Marie Owen, Founder & CEO of LS Productions

0:02My guest today is somebody that I've been reliably told has done more for Scottish production than anybody else.

0:13Welcome to the Business of Modelling, the podcast where we explore the fascinating world of the modelling industry. I'm Tessa Dewing, Managing Director of Sandra Reynolds, a commercial model agency celebrating its 50th year of business. Marie Owen is the founder and CEO of LS Productions, one of the UK's leading location and production service companies. What began in Scotland as Location Scotland has grown into a multi-office business working across advertising, fashion, film, television, music and sport, with teams now based in Scotland, Manchester and London. Today we're talking about Scotland's beautiful locations, the realities of production life, growing a business in a demanding industry and what it takes to scale without losing your roots.

1:09Marie Owen, welcome to The Business of Modelling. Thank you very much. Who were you as a child? Tell me about your childhood. God, that's good to think back to that. The first thing that springs to mind was I was always tall. So I was known as Marie Bryant, the green giant, through primary school. So I was born in Ipswich and lived there only till I was three. My dad was offered a job up in Scotland. We came to a place called Perrycook where my uncle owned a double glazing business and my dad got a job there. So I did my ancestry DNA last year and I have no percentage of Scottish in me whatsoever.

1:47Wow, that's so interesting because also your accent is pure Scottish. And my mum and dad's and my dad's was pure Suffolk. Okay. And I left school and decided to get a job at Edinburgh Airport, which was on the ground checking people in. Then became an air hostess for about eight years, which was never in my dreams, but I absolutely loved it. And realised I think what I loved about it was the variety and the people. and in that time I met John who was a fashion photographer So how did you meet John? In the disco in Tenerife Oh there's a long story around this Oh go on He told me he was called Jack and he was 24 This was on night two I think for the holiday And you were working out there No I was on holiday but I'd gone on my air hostess cheap ticket it's a big group of us for£20 and he was with a couple of guys that were also photographers and we all just got chatting and having a laugh.

2:44Night two, there was a bit of a kiss and that was it, basically. He told me it was Jack in 24. He lived in Yorkshire, worked out in Manchester doing fashion photography. And that all turned out to be true apart from he was John in 28 and a half. And he visited me in Scotland and stayed at my parents' house and for weeks we all called him Jack and eventually had to come clean. And I was only 19 at the time so my dad was really cross. Because he just thought, well, if he's lied about that, Totally. He's a man and you're a child. But I was like, oh. And he turned out to be a decent guy. It was just one of those holiday jokes that had grown arms and legs.

3:19Okay, so you've been together since you were 19. Yeah, I know. So I was travelling quite significantly, just short haul, but you were away from home a lot and obviously very odd shifts. John travelled extensively. As I say, he moved to Scotland. He became freelance, so none of his work was in Scotland. So if he was working, he was on a plane somewhere or a train maybe to London sometimes. and then we got engaged and married. I think I got married when I was 24. So when we decided to get married and then we had children quicker than we thought, it was a lovely surprise. But one of us had to stay at home.

3:50And that was a big change for me because I had a very social job in life and it's good to do things on your own and then come back together. We've always enjoyed that in our life. Very independent people, very outgoing, very trustworthy, never worried about anything. Whereas a lot of people wouldn't like that. They'd be jealous of that. When I met John, I realised he was travelling the world with models. You know how hard work that actually is, but on paper it sounds incredible. Glamorous. I mean, they're in Barbados or Thailand in a nightclub out in some of the best restaurants for dinner and I'm at home, you know, cutting up bananas for the kids' tea or whatever.

4:25But I've never been jealous of that or worried. I've always thought, well, if that becomes an issue, we can't be together. He's always made me feel secure. and we've always, enjoy yourself, enjoy what life offers you. Before I had kids, I would go with them or when I had kids, I'd go with them. You know, I've had loads of experiences in my life I would never have had without that. But I think the shock for me when I stopped flying was how isolated it is being a mum. And, you know, I was really privileged that I could choose to stay at home, bring up Grace, who's now 24. And then I had to set her twins, so it was exhausting.

5:02and I always think you don't know, now I look back, how did we manage? John, being freelance, has to work. He's paying all of our bills. There's no other income. So that's not a choice. Were you in Edinburgh at this point? I was in Edinburgh and that's one of the reasons we actually chose to live here because potentially for John's career and travel and life, it might have been better for his to be in London or New York or somewhere. But we also decided that to have a life and if we were ever going to have a family, if not I'd be offered on my own in these places I had my school friends here I still do you know and one of the reasons the company was set up was to try and give him an opportunity to work at home sometimes which happened about three times so it didn't really work for the reasons that you know we'd set out to but Scotland I think you know John came to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh he realised how nice a place it is to live like we're really settled here

5:58So Marie How did you first find your way into the world of locations and production? John decided to move to Scotland. He actually bought a house in Scotland that he had not seen. And that meant, obviously, he'd been spending more time commuting up and down to Scotland. He kept saying, this is beautiful. He said, you know, I only live in Yorkshire. You know, work at Manchester. And everyone's got a preconceived idea of what Scotland is like. One thing, it's Scottish, it's mountains, it's locks. It's, you know, the diversity you couldn't believe. so we live in Midlothian Edinburgh is obviously Edinburgh and down, I mentioned I've got a lodge by the sea is East Lothian, now they're all not very far apart they're all an hour and ten minutes but you've got beaches and seascapes and dunes and then you're in the centre of Edinburgh with cobbles and ancient architecture and castles and modern buildings and Michelin star restaurants and where I live is more countryside and just a bit more out of the cities so his mind was blown he's like in this tiny bit of Scotland I've got to know there's all these different locations and I suppose he has that eye, he's always thinking of that's cool always seeing how nice the light is in Scotland as well, the kind of softness of it, he's like do you know what I go to London locations all the time, the same places go to the same location houses and all I can see up here is untapped potential and not really anyone showcasing it all it needs is to show people what it really looks like, some of the stuff that's available, obviously not everything but what could be done up here, what could be achieved and somebody to help organise stuff and you're good at organising stuff Marie so why don't you see if you can help me and I'll see if I can bring a few clients up here which is how we kind of set out and as I said I had a...

