Bicoastal/international Propaganda Films is a far cry from its inauspicious beginnings: three rented cubicles in a building on LaBrea Avenue in Los Angeles. As Propaganda grew, it slowly took over the entire building, eventually leaving an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who edited a local newspaper as the building’s only other tenant. "It was always funny to see him there with all these crazy young people playing loud rock ‘n’ roll music," recalls former Propaganda co-chairman Joni Sighvatsson, now president/CEO of Palomar Pictures, Los Angeles.
The Music Video Producers Association (MVPA) recently honored the six founding members of Propaganda with the Eastman Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award at the MVPA awards ceremony (SHOOT, 4/14, p.8). The award recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to the world of music videos. Propaganda has also successfully transitioned into commercial production and feature films.
Although all but director Dominic Sena have since left Propaganda, the founders are still involved in spot production. Former co-chairman Steve Golin is now CEO at bicoastal Anonymous, which represents Propaganda founding director David Fincher and several other former Propaganda alums, including David Kellogg, Gore Verbinski and Jeffery Plansker. Director Nigel Dick is repped for spots and music videos by Los Angeles-based A Band Apart; and director-turned-executive producer Greg Gold is now partnered in Los Angeles-headquartered Milk & Honey Films, a production services company with global bases of operation.
Sighvatsson says Propaganda was one of the first professionally run music video companies, and contends that it was the first run by filmmakers. "I think there was a much larger degree of professional knowledge and business sense [at Propaganda]," says Sighvatsson, who had, and continues to run, several companies in his native Iceland before launching Propaganda. "I think there was a higher degree of seriousness. The common goal [among] the Propaganda founders was that they wanted to be filmmakers, and they considered themselves filmmakers."
Moreover, Propaganda was in the right place at the right time. MTV was starting to take off in the mid-’80s, creating a greater demand for videos and a professional approach to video production. "In the beginning, it happened so sporadically that the record companies kind of bid it out of their hip pocket, so to speak," explains Sighvatsson. "But as it became more common, they needed professional organizations and directors who could execute."
Golin confirms that scenario. "I think there was a big changing of the guard," he says, "between the initial directors that established the business-British directors like Russell Mulcahy, Julien Temple and Steve Barron. We were the ones who started the new wave of American directors. I think the influence that Greg, Nigel, Dom and Fincher had over the video business really established a whole look that influenced TV commercials and movies."
Consider Fincher, who was a special effects cameraman at Industrial Light + Magic, San Rafael, Calif., before joining Propaganda. He directed clips for artists such as Madonna, Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, as well as spots for clients like Nike, before breaking into features with films such as Seven, The Game and Fight Club. Through Anonymous, Fincher is set to helm his first clip in four years, for A Perfect Circle’s "Judith."
Clips by default
Golin believes that Fincher and Sena were "fantastic" at taking the glossy, ’80s video look to the next level. Among Sena’s video highlights were a number of collaborations with Janet Jackson, as well as Richard Marx, Fleetwood Mac, Jodi Watley and Sting. "It was the heydey of MTV," says Golin, "and those guys were so innovative."
Sena says they made videos in part because no one would hire them for spots or features. "It was the only way we could get into the film industry at the time. Then we started playing with it, and had all the freedom in the world. People would give you cash, ask what your idea was, and then you went out and did it; the stakes weren’t that high. Interesting things came out of [our experimentation] … a lot of interesting ideas, treatments and lighting approaches. There was no point in playing it safe."
Of all the founders, Dick is the most prolific music video director, with 220-plus clips to his credit. He also recently helmed MTV’s first TV movie, 2GETHER, which spoofed the boy band phenomenon.
Dick says that part of Propaganda’s legacy involved legitimizing the video industry. "It definitely changed people’s views on [videos]," says Dick, a U.K. native who got his start producing and directing videos at Phonogram Records (the "gram" in PolyGram), London.
"Some feel it made the whole business more respectable," says Dick, "and others feel it took it to a whole new level of arrogance. At the end of the day, we helped [in that] it’s not a dirty word to be a rock video director anymore. It used to be if you directed videos, it was because you couldn’t get to do spots or movies-it was a sort of second-rate form of employment. It would be wrong for us to take complete credit for that, but I think we were able to turn it from a collection of people churning stuff out into something which actually had certain expectations and standards."
