panavision.
But also, he was like, "I don't think that's really where you belong. I think production's maybe where you'd be better suited." So, he offered me some connections in that world, too, and I met a producer that was starting a film. He hired me and that was my first job in the film business.
I had met some other people and they gave me advice, who to contact and who to reach out to. It was pretty scary at first. You're like cold calling people trying to get another job.
I ended up in the commercial side of things, in commercial production.
Charles:
Working for who?
Shannon Lords:
My first commercial company I worked for was a place called HSI Productions. I remember cold calling them for months and trying to get in, and then finally ... It's always connections. Through one connection or another I finally spoke to a production manager who was also freelance. She was starting a job and she was like, "I have a position."
That first job, I worked for a week and the production manager's like, "Okay, you need to fill out your time card."
I'm like, "Alright." So, I fill out the time card. I see the thing that says rate and I realize that I didn't even ask what the rate was. I was just so thrilled to get this job. I walked over, and I'm like, "Well, I don't know ... I'm sorry, I don't know what the rate is."
She was a nasty person, and she was like, "Well, I pay the same for prep and shoot!"
And I'm like, "Okay, can you tell me what that is, please?" I didn't know.
She's like, "Well, it's 175 a day."
And I'm like, "Okay." On the TV show I was literally making 75 dollars a day. I'm calmly like, "Okay." And I write it down. Then when I left I was doing a happy dance in the parking lot, because I'm like, "I'm rich! I'm rich! I made it!"
So, I fell in love with it because it is fast pace, it was exciting, and every job was different. There's definitely a finite beginning and end to it. That part was very exciting. But then you're looking for another job. It's 10 days and then all the sudden, I don't know what I'm ... Do I have enough money to last until I get another job?
Charles:
And you go to where, in terms of-
Shannon Lords:
In terms of my highest? In the-
Charles:
Yeah.
Shannon Lords:
Well, I was a freelance producer and working for incredible companies like MJZ, RadicalMedia, RSA, HSI, like I said. Then I started working for a company that represented feature directors when they would come out and do commercials. I was paired up in producing for Spike Lee, and Wim Wenders, Barry Levinson, Bryan Singer. That was pretty incredible. Once you're there and you're doing that, it's really fun. It's pretty great.
Charles:
As you are being introduced to that caliber of, not just director, but I mean, auteur really, right? I mean, they bring everything.
Shannon Lords:
Incredible. Yeah.
Charles:
As you started to engage with people of that kind of talent, and reputation, and profile, what were you learning about how to gain their trust, and how to help them do what they needed to do from a creative standpoint?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, I think from the creative standpoint a lot of times, like you said, they would bring everything. They definitely had their tool chest that they wanted to work from and other creatives that they wanted to work with. But I'd been lucky enough, at the same time, to work with very prolific commercial directors as well.
The talent, the directors of photography, production designer, those people, they went back and forth between features and commercials. The funnest thing was to be able to bring someone new to them that maybe they hadn't worked with before, a new DP that they hadn't worked with, or a production designer, or things like that. By being able to have that kind of Rolodex of people at my access that I could introduce to them, I think helped a lot in gaining their trust in collaborating with me and feeling comfortable with me.
Charles:
Were you conscious of casting? Not just the talent, obviously, but in terms of the kind of personality that would work with Win Wenders versus-
Shannon Lords:
Oh, absolutely. That's what it's all about. Oh, no. That's what our business is all about, to be honest. It's all about personality. Someone can be great at their skill, but if it's not the right personality to be with those people, it's a disaster. I think that's something I've navigated pretty well all the way through my career. It's just super important.
Charles:
As you built your own Rolodex of talent, pretty diverse talent as well, there's a number of different creative disciplines that you encounter, are there characteristics that you've seen that are consistently present in the best people?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, I think the best people are humble and, obviously very smart, but humble and respectful. I think the best ones really are when it comes really down to it. I have to say that's what I've noticed the most, to be honest.
Charles:
Yeah, that's so powerful. So, you're producing for the best, of the best, what happened next?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, so, producing for incredible people. The freelance lifestyle was great. I loved it. I fell right into it and didn't have an issue with it.