7:39And this was before children? No that was with children actually. So you'd already left your job so you were kind of I had probably not worked for about five years but by the time I had Grace and then I think LS started when the twins were about 18 months I was quite keen to do something with my mind and I would have done anything and I looked at options but again because of John's erratic schedule so if I go and work in a shop let's just say you've got set hours you're not flexible and then he'd be home so we had benefits of that like when he came home we could do stuff as a family of a last minute holiday or do whatever we like doing and I kind of wanted to try and keep that flexibility but I'd never thought about setting my own business to be quite honest it had never occurred to me until he started discussing you know you could help me do with a bit of production and I think the other thing you would come back from trips and be really honest about, often it was a really fabulous trip, but the small things had been annoying for a team.

8:31You know about all this stuff. Just how they were looked after. And I don't mean about being spoiled, but you'd be like, they just hadn't thought of this. Or they'd say they do this and they didn't. Or they didn't ask us this. Or the food was horrific. Not unfancy, but just inedible. I remember them saying they were in this hot place and they just forget to put water on set. It's like the basic things. Just that bit of humanity, which sometimes my air hostess brain goes in about caring for people on a plane sometimes. Yeah, well actually that gave you a brilliant branding for that, didn't it? Absolutely.

9:01I know it's not the same, but in many ways it is. Once you're in that plane and the doors are shut, you're on your own. Yeah. You have to deal with whatever situation is presented to you. So say the toilets weren't working and nobody on the plane goes to the toilet. It's not ideal. And you deal with people who are delayed or you're dealing with people who are trying to get drunk or you're dealing with people. And say you had no water. It's the same situation. You've got to manage the situation. You're clearly in the air, so you've not even got the ability to phone for help. Throw them out or get them off.

9:31So you have to learn how to deal with a lot. And I think that is a big root of why ALS has been successful and what we stand for and how we run our business and how we do production. So were you initially thinking about production or just locations? Because you started off as Locations Scotland. Well, to be fair, it was called Locations Scotland, but we always did production. The idea was the spotlight was in Scotland and to show people what they didn't know existed here. And then we'd help. Because obviously to use the locations you need to bring together what people need. I mean, it was very small scale production.

10:03Yeah. And you just started off at home, just working from home. I actually ended up getting a friend who worked at our kids play group to kind of nanny for me. So I'd have maybe two days a week where I'd have a full day just to think. It was great. I had a notepad. I'd think about it. And, you know, now you look back and think, Jesus Christ, but that's how you get a business off the ground. Absolutely. You just do it. I had some friends in the business. John had an agent in the business. So I worked with them a little bit and learned everything that I didn't know before. And I didn't know anything.

10:33I mean, there's still a lot of it. But I guess you knew you'd been on shoots with John. So you kind of could see how it worked and whose job was what and probably started thinking, oh, I wouldn't have done that like that. And just other things they needed. like if I think now you know friends that are hair and makeup artists or stylists just the things they need to be able to get on with their job clearly not trying to do their job but how do you support them yeah the room they needed how close is it to the left they'd like to need breakfast early it's those sort of things and obviously for all the shoots we've done over the years the needs of everyone is are completely different but just trying to understand their needs and where you can work with the hotels to make sure it happens so basically it started with the idea of great locations and then pulling you know crew and talent together to be able to pull off the productions.

11:16But even that's like just knowing good hotels for them to stay at, good transport companies, good lighting companies, building up a little bit of kit. And the first jobs we did, I mean, it was basically me and a colleague called Michelle, who's now got her own business. And we still work together, closely still friendly. And me and her would just go out and do it together. Basically, my Volvo XC90 or whatever child-friendly car I had at the time, I would clean it and pick up the clients, take them on a recce in the car and I don't know it's great because people are just people and you're just trying to work out together what you need to do and how to make it happen

11:57What do you remember about some of those really early jobs? Definitely because I think we spent a bit of time the Royal We there were a few of us involved in the business then but more so the others had jobs and I didn't I was just a full-time mum which obviously was the most time-consuming job of the world I think I had a bit of a drive here so we started to put locations together which was John and I and the kids literally going out taking pictures Michelle was also doing some of that as well collating information we got a really simple website together and started putting those locations on it just saying that we were doing production and there was no massive pressure until I took on my first employee obviously which was Michelle that I keep referencing didn't really have anything to worry about apart from you still need to invest in equipment and websites and marketing and all that kind of stuff But it was pretty hand to mouth and I was doing everything that I could possibly learn to do myself.

