Fireside Chats: Episode 1 Transcript

00:00:00.000 — 00:00:05.560 · Simon Harrison

You’ve got to keep moving forward all the time. You’ve got to innovate. You’ve got to chase those marginal gains.

00:00:05.560 — 00:00:10.360 · Sophie Connor

We’ve recently refined the way that we talk about our values, but fundamentally they’re the same as they were in day one.

00:00:10.400 — 00:00:14.080 · Simon Harrison

Their link to sport is really interesting and drives home the message.

00:00:14.120 — 00:00:18.400 · Sophie Connor

Now, this kind of relentless ambition to always, never stand still, always push for more.

00:00:18.440 — 00:00:22.160 · Simon Harrison

I didn’t want to be the biggest company, but I wanted to be the best.

00:00:30.680 — 00:01:04.339 · Simon Harrison

So, Sophie, it’s the 25th anniversary year of Kingdom Creative, and I wanted to take this opportunity to really talk about two things. First of all, where the company came from, how it was born, because it’s not a conventional story. And secondly, our values, because I think they’re quite interesting, because they didn’t come from a book or from a course or anything like that.

They came from the world of sport, and they’re really around four things. First of all, people. Secondly, preparation. Thirdly, development, and fourthly, leadership. Some of these ideas are not necessarily new, but I think their link to sport is really interesting and drives home the message.

00:01:04.379 — 00:01:17.980 · Sophie Connor

25 years. What an amazing achievement, especially in this current market. What really stands out to me is the consistency. We’ve recently refined the way that we talk about our values, but fundamentally they’re the same as they were in day one. So let’s look back at your racing career. What were the highlights?

00:01:18.340 — 00:01:44.900 · Simon Harrison

Well, I started off as a child wanting to be a multiple Formula 1 world champion. So I started in go-karting and then single-seater formula cars, a very difficult sport to progress a long way. And I was fortunate to get the opportunity from Honda to race in the British Saloon Car Championship. So I grabbed that, and I ended up winning that championship three times and went on to drive in a World Touring Car Championship, which was amazing.

So it was a 23-year career. I feel really fortunate to have experienced all that.

00:01:44.900 — 00:01:54.460 · Sophie Connor

So coming from being a professional racing car driver to setting up a film production agency, not the most obvious transition. Why? Why the transition from racing to film?

00:01:54.500 — 00:02:31.130 · Simon Harrison

I remember in the early 2000, someone brought out what they called circuit guides, and it was a ring binder, and you’d buy inserts for a particular track if you were new to the sport wanting to learn a track because every track has nuances and things to learn. And I remember seeing this and thinking, well, this is a weird thing.

I’m sure I can do better than that, because it’s so hard to learn a physical thing, a circuit from a book, from diagrams. So I decided it’d be a great idea to do a video version. And I got a friend to help me who just started out making films just on an amateur basis. And just through watching him film and then edit, I just fell in love with filmmaking. I really, really did. It suddenly became a passion from nowhere.

00:02:31.170 — 00:02:34.250 · Sophie Connor

So how long did it take to build Kingdom into the company it is today?

00:02:34.290 — 00:04:32.620 · Simon Harrison

It took a while. It was an interesting start because I knew nothing. I really didn’t know anything about the industry, and I think that was really good because it meant I was starting from a clean sheet of paper. I did know several things. I knew that I wanted to build it into a business because I loved the industry.

I knew that I’d want the people that were going to help me to be full time and around me, because again, this harks back to the motorsport. In a team, as a driver, you don’t want different people coming and going each race. You want a dedicated team that are fully with you on that journey. 100% behind you. People you can really trust.

I also knew that I didn’t want to be the biggest company, but I wanted to try for us to be the best. Again, going back to motorsport, no one is impressed by the biggest Formula 1 team, they’re impressed by the most successful Formula 1 team. So that’s what I wanted to do. I need to achieve things, achieve things for clients and achieve things for us.

And lastly, I kind of wanted to challenge the industry. I knew that people could quite happily do multiple roles. In a race team, people will be a mechanic, they’ll look after the wheels, they’ll change an engine, they’ll do all sorts of different things. And I didn’t see why that couldn’t be the same in the film industry or the video industry.

How much better would it be if the camera person then takes that footage that they’ve shot and they edit it? They do the whole process. I really thought you could do the whole process. At that time, when I was out filming, I was often seeing another crew and there would always be a camera operator, a sound recordist, a producer and a runner.

And it just seemed crazy that these four people were doing what I thought could be done with one role. And that went even further in the early days when drones came along. We even set up a drone course around the office where you had to fly a little drone through hoops, land in certain spots, all sorts of tricks.

And whoever were the first people to complete the course, we then put them through their drone licences, and that turned out to be our graphic designer was the first person. So, like, I was very up for people having these multiple roles and having this real variety in their life. So that’s the kind of company I wanted to build.

And also I knew that I wanted to be surrounded by people that were all on the journey together, and all had this clear goal.

00:04:32.700 — 00:04:44.540 · Sophie Connor

It’s exciting how those same principles are guiding where we’re headed. You know, we want to stay true to that model. We want the diversity of their work. We want to ensure that we’re giving our people the opportunity to grow and build their specialisms.

00:04:44.580 — 00:05:18.560 · Simon Harrison

100%. I think variety is so important. It keeps everybody fresh. People like different challenges. I talked earlier about being united around one goal. That’s very easy in motorsport, because there’s a goal to win the race. Not as easy in business, but I think we’ve sort of decided on three goals that we chase, you know.