Then a director named Morgan Spurlock, who I had worked with quite a lot when he would do commercials ... We always kept in touch. He wanted to open a commercial division of his film company. He was signed with another company that repped him and he's like, "My contracts up. I'm really thinking about ... I don't really want to sign with another company. Why can't I just open a commercial division of my own company?"
And I'm like, "Well, you can. You just need an executive producer, and some sales reps, and you can have ... the rest of your infrastructure is there. Yeah, you can definitely do that."
He's like, "Well, can you think of someone who might be interested in that position?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I'll get you some names." Just not at all interested. I was so in my world.
A couple of months later we were doing another project together and he's like, "Look, I really want to do this. Can you think of somebody?"
I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I owe you names! I'm so sorry!"
I was talking to my husband, and he's like, "He's asking you. You know he's asking you." I'm like, "Oh! Oh, he is!" So, we talked about it and tried to decide what that would be like for me to go on staff and be one place all the time. What would make it worth that?
Morgan was wonderful, had amazing contacts, did amazing things, and I thought, well, this could be really fun. Let's give it a try. So, I called him up and I said, "I have the perfect person." And he's like, "Who?" I'm like, "Me!" He's like, "Thank God!"
We launched War Paint, which was the commercial division of his film production company. I ran that for three years.
Charles:
Were you surprised to find yourself struggling with going to work full time after your initial-
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, I knew that was going to be difficult, and that was-
Charles:
Giving up the freedom.
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, certainly. Yeah. I was lucky though. I mean, honestly, he was very free with me and how I worked. I was still based in Los Angeles. His office was here. I've always been bi-coastal so I called my own shots of when I was there and here. I eased into it, if you will. It was one place and I was at the same place all the time, but I had some freedom with it, which was nice. It was, "Okay, I'm not out on a scout. I'm not text scouting today. I'm not going to casting call backs." All those things that I was so used to doing in each new project. [crosstalk]
Charles:
We underestimate our own adaptability, don't we? The notion of not knowing where the next thing is coming from can be terrifying. And then, the notion of knowing exactly where the next thing is coming from can be terrifying.
Shannon Lords:
Can be equally as terrifying, yes. Absolutely.
Charles:
We adapt. I think it's part of how the species has survived, obviously.
You're working full time. You're building a business from essentially scratch. What was that like?
Shannon Lords:
It was so hard. It was so hard, but great at the same time. I was really sort of a one woman show. We kept it small because that was how he'd always operated coming from the documentary side of things. It made sense to. I thought it was silly to pile on a bunch of overhead and make it really difficult for us to maintain the business.
It was hard, but it was also really satisfying. We did some really big, great campaigns, we signed directors, and all those things. We won a Gold Lion at Cannes, our first. We launched in May, and that year at Canned we won a Lion for a film that he had done. It was the first in that category of branded content. That was exciting. It was hard, and exciting, and scary all at the same time.
Charles:
Branded content was just becoming a thing back then?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, it was the first time that they actually gave an award in that category. They had created it, but we submitted the film and it was the greatest movie I ever sold. It was all about marketing and product placement in film, and what that means. They were kind enough to give the Lion for the film, which was great. We were there. Got to accept a Gold Lion.
Charles:
On stage.
Shannon Lords:
On stage.
Charles:
That was a moment.
Shannon Lords:
I was by myself! Morgan had already left.
Charles:
So you went up on stage by yourself?
Shannon Lords:
Oh God. I was shaking.
Charles:
Was that the Saturday night show?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah.
Charles:
In front of the whole-
Shannon Lords:
Oh yeah.
Charles:
Jammed-
Shannon Lords:
Oh yeah.
Charles:
Packed-
Shannon Lords:
The jam packed theater. Oh yeah.
Charles:
Quite a moment for you.
Shannon Lords:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
No, it was incredible. I had the craziest smile glued to my face. I had ridiculous high heels on, and I was like, just don't fall down, just don't trip.
Charles:
I'm sure you're not alone in that sentiment.
Shannon Lords:
Oh, I can imagine, yeah. Yeah. My friends from RadicalMedia were great. They were sitting just in front of me. They're like, "You're gonna be great!" As I came back down those rickety stairs and I'm walking back, they were just laughing. It was just really funny, but it was incredible.