12:48And, you know, looking up clients' names in books, phoning them up. So back then you were really thinking about the kind of work Joel was doing. Totally. Therefore, he had the eye of what was beautiful and what worked. And as we know, it needs to look great, but it needs to work well too. So is it accessible? Are the owners nice? And what else is round about it? So you don't have to keep getting in the van and going somewhere else, all that kind of stuff. I mean that to me is just common sense that's not even production, it's just common sense sometimes our industry loses sight of and our philosophy and mine certainly is keep your feet on the ground and just use your common sense sometimes so yeah, got some locations together and I can't really remember how it happened I'm assuming someone called me and they were from Crew Clothing which you know the brand still exists today and they came on a recce and I drove them about and we went literally to a few places and I spoke to the owners and then that happened and it was fine it was easy you know keep it simple they were lovely people they knew what they were doing we knew what we were doing it worked really well it just gradually evolved from there I remember running this business with three small kids and John's not here when you've got crews up here it's full on isn't it you're not going to be back for bath time 100 % no but that's why I was lucky that I had Maggie who was the playgroup after playgroup nanny I had another nanny I said nanny like second woman my age and I had my mum and dad who could help when they could but really I've got childcare in place of flexibility and then I've always believed in the business you need good people around you it couldn't be about me I had a job to do I still have a job to do but then I mean it was fun and it was honestly hilarious because by that point you know you could use your mobile phone to do stuff at least everywhere I went I was trying to do something to do with production Do you actually get a signal up here?

14:38Now and again yeah I remember we went on a really remote campervan holiday though and with the kids who sat outside my office down in Leith for at least six hours before I could leave the office and I'm sure we were doing a Bowdoin job I was heavily involved and you could tether to your phone I think at that point if you were lucky but the remoter we got the harder it got and it was like of course clients coming up from London as well are just like you know they expect everything to play on and you know like it's like we want the dog that day right and then you phone in And they forget the dog owner isn't an expert, it's a lady with a dog.

15:11I never change it to that day. It's not one change of the dog, it's ten changes of the dog. Some of that I think we get better at now. Let's get this plan together and as less change as possible. But then you just remember being so distracted on that holiday. Or I've been at the swimming pool with my kids and John's taken them in and I've sat in the changing room with my mobile trying to sort it out. Now I look back. I mean, production's not easy. still not easy to today because set of challenging circumstances and problems to solve but we just did it and it was fun and the clients came it was very seasonal it was very unknown and we had a very small team and we were just building everything was written in notebooks and in our heads you know it was fun but hard work if somebody was off ill you're like oh my god how are we going to cope we're now things are in systems and we've got process and it doesn't take away from the human value that we offer but takes away from the need for everyone to be available 24 hours a day and you know as you know that can often be how our world has operated.

16:19At what point did you realise that it was coming much bigger? I think to begin with when I started having other clients that obviously weren't who I suspected would be first John's clients and realising there was a market for this and we were good at it. And that Scotland really is undiscovered. It still is. I mean, it's got all its traditional stuff. It's vast, isn't it? It's vast and it's varied. And everyone just says, oh, it's shit weather. Now, obviously, we live on the East Coast. The East Coast is different to the West Coast, to the top of Scotland, to the south of Scotland, everywhere.

16:51And there's different climates across Scotland. But you don't come here for palm trees and blue skies. And in fact, when people come and there's that, they're like... Well, they kind of want that atmosphere, I think. That's the whole point of it. But we have lovely, like, I love the weather here. Yes, it was a bit colder than London. Obviously, you're in the north, but it brings different, you know, different aspects to it. And personally, I enjoy it. I love some sunshine, so I'll go somewhere and get some steady sunshine. But I think I was just determined. I still am. I'm going, people need to know how good a place this is.

17:20And that actually, you know, offered an alternative for shoot locations and production. But actually, it was really good for the local economy. starts employing local people within our industry who are not at all related to our industry. And bringing in money from outside the area. 100%. So a lot of my work has been about that and really helping government or, you know, the council see the economic impact, especially on commercials. There are stills, fashion shoots and commercials which are overlooked by the creative body sometimes. It's all about film and TV. Yeah, they think about the big films, don't they?

17:51Which, again, maybe brings in more work randomly, you know, once every three years or once a year. But then they're massive. They're going to close things down. It's going to be much more of a disruption than actually the more consistent small issues. And it's been an education and it still is. But that brings economic impact. The regular, you know, nights in hotels, for example. But also keeping crew. They're still give nights in hotels. You know, they want to come up bank holiday, August weekend. They let you know a week before and they want 25 rooms. Or they want to go on a remote island and they need 60 rooms and all this.

18:25We've had all of this kind of stuff. There's always a solution though. They always find a solution. But I think that piece of education as well about regular income keeps people employed. There was a demand from the fashion industry to come to Scotland. There's always something about Scotland, usually for their autumn winter collections, obviously done over spring, summer times in our seasons, which left a gap of autumn winter of work. Like we can't just run a six month business. And it's like these locations would work in the winter. When people are shooting in London in winter, they could shoot in Scotland.

18:56Let's do more internal. Let's think about more like advertising agencies, because you could look at the kind of work they're doing. It doesn't just have to be fashion clients. The skill set we have can be applicable to a different set of clients. And that's what happened. We started doing a bit more like work with the Bank of Scotland, which ironically came from a London ad agency. But they wanted the authenticity, which I love this, that they did stay true to their roots in many ways of this needs to be shot in Scotland with Scottish people, Scottish locations and Scotland at the heart needs to feel authentic to our Scottish customer.

19:30Because weirdly, even if you could have pretended it was Scotland somewhere else, sometimes you can tell. You know what it's like, you can tell. So that was great. That was some recurring work, not necessarily just in the spring, summer months of the year. And then the big change was when they said, can you make our TV ad? And I was at this point like, no, honestly, no, I've never made a TV ad. They went, well, you're doing it. And this is where I just think great production is great production. You bring the right people in with the skill sets. I can't fly a helicopter, so if I need a helicopter and I shoot, I'm not going to pretend I can.

20:01You bring somebody in, that's their absolute speciality. It was no different here. I just needed somebody to unlock. And I think production is really good project managing at the end of the day, isn't it? A hundred percent. And obviously sometimes you're not even necessarily doing the nuts and bolts of production on the ground. It's the piecing together and the first discussions. It's the pre-planning, the pre-pre-planning. It's the knitting together of the locations and the logistics. And it's about trust and honesty, integrity, reliability. What you get with my business now is all of that. It's not just me and if I don't turn up, the thing falls apart.

