Upon entering his 48th year in the business, Steve Lewis has decided to formally relinquish the full-time gig he’s held since 1985 at the helm of talent agency The Directors Network. Now the Encino-based TDN ARTISTS/The Directors Network is under the day-to-day aegis of Lewis’ son, production vet Jeff Lewis. While SHOOT will cover the younger Lewis’ plans for expansion and diversification at TDN ARTISTS/The Directors Network in the coming months, we thought it a good idea to focus on Steve Lewis as he looks back on his multi-faceted career, which he describes simply as having been “a great ride.”
Well, the ride isn’t totally over. He plans on consulting to TDN ARTISTS/The Directors Network as well as perhaps some other industry entities. He has a couple of projects in development he’d like to get off the ground. And he will fill in on occasion for son Jeff as needed. But even in semi-retirement, Steve Lewis’ “great ride” is worth taking stock of, in that he set a couple of business model precedents along the way as an entrepreneur, director, editor and a business rep/agent for an ensemble of directors and DPs.
He broke into the business in 1961 as an apprentice editor and runner at National Screen Service, which was a major movie trailer house in Hollywood. Some editors there, most notably Danny Donahue, took him under their wing. “It was a great place to learn,” recalled Lewis. “You had an overview of the complete creative process and all aspects of postproduction.”
Several folks from National Screen Service went off and started a short-lived commercial production house. Lewis went with them and continued to assistant edit while experimenting in editing. He then established himself as an editor, freelancing from ’63 to ’66 and working on such series as I Dream Of Jeannie for Screen Gems. He then went to commercial production house The Haboush Company as its editor, back in the days when the spot norm was for production and editorial to be under one roof. He even cut a feature for one of The Haboush Company directors. Though the film, titled Dreams of Glass, bombed, the experience was a great one for editor Lewis, who went on be the editor at the venerable DeSort & Sam Productions, hiring along the way an assistant editor named Rob Lieberman, who has gone on to a storied career as a director, winning the DGA Award for commercials twice in his career.
Declaring independence Next Lewis went to production house Cass & Co. before coming up with the idea to go independent, literally. He opened FilmCore in ’74, the first indie commercial editing house in Los Angeles.
He sold FilmCore in ’78 and the company, now on both coasts, has since become part of the Ascent Media post family.
Lewis’ multi-faceted career continued, first as an exec producer at Coast Special Effects, then as a director of remote video segments for syndicated TV series Solid Gold. Bitten by the directing bug, he became owner/exec producer/director of his own Cineman commercial production house in ’81. During the course of that company’s run, which lasted into ’87, Lewis brought other directors on board and focused on managing the company.
“I came around to realizing that if you didn’t have a superstar director and were a company in the middle of the pack, you were on the road to getting crunched by the major companies,” he related. “We were relying too heavily on the L.A. agencies and a few out-of-town shops for business. But I was getting calls from regional production companies in markets like Dallas, Phoenix and so on, wanting to borrow our major market directors. Then the business model came to me of marketing L.A. and New York-based directors to regional production companies. I took an ad in what’s now SHOOT to put a feeler out to regional production houses about linking with major market talent and was inundated with responses.
“I wound up cutting the country into 13 territories and made exclusive deals with companies in each of those territories to rep my directors in their respective markets. It was a great marketing business model.”
Eventually he went from exclusives in these regions to opening up his roster to any production company that wanted to work with his directors. Lewis had effectively started the only talent agency at the time specializing in freelance commercial directors. Even when major L.A. and N.Y. houses started tapping more heavily into regional ad agencies, Lewis maintained the niche of being able to send one of his directors to a regional production company to take on select assignments. And often regional shops would be more budget appropriate for jobs than larger out-of-town commercial production houses with bigger overhead.
The Directors Network evolved into being a talent agency not only for directors but then DPs as well. When Jeff Lewis came on board a couple of years ago, the company moniker was changed to TDN ARTISTS/The Directors Network to reflect its expanded talent offerings, which also extended to some international directors and DPs. Jeff came aboard as senior VP and Steve handed the talent agency reins to him in November ’07 and began slowly easing his way out of the day-to-day biz at the company.
“Jeff always knew the door was open to him,” said Steve Lewis, “but he loved being a production manager with commercial production companies, traveling all over the place and working with top directors and agencies. When he got married and started a family, he wanted to settle down and that’s how I finally got him to come around to TDN. He’s poised to do some great things here, diversifying into new forms of content and developing those opportunities for the talent we represent.”
Looking back, Steve Lewis credits a couple of prime mentors–editor Donahue as well as DeSort & Sam colleague, director Jack DeSort. “Jack taught me it was all about people. You could talk about equipment and technology but ultimately you have to put your money into people. Jack is a great guy, very creative. He also mentored me in the sense that as a director he gave other artists creative freedom. He gave me freedom as an editor, leaving room for an editor being able to see things in footage that nobody else saw going into the project.”
As a lark, Lewis said he’d like to edit again on the Moviola. “The new technology is great but there was something so intimate about working with film on a Moviola. No one was looking over your shoulder. Even if they were, they couldn’t see much on that tiny screen. The editing process was much more personal and a mystery to everyone else. Now that a dozen people can see everything on screen at the same time, the mystery is gone. But back in the old days, the editor got a chance to work by himself, to look and contemplate, change and hone, to be a true artist before revealing the work to others and then gaining their feedback.”
A “Masters” Class In Branding and Fashion
If the world of high fashion has Fashion Week in Milan, with sleek models dressed in avant-garde looks strutting down the runways, then the golf world has the Masters, where players bound down verdant green fairways in azalea-inspired polos, exotic bird prints, the yellows of jasmine and the pinks of the dogwoods.
Over the last few years, golf apparel companies have begun treating the first full week of April as their moment to shine, unveiling lineups of Masters-inspired drops they hope can capture the attention of those focused on the season's first major.
The surf-style company Johnnie-O, for example, dips into the Deep South with its classic, understated Azalea Collection. Rhobak likewise offers an Azalea Collection, though with bold flower patterns designed to invoke the feel of being on the grounds of Augusta National. Malbon Golf, meanwhile, offers a "Birds of Georgia" set featuring images of those typically found about the course.
Yet none of them carry the iconic Masters logo. Or reference Amen Corner. Or use the words "Green Jacket."
All of those are trademarked by the club — three of nearly 100 trademarks on file — and force outside apparel companies to creatively build their connections to both the tournament and Augusta National without infringing on their intellectual property.
"Makers of products for mass market dream of becoming a supplier to Walmart. Likewise, high-end brands salivate at the idea of winning a mandate from the Masters," said John Sabino, author of "The Augusta Principles: Timeless Business Lessons from the World's Premier Golf Club." "Apparel companies want to tap into the Masters' high-quality association and leverage the club's exalted brand."
Yet tapping into that association is... Read More