Charles:
What was your next move?
Shannon Lords:
That went for three years and it was great, but when you know the run has come and it's maybe time to make a move ... I went to work for another commercial company called Humble, which was also based in New York, but they had an L.A. office. They wanted to make a change there. They wanted to someone to take over that L.A. office, and run that side, and take the West coast operations, if you will. I'd known them for a long time. I'd worked for them before. I thought it was a great opportunity, so I made that move.
Charles:
What skills have you realized you needed working full time and dealing with creative people through that lens, versus assembling a team and casting it day to day?
Shannon Lords:
The fun thing about that move is that it shifted. Yes, you're still running a business, and staffing, and all that sort of stuff, but that was taken a little bit off my shoulders. There was a little more support obviously, and structure. Then my role shifted really more to the creatives, and getting to work closely with the creatives in working through jobs and landing business. But also drawing new talent into the business too, which was really great. That was one thing they really trusted me with and had me do. I went out and was able to sign a few new directors to their roster on a different level than what they had done before in different areas. That was really fun. I really, really liked that.
Charles:
One of the things I've always been fascinated about in terms of production, or post production companies ... Obviously I ran a post production company, and so the whole idea of talent acquisition, is real thing, right? I mean, it's a full time endeavor.
Shannon Lords:
It's a full time endeavor, and it's so important to a company because if you're not constantly doing that your company's not going to grow. It's not going to continue to thrive.
Charles:
What was your pitch based on?
Shannon Lords:
It was different every time. I pulled in a director. I brought a director over that I had literally started working with as a coordinator at HSI. I had grown my career up around this person. For him in particular, he needed to rebrand and change the path he was on. That was the pitch, if you will, on that side.
Then I had this great young directing team who, they'd just been doing it on their own and they were doing well. I'm like, look, with this whole machine behind you, think how much better you can do and how you can focus on creative and not hustling your own jobs.
It's just different. It's different for every single talent that you come across. I think you have to see what they need in their career. You have to see their strengths and what you can add to their strengths. Also, what their strengths will bring to your business, because it has to be that match. It's like a marriage, you both have to bring something to the table.
Charles:
Was it hard for you to let go of people that you'd brought in that weren't succeeding?
Shannon Lords:
That weren't working out? Yeah. It's still hard. I'm terrible with that. It's necessary, but it's always hard. I always feel it pretty deeply when I have to part with people, for sure.
Charles:
Does it feel like personal failure?
Shannon Lords:
Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, I do. I definitely tend take that on to myself, successes and making someone's career successful. I think that's hard not to, in this business, and in this position. Certainly.
But, I've had some good friends in our same business who've been in it a long time, some great mentors. They've given me words of wisdom to really get through that and be like, "Look, it's on both sides. They understand it, too. Maybe they don't understand it right now, but they will."
Usually, when you part, it's better for both parties, because it's not working. They're going to find a place that's going to work better for them, and it frees you up to be able to bring something else in that's going to grow your business.
Charles:
It's also so damaging to everybody else, isn't it? When you've got somebody who's not working, who's taking up a ton of effort and energy, their energy-
Shannon Lords:
It took a long time. Absolutely.
Charles:
They're frustrated, or worse sometimes. You're really struggling. It just takes a lot of energy away from helping other people. I think it's really difficult.
Shannon Lords:
The energy goes to a weird place, too. It's not the right kind of energy because it's, I don't want to say desperate, but it is. Your focus is a different way. When someone's doing well, or if they're growing, and things are going well, the whole approach that you have to things is different. The energy is different for sure.
Charles:
There's an interesting human dynamic, isn't there? Which is, most of us ... And I include myself in this, it took me a long time to learn this lesson but ... I think most of us hold on way too long. We think somehow, magically, we'll be able to turn this thing around and say something or do something that will make it work.
Shannon Lords:
I think you're probably right, yeah. There's also that, what if I let go too soon, and they go someplace, and they're wildly successful? Then I am, truly, a failure.
Charles:
Which almost never happens, as well, by the way. Right?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, exactly. That's true.
Then someone knocked on my door and tempted me away.
