Why I Went From Being a Film Producer to Developing Software for the Storytelling Industry.

In grade 10, my high school drama teacher invited us to play on a fake soccer team for a movie called Air Bud: World Pup. I ended up playing alongside Kevin Zegers and his pet dog, Buddy, as a special skills background performer and a stunt double (no, not for the dog 😜). It was my first glimpse into the magical world of storytelling, where anything can happen, including getting a smaller pay check than a Golden Retriever.

I loved it, and became determined to leave high school as quickly as possible so I enrolled in film school classes before even graduating the 12th grade. Maybe it was just that teenage angst wanting to be able to express myself and tell my own stories, in my own way, but being on a film set for the first time inspired me.

So, I pursued a career in storytelling.

Initially, I wanted to direct commercials and I knocked off a couple of shorts in film school as calling cards, starting with ‘Silent Sarah’, where I forced my little brother with no acting experience to play a kid with an imaginary friend, which he still resents me for (and no, I did not have an imaginary friend 👻). After a few more attempts at directing I decided to work further behind the scenes in production as a Producer/Production Manager and immediately felt at home. Some people have cocaine, I have spreadsheets. Don’t judge.

But what was both fascinating and nerve-wrecking to me was that each time you started a production, you would form a community from the ground up. This meant sorting out the logistics to run that community in a hyper-fast environment, with little to no funds and limited resources, all with the goal to tell one unified story led by the storyteller (aka the Director). If something wasn’t perfectly lined up, there would be that lingering chance that an audience member engaging with the story, trying to enjoy a night at home or out at the theatre with friends, would get distracted by those imperfections. At that point we’ve failed because that audience member has disengaged with your story and you no longer can fix the problem that you needed to sort out on set.

This is why I lose 20 pounds every production.

I learned that my mission as a Producer was to provide for, enrich and enhance that storyteller’s vision. I am a servant to the storytellers, but when I’m distracted by imperfections in the production process, only the story suffers. Learning that was humbling and it made me realize that the logistics in production were just as important as the story being told.

I’m a Producer in my 30s now and it saddens me to say that production hasn’t innovated much from when I was filling out my starting paperwork (start packs) on Air Bud. Productions still lean on paper-based systems for collecting, executing and storing legal, accounting and tax credit documents which take so… much… time…

We in the production office spend hours, weeks and sometimes months collecting the information and documents we need from our crew. This slows down production and takes me and other key people away from servicing the storytellers and crew, preventing us from giving them the attention, logistics and tools they need to tell a great story.

That’s why we started Circus, which is the world’s first HR platform for Content Creators. You can now onboard your production crew in minutes without using a single sheet of paper.

It’s HR for Content Creators but really, it’s HR for the entire storytelling community, including the crew members who are often overlooked with content-related software. In the last 15 years of Producing, working with thousands of crew members, I’ve never encountered one person who loved onboarding onto a production. Lugging their documents around, trying to remember their employment details and filling out tons of paperwork from production to production is an unnecessary task with the advanced tools and technology we have today.

This is how it should be:

And here’s how Circus works for Content Creators:

1. Content Creators set up their production and determine which data and documents Circus needs to collect from crew members, such as deal memos, which can be custom designed using our free template.
2. They then set the deal points for each crew member including their role, prep/shoot/wrap dates, if they’re union/non-union, what their compensation package looks like and more. This prevents discrepancies in the deal-making process.
3. Using email addresses, the Content Creators then invite all the crew members simultaneously (or one by one) to the production and tracks their progress.
4. Crew Members receive the email invite and proceed to onboard, accepting their deal points, uploading all their required documentation and then signing the deal memo with their finger or their mouse. This can be done from anywhere in the world.
5. Finally, everyone gets siphoned into a comprehensive crew list where the production office can search, track and manage deal points and documents in a cloud-based system. Everyone can access the crew list in real-time to see who they’ll be working with and how they can communicate with them.

Letting Circus do the work for them, Content Creators can now focus on more important things. For crew members, they can now safely and securely store those employment details and docs on their profile, allowing them to onboard onto future productions with a click of a button.

We’re in private beta mode now and we’re allowing Content Creators in British Columbia to get a sneak peek at the software to let us know how it’s working for them and what we can do to make the experience better for everyone in the community.

We’re not going to stop here because we understand that there’s so much more to do to help the storytelling community work smarter, not harder. The way we work needs to be sustainable, green and digital and with today’s tech, it’s completely possible. For now, meet us at Circus (www.meetatcircus.com), request an invite and be a part of innovating the way we work and tell stories.

Producers to PAs — If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach me on twitter or email me at daniel@meetatcircus.com. — DD

p.s. Extra special thanks to my amazing wife, Kara Love Eaton, and my super talented CoFounder/CTO, Nigel Fish.