Joshua Blum, President/Founder, Washington Square Films
How has your business model evolved over the years? What principles and beliefs have remained constant to help shape your company/agency/organization? What dynamics have changed, causing you and your company to adapt–and how have you adapted?
The business model of the company has changed several times over 30 years, but the core principles have remained the same. We started out making poetry films, got into booking artists and managing talent, moved into feature films, then in the late ’90s got into commercials. The aim, however, has always been to work with artists we like and respect, to create work we love and allow everybody to make a living.
What lessons have you learned over the course of your career that remain vital to you today? What new or recent lessons have you found particularly significant?
The eternal lessons are work hard, be kind, surround yourself with good people, have fun and hope for good luck. A post-COVID lesson is it’s good to come into the office. People work better, and life is more fulfilling in shared space.
What industry developments over the years–and/or recently–have had the greatest positive influence on you and your company, agency, organization? Whose work has had the greatest positive influence on you?
For us, the most interesting and positive development has been the evolving relationships between client, agency, production company and post. In the past our role was usually limited to production. Recently we have been engaged much earlier in projects and have stayed involved through post including creation and the delivery of many more assets than just the :30 or :60. This of course creates efficiencies, but also allows us to expand how we collaborate with our creative partners.
What changes in the business do you love and why? And, what changes in the business do you dislike and why?
I love that technology has made media creation and distribution more democratic. On the flip side, what we have gained in access we have lost in storytelling, production value and shared community experience. There has been enough written already about AI. Suffice it to say it’s a valuable tool that also creates an existential threat.
What do you look back on as among your greatest accomplishments professionally?
Our greatest accomplishment has been maintaining the balance of art and commerce. We love making movies, TV, and theater, and we love advertising. Commercials have introduced us to incredible talent, not just directors but artists from many other disciplines. We have taken great joy in bringing film people to the advertising world and advertising people to the film world.
What prompted you to get into the advertising/filmmaking business to begin with?
I always loved television and the movies. I started making films in high school and college and after school directed industrials until I realized that my talents were probably better suited as a producer. One day a director I was working with on a poetry project told me he was leaving his company and taking his sales rep, Jonathan Schwartz. He asked if I wanted to open a commercial division. I told him I knew nothing about commercials. He said he could teach me everything in five minutes. Essentially he said “the rep finds the job, you do a budget, I do a call, we win the job, then you show up and take everybody to lunch, that’s it. That’s all you need to know” Of course it turned out to be significantly more complicated than that but I am still friends with that director, and Jonathan and I worked together for 30 years.
Looking towards the future, what are the most pressing questions for which you are still seeking answers as you seek to meaningfully evolve your career and your company? Responses can span such sectors as the economy, business, creative, technological, media and/or any other area you deem relevant.
The biggest question facing all of our industries is the fractionalization of the audience. The economics require a lot of people to be watching. We are working hard to develop models for affordable production that doesn’t compromise quality and insures everybody gets paid a fare wage. .
What’s your fondest industry remembrance? Your most profound remembrance? Your funniest remembrance?
There are so many great stories, but what immediately comes to mind is a recent job I wasn’t even on. Director Andrew Lane was shooting a spot for the “No Lay’s, No Game” campaign through Slap Creative. The job required us to spontaneously find fans in the crowd eating Lay’s Potato Chips. The search was broadcast live at the San Siro stadium in Milan in front of 80,000 fans, and the winner would come down and watch the game with David Beckham and Thierry Henry, who were watching and commenting as we did the search. We had five minutes. My partner and executive producer Han West was bravely in Milan intensely entrenched with Andrew Lane and the agency. I watched from my computer in New York and cowered under my desk. When they finally found a winner, and they joined the players in their box, it was as satisfying a moment as I can remember in the industry. And I wasn’t there.
When did you start reading SHOOT and what were you doing then? How has SHOOT been useful to you during your career?
From the very start SHOOT was my industry bible. It’s where I learned the players, the terminology, and everything that was going on in the industry. When SHOOT published the photo and announcement of our commercial division, I proudly took it to my father as proof that I might actually have a professional career. To this day I read SHOOT every week, and appreciate everything they do.