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New York City, U.S.A
E:
Okay, so first off, let's just celebrate two things. We've known each other for-
O:
Oh my Lord.
E:
More than 20 years.
O:
More than 20. Probably more like 25 because North Six is 21 years old. I remember meeting you in random places. I remember meeting you in a market in Morocco with your mum.
E:
We just had lots of friends in common. I don't know what I was doing. I was at Dazed from 1999 to 2007.
O:
You were friends with Patrick Deedes-Vincke?
E:
I was at university with Patrick.
O:
That was why.
E:
That's a lot to be celebrating. So, 21 years of North Six – talk about that!
O:
We started in August of 2001 – and it was very specific because I was determined to open my own company before I turned 30. I turned 30 on the 10th of September and so we set up the company in August and we moved to this funny place in Williamsburg on North Sixth Street. It was right next door to the Fish Market. Obviously, Williamsburg back then was a completely different place to what it is now.
E:
Unrecognizable.
O:
Unrecognizable. I remember everyone was like, “Why are you moving to Williamsburg? What are you doing?” [Laughs]
E:
When you say we, what does that mean at that time?
O:
Back then I had a partner, Vanessa Hodge. Vanessa and I had worked together at a previous production company, Patrick’s production company, Lighthouse. We decided that it was time to just start doing it ourselves.
Strangely, I think as producers – especially back then – you’d have a different relationship with photographers because you traveled together so much. We would spend a long time with these people in strange places. You got to know each other quite well and intimately.
E:
You were traveling because of the fantasy of fashion and because of the money and the extended investment in huge campaigns. Obviously, we'll talk about it, but that’s changed quite a bit.
O:
Yes. Those shoots would be two or three days scouting, four or five days shooting, wrap day, and eight images, if you had to, a day. [Laughs]
E:
Eight images a day. Now that's—
O:
That might be pushing it.
E:
Yes, but this is also just pure photography. Probably on film.
O:
Then, luckily, I started working with Mikael Jansson very early on. I was working with Peter Lindbergh, and a bit with David Sims and Craig McDean, and built from there. It was also a time when Trey Laird had just opened up his agency. He had just left Donna Karan [where he was executive vice president and corporate creative director] and he was creating an agency.
E:
He didn't want in-house production?
O:
It wasn't even something that people really thought about. Trey was very much someone that had a big impact on us, as the creative director of many of the Gap’s campaigns [through his agency]. Again, certain photographers – Peter, Mikael – were very much the type of photographer that the Gap wanted to work with and I was producing a lot for.
E:
It's all it is in the industry. It's so much about relationships—
O:
It’s all about relationships. Fabien Baron is someone who was also a big inspiration and early collaborator of North Six’s. It’s great to see how these relationships have evolved and continued over the past two decades. And then of course the opportunity to work with and support the next generation of creatives has been really exciting. For example we worked with Mia and Robert from Style Council when they were both at other agencies and brands. But then they launch Style Council and it was incredible to be able to continue that relationship and watch the agency grown, and grow with them.
E:
—its about building upon those relationships.
O:
I remember very specifically turning around to Trey at one point and telling him, “I should be doing your commercials.” I was sitting there doing all the print, but then there was a TV spot – we weren't doing it.
E:
In a way, you were a bit ahead of your time, I think.
O:
Well, thank you. [Laughs]
E:
I do! It just made sense to you, creatively — but I think you still have a little separation, don't you?
O:
It's a funny one because I think it's really important everyone stays in their lane. As a producer, at the end of the day, I'm being hired to make something happen and make it as easy as possible for the creatives to do their job. Then, the idea of supporting the photographer and staying in your lane was really important. I think things have changed somewhat now.
I'm not creative. I will never, never put myself in a place to say I'm a creative. The buzzword is “creative producer.” I hate that term.
E:
It's not you.
O:
I think it's, like, everyone wants a label. Listen, of course you have to have a creative eye, and of course you should be smart and be able to recognize a good shot. But you're not creative.
E:
Then you get yourself out of the way. I always call myself a creative enabler.
O:
That’s great.
E:
If you think about what you offer as a producer, as a business, originally it was stills, then it was stills plus moving image.
O:
Well, at the end of your shoot now, there's always an extra day or two where you've got maybe more influencers coming in to be photographed and they're also creating some of the content themselves.