20:37You know, there's a whole platform now, which is a, it's not a machine in a sense that it's faceless or humanless, but it's underpinned by knowledge, which means when everything's going wrong and everything's against you, you've got a team to pull from and a body of IP that helps the client so significantly. I don't think they know that half the time. No, because you do it without them knowing. Absolutely. But doing that TV commercial made sense. I brought somebody brilliant in at the time who had been working with on and off freelance, Sarah Drummond, who's now our MD. And that was the start of an amazing journey and relationship for us.

21:12But I knew bringing her in and she knew us and she knew how we worked. She knew about the locations. She knew. So it made sense. It wasn't like, oh, shit, how do we do this? It was like, of course we can win this business. We probably did the next, the last 18 months after that of TV commercials with that client regularly. And if we're doing it for that client, why shouldn't we be doing it with others? why we kept our fashion going. I mean, fashion's still a strong sector in our business. But I find you can't just rely on any one type of client because world economies and fashions, et cetera, and change.

21:45Even if they're shooting fashion in Scotland one year, they might go to Scandinavia or Timbuktu the next year. Absolutely. So it doesn't mean they're going to come back and get us a lot of fashion clients. And then, you know, I don't know, we ended up doing some stuff with like, should we do the chocolate brand next, the German chocolate brand? brand but it was Estonian in the Highlands and we started doing some car commercials which obviously are quite different because you've got a car usually a moving car involved which involves closing roads I mean obviously we'd close roads for other shoots but then that's just a different conversation to have the local councils and the different people to bring in but again it started to make me think the production IP can underpin any type of production be it we work through an agency, we work, you know, with a photographer's agency or an ad agency.

22:32They're different beasts, but it doesn't really matter. If we work direct with brand, you know, we need a bit more account management. That's why we have a T. So just, but really what each client needs is the same. Yeah. And I stick by that. Or the scale of it's different. So they might come up with all their crew and they just need local support or they might want you to do the entire thing. I feel like although we have production services and the locations are a huge part of what we offer and that location might be a studio in London. It doesn't necessarily be a castle in Scotland. But I suppose we're production consultants and you're really working as a partner with your client, be it you're working direct with the client or part of a chain, which, you know, often we're in a chain, or really working out what their creative idea is, what they need, how we're going to do it, how we unlock that potential.

23:17And the more we can form a partnership, so then I was like, we're production consultants, production partner, supply and production services, scaling it up or down as needed. I mean, we work on£5 ,000 shoots and£2 million shoots. I mean, people think that's crazy. I think that's sensible. We're a production engine, keep using different words. But trying to get that across and it's, for me, being able to create a business which has grown as it has out of Scotland and the UK and wider is because, A, we're decent people and we do what we say we're going to do and we have strong values of why we are here.

23:52But also that opportunity if you need to work on that level of stuff to create the income, you need to work on that level of stuff to create the IP. Everything we just did to shoot in Mauritius, now we know a lot of locations in Mauritius, didn't specifically go to Mauritius to scout locations, but now we've been and we've done the particular job we've done, we've got a lot of intel that's really useful and it's got a great infrastructure in terms of their film office and the kind of work they want there and the crews that they have there and the approximate. So suddenly it's a great place, but it doesn't mean barber are going to go and shoot in Mauritius and I'm going to push that, but the right client comes to us and talks about what they want we have that up our sleeve suddenly you've got so much more value and it's just knowledge, you're gaining knowledge the whole time about different places and that knowledge doesn't live with me either I know about it and I'm interested but it lives in our producers heads it lives in our location departments heads and it lives in our systems so then you've got depth of data and everything we do is it's out of our notebook I still write in a notebook I love Thinking Inc, I love that it does my head better but that's not how we operate as producers or as a production company anymore.

24:55You can't when you get bigger, can you? Totally. But then you become, you're a trusted partner. You know those clients, they know you. They know that you understand what they need and they're going to come back to you and recommend you to other people, aren't they? And you'll tell the truth. I read a couple of updates on our Slack channels that's coming in today which clients saying, you need to tell me because they haven't signed some part of it off which may mean, because it's with a celebrity and as we know there's so many moving parts here you need to be honest with us when you can't produce this which then puts pressure on them to get sign off or the shoot doesn't happen which is disappointing but we have to be honest another client said to me a long time ago i love that you say no i'm like why wouldn't i you know can you get us this no but no and no i can't get you that because it doesn't exist so it's not available but the alternatives are and there's nothing worse and I remember this from back in the day with John being over promised and under delivered which is hard in our industry things happen the night before somebody pulls out somebody becomes ill a location becomes unavailable that's not because of bad planning but our job is to sort that out and I believe that if you got the right team and the right information you can roughly sort anything out you know sometimes by hook or by crook but also it builds trust with people that you're all in you won't just go oh well oh well you know you actually think right what what are our alternatives here be honest that reminds me of being on the plane something's not going well or somebody needs an answer tell them they might not want to hear it but at least they've got the knowledge and then you can do something about it yeah firmly believe that

26:33when clients arrive in scotland do they ever have like preconceived ideas um that kind of change when they get here. Always. I mean, everywhere I go in the world, when we're travelling or on holiday, people have an affinity to Scotland. I've not really met anybody who goes, ooh, I wouldn't like to go to the people. I've heard this, I've seen this, whatever. So their pre-conceive idea comes from all that, what they've seen on TV, what they've read about in a magazine. I think they expect it to be tiny, especially American clients. They look at the map and they just see this, what they think is the top part of the UK, so it's going to be tiny.