Number one is obviously we want to do an amazing job for clients and create films which deliver results. Secondly, from a personal point of view, we want to make films that we want to show to our friends and family, films that we’re really proud of. And thirdly, we want to win awards. So I think we’ve reunited or united around those three goals, and that’s really what is our focus.

00:05:18.600 — 00:05:38.600 · Sophie Connor

When I first came to Kingdom, I was amazed by the multi-skilled nature of the role. You know, from my experience, I’d come from agencies which had everybody in-house, but also agencies that are more of a collective. So a small core team supported by freelancers. And I think just the multi-skilled nature is just, it’s just so impressive when you first walk in. The creative team wear so many, so many hats, and they wear those hats brilliantly.

00:05:38.600 — 00:07:13.980 · Simon Harrison

So we’ve talked about people. And again, I think that is the critical section. But also what’s critical is preparation. And again, I kind of emphasise preparation because that takes again back to motorsport. So I think the most extreme form of preparation in motorsport is probably what the driver does to try and focus and get calm.

So they’re always in a consistent state when they get in the car. It’s very easy to become excited and make mistakes. You’ve got to stay calm. When my routine used to be about 20 minutes before you got in the car to try and find some quiet space, and I’m big on drawing maps, so that was my thing. And alarmingly, I’ve even got them with me.

So, uh, you know, each time I go into a huge detailed drawing of a map, lots of notes, and that for me worked really well because it calmed me down and focussed me, but also helps sort of remember exactly what to do. And it provides a great reference for the future, so I used to build those up over time, but that used to be a major part.

I try and take that and instil it to people here, and I think we’ve done a great job at that, and I think it’s one of our key strengths. So that’s all about thinking ideas through literally from start to end. Make sure they’re possible, make sure they’re practical, visualise them. Is this going to work? Once you’re sure, you’ve got to plan the shoot and we’ve got to do that in immense detail; everybody has to know exactly what they’re doing in the same way, maybe you do a Formula 1 pit stop. Everybody has a role, they know exactly what to do. But also we’ve got plans if things don’t work out quite how we expect, and we can react quite quickly. And I really think through preparation we’ve become the best in the business at filming live events, filming anything that’s time restrictive.

And yeah, I’m really proud of how we’ve taken on preparation and do it so well.

00:07:14.060 — 00:07:25.860 · Sophie Connor

I’m always amazed by the way that the producers prepare for their shoots. You know, even when we’re expected to turn around the preparation of a shoot in a couple of days, they always nail it and it brings so much value every day.

So, one area we haven’t really touched on yet is development.

00:07:25.900 — 00:08:50.760 · Simon Harrison

Development is so critical. You’ve got to keep moving forward all the time. You’ve got to innovate. You’ve got to chase those marginal gains. Again, taking the learnings from sport, I remember reading a book called Will It Make the Boat Go Faster, which is incredibly interesting, and I definitely recommend it.

It’s all about the British rowing team on the run-up to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. In the years before that, they hadn’t had much success. They were really struggling, and they united around this idea of focusing only on things that would make the boat go faster. Practical things that will definitely make a difference.

And they ended up going to the Olympic Games and winning gold. And I thought that was a really interesting concept. So we very much looked to do exactly the same. We’re always looking for the best equipment, new things that come out that make things even better quality or it’s faster to do. We’re always looking at new technology, new techniques, and we’re also always on the lookout for the best new emerging talent.

Critically, though, it’s always, I think, important to debrief. So after every shoot, we do a debrief; we need to learn. We need to record that information, and we need to try and improve. And to give you a perfect example of that, remember my circuit maps? Well, we still do them. Digitally these days, so I don’t have to draw them, but we record things like the best corners to film on how to get to those corners.

And that’s so important. We can go to a circuit, and we know exactly what to do. Even if people are new to that circuit, they can use those circuit guides to quickly get going and capture the best footage. Also includes the best bars and restaurants, but that’s all part of it. We’ve got to enjoy what we do!

00:08:50.800 — 00:09:21.550 · Sophie Connor

And I love that about Kingdom, and I’ve loved about that too, you know, since I first started here, you know, this kind of relentless ambition to always, never stand still, always push for more, always defy expectations and always just look to achieve as much as we can.

And I think that’s, when I first stepped into the MD role, what I was really keen to do, is really build a really, really strong senior leadership team. One that was, you know, right behind me, ready to help in terms of how we can grow the company forward and what we can do to drive the business. In terms of how your approach to leadership has developed over the 25 years?

Tell us, tell us a bit more about that.

00:09:21.550 — 00:09:42.870 · Simon Harrison

So I kind of just tried to remember who inspired me. And act with the different team principals that I’ve been with, which was seven different teams over the 23 years. And yeah, it’s been an interesting journey. But again, I’m really delighted that you’re now here. And as you say, you’ve taken us to this next level.

You’ve got more leaders involved who have come to the fore, and people are seeing their roles develop. It’s been fantastic.

00:09:42.910 — 00:09:56.790 · Sophie Connor

Great. It’s great to be on board. And I think as you were talking about preparation earlier, now is the time to prepare for the future. As well as advancing what we’re doing with AI, we’re also very keen to grow into new sectors: sports and travel. Really interesting and builds on our Made to Move positioning.

00:09:56.830 — 00:10:07.430 · Simon Harrison

Fantastic. I’m loving being part of this new phase of the journey. I’m loving you being at the helm and seeing what you’re doing, especially how you’re broadening the leadership structure. It’s really impressive and really cool. So thank you, Sophie.

00:10:07.750 — 00:10:08.910 · Sophie Connor

Amazing. Thank you.