We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Elkus Gross a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Laura Elkus, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The Beatles Anthology was the most meaningful project I’ve worked on. I was lucky enough to experience the Beatles’ phenomenon as it happened, and I was in love with them from the start. I had worked with each of them individually, so when the most possible reunion happened (with the self titled “Threetles:” George, Ringo and Paul, with archival material from John) with The Beatles Anthology, I was privileged to be one of the team creating promotional materials for the project. This was the Beatles story, not told by outsiders, but by the four Beatles, themselves. It meant the world to Beatles’ fans to have this perspective, it gave great historical context to their amazing creative output and the immense impact it had on the world. It was a celebration of that soul changing music, of art, of color, of the endless idealism of the time. And, for me, it was thrilling to be working again with Paul, George and Ringo, but this time not as solo artists, but as Beatles. It will always be the best job – ever!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Wow, big question! I graduated from Cal State Northridge with a teaching degree, but also followed my passions for both rock and roll and creative writing by interviewing rock stars and writing articles for various rock magazine. That morphed into a radio show at CSUN, which led to a part time job interviewing celebs for then powerhouse radio station KRLA. When KRLA offered me a full time job, I had to choose between teaching (which I loved) and a creative career (which I also loved), it was finally the staggering difference in pay that swayed me toward taking the radio job. After 4 1/2 blissful years at KRLA, a management change meant I (and almost all of my co-workers) were laid off, and I looked for a job in radio syndication. While no one hired me full time during that 6 month search, almost every company I met for possible jobs hired me as a freelance writer/interviewer. After 6 months, I realized I had a full time job, with lots of clients, and thus L.E.G. Productions was born. We moved into TV in the 80’s, when I became the unofficial West Coast producer for MTV (they had no West Coast office or staff, but then they had me!). We moved on to producing EPK’s, DVD bonus features, TV specials and more, becoming known especially for our work on animated films. What sets us apart? Huge passion and commitment, never having a cookie cutter approach, and always working to share the absolute best our clients have to offer. I’m most proud of our laser focus on doing the best job possible, and sharing our joy and passion for the work with all the people who will be viewing it.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
I actually once wrote an essay about this, and will share it here. Feel free to edit it down! Deadline – Emphasis on Dead!
We were three weeks out from delivering approximately two hours of content for the “9” Blu-ray and DVD when my client and her boss called me at the edit bay. The tone of their voices alerted me immediately that the news wasn’t good, and they told me that they’d just come from a meeting with the Universal Studios’ execs asking if we could deliver the DVD bonus features a week early. My knee jerk reaction is to always say yes to a client, but I couldn’t make this promise without consulting my staff, so I called the office, told everyone not to go home, even though it was the end of the work day, because I was calling an emergency meeting. We were working really efficiently, and would have sailed through that deadline in three weeks. Losing a week was a challenge, but we all agreed we’d put in night and weekend hours to make it happen, and I called the client and said we’d do our best, but asked them to allow us an extra day or two if necessary.
And, then, a week later, after a lunch meeting with clients from Disney, I checked my Blackberry to find about 11 missed calls from my office. Matt, my number one preditor (producer-editor) got on the line, and he sounded…defeated, depressed, and exhausted. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t even try to soften the blow. “The hard drive with all of the media for ‘9.’ It died.”
Now, you would think, ‘Well, what about the backup drive?” Because, certainly, you’d have a backup drive…right?
And, that’s what I said, “Well, don’t we have a backup drive?”
“Yes, after Peggy failed (we name our drives, this one is named for Peggy Sue of the Buddy Holly song), I plugged in Ringo (you can guess where that name came from), and Ringo failed.”
As I’m driving in the car, my heart is starting to pound and my palms are getting sweaty, while I’m trying to get my head around the impossibility of the situation, not to mention the unlikelihood of two hard drives failing simultaneously. Something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark, or at the very least, in the electronic workings of L.E.G. Productions.
My voice is failing, too, as I rasp out, “Ringo and Peggy failed?”
Matt is resigned, “Uh-huh.” He’s had two hours to fade into this numb state. I’m just at the starting gate.
“Turn everything off, obviously something is wrong, corrupted, a virus, a short, a…” I stop, because I don’t know what could cause this problem, but it’s cataclysmic for us right now. And, then, a really weird thing happens. My brain, like both Peggy and Ringo, fails. I cannot speak, because I cannot think of anything else to say. “I have to call you back,” I stutter, hitting the end button.
My brain is numb, except for the part that is trying to imagine how I am going to pull my guts up from my feet, which is where they’ve currently plummeted. I’m barraged by images of not only not meeting our new, shortened deadline, but being weeks and weeks late from even our old deadline…starting over. Brain, shut down, I drive in silence with my stomach still twirling in my feet.