27:08so they want to go everywhere and honestly I think everywhere's an hour away that's seven miles from there and they're like seven hours from there they're like so even then when we're shooting and often we're shooting in fishing villages and little cute places they're absolutely blown away they feel like they're on a film set a dressed film set when it's not it's just what the local places look like so they think it's smaller and then when they get here they just can't believe how interesting it is and that typical thing of generally how nice the people are and I think again people think the food's going to be shit and again they're blown away by it so Scotland doesn't always do itself well it's selling well what they're really good at I've taken that mantle on but yeah I'd say people are surprised and often people just haven't been here I mean I'm in London a lot and the amount of times I'm in a taxi and where you're going back to Edinburgh I've never been and they live in so many people have never been to Scotland so it's still untapped got loads of untapped opportunity

28:07Obviously, you eventually rebranded from Location Scotland to LS Productions. What drove that decision? I mean, we're 20 years old this year as a company. So sometimes you're like, oh my God, what did... But I remember thinking, well, this is great. But you started getting more to the borders. It's like, what's the stopper just hopping over the border and doing some stuff in England? Although we were so Scottish-focused, we had such knowledge about Scotland. You were like, oh my God, this feels a bit scary. Again, I think it might have been Bowdoin. or if not there was also an editorial client who wanted to do something in Northumberland and it's like we go five hours north to Skye I mean Skye is a complicated place to shoot on if we can do that I'm really sure we can do this in England and it just started from there and then it's like who do we know there what else do we need to know our thing has always been about looking at places that make sense so yes you might find an amazing stand-alone house but if there's nothing else there It's very rare someone's just going to go, unless it's so incredibly unique.

29:09Yeah, because then you've got to have, you know, if you're taking a big cruise somewhere like that. Sometimes if it's a huge estate and it's got lots of things on the estate, maybe. But we've always sort of done like hotspots, shop windows of areas. So we started doing that. So then it was just like, what makes sense in England? Northumberland is very pretty, quite different from Scotland, a little bit more rolling, I suppose, but just different. And then I suppose it was thinking, well, if we've done there, where else do we know? And then we, obviously Manchester being such a hub for creativity anyway, and actually being quite...

29:40And that's where John was working. That's where he was working. So what did we know about there? Who did we know there? What kind of locations have they got there that maybe offer something Scotland can offer, or they offer something complimentary? And then we had a function in locations department. That's a part of their job was to think shop window, what makes sense, and go out and photograph it. and build that knowledge. So you have an office in Edinburgh here. So how many staff do you have now? We have 20 at the moment. We've had a much bigger team. But actually as things have changed and we've evolved our business, you know, I'm fast forwarding here.

30:14We went from doing the TV commercial stuff, which is still a big part of what we do. That then bled into music video, which is very much like a short film fashion campaign that's going to go on big channels. So there's a mixture of everything we do. usually with a tight budget even the big budgets they have a lot of creative so there's a lot of learning on these so that went into TV commercial and then sort of in COVID discussions with Sarah RMD in COVID we're also like there's no reason why production consultancy and production services are not needed by film and TV clients coming to the UK so at the time we had a big team of producers who maybe mainly worked on fashion or commercial Were they employed or freelance?

30:58They were employed. But actually as our world has changed and where our work is happening, having people employed just in Manchester and in Scotland doesn't make as much sense. Now we have built masses of teams around us. We call them a freelance family, but you know exactly what people we know well, be it producers, line producers, production managers, production assistants, because every job is a slightly different recipe. Now, we need the core of our intel in the business and the people to deliver the bids, you know, to work out how that budget is really going to be spent. Because that's an art, you know, it's great.

31:33The numbers can add up, but actually then knowing it's going to be delivered and making sure you're close enough to what happens on set. Yeah, it's very, very easy to run away with. And that is really difficult. And such back and forth with the client, so resource heavy on ours, on our side to get that right. But then being able to build the bespoke team. So we don't have as many people in house anymore. because as I mentioned, you know, one of our projects from last year was on Mauritius. Nothing to even do with the UK and that was from an American client working with a Scottish-based production services company delivering in Mauritius.

32:04But it made complete sense because we do legals. You know, we do all things to do with contracting, you know, all that legal side stuff, insurance, all the financing. There's so many bespoke bits that that type of project needs that maybe our fashion client doesn't need. But that's when we bulk together the production need of each individual client coming from that core service and then building bespoke teams. In the background where, you know, we've got marketing, we've got finance, we've got our locations and behind the scenes. So we're thinking how to continually get smarter to be even more useful for the clients, preparing for the next jobs and then shaping ourself a business in this ever changing business landscape of what next?

32:45Yeah. What's next for commercial? What are the fashion clients doing? And we're out there speaking, just meeting clients and industry people and listening to what's going on. Absolutely, yeah, because we've got a massive disruptor coming, haven't we, with AI? And no one knows what's really possible without how far that's going to go. What the appetite is. I mean, we're actually giving up our office in Edinburgh at the moment because it's huge. So this is why I love running and leading the business, having our own business, because we can adapt. You can be adaptable. And we're not trapped. Now, it might seem like there's a series of changes, but the world is going through the industry, businesses.