I think that was, for me, one of the really big moments of watching how brands now need so many more assets, which, as a production company, is actually a great opportunity because it's not just about the photographer.
You need to be able to protect and support the photographer to make that hero campaign. Then at the same time, you need to help the brand get all these additional assets, and try to find that balance with keeping the shoot intimate and meaningful for the photographer.
E:
Experience. What does that mean in your terms?
O:
You’re spending other people's money. You have to be really black and white and transparent. If you can, like we did, have that buttoned up, brands start asking you to do other things. They’d say, “Would you do an event?” We'd always said No because I found that quite stressful.
The idea of getting into events made me feel very anxious because I was like, I'm going to find myself always wondering, “Are they having a good time?” I think I started realizing that on the event side of things, our job is to create an experience. You can't control if someone's going to have a good time. [Laughs]
E:
What you did, though, is that as the world has evolved and the needs of the brands evolved, it became really no longer just about the needs of supporting the photographers.
You’ve endlessly expanded your operations because of technology, social media, different modes of expression, and marketing. It’s all storytelling, but across all these different platforms.
How do you stay informed? It’s not only motivated by growing your business. You obviously must be innately interested in, anthropologically, how things are evolving in the world.
O:
I think I’ve been very lucky and have worked very hard to attract the new generation of young producers that have the same spirit that I had 20 years ago, but they’ve got knowledge of the technology that we didn't have. [Laughs] That’s interesting.
E:
Therefore, they're regularly updating you. They're saying, "Well, this is going to be the new need." It's so fascinating, honestly.
O:
Yes. I also think COVID was a strange time for us. We were considered a safe place to go because we knew the protocols and we followed the protocols. I think it was also interesting because we already had a presence in so many places.
E:
You didn't have to fly anywhere?
O:
We didn't have to fly anywhere.
E:
Wait, talk about how many places you are now. I've lost track a bit.
O:
We are in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam, and we're just opening in Sydney, Australia. We have adjacent cities as well. We have Barcelona covered and we have Rome covered.
E:
These are all different scales of offices. There might be one or two people.
O:
Our New York office HQ is probably the biggest office.
I'm interested to see what happens with Sydney – it was a very organic step. We were working with Inditex and Zara and there were so many rolling lockdowns across Europe that things just couldn't be shot.
We came up with the idea of suggesting that they shoot in Australia because Australia wasn't locked down. It was just that you couldn't get into the country. We have an Australian producer that worked in our London office who had wanted to go home, so had moved back.
E:
That was happenstance because Australia isn't somewhere that seems particularly practical on many levels from – obviously that's very Eurocentric or a very America-centric idea but—
O:
I think Australia's interesting for a couple of reasons. It's also a place where a lot of films are being shot so you get a lot of celebrities there, talent going down there for long periods of time. If that talent has a contract with a brand and they need to shoot a certain number of days a year, which they all do, we can now help them cater to that.
E:
What would you say are the effects of COVID from a production standpoint? Not everyone's going to get on a plane and go, "We all have to be on set."
O:
Listen, I hope that's something that we become a little bit more aware of anyway just in terms of acting a little bit more sustainably.
We try to balance it, too, by carbon offsetting the shoots.
E:
I do know, and we've talked about it in the past, about your 1% for the Planet commitments.
O:
Listen, I think we work in an industry where people are very good at self-promotion and talking about all of the things that they do.
I think you have to be really careful when you start trying to think about social causes and social impacts and sustainability – all of these things can be a little buzzwordy, but it's got to be authentic, and it's got to be real.
We don't really shout about it, I encourage our clients to think about it. Joining 1% was one of our quick early steps.
E:
Just top line on 1% – because not everyone is aware of it. It's the most phenomenal setup by Yves Chouinard from Patagonia.
O:
Who just sold his business.
E:
I know.
O:
He's an amazing man.
E:
Unfortunately, that hasn't had a ripple effect throughout every other billionaire with a business — but you can live in hope.
E:
But, 1% for the planet, what does that mean?
O:
All about making a commitment to donating 1% of your income to—
E:
1% of your profit?
O:
1% of your profit.
E:
After tax, before tax.
O:
After tax.
E:
Okay. Simple.
O:
As simple as that. It's really simple.
E:
That goes, "To the planet." What does that mean?