And, that lasts for about 10 minutes, until The Real Me, The Problem Solving Me, The Dynamo Me, returns from her brief hiatus to Panicsville. (And, by the way, they’re all the real me: the panicked insecure woman who couldn’t talk, the crazy person whose stomach really must return to its appropriate location, and Wonder Woman…we’re a package deal. I just wish the cool, tough chick was the real me. She’s the best of me).
I call the office again. “Matt, do we have the EDL’s (edit lists) from all the pieces, or are those on Peggy and Ringo?”
It appears those are actually on the main computer, so they’re OK. I have him check this, and back them up. Worst case scenario, we can rebuild all the pieces in the on-line bay with these EDL’s. It’ll take time and cost a fortune, but it can be done. We’re not dead, yet, we’re just sick. Next, I call the man who sold us our editing system. When I explain that two hard drives failed consecutively, he agrees that the oddness of this is overwhelming. Then, he tells me to just re-digitize all of the footage on some new drives. I have 200 hours of footage. I have less than 200 hours to finish the project. This suggestion is impractical, but he is insistent. I keep asking him to send a tech to our office to see if the material is recoverable. He refuses for quite a while, telling me it will be much too expensive. Although I explain over and over that I am working on a very tight deadline with 200 hours of footage, I basically have to ask him half a dozen times before he finally agrees to send a tech. I’m praying to the video gods that maybe, just maybe, they can recover the material. And, also, figure out what the hell went wrong, because we can’t risk working on Matt’s system until we know if some terrible virus/worm/gremlin/evil spirit is at play here. By the time I get back to the office, I find my entire staff brainstorming about what we can or can’t do to solve this problem. Turns out we had a third backup, that doesn’t have all of the media on it, but has about 70%. It’s better than nothing, and I add it to my list of options, because I know that I have to call the client and explain that no matter how lucky we get, we’ve lost valuable time, and we aren’t going to make this new deadline.
However, I am not going to call her until I have a plan and a backup plan for recovery, and I am not going to call her until I can make my voice sound like I’m Wonder Woman (or at least a competent professional). Remember, never let them see you sweat. Which might mean you have to shower and change before that phone call.
So, here was Plan A. If it’s possible, recover the data. Work even longer hours. Miss the deadline by a day or two.
Plan B. Take the EDL’s into an on-line bay and do all the work there. Kiss most of your profits goodbye. Miss the deadline by a day or two.
Plan C. Use the drive that had 70% of the data (if you’re curious, that drive was named Buddha, not after the religious figure, but after the dog in “Air Buddies,” a movie we worked on). Digitize what was missing. Rebuild the pieces. Miss the deadline by a week.
When I was calmer (about 3 hours later) and could sound like Wonder Woman aka Competent Professional Producer Woman, I called the client. I explained that the drives had failed, and that I had three plans to successfully deliver the DVD content. Her comment, “Wow, Laura, I don’t understand how you can sound so calm.”
My answer? “I didn’t call you until I could sound calm, and until I could tell you how we would solve these problems.”
She was impressed; by my professionalism, my three solutions, and my ability to speak without hysteria. Luckily, she had missed the croaking, not speaking, stomach-in-the-feet-me of mere hours before.
Here’s the lesson. Get hysterical, then calm down, then come up with a solution or three, then call your client, and then, execute your problem solving plan.
By the way, the techs were able to recover about 90% of the data. We lost three work days because we had to rebuild what was missing from the pieces. We worked even longer hours and made the shorter deadline! And, the problem? A $2 plug that had gone bad. With a $60,000 system, a bad plug brought us to our knees. Where we prayed.
© Laura Elkus Gross
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I think the lesson I had to unlearn is that being right, and proving it, is not always the best policy. OK, being right is fine, but proving it is not necessary, and can be harmful. Two examples: 1. I had a client meeting with my (at the time) biggest client, who insisted that I always be the producer on their projects, and not other members of my team. I should have just said fine, and then made sure my team was co-producing with me. Instead, I went through a list of recent projects and asked the client which were his favorites. At least half of them (maybe more) had been produced by other members of my staff. I pointed this out. This did not, however, gain me or my company any points. It just made the client angry, and as a result, he hired us less frequently.
2. Another client was unhappy with the voiceover on a piece we produced. I took full responsibility, and said I would hire a different voiceover talent (and pay for it, as it was my responsibility) and I sent the client several samples so they could choose the talent. They chose someone, he did the work, and they were still unhappy, and quite unpleasant about it. I said we could choose someone else, or have the second talent re-do the VO, but they would have to pay this time. This lead to an extremely contentious phone call, in which the client screamed and cursed at me, and literally threw their phone across the desk (I could hear it skidding on my end of the call). That client, who had used us frequently, never used us again, despite having told me on even the unpleasant call that we did the best work for them. I was morally right, they should have paid. But, in the end, I paid a huge amount in the loss of their work. So, I should have just paid the 3rd VO fee, and kept the client happy. I have learned my lesson!! 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.legproductions.com
Image Credits
Smokey Robinson, Wolfman Jack and Laura Gross photo by Nancy Clendaniel