Charles:
Which was?
Shannon Lords:
Great Bowery.
Charles:
Tell us that story. What was the temptation?
Shannon Lords:
I got a phone call from a friend who was helping them try and open up the film division of this big conglomerate of photo agents and talent agents.
Charles:
Just describe Great Bowery when you first encountered it.
Shannon Lords:
I got a phone call with one of the principals Howard Bernstein, who has Bernstein & Andriulli. Just one of the companies under the umbrella. We had about an hour long phone call. He just described the company to me and then he sent me a couple of articles.
I had already done some research about ... I'm like, what is this? I'd never heard of them. They definitely weren't in my circle of knowledge, of our world of film companies.
I opened up Great Bowery and saw all of these incredible photographers that were under this roof. Me coming from the photography background, these are people that I had studied in school, I'd looked at their stuff, I looked them up online, I followed their Instagrams. I was like, Wow! That's pretty incredible. Look at all these people they have.
So that was kind of the first thing-
Charles:
So, Great Bowery is a collection of different entities, different businesses.
Shannon Lords:
Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. They're all under one roof, but they're all technically Great Bowery. Yeah.
Charles:
So, the conversation is ...
Shannon Lords:
The conversation is, look, we want to open a film division because many of our photographers are also shooting film. And they're doing that through other production companies. They're signed to other production companies.
Charles:
Why shoot one frame when you can shoot 30 frames a second, right? Exactly.
Shannon Lords:
Exactly. Being smart business people that they all are, they all have incredibly successful businesses, they were like, why are we not doing this? Why don't we have a film division that's handling that part of the business? They saw the opportunity to have one central film division that could service all five of these other companies.
That's what they were looking for. They were looking for an executive producer who understood the film business, and understood the commercial business. That was the first introduction to it.
Charles:
The appeal to you was photography [crosstalk] That DNA.
Shannon Lords:
The appeal to me was the talent. Ed Olive, [BnA], [CLN ], [NA Piece Treaters]. They all had incredible people on their rosters.
But the glaring startup-
Charles:
Again.
Shannon Lords:
Flashing light, just went into my face. That's what scared me. It was scary and exciting at the same time. Which, I guess all moves and new opportunities are, right?
Charles:
Which doesn't seem to have stopped you too often in your life.
Shannon Lords:
I vetted it pretty carefully and went back to my mentors. I've had some really great ones in the film business. Spoke to a few different ones, and they were like, "You know, this sounds pretty incredible. It's really different. As you know, our business is changing. This place looks like a place that understands that and is going to embrace that. You can really be on the cusp of that. So, I'd be there when they do."
Charles:
Were you clear about what you needed to be successful by that point? Had you reached that point where you were creating architecture for them about what this needed to do, how this needed to work?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, end of the day, it's talent. I mean, you have to have great talent to be successful. That's what it's all about. If anyplace had incredible talent, these people did. Infrastructure was a little scary for me. I was like, okay, I have to rebuild that, but I was lucky enough to be able to ... Again, they trusted me to structure it the way that I knew it had worked before. I'm not saying it's the best way, but-
Charles:
It works.
Shannon Lords:
It's working and it worked. That part of the structure was good. They were incredibly supportive. I mean, they really were. They trust me to do things, but at the same time when I needed something, or if I wasn't sure about something, I could definitely go back to a few key people ... Howard being one, and talk through with him, make the decision together. Be like, "Yeah, okay, this sounds like a good plan, let's move this way." That was great. It was a startup, but it was a little more supportive of a startup than what I'd been in before.
Charles:
What's the first year been like?
Shannon Lords:
It was incredible. We were busy our first year. Which, many film companies, they lose money the first year, or don't do any business, or don't shoot a thing. We were busy, which was great. I think the same of any startup it's very up and down, and exciting at the same time.
Lots of new things though. It's been a big learning curve because I'm not just dealing with the strict broadcast commercial business that I was really pretty dialed in to. Could do with my eyes closed, if you will. This is a much broader ask, and a much broader offering, that we have, than I've ever had before. Which is exciting and scary at the same time. Because you get this opportunity, a job and/or project, and you're like, "Oh God, how are we going to do this?" You say yes, but then you're like, "Okay, we have to figure this out now."