33:22You need to try and be ahead of that. And we try and don't get me wrong, sometimes are we too ahead? Are we slightly back? God knows. But for instance, since COVID, obviously, we limped through it, but we learned and we did loads of work on our brand, our website, our thinking. But now we also realise, and I don't think without COVID, I don't know if anyone would have realised we could work from home so successfully. and it allowed producers especially but everyone in our business and lots of people in our industry to have a better work-life balance because a lot of people I work with are mums and dads you know and you're commuting hard for long days and now we still meet up a couple of times a week and we'll continue to do that but we also work from home and I never had any trust issues that I'm in a business group where people like oh geez I've never what are people actually doing this I know our team are working hard but also we can be flexible if you've got a child that needs picked up or a school play or an ill child or a dog or whatever it is in your life production is not nine till five very often no because then they'd be working weekends and nights sometimes and that still happens you know production absolutely but we draw lines more and we say you know we're not here to change your dog every two minutes but when you know what you really want to do with the dog next we'll change but we just hold our value a little bit more

34:41how much are you still doing this company can run without me really successfully yeah like they don't need me to make decisions they might bat things off me and i love that i like to be asked questions or brought into discussions but my proudest achievement has been able to set up the company which couldn't operate you know you had to work at the swimming pool with your kids yeah And don't get me wrong, there's times that obviously that still happens. Something happens and you have to jump in. Mainly because I'm nosy rather than they really need me in any shape or form. And you still love it, I'm sure.

35:12I do, but the proudest thing is setting something up, especially in this type of industry. It doesn't revolve around me. But I think I have a role to play, and I've mentioned it already, about really helping people understand the impact of creative industries and the economic ripple effect it can have across any type of production, not just on the big ones that the papers talk about or the government get really excited about. So I do quite a lot of work on that. Yeah, so what's your day-to-day now? I have flexibility to choose my own diary. We have a couple of set meetings during the week in terms of sales, like production update.

35:47So you always know what's going on. So I know what's going on. My thing that I like is to feel informed. So if you and I were having a chat, you're not asking me about what's going on, I don't know, ask Sarah. or I want to know, but I don't want to micromanage or meddle. But I'd like to feel valued that I contribute. So I think I contribute in a very ambassadorial network in sales. So I was at Downing Street last week, which was crazy. I got invited to their burnt supper. But that's all to do with Scottish businesses. Nothing to do with creative industries or production. I've enjoyed getting involved in stuff like that because it's a completely crazy different world.

36:23And you learn loads, but you can also add value. about a voice of somebody in Creative Industries and how important they are. So I tend to go in the office on a Tuesday and Thursday, and that's mainly spent with the team. I do lots of Zooms. I do lots of learning. I listen in to things about the industry or about business and just continue to grow a business. And I don't mean growing just by numbers, but continuing to have a stable and successful business and what is changing landscapes, which you've just touched on.

37:00I think clients only know you really for what you did with them before. Even if you tell them, until they do it, they don't really know. So that's why our marketing team is so important. But word of mouth helped us move into England. And then Location Scotland just didn't have its advantages anymore. Sometimes I'm not even sure if LS Productions does, but that's our heart. We say that our heart and our lives are in Scotland. and we have the privilege of living here, but we're a global production company, really. Just happened to be based in Edinburgh. So for me now, I think LS has such a brilliant reputation for being good at production.

37:37I think we sometimes thought of, we only do massive jobs with massive budgets. Well, as I say, massive jobs have massive budgets for a reason because there's a massive amount of stuff that needs done. So it's not like, oh, it's all profit. You're like, they are complicated jobs. But the tiny, small jobs we did at the beginning, the tiny job we did last week for Vogue, for example, teaches us the stuff for the massive jobs and the massive job teaches us stuff for the small jobs. Because almost the massive jobs you could break down into small parts. Totally. And sometimes the smaller jobs are harder than the bigger jobs and vice versa.

38:07But as I say, all that experience has allowed us to be flexible in how we do production. But sometimes we need to keep telling people what we truly do and everyone gets that. Just general, like, oh, they do stuff like that. Oh, they do cool stuff. Oh, they wouldn't work with us. We're too small or we're too this or we're too that. Come and talk to us. We're just really good at production. What leadership lessons have you learnt, have stayed with you? Because, you know, running a big company with lots of moving parts. Oh, my God, yeah. You'll be the same. I mean, I think when you set out to start the company, well, I didn't really set out.

38:39As the company evolved and it was a company, I didn't think at all about being a leader. I thought about just being part of the team. I still think I'm part of the team, but I'm the leadership role of the part of the team. But I still feel part of the team. I don't think this should be a separate thing. So that's one thing. leaders are not just over there but that thing about autonomy and not making marriage is an important part of leadership I think something that took me a long long time to learn is if you're nice to people it doesn't mean they'll be nice back to you so I just thought if I was nice to everybody and really tried to get sort of buy-in and collaboration that it would be given back in return it'd be easy but I've learned sometimes you have to be a bit more forthright and have boundaries.

39:20But I also felt like I was a big people pleaser. My dad was a big people pleaser. I think it's a really good attribute to have, but it can sometimes be a disservice. I always give people the benefit of the doubt. I always meet somebody once to the best of my ability, but I started to stand in my own power a bit more. You know, it's exactly what I mean of going, that doesn't really work for me or all the benefit of the doubt and you're different type of business, but also we're running a business. I mean, I used to call the business my baby. It's not a baby. I love it, I care for it I want it to do well and I want it to do well for everyone within the business including all the clients and the suppliers, I mean that's one of the reasons we exist it's one of the reasons I do what I do because it has such impact, it's not about Marie owns this business and will be successful for being the owner of the business, sometimes I think the owner is the least successful person in the business in many, many ways not in all ways, but that's one of the reasons LS exists and I get out of bed in the morning and do what I do but also it isn't it isn't my baby I've got a family and it's for us all and I used to not think like this but you know as I say I really I'm emotionally attached to the business but it's a business yeah and it's for everyone within that business and it touches it to also lean in and help the business do well it's not a me thing see this is really healthy all this you're saying yeah maybe it's kind of because it's so easy to just get completely obsessed by it but if you were in a relationship with someone it's a give and take yeah the business is the same and if you had a friendship people you for that friendship to work where you need to lean into the person or the group and put what you get in get out and I expect that of everyone who comes into the world of LS but that's what makes it successful as I say it doesn't just ride on my shoulders I might have the ultimate responsibility but if we all work together as a team so I think all the sports analogies are much better related to us now than we're a family because actually sometimes you need to practice your sport and work as a team and up your game and have a word at the sidelines whatever yeah no it is it is you are like a football team aren't you really and to score that goal which is to win the job yeah to win our projects and get that ball in the net is a series of moves from start to finish it's not just one person and we can join the dots like that and practice and I say this a If you play football on a Saturday, you practice during the week.

