Walking The Line Between Ads and Entertainment
Producer Jack Lechner talks about his deal with Washington Square Films and how production houses can successfully expand into entertainment.
Walking The Line Between Advertising and Entertainment In the eighteen months since producer Jack Lechner left his roost at @radical.media in New York, he’s been busy producing several documentaries—one of which, Smile ‘Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story, is set to premiere at the Slamdance Festival in Utah later this month. He’s just entered into a new production agreement with the New York-based Washington Square Films (WSF), where he’ll seek to bring in and produce the same kinds of television, feature and documentary work he was associated during his time at Radical, where he spent four years as their in-house producer focusing on entertainment project, and another three with a ‘first look’ deal. During that time, Lechner played a key role in the company’s Academy Award-winning documentary The Fog of War, directed by Errol Morris, as well as the pilot for AMC’s wildly successful Mad Men dramatic series, along with work that ran on HBO, Court TV and Trio. A former independent producer and senior executive at Miramax, Lechner worked on the development and production of numerous films during his career, including The Crying Game, The Full Monty, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Good Will Hunting. Other post-radical projects he’s worked on include Very Young Girls, a documentary about teenage prostitution for Showtime, and Naked on the Inside, a documentary about body images and perceptions, produced for Showtime and The Sundance Channel. SourceEcreative asked Lechner what his impression of the entertainment market is these days and, more to the point, how TV commercial production companies can extend their offerings into new areas of production at such a tenuous time in the industry. At WSF, Lechner admits he’s going to concentrate on what he jokingly calls “old media”—films and TV series. It’s a tough time for filmmaking, he admits, but TV is another story. “There’s actually never been a better time to do unscripted or scripted TV series,” he says. “There are really great opportunities to do very good work, as the success of ‘Mad Men’ suggests.” For Lechner, the basic approach for production companies that want to work in an entertainment venue would be to start with what you have. “For example, here at Washington Square we have a family of smart, highly capable filmmakers, along with an extended talent pool that includes writers, producers and actors. There are plenty of people in our own orbit who have viable ideas for films or TV series, and all they need is the right kind of help to bring them to life.” The next step, he suggests, is for companies to reach out to those who have little contact with the advertising industry but also represent possible sources of nonfiction or fiction entertainment work. For talents such as these, the opportunity to partner with an established production company that has roots in the commercials arena poses special benefits—such as giving them the chance to work on spots or web shorts for agencies and brands, while simultaneously developing entertainment projects. “I see myself here as a sort of flow-through valve,” Lechner quips, “bringing ideas and projects back and forth and helping both sides of the equation.” Lechner agrees that the appeal of long-form work for commercial production houses is the obvious crossover to the types of projects advertisers are increasingly exploring—web shorts, virals and brand integration into programming. Similarly, he understands that in today’s entertainment environment, all producers are looking for smart and efficient ways to get their work financed and produced—and if brand integration is an option, “then it’s all part of the calculus you go through when you plan these things—how will they get financed, what’s the best way to tell the story, etc.” But he warns that we’ve all seen examples of branded content that works well neither for the brand nor as content. “When the branding gets ahead of the storytelling, it doesn’t work for the brand or the story,” he says. “We want to do things that work as television shows—if they also happen to work for brand, that’s great.” He also cautions that it’s not always easy for directors and production companies to shift easily between entertainment and advertising. To achieve success in the latter venue, he says, “you have to figure out what’s going to make a particular project work, and that can be lots of different things—either attaching the right talent, or working it out at such a sensible budget that it’s impossible not to find funding for it. It’s really about removing the obstacles to this kind of work getting produced.” The strategy he’s going to pursue for Washington Square is a clear response to the tough economic times in the media business—it’s about keeping upfront costs low and partnering whenever possible. “We’re not spending a lot of money on development,” he states. “The streets of Hollywood are littered with companies that spent millions on development and ended up with little to show for it. We’re being smarter about this, entering into partnerships with creative people and giving them a stake in what we’re doing.” Joshua Blum, Washington Square Films president, describes the Lechner relationship as an “amped-up first-look deal” designed to expand the company’s slate of productions in its Film/TV unit. With a roster of crossover directors such as the actors Bob Balaban and Liev Schreiber, among others, WSF not only has a commercials reel with work for such brands as Heineken, Kellogg’s, Sharp, Comedy Central and Tylenol, but also boasts a film and TV division with extensive entertainment and documentary credits. These include Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life, which aired nationally on PBS and won both Emmy and Peabody awards, and the feature film Old Joy, directed by Kelly Reichardt, which premiered at Sundance. Blum reports that the company is currently in development with director Steven Soderbergh on a documentary about actor and monologue artist Spalding Gray. “We have a proven track record as a producer of film and television, and we’re working to develop that into a consistent pipeline,” Blum says about the Lechner deal. “Jack is going to be the motor for this expansion. We have the advantage of representing a stable of noted directors, actors and writers. We’re also in the position as an independent production house to actually package films ourselves.” |