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There’s nothing like sharing a meal to break down barriers between people. A family-style lunch of simple dishes, passed freely around a table, reminds us that no matter our experience or position, on a human level we all need nourishment to keep going. And all the better if it’s the kind of gorgeous Italian food I recently shared with the team at production house FAMILIA.

As the first course – delicate, creamy burrata with a vibrant home-made basil pesto and a drizzle of chilli oil – makes its way to our table, I put some of the more junior staff on the spot as we delve into what makes working at FAMILIA such a thrill. We tuck into some real conversation and with each bite, my fellow diners reveal more of the essence of FAMILIA. Each of the eight shares their differing perspectives on their favourite parts of their jobs, with a side of hearty laughter and a few candid confessions.

I’d assumed that everyone in the production business loves the all-important shoot day, but Emma Stevens Broyd, an assistant producer, reveals that she prefers other parts. If she’s done her job right, by shoot day most of her worries should be over. “It should all just fall into place,” she says, “and it’s just a case of making sure it goes smoothly.”

Managing director and partner Toby Walsham stands up for the shoot day as the bit he always used to love when he was a producer, because “you see your hard work come to life. Plus, who doesn't love a table full of snacks and flat whites on tap” But in recent years he’s found a passion for something unexpected – treatment development . “I love working with our directors on their visions, finding the flaws and the strengths in their treatments and growing it into something beautiful.”

Francis Wallis, one of FAMILIA’s founders, is a director by trade. He loves a shoot day, but one of the less obvious moments he relishes is getting a brief he knows could become something special. “Knowing straight away that you really like it and it has potential to be really enjoyable, something you can make great,” he says, tearing off a piece of focaccia. 

Abdul Onipede, the newest member of the FAMILIA collective and office manager is still immersing himself in everything the world of production has to offer. “I enjoy the whole process, just everything. As a young creative coming up, every bit is interesting. It’s the challenge I’m looking for, to do a bit of everything – some design work, going on shoots, making call sheets.”

Toby’s not buying it though. “You don’t like making call sheets,” he laughs.

That’s when Mikey Levelle, executive producer who’s just arrived slightly late after working on a pitch, sits down to defend the soul-purifying qualities of an admin task: “I do, I love them! I do them on the weekends… and not just because I forgot to do them on a Friday.”

Honestly, it’s pitching that does it for Mikey. “It’s the most competitive part of the process,” he says. And while it’s stressful, he loves the strategy of it. “You have to supersede your competitors without knowing what they’re doing, what numbers they’re on. You have to think tactically and creatively, while still supporting the director and collaboration with the agency and the client.”

Speaking of competition, as dairy products continue to be smeared onto pillowy bread, the conversation turns to how FAMILIA differs from its competitors. It describes itself as a ‘next-generation production house’, but I ask the team what really feels most next-gen about the way they do things.

“I think it’s the fact that we do a deep dive,” says Thea. The company has an in-house strategist, who isn’t at the lunch because FAMILIA chooses to keep them anonymous. It’s emblematic of the thoroughness the team prides itself in. “We really care about the brand and the audience and we go to extra lengths to explore that, at pitch stage,” she goes on. “It means we’re really invested in the brand and the creative in a way that other production companies can’t be. We take brands and agencies on that journey so we can ensure our insights are elevating the project. They’ve spent probably a year getting a script approved through millions of layers, research. It’s important for us that we feel like part of a wider team. We’re all part of a whole, we all know what’s happening and we feel invested in every stage.”

That collaborative spirit is something that Toby’s keen to emphasise. An important ritual at FAMILIA is to sit down every Monday for the whole team to listen to each other’s problems and tasks for the week. “Because we’re all affected by each other’s responsibilities,” he says.

Abdul is keen to highlight the company’s next-gen ethos when it comes to technology too. As our server clears olive oil-smeared side plates away, he enthuses about how “everyone is really well versed in the next ways of doing things – from generative AI to content platforms, understanding how to use the latest technology.” A recent shoot with BMW put that into practice, pairing generative AI with virtual production. Abdul will never forget how it opened his eyes. “My mind was completely blown. Growing up I imagined films would be made that way. Actually being able to see it, little Abdul would have been so excited. It was futuristic shit.”