Charles:
That's a big difference isn't it? Because your point, when you are producing in an environment that you understand so well, you just become more and more efficient about it. I don't know you except for the first half hour, but I think a lot of people just tend to default to the way that they've done it in the past. And without even realizing it, start putting the same people together and the work starts to become homogenized. The challenges of a situation like this, just pull your creativity from every angle, right? To your point, I'm not even sure I know what the problems are, let alone how to solve them.
Shannon Lords:
Exactly. Yeah, no. That's exactly it. I do try and really consciously think, when you're looking at a project, is there a different way to crack this? Because, everybody does that. You default to what you know. That's easy, so you go there, but then it's like, alright, let's back up for a second. How else can we put this together? How else can we solve this problem? I've had to do that on almost every project that we've had in, to be honest, because there's just so many different things that we're promising and that we're offering. It's like, alright, I've offered this and I promised it, now I better figure out how to deliver this. Lucky, knock on wood, it's been going really, really well.
Charles:
I think that [Barry Besley] has challenged the brief, right? Go all the way back to, is this even the right question, are we even being asked to solve the right question?
Shannon Lords:
Exactly, are we focusing on the right question?
Charles:
Have you felt the freedom to be able to ask that question yourself?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely. I think that's one place that I've grown, in not being afraid to do that. I think, again, to be successful and to give someone what they need, sometimes they have to be asked that question again, because they don't know. They're being so challenged as well.
Charles:
I'm assuming that the changing and amorphous nature of what you might describe as the content food chain has helped a lot, actually. I mean, when I was running a film editing company, we knew exactly where we sat on the food chain. We knew our role and who we reported to, and who reported to us. Many more people in the first group and very few people in the second. We also understood where we sat in our own band within the food chain, within the context of post production. Now it's very different than that. You can be whatever you choose to be and can prove you are.
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, and it's all about proving who you are, to be honest. It really is. That was one of the biggest challenges of this first year, because people don't know who Great Bowery are, and who Great Bowery Film are. As much as being successful and producing, it's also been all about, hey, this is who we are. This is what we offer. We're a viable company that can handle your business. You're not going to be left holding the bag because you trusted this project, and this money, to this company that's only done two or three productions. That's been a big challenge.
Charles:
You're in an environment where there's very little structure. There's very little expectation other than figure out how to make this work. There's no heritage or history. There's an industry that will let you be whoever you want to be if you prove that that's valuable. In the context of all of that, how do you lead? What have you learned about your own leadership?
Shannon Lords:
I have learned that, yes, you have to be confident in yourself. You have to trust in what you've learned and trust in what you know. I think that's easy to question a lot of times, and I think I still do. I'll get off a phone call and be like, did I not understand that person at all? Did I answer the wrong question?
Charles:
Did I not ask the right question? Did you find your confidence was limited to start with because you were working in a different kind of medium?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah. Certainly.
Charles:
Did that effect your leadership, to start with?
Shannon Lords:
Probably a little bit. To be honest, my leadership to start with ... I was, again, a one man show in the beginning. It was all about checking myself, a lot. But yes, that definitely effected me.
It was hard. It was really hard. Again, it was a lot of questioning myself and double checking things. Writing an email and reading 15 times before hitting send. Just because, no one's here, I can't bounce it off somebody and be like, "Hey, how does this sound?" Or "What do you think of this?" It was a lot of that.
Like I said, I did have people down the hall that I could walk down to just, again, they don't speak my language. They can give me advice or give me an answer but they didn't always necessarily understand what the question was that I was asking.
Charles:
What's the biggest mistake you made so far, do you think?
Shannon Lords:
The biggest mistake. Let's see. Sometimes I will let things steer me. I do have a lot of respect for people in their own markets and their own places. I think I've let people say, "Oh, we should change this." And because they were coming from this other area, and their medium was involved in the decision that was being made, I defaulted to their decision. Thinking, "Oh, well, they know better than I do." And even though my gut said, "No, we should do this." I went that way instead of following my gut and the way that I would have done it.