O:
We work with them every year to look at the different charities that we think would be relevant to our company.
Within the company, we decided to start building out more social awareness.
So for our team, part of their job is to find causes or charities that we want to get behind to either support or use our services to help them. I think what's so smart about 1% is they help you recognize that. Part of your 1% could also be the time that you spend on causes.
E:
There's another thing that I know that you've been plodding through because it's really onerous. And that is becoming B Corp certified.
O:
Yes. We've been working on that for over a year now, and it's brutal.
E:
It should be, otherwise if it's too easy to qualify them, there's going to be a red flag.
O:
It's about the culture within the company, but then it's also physical things, like making sure that your lights use energy-efficient bulbs through to how you recycle. It touches everything.
E:
Your recycling will also be impacted by how the city you're based in chooses to take it on from there which is so—
O:
Exactly.
E:
— it's so fascinating.
O:
I think we're very lucky in the fact that we've grown to such a size where we can assign people to these sorts of tasks.
We have a sustainable officer. Her job is to make sure that we are always being mindful.
E:
I was going to ask how much is this a value that you think brands are cognizant of – are they curious about it?
O:
No.
E:
They just want you to get the job done?
O:
Well, if we're talking about our social impact, that's about actually sleeping well at night; the idea that we are actually trying to do something, however small, it's important for me.
But it's also goes back to how you want to attract the right talent, the right people to join the company. I am trying really hard to make North Six one of the most appealing places to come and work.
E:
Then you have retention.
O:
Yes, exactly.
E:
Because actually, what we've been talking about this whole time is that level of commitment where you have repeat business. If your producers revolve all the time, then how are you going to build those relationships?
The key word is trust. I know you'd be uncomfortable with me saying this, but ultimately, you're the boss. Those that work at North Six work within the company that you founded, so therefore for you. Also, they're then the face of your company.
O:
Yes.
You definitely know when you meet someone whether they have the same values and ethics as you. We have a code of ethics, and the key takeaway is "Be Good, Do Good." For me, that defines North Six: do good work and be good to people. It's not complicated.
E:
Do you find yourself in a position to advise other businesses? Are people like, "Hey, how did you get that B Corp thing?"
O:
No. We haven't really, at this point, found ourselves in that situation. No.
E:
It's interesting. I wonder if you'll end up doing work for other B Corp brands. You know what I mean? You reach out to a CEO of a B Corp and go, "Us too – blimey, that took a long time."
O:
That's the hope.
E:
There's no shame in any of this having a business motivation, to be honest.
O:
I'm a businessman, so inevitably I look to grow the business. These are not just about decisions that we're making to do good to the world. It's also good business to do things like this because I hope that I'm going to attract like-minded businesses that want to work together.
E:
Yes, you want to do it anyway for the culture of the company but it’s a pretty savvy business practice as well.
It should be normalized at some point.
O:
One would hope. One would think we'll get there.
E:
I wanted to ask you, in the timeline of building this business, what were your proudest moments?
O:
I think one of the proudest moments within the company is actually more about the growth of the people within the company. To be honest with you, I remember the first time one of my producers bought a home. It sounds silly as a milestone, but it was.
E:
Because they had a stable wage.
O:
Because they had a stable wage, and the business that I had built and was growing meant that they felt confident doing that. I don't mean that as an ego thing, it's more that it was just really fucking cool that that was happening.
E:
By now you must also have people who've got kids who've left school, and are by now at college.
O:
Yes.
That also encourages the kind of culture you want in the company. The idea that, of course, you can go off and have a life outside of work.
E:
And, do you always think “What’s next?”
O:
Yes, I think, "What's next?" I think what's next for me is probably continuing to think about other markets.
I'm interested in getting into Asia and the Middle East. Also, our Experiential and Influencer Marketing divisions have grown and evolved so much in the last couple of years it feels like there is so much on the horizon there.
I’m also trying to figure out how to really harness the social side, the social impact side. We're trying to figure out a way of helping non-profits or causes to come up with campaigns and strategy. Taking what we know and helping them execute.
I think a lot of what we do is that we have the beginning of an idea and we're going to play with it a while until we work it out. Like a Rubik's cube, you keep shuffling it around until it's fully formed.
The number of charities North Six has made donations to through its 1% for the Planet commitments.