In fact, that’s built into FAMILIA’s process. Ciaran runs regular ‘Next Gen Sessions’ alongside the mysterious strategist to make sure everyone is up on the latest innovations. “Towards the back end of last year we had a session about Chat-GPT, Midjourney and Dall-E,” says Ciaran. “We were saying ‘keep it a secret because this is going to be an amazing tool’. Three months later it’s blowing up globally. It’s about trying to spot these things next gen tools for our team to utilise’’

“It’s nice to be ahead of the curve if only for a fleeting moment, but the purpose of these next gen sessions is to constantly be asking… What's next?” says Toby.

It’s clear from the enthusiasm around the table that working in production is a privilege they don’t take for granted. As finance director, Ade loves the chance to get away from a desk that it gives him. “From my background I’ve never been as close to the finished job as I have been at FAMILIA. Being on set I can see how we’re making stuff. I’d never had that level of detail before,” he says.

The opportunities production provides are worth appreciating. Emma hadn’t left Europe until her career flew her to Cape Town for a shoot. Thea once shot in Malaysia with orangutans and then flew in a helicopter over a glacier for the same job. “You’re not going to do that on your yearly holiday to Benidorm,” she laughs. 

In for some friendly one-upmanship, Toby recounts his wildest shoot travel. “I had a job where I went to the top of the Andes, an ice cream shop in Rwanda and then an old town back alley in Beijing. I’d never have planned that holiday!” He’s also got an ace up his sleeve. “My coolest shoot story is experiencing weightlessness in order to shoot something for Robinsons Fruit Shoot – a weirdly mundane product for a zero-gravity flight.. We were floating around. I think I kicked the director in the head because your instinct is to swim, but you can’t displace the air so you just flail around.”

As the cost-of-living crisis continues to complicate lives in the UK, those stories of past production adventures hide the tricky reality of 2023. It’s been a tough year for the industry, as most production companies will tell you. So I feel particularly lucky as steaming bowls of truffled pasta arrive at our table.

Brands have been understandably reluctant to spend in a financial climate where recession looms, acknowledges Mikey. “Brands don’t want to be the first people to splash millions on an ad campaign that’s going to be on TV for 30 seconds three times a day. They don’t want to be ‘showboating’.”

Conversely, demand for social and online content is rampant, he adds, noting that FAMILIA has encountered clients keen to amass more, but shorter, video assets. “They’re outputting more visual representation of their brands than they were.” The demand is still there, but it’s changed. “We’re strategizing with agencies and learning how to roll with those punches, but I don’t think anybody knows the truth.” He twirls some mafaldine al tartufo on his fork as we continue to ponder the health of the industry.

Thea, who used to work agency side, understands why budgets are squeezed. “Everything feels uncertain all the time. That provokes anxiety. A big brand in that situation does more research and procrastinates making a decision. And by the time they’ve made one, the relevant marketing person has moved on and you’re back to square one again. I’ve worked on big brands and that’s why they don’t make as much work as they could.”

The reality, as Toby sees it, is that “the UK market has become very expensive to operate in as a result of interest rates, inflation, crew rates being hiked – which I’m not against, but it has of course had a knock-on effect. My gut instinct is it’s a blip and it will equalise, but there’s lots that has to happen for that to be true. There are companies struggling for revenue. There’s not enough business to feed everyone.”

That said, Francis is confident in brands’ appreciation for advertising’s inflation-busting power. “The chancellor hasn’t said we’re in a recession,” he says. “The minute he says we are, that’s where brands will realise it’s time to push.”

As financial director, Ade Omosanya has to anticipate these things. He pauses his enjoyment of the pasta to lay out his priorities in guiding FAMILIA through: “One of the main things is predicting the future. Analysing past business trends, you know where the peaks and troughs are. And as a management team it’s important to make decisions as to when to limit spending and take that hit. We’ve weathered the storm a bit. We’ve made some decisions to balance those peaks and troughs out.”

