This week, we’re shining our company spotlight on the London-based Documentary Production company, Candour. We spoke with Co-founder and producer Zachary Crawley on the studio’s humble beginnings and its current status as a defiantly small outfit operating somewhere between the creative agencies and the production companies. According to Zach, that just means they love the ideas as much as they love making them happen!
How was your company born and where are you based?
We started Candour at university down in Falmouth. That was nearly 10 years ago (sheesh). Which basically means that we haven’t got any industry experience being led by experts…we’ve been making it up as we go along.
To be honest, I’m quite insecure about that - but from what I hear the ‘industry’ isn’t always a nice place to be. Hopefully that means that our little Bermondsey based production company is living is blissful ignorance to the bad and boring.
What was the biggest challenge to the growth of your company?
I often speak about growth with Ben (co-founder, head of post) - we ask ourselves why a lot. Why grow? Who is it for? Ego, success, quality, other people? Our aim is that we’ll reach a point where our team are able to really truly thrive.
Being too small means that we’re all fighting fires alongside doing our best work. We’d like to be doing our best work more of the time than the fighting fires part. If you’re a fire fighter (in the figurative sense) we’d love to hear from you.
Which was the first huge success that you can remember?
We make a lot of doc work alongside our commercial work. We produced a documentary called Gold and Ashes with director Feruza Afewerki about the community of people who lived in and around Grenfell Tower.
They’re a community who haven’t always had control over their own voice. The media, lawyers, people like us have told their stories for them. At the end of a community viewing of the documentary someone came up to us at the end and said “Thank you so much. You’ve made our film. This is our voice.” That’s been our biggest success so far.
What’s the biggest opportunity for you and your company in the next year?
We’ve been quite an insular production company to date, often crewing whole projects internally. It’s been so much fun building our team and developing our voice. We’re really excited about collaborating with more freelancers, building relationships and making the best content we can.
Can you explain your team’s creative process? What makes it unique?
We’ve always believed in the power of a great story. Storytelling is what binds us all together right? I wish I had a better answer but getting to know the story, seeing it through a variety of perspectives and thinking about how that story can be re-presented in an engaging way…thats about it.
Also, knowing where you have your best ideas - thats helpful. For me, it’s that moment when you’re trying to get to sleep. The world is dark and quiet but those cogs are turning and the ideas tend to just drop in.
How does your team remain inspired and motivated?
I think that we’re inspired to make better work than the last one. No offence to the last one, but we’re all about learning and improving. It’s also really important that we all remain individually inspired and motivated for ourselves.
As a creative you in charge. Nobody can make you care, so you’ve got to figure out how to care more and then the creativity (that’s within you) will make itself know.
How has COVID-19 affected your company?
We hired our first employees between lockdowns. It wasn’t because of the pandemic, but it might indicate that it didn’t affect us too much. We work with a lot of D2C companies who, in some cases, we’re doing really well in that time and were hungry for content. We just had to work out how to make it in a safe way. Constraints can be great for creativity.
Which agencies do you gain inspiration from? Do you have any heroes in the industry?
As you know, we don’t have heaps of real-life industry experience so my inspirations/heroes have been admired from afar. I’ve been inspire by big ones like Droga5 pushing ideas and challenging me to dive a little deeper. I’ve been inspired by some amazing directors too. Recently Molly Burdett and Charlotte Regan.
What is one tip that you would give to other agencies looking to grow?
Dang. I don’t think that I have much to offer here. If I had to give some advice I’d probably ask you why you needed to grow? Can you achieve what you want to achieve right now? Don’t push your ambitions down the road because you’re not ‘big enough yet’.
If you want to produce your own work on the side for fun, start with something small and achievable. Critique every growth decision against what you want to leave behind when you retire and get red hot at bridge.
How do you go about finding new clients/business? (Pitching, work with retainers, etc.)
Existing clients are new clients too. Develop existing relationships first, new ones second. But at the same time, balance being reactive with proactive. What’s the work that you really want to be a part of and go after those clients.
When you make an approach, be friendly and offer to buy them coffee or lunch. Food brings people together better than LinkedIn (sorry). We don’t really believe in retainers - when clients ask for them we suggest that they won’t get the best from us like that, keep us on our toes. When pitching, really listen to what your prospective client is saying.
The brief might say one thing but really they’re saying something completely different, probably something you pick-up on emotionally. Then I’d pitch a safe option - the one that does what they want - and a fun option - the one that you really want to make. Then just pray they choose the right one ;)
What’s your one big hope for the future of the industry?
I hope that we can become more inclusive and give young people without the necessary connections and qualifications better opportunities to learn and grow. I hope that brands, businesses and organisations put their budget into making great creative work and give less of it to Google and Facebook. Those guys are overrated…I think.
Do you have any websites, books or resources that you would recommend?
I sign up to a bunch of newsletters including yours (Creative Pool), also Little Black Book, Shots etc. Vimeo staff picks and the people we follow are so inspiring. I’d recommend Simon Sinek for figuring out what makes you you.
Malcom Gladwell and Michael Lewis for incredible storytelling about things you don’t care about. My best resources are my team though, they’re always talking about crazy stuff on Reddit which keep me on my toes with what is relevant and memes etc.
