1) When I started in 1986, Joni [Sighvatsson] and I had formed Propaganda Films. It was the heyday of music videos, which presented a real opportunity to develop talent. The generation before that had been commercial directors—Ridley Scott, Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker—who successfully went on to movies. But the era I began in spawned David Fincher, Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Gore Verbinski, Simon West, Michel Gondry, Antoine Fuqua. It was a nostalgic period for me, an era when we didn’t fully know what we didn’t know. But we pushed on and made things happen. Things moved so fast. That music video era went away but now we’re seeing a new renaissance for music videos.
The biggest problem young talent had back then was paying for film and processing, and the cost of editorial. But we have broken through those barriers for creation. You can get a camera for $1,000 or even shoot with a phone. Kids can edit on their computers. They can do visual effects. Young emerging talent can show their stuff. They have the resources to do this in digital. The traditional commercialmaking business has changed and you have to adapt. Commercials are still a big part of our business—and it’s a business I still love. Without sports, the 30 and 60-second model would be in trouble. We’re seeing a big shift into brand integrated content, and exploration in areas like experiential VR. There are a lot of wild opportunities coming into play. Part of what we’re doing well here at Anonymous is bringing in young people who understand this brave new world and can help to build the different emerging sides of the business. I’m excited bout the possibilities for digital content for this company. And we’re multi-faceted. We also have a robust [talent] management company.
We have also benefited by how television has opened up across different platforms. We have 11 TV shows on the air or that will be on the air. The one hour drama has been a super exciting business for us. Day to day it’s the most exciting part of the business for me. We’re in the second Golden Age of Television. We have a lot of directors involved, many writers and actors we represent. We are setting up a lot of TV shows. We started our TV focus in 2013—and we’ve been both clever and lucky with shows like True Detective and now Mr. Robot on USA Network which just won the Golden Globe and was named best show at the Critics’ Choice Awards. In the next two to three years, we hope to have as many as 20 shows airing. Our shows are on HBO, Cinemax, Netflix, we have two pilots for Hulu, Cary’s (Fukunaga) show The Alienist for TNT.
3) My role over the years has evolved to my becoming much more of a mentor to the people I work with. When I started 30 years ago, I wasn’t looking to mentor anybody. I was just trying to figure out what was going on. But I remember people who mentored me and were extremely supportive. Now with about a hundred employees, 25 managers, five producers, my role has evolved into helping to build Anonymous into a diversified business with smart, ambitious, talented people. I realized that we really become much more successful and powerful by spreading the experience and the opportunities to the younger people. It’s part of the evolution that you go through in aging and as you have more of a wealth of experience. We are doing a tremendous amount of work across different platforms so you have to learn to delegate to people. I worked with producer Michael Sugar on Spotlight and producer Keith Redmon on The Revenant—and now both can go out on their own and continue to do great work for us, taking on more responsibilities. That’s the direction the company is going in over the next four to five years. I will be involved a lot less in individual projects and be more involved in charting the direction of the company.