So, I feel like I've really gotten the benefit of being able to listen to those guys and learn, but you have to pick that. You cherry pick it and figure out. Okay, this piece works with this. I can put this together for this particular deal, but maybe listening to his advice on this one, when I know this person is a little bit more sensitive, isn't the right advice to take.
Charles:
When you're working with that range of talent, and also, pulling back, your experience with world class directors, what have you found you have to bring from a leadership standpoint to get the best out of them? How do you manage that, the challenge of getting them in the right mind set, and in the right place at the right time, to do what it is that you need them to do?
Shannon Lords:
I find it's, so much, timing. You have to have your timing down with talent and with creative people. You just do. I don't know if it's a learned skill or if it's an intuitive thing.
Not to brag, but I feel like that's a skill that I have. I've always done pretty well that way with very high-end demanding talent and being able to read them and know. I can't pick up the phone and call him and ask him that question again right now. Or, you know what? I'm just going to take care of this situation. It will be fine because, frankly he doesn't have time to think about it, and he's not going to. I just think it's a little bit intuitive. Knowing, alright, this is the time to bother them and talk to them, this is the time to just take it on and deal with it. Then the rest of it falls out, shakes out.
Charles:
Is there a time to say no and is there a way to say no?
Shannon Lords:
There's definitely always a time to say no. I think a way to say no, again, it's an art form. I think it's something you learn as you go. I think you have to learn with each person how to say no to people. I have to check myself. I think everybody does. Your guts like, "No! I've said it before."
Charles:
What's the biggest thing you've had to say no to?
Shannon Lords:
To talent who want to come on and be on the roster. That's really hard. There's some talented people and they want so much to come in and be on that roster. Being able to say no, but also, you have to give them something. You can't just say no and not come up with something else to help them, or to help yourself. You have to figure out what that is. Like, "No, the reels not where it needs to be right now. Here's what we need to do to get it there." Or maybe I've deferred talent to other companies that suit them better. Something like that.
But I think you have to be really careful with that, with talent, with employees, with anybody, because you don't know where those people are going to be in a year or two years. They may be someone that you want to work with down the road, but just right now isn't the right timing. I think timing is everything.
I think when saying no, you can defer to that pretty honestly when you have to give that answer. Hopefully you can give them something, an answer that extends past that no, to help them in their journey and wherever they go next, or if they end up coming back to you.
Charles:
When it comes to working with, in your case, really high powered directors, right? So you're working with Spike, you're working with Wim, or Bryan, or somebody. Is there a way to say no to somebody like that?
Shannon Lords:
That gets more complicated. To certain things, yes, and certain things, no. I think that the creative world and business, they're afforded a lot, and no isn't a word that many of those people hear very much. I think it has to be a well placed no.
As a freelance producer, I can just call up the executive producer and be like, "He wants 15 helicopters. You have to tell him no." But now I'm that person, so again, it's just knowing their personality, and knowing what makes them tick. Is it a creative driven answer to a question that I need to give or is it a money driven question? Where is that coming from? Why do they want this? How do we come up with a solution?
In the film business you usually don't say no. You come up with an answer. You come up with a solution. That's how I usually try to come at it, rather than just a no. Like, "Well, maybe let's do five helicopters instead and we'll fly them three times."
Charles:
Does it have to be a helicopter? Could it be a really tall building?
Shannon Lords:
Exactly, yeah. No is not an answer that, in our business, we tend to give very often. It's just not how ... It's ingrained in your head that you don't say no.
Charles:
Given that, how do you define success?
Shannon Lords:
Success, I think, is ... There's a few different ways. People coming back to you. In the business, repeat business, that to me is success. Having your director walk away and feel like they have something that they're proud of, that they've put together and they're excited about. To walking on a shoot and everything's there, the sandwiches are being made, and the camera trucks arrived. Those are all little successes, but they all build up to be the big success of the business.
Charles:
When you're putting a team together, I mean, obviously success through that lens is, do they work well together? How do you create an environment that allows people who might know each other a bit, who might never have met each other before, how do you create an environment that allows them to come together, and create this shared vision, essentially? And then-
Shannon Lords:
And then let them go?
Charles:
and then let them go again?
