What’s the impact of the pandemic on you, your company, your approach to doing business in the future? What practices emerged that you will continue even as restrictions are loosening?
The pandemic has been an eye-opening experience for us, and we’ve been finding those silver lining moments from which we can gain value as we move forward. The past year has given us time to take stock of our goals as a company, as players in this industry, and as individual creatives, and to take steps to realign with those goals. It has re-grounded us in a sense of purpose and making very deliberate choices. The proliferation of remote work has also opened up possibilities in an incredibly positive way as far as who we collaborate with, both within the company and on set.
How has the call for equity, racial and social justice affected, honed or influenced your sense of responsibility as a company in terms of the content you create and/or your commitment to opening up opportunities for filmmaking talent from underrepresented backgrounds?
It’s no secret that there are widespread industrial inequalities that have long hindered progress and access for underrepresented directors, producers, and creatives at large. We felt there was an opportunity for us to really be intentional about the collaborators we work with in an effort to foster voices that would otherwise be drowned out by these built-in biases. We have been fortunate to connect with a ton of new directors and freelancers from a variety of backgrounds who have brought unique points of view to the table, and we plan to do whatever we can to put those voices forward in all aspects of our business.
While gazing into the crystal ball is a tricky proposition, we nonetheless ask you for any forecast you have relative to content creation and/or the creative and/or business climate for the second half of 2021 and beyond.
We have certainly seen a boom of work as 2021 progresses, and we fully anticipate that trend to continue as the industry finds its way back to norms of production -- though there are certainly some new norms -- and a sense of stability has returned. There has been a palpable itch to get projects going that so many of us feel. It seems the bigger, more complex projects are coming back that really get the juices flowing for producers.