Gold says that Propaganda drew from the business model of doing commercials, while the work itself was aesthetically driven. "I think one of the things we all felt as directors was a responsibility to the music, and to creating images that were lasting," says Gold, who helmed a number of videos for artists such as Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson. "That wasn’t always the case with everybody who was in business at the time. A lot of videos out there seemed to be just jobs, and there was no creative stretching."
The commercial world quickly embraced Propaganda’s directors. "I think that Fincher, especially, had a very commercial sensibility-very slick, very graphic," says Sena. "He employed those ideas in music videos, and it was easy to see that they would work in TV commercials as well. People are always looking for something different."
Changeover
Propaganda didn’t retain its original management. The company went through several changes in ownership, which led to the departure of several founders. Sighvatsson and Golin sold half of Propaganda to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in ’92. Dick sold his shares of the company in ’94 because, as he explains, he’d left PolyGram to become a director and "woke up one day and realized I was a PolyGram employee again. I was right back where I was seven years ago. I didn’t want to be beholden to a multi-national corporation."
Sighvatsson departed in late ’94 to become an independent film producer-he returned to the spot world in ’99, when he came aboard Palomar. In ’98, Propaganda was sold to Universal Pictures in the studio’s deal to acquire PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. A year ago, Universal sold Propaganda’s film production assets to USA Films. Propaganda’s commercial, music video and talent management divisions went to Propaganda Film Holdings, a holding company formed in association with Gary Beer, former chief of the Sundance companies, SCP Private Equity Partners and cable pioneer Jack Crosby. Shortly after that sale, Golin was fired.
"Leaving was unbelievably emotional," says Golin. "I didn’t want Propaganda sold to the people that bought it. … I was not happy with the way it all came down. But I think it was a blessing in disguise, because what we’ve got now is going really well. I think there’s certainly a lot of opportunity now for all different kinds of programming, and we’re pretty much in all the businesses we were in before.
"We did a lot of great things at Propaganda and had an unbelievable amount of success, and we also made a lot of mistakes," he continues. "I think we got too big and too unfocused, with too many directors. I’m hoping [at Anonymous] that we can replicate the success and avoid some of the mistakes. We’re going to be focused on what our core business is: representing the directors, and creating content that is meaningful and that we can have ownership in."
Gold left Propaganda in ’96, after the opportunity to co-own Milk & Honey presented itself. Perhaps Propaganda’s most significant contribution, says Gold, is the large number of people in the industry now involved in other companies. He cites Howard Woffinden, partner/executive producer at Milk & Honey, as one former Propaganda producer, as well as Michael Bodnarchek, who is now co-president at A Band Apart. "There is almost no company that we do business with where there isn’t someone from Propaganda [involved]," says Gold. "It’s basically created a network of people who run part of the business."
There remains a fondness among the founders for the early days of Propaganda. Sena, for one, misses the time when the shop was small enough that everyone gathered to have weekly pow-wows. Since Feb. ’99, he’s been entrenched in the production of Gone in Sixty Seconds, and has been "out of the loop" in terms of his commercial home. "A lot has happened in the last year, while I haven’t been there," says Sena. "After I finish this [film], I’ll regroup. I’m going to go back, see if I recognize Propaganda anymore, find out what’s going on and figure out what I’m going to do next."
Among the flurry of notable developments at the new Propaganda in recent months were: the hiring of Sam Walsh, former director of broadcast production at Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, to serve as general manager of Propaganda Films Commercial and Music Video Division (SHOOT, 11/12/99, p. 1), the appointment of feature executive Rick Hess as overall Propaganda president (SHOOT, 10/29/99, p. 1); the renewal of director Spike Jonze’s contract with Propaganda sister shop, bicoastal/ international Satellite (SHOOT, 2/18, p. 1), and Propaganda’s entry into a co-production and licensing distribution deal with Seattle-headquartered AtomFilms, a prominent player in the online short film entertainment market (SHOOT, 3/31, p. 7). Additionally, as reported in a separate story this week (see pg. 1), Propaganda has secured the services of director Mark Pellington.,