Shannon Lords:
I think the key to that is preparation. Getting all the pieces that you possibly can, asking every question that you can think of that they might have, and trying to provide them with as much of that puzzle and that picture as you can, before they walk in. Presenting it in a way that they understand.
You've been working on this with the director for two weeks and then the DP is going to come in. I'm a Virgo so I had every little detail had to be color coded. Every little piece. Every little answer that I could think that they might ask. Every piece of research that I could do for them ahead of time and have this whole package together for them so that when they came in they had all the tools. Because their creativity and their talent, they have. I can't control that, but what I can control are the tools that they're going to use to be successful. Let me get them all of those things so that when they come together they have the same information in front of them, they have the same blue print, and then they bring their creative vision to it. Then they can take it and run with it from there.
Charles:
What would people be surprised to know about you that they don't already know?
Shannon Lords:
I was a drummer in high school. I played in a swing band.
Charles:
Were you really?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah! I was. Yeah.
Charles:
Do you drum now?
Shannon Lords:
I don't drum now. My husband's dying for me to drum. He's like, "I'll buy you a drum set!" I'm like, "No, honey, that was back in high school." Yeah.
Charles:
Have you played since high school?
Shannon Lords:
No. Little percussion instruments. I'll pick something up, I can't resist, and play around with it, but no, I haven't played in years.
Charles:
Wow. Are you resistant to play again?
Shannon Lords:
A little bit, yeah. What if I'm no good? I'm sort of competitive. I always like to be good at whatever I do.
Charles:
What if you're great?
Shannon Lords:
God, I might run away and join a band!
Charles:
Sounds like you'd have at least one fan or follower.
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Charles:
What are you afraid of?
Shannon Lords:
Basements.
Charles:
Really?
Shannon Lords:
Can't stand them.
Charles:
Because?
Shannon Lords:
Can't stand them. We had a creepy basement when I was a kid. My brothers, as torture, would lock me in the basement if they really wanted to be mean to me. Horrible.
Charles:
Where did that come from? Do you have any idea? Too many horror films too early on?
Shannon Lords:
Too many horror films. I think so. Yeah, I think so.
Charles:
Scarred for life. What about professionally, what are you afraid of?
Shannon Lords:
Professionally, I think ... God, I think letting people down. You're in that position of really nurturing somebody's career. I always want to do my best for those people, and make sure that they're successful and enjoying what they do too. I think you work so hard all the way through this business, and you get to a certain point where you want to work with people that you like and you want to enjoy what you do. Trying to find that balance of success, but also liking it.
Charles:
I have three takeaways for you.
Shannon Lords:
Tell me.
Charles:
I will.
First, clearly, consistently across your whole journey, is your willingness to jump in and try stuff. It's not always evident I think in every leader, but I think in your case it clearly has been part of your narrative and your journey. You've discovered a lot, I think, about yourself, and how to work with other people, because you've been willing to do that.
Two, I think, is there's a real humanity about you. I think the casting skills you've talked about, which is clearly there, because I think you can't build successive businesses almost from scratch, or re-engineer, without the ability to cast well. I think that skill is almost always a reflection of somebody who's got human beings at their heart.
And I think connected to that, the third thing I would say, is just there's a real generosity and warmth about you that I'm sure draws people to you, and makes even the nos possible for them to accept, and find a different way to see that. She didn't really say no, she said something else.
How do those three resonate?
Shannon Lords:
Yeah, that definitely feels pretty right. It's very flattering though, thank you, but that feels right. I think, particularly with the nos. I always feel like it's a little sneaky in my nos, but-
Charles:
Did you notice that was a no?
Shannon Lords:
But in a good way. Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna say no, but maybe they won't noticed. Yeah.
Charles:
My faculty advisor once told me that a no was just an invitation to have a different conversation.
Shannon Lords:
I like that. Yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah, exactly. I think that's, hopefully, how I approach those nos.
Charles:
Shannon, thank you so much for being here today.
Shannon Lords:
Thank you for having me!
Charles:
This has been fantastic.
Shannon Lords:
That was great.
Charles:
You've been listening to Fearless: The Art of Creative Leadership. If you like this and you want to hear more, please go to iTunes. Take a second and just rate the show. We'll be back next week with more. Thanks again for listening.