41:40Why wouldn't we do it? And I don't mean we go on set and practice production, but we talk about it and we learn. We learn loads and listen and learn from other industries. And also by, you know, the only way you're going to get to play at the top level is by having a brilliant team. Totally. And that team will change. And that was a hard lesson to learn, I think, as a leader that people leave or people are asked to leave or the size of the business needs to change. and again, leaning in with humanity and honesty. And what have been your most challenging things and learning curves about scaling the business of that?

42:16I think so as teams grow and as office space grows and then more offices appear and then maybe territories change, keeping that culture, a living, breathing thing is really hard. It's exciting because if you get that right, It is the heartbeat of your business in my mind, but it needs worked out and you need to change your strategy around. It has to have a strategy. It has to have a plan. It has to be nurtured. And everyone needs to buy into that. Everyone needs to buy into it. Now, I think the changes that we went through naturally because of COVID and then working from home changed the whole dynamic of just human connection.

42:52It's easy to build that culture where you're all in one room together. That's why I'm quite excited to go back to this more hybrid, building the relationships and really like the brainstorming and ideas. but I found that hard I found it hard then not knowing people personally, now that's part of my journey of, you know, I'm not trying to be friends with everyone, I'm sure they don't want to be friends with me but I like to know people and feel that they know me, what I believe and what I stand for that I'm really approachable, when I say my doors open I mean it, if you've got something you want to tell me good, bad or indifferent, I want your ideas and I also want you to think this could have been done better if we'd done this or I saw a couple of things I think we should improve on next time, amazing, don't just hide that away like but that's harder to to form when you're in your house you're not with so I think that was quite hard and then as departments grew unbeknown to me I think it's just natural instinct oh the marketing team sit together and the finance team sit together and that's yeah when you've had a team that have always got on and in many ways that's that's great but as long as it doesn't become than enough kind of thing.

43:55Because I believe a business is a car and to run that you need wheels and the chassis and the windows and the engine and the engine is lots of bits of the engine only to work together to work. There's not one bit of that is more important than the other if not the car doesn't really work and the same with the business. But sometimes building those connections again with like, oh finance are asking questions about the budget let's say it's all for the same reason it all comes from a good place we want the company to be successful so everyone can be successful, being fair to the clock, like everything's working, bro.

44:26It can be a bit like, why are they asking me that? And I think I would never question, if he comes from the right place, being questioned about anything, that's how we learn. But sometimes it's like, well, are you questioning me? It's like, I'm not questioning you, but there's something I need to understand. So maybe it's just a way of saying, because question feels critical, or being criticised. For me, this is about better understanding. So there's just switches of mindset, which I think, again, as a leader, word make sure it's in your culture and they'll go oh we're all doing this for the same purpose so I think that got harder as the numbers increased got harder as the numbers changed again I mean we've been through a whole set of voluntary redundancies mid last year again the shape of the business the types of business we were doing I think some people enjoyed it some people didn't some people want to get out production some people want to go and live somewhere else so it gave people a chance to change yeah but that is change can be unsettling but the only thing I think that is continually happening is change.

45:22It's the only thing we know is going to keep happening.

45:27Tell me about some of your productions. So you must have some funny moments. So many. I think I wheel out the same stories all the time. I need to think of better ones. I haven't heard any of them. We did a shoot for Pringle, as in Pringle of Scotland, which remember they used to do all sorts of golf jumpers and then they went into really nice posh fashion. I can't think of the word to use. Beautiful, beautiful designs and clothing. And I just remember the caterer thinking we were on set for Pringles Crisps, which always just makes me laugh. And you're like, oh yeah, I suppose you could think that.

46:00Anyway, we shot it at this beautiful, quite remote, up in the Highlands shooting estate. And often we will travel for stuff like that because it's a one-stop shop, as you know. It's got a lock and it's got loads of bedrooms. But this was all the royalty of fashion, and the fashion editor of Vogue, and the fashion editor of GQ, and whatever were coming, because it was a shoot with Tilda Swinton doing Pringle, and then it was this collab of art and fashion, and people just kept arriving out of nowhere, and there's only so many disgusting B &Bs around there, and I'm thinking, oh my God, if I could find a bed, you were lucky, and I'd say to them, they can come, but literally, they're not in like Beverly Hills, and you tell people this, and they go, yeah, yeah, but then they want a chauffeur-driven car, and you're like and you're thinking oh my god I don't want to be shining this bedroom we're in the middle of nowhere yeah there's no other so it's that or nothing and there's only and then you're like well we could drive loads of things oh there's no budget you're like you can't have everything but I remember being I had waterproof clothing on you know how glamorous production it was but actually I never left the inside of this stately home because there was so much to be done and I was boiling like wearing these pleather clothing and then I remember going to a room where there was a very famous fashion photographer who had a huge team who were working it all out and they wanted then to print.