Most production companies are, like FAMILIA, small and privately owned. “So it means a lot to us,” says Toby, who admits he knows people in more corporate jobs who feel protected from the ebbs and flows of the economy. But everyone around the table knows they have to fight for FAMILIA’s future.

“We’ve recognised this year that we were too reliant on the UK market, and Amsterdam, to an extent,” he says. So broadening their horizons to find work in the US and the Middle East has been a focus recently.

Adding strategy to the mix has also helped to future-proof the company. “Strategy always seemed like such a dirty word in production,” says Mikey, but his admiration for it is clear as he draws a parallel with his favourite sport. “Look at Formula 1. The drivers drive based on strategy – how many sets of tires they have, the data they collect is just as valuable as their god given talent as drivers. Our directors talent is being back up and supported by valuable insights and data and we feel we are certainly doing something different and future forward’ 

Attracting and retaining the best talent is key to a healthy, creative production industry. But we all know that the opportunities aren’t reaching everyone. As slabs of tiramisu arrive, the conversation turns to the human resources that the industry draws its power from. The people that power the creativity of the business. And where that talent comes from.

“There’s also no clear pathway,” says Emma, on the difficulty of people even getting that first step in the industry. “You need to know the companies. You need to know how to apply for those jobs.” 

That’s how Thea felt when she began her career as an agency producer. “If you wanted to be an agency producer when I started, it was very difficult to know that job existed.” So if only people from certain backgrounds are even aware of jobs in production, how can others aspire to be in it?

FAMILIA has tried existing schemes to try to address the lack of diversity in the industry, and they’ve worked, says Toby. But there’s the financial dimension. “People might think they want to get into this business and then they come in as PA and find that they find another side of it more interesting. The only way to really figure that out is to do. And especially with a cost-of-living crisis, they’ve got to get paid to do that.”

Abdul agrees. He knows the difficulty of entering the industry as someone without certain privileges first hand. “It’s a really high barrier to getting into the industry. I was personally lucky enough to know someone that had a production company. And literally from the age of 17 to 22, every single penny I made from my ‘normal’ job was invested into buying equipment, paying for subscriptions to allow me to make the things I wanted to.

“I was on the APA course earlier this year and I do feel like the industry’s made a lot of steps because I see a lot more young Black people like me, and people of other races who understand me and want to collaborate on creative projects. We’re all in that room because we have sale-able experience. The industry needs initiatives to nurture that talent.”

There’s no quick fix, but Francis is optimistic. “In the past few years, huge steps have been happening in DE&I – ethnicity, gender, representation on set,” 

Abdul has been surrounding himself with people who have the same hunger to create as he does. “You need to find that type of people and in the next few years, someone like me will have changed the industry like we wanted. We’re going to be in the position to help other creatives.”

Working at a next-gen production house means creating a better production landscape for the next generation, as Toby sees it. “If people in power right now make one right decision, it affects the people in power later,” he smiles, “...when Abdul’s running his own production company, FAMILIA 2.0.”

It seems unlikely he’d have a reason to start his own shop though, because the production house he’s at is dedicated to developing filmmaking talent like his, whether he wants to go into directing or producing. “We recognised a few years ago that production companies are always sold on their directing roster and absolutely they’re an essential part of making anything good. But your production roster is just as important,” says Toby.

The proof is in the talent round the table. Not least Emma, who was just named Best New Producer at the Kinsale Sharks for her work on productions for brands including The North Face, Braun and EA.

We rise from the table with full bellies weighing us down (that caffeinated dessert was a necessity), but it’s clear from the energy and the passion being bounced around the team throughout lunch that there’s nothing slow or complacent about the way FAMILIA works. Having eaten family-style with the team, I’ve had a taste of what their collaborations must look like. And if I could I’d be making a reservation with them again very soon.