A chat with Jerel Levanway, production director
“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” is one of those benign platitudes that’s been around so long its original author has been lost to time. Credit aside, truer words about work have yet to be spoken. A recent survey from Pew found that more than half of all Americans enjoy their work, but what makes work, “work” for the happy among us? The secret sauce, believe it or not, is work culture.
What Is Work Culture?
Work culture is the collective attitude, belief system, behaviors, and values that define how employees interact with one another and how an organization operates is said organization’s work culture. It’s something you feel in the air. Research indicates that workplace culture stands above all other factors, including salary and easy of commute, when taking a new position or staying at their current employer.
How Mad Genius Does Work Culture
There are many ingredients that go into the Mad Genius work culture stew. There’s the standard stuff like driven supervisors that trust in their employees’ abilities. There are flexible employees who not only expect, but want to be given ever-changing and challenging projects to work on. There’s healthy competition between creative minds, always looking to push the limits for both our clients and the agency. Our vision, “deliver the unexpected,” speaks best to what Mad Genius’s work culture is all about.
Each department within Mad Genius fosters a unique environment that feeds into the overall work culture. Try to think of our various departments as vital organs, or part of an engine, for more squeamish readers. These parts need to function well individually for the whole to perform at its best.
One of those parts is the production team. In fact, this department is what sets Mad Genius apart from most agencies. See, most agencies can only sell you an idea. When it comes to producing that great idea into even greater video or photography, they’re forced to pawn you off to strangers. Mad Genius is a one-stop shop with a highly skilled crew, state-of-the-art production gear, and even a 4,000 square foot studio space. Heading up the department is Jerel Levanway, who sat down and spoke about how he fosters a positive work culture to keep production running smoothly.
Q&A With Jerel
“Define the Mad Genius Video Production team’s work culture in three words.”
I’d say dedicated, passionate, and detail-oriented. I don’t know if that’s exactly work culture, but it describes the department.
“How do you ensure that your team stays aligned with the agency’s goals while working on diverse video projects?”
By making sure our department works hand-in-hand with all the other departments in the agency. Of course, we’re executing the script that’s come down the line from the creative team, but whenever possible we look to collaborate with the other departments. We’re always looking to have some discourse and bounce ideas off folks. In a perfect world, when there’s time, you want to get input from people all along the way.
When the creative department is writing scripts, we love to have input because we have ideas on how things can go visually and that goes vice versa. When the production team is working up storyboards and figuring out shots, it’s nice to have input from the creative team to make sure we are working in the right direction. Frequently, the way the production team interprets the scripts isn’t exactly what the creative team imagined. New ideas grow out of that back and forth that generally lead to a stronger finished product that melds the strengths of both departments.
Obviously, when dealing with the accounts team, there needs to be alignment because they’re our main contact with our clients. This includes everything from delivery deadlines, talent approvals, edit and asset reviews, to what aspect ratios the final products need to be delivered in based on the marketing strategy. The client is always king.
The web team is a bit of a different animal because their projects tend to be more self-contained, but we do work together shooting photography and video assets when it’s needed for a web project. We are always looking to work with any department we can.
“What strategies do you use to provide constructive feedback to your team members, and how do you ensure it is received positively?”
Well, I’d say I don’t always succeed at that, but it’s about allowing people to be heard and knowing that everyone in our department has valid opinions. They are all super talented, they all have an eye, meaning a visual sense, and also, to be quite honest, a sense of humor and timing. When we’re working on edits in particular, everyone has a tremendous amount of input and control over a project.
A lot of the feedback I have to give is more like “It would have been nice if we had gotten that shot” or “I think we need to spend a bit more time with this.” The production team looks to deliver at a very high level for all of our projects, regardless of budget, and that’s where we get into our biggest disputes. On projects where there isn’t a big budget, the team still wants to spend the time to deliver a great product. We intend to give our clients more than they paid for.
For me, that means managing that time. A spot could be a little internal informational video only ten employees are going to see, but our team aims to give it the same love we would give to a national spot. I have to make sure we deliver the best possible product while staying within the budget.
Like I said, our team is so passionate and wants to deliver at a high-level at all we do. That is a massive positive, but a lot of feedback has to turn into time management. In my feedback, I want them to know that I understand they are passionate, dedicated, and want to give projects extra love while also getting them to understand that sometimes we have to move on to the next project.
“In what ways do you encourage collaboration among different roles within your video production team to ensure a cohesive workflow?”
As a team, we’ll sit down, and we’ll talk about everything. We’ll discuss storyboards, different shots, budgets, what are our ideal conditions for the shoot, and start to whittle down from that and look at practical stuff. We try to look at a project at the beginning without guardrails. “In a perfect world, what would we like this to look like?” “What do we want and how do we do it?”
Next, we start trying to come up with creative ideas to make them a reality. Due to time constraints, budgets, lack of manpower, and client desires, we generally have to make some adjustments. We compromise until we can include all the “needs” and as many of the “wants” as possible. That’s at the beginning, but collaboration happens all the way through a project.
On the day of the shoot, someone could be standing next to the monitor and have an idea for a good reaction from the talent or some direction we hadn’t thought of. We’re all looking at everything. Someone could look at the art direction and say “maybe we should rearrange this” or “these colors aren’t working well together”.
During the editing process, we all give input. “Let’s try a different take.” “We should reverse those two shots.” Everyone in the department has input on those things. Our department is a safe space and I want everyone to feel safe offering a suggestion.
“What methods do you use to keep your team motivated during particularly challenging or high-pressure projects?”