47:24They'd never said they'd do this. Now we never go anywhere without print or we didn't. So I had to go and get the owner's like 200 year old printer set up. Ask my husband, I'm shit at saying stuff like this. Got the printer set up. He was, the photographer had been doing some recce shots. Some of it had Tilda in it, some of but didn't. And there was a beautiful shock. Tilda was very vibrant, red-haired. And she was lying in this bed of orangey heather stuff. Amazing. And that printed out. And the next picture printed out was just the heather. And my mind was so full of chaos. I was thinking, fuck, the inks have run out.

47:58Tilda's not in the picture. She's not in the picture. Ah, it's freaking out. They're like, no, it's just a picture of the reeds. It sticks in my head of how stressed you can get. And I'm thinking, I mean, the front cover of that shoot, whatever magazine it went on, was shot by the lights of the Arnold Clark van. It wasn't even a shoot day. Somebody said, let's just take a picture. There was this candid picture, which involved finding a hairbrush, which was, again, the hairstylist wasn't even there, brushing and tilled his hair with the man who owns this. And there's a shot. And that's what they used.

48:32Which then makes me laugh about how much goes into these. I mean, the shots were beautiful. Ryan McGinley shot it. He was a great photographer, brilliant. And then Douglas Gordon was the artist. I mean, there were so many funny things on that shoot. But you think about it and then you're like, but when you're there, you're just all in it together and this mental stuff happens. And it was Michelle and I that produced it along with a team, obviously, of others involved. They had fleets of blacked out BMWs and all this kind of stuff. And I remember us driving home and we stopped at the service station nearest by and we went to Pizza Hut and we were just lying like this.

49:07What the hell? was that it was crazy fun chaos. But we did it. So things like that. I mean, there's so many. I think one of my favourite stories is down near the borders. There's a fishing village called St Abbs. It's a very quaint little fishing village. Not much there, but I love going there for a walk. It's got beautiful cliffs and like a bird nature reserve. And it's the highest cliffs on the east side of the whole of the country, England and Scotland. Stunning scenery. and we got a briefing one day from a director who was looking to make a very Wes Anderson style music video we didn't know who it was for but the creative was beautiful he's like I just feel like I want to do this in Scotland and this is why we're good at what we do, where can I do this?

49:54so we start sending stuff, he writes notes back, you know blah blah blah blah so he doesn't know, he lives in LA, he doesn't know anything about Scotland as such and he certainly doesn't know why these fishing villages that we ended up doing his massive Harry Styles music video which in Harry Styles is in my favourite fishing village which is tiny in the cafe where I go and get my favourite Colin Skink and I was having a moment of just my mind is blown Harry Styles and the Gucci team with this amazing director, amazing team 7 minute music video made across that coastline using loads of locals' houses really really hard to produce amazing and I was like that just blew my mind just surreal and I'll never forget because that place has a and I've told this story before but it has a little visitor centre all about their fishing history because obviously that's what a lot of the local income is from and they have a Harry Styles section now excellent and I went in recently and the woman passionately told me all about it not knowing that that you produced it and honestly it made me want to cry I was like and I told her afterwards she was like oh god I feel so embarrassed I said no you've made my weekend the story she told me like it was just lawful so I love stuff and you'll know There's tons of good stuff.

51:06Funny, when the worst thing happens, like the motorhome that's stuck in the mud or all these different things. And you're like, but we've all lived to tell the tale. Every job has got done on time, in the budget, or signed off an extra budget if they've needed to do extra things. But it's not gone haywire and crazy. How sometimes, I don't know, but just through sheer good people trying their best, I suppose. In fact, the last one I should tell you about is Dior, where they did their runway show here last year. at a castle in Perthshire, Drummond Castle, where they dealt with their events company, all of the runway stuff.

51:42We dealt with all the production of all the content that was being made around. It was 21 shoots over three days around a moving event. And we worked our absolute asses off, including me and the lead producer that I was working with, if you like. I was like ultra EP in it. I was just meant to be there to keep everyone happy. But I was on the ground sweeping blades of grass. And he said, what are you doing? I was like, well, this needs done. But you are the boss. It's like, I know. But this boss is part of a team. And then he said to me, you all smile so much. I said, yeah, because this is crazy.

52:19But we get through it as a team and we look at it and they couldn't believe it. And it's like, it was amazing. We actually then got to watch the runway and I've always wanted to do that. so just to be part of it and then watch it and have loads of my team there watching it and just that was incredible but I think we were surviving on I mean it's so bad for your health four to five hours sleep a night we always say we don't work those hours but it became impossible and where it was and how to get home and oh my god it and again oh the budget doesn't allow this and the budget you're like well we're not robots this is mental so you live and learn and you made it work though and it was a fab experience.

52:57I mean shoulder to, my husband came on that shoot, I mean he's not even on the call sheet I think no he was on the call sheet that's a lie but he's not getting paid for it and we've got a camper van he brought that as like an extra and he did so much helpful stuff. Again they worked out this is your husband, it's like yeah we are a family and we will make this work and we're dedicated to it but this is, I mean that's the most mammoth thing I think we've ever done and probably the hardest to coordinate.

53:30And where do you see LS Productions heading next? I think this, like this, what we've talked about, being an entrepreneur and being able to make the company as agile as possible, being this production partner and consultant, really sweating our IP in terms of the locations and what we know about locations and what we know about production. having this great group of humans within the business and around us that could execute if you like every type of production that we've touched on in a really smart way gets me excited and whilst the last few years for our industry have been hard I do think it's create an opportunity for us that wouldn't have existed otherwise because sometimes well people like you don't do stuff like this and we've had so many jobs so many projects confirm where the client has said those exact words and I think even more so that's allowed us to really shine as you know what we do as a production company so Marie Owen thank you so much that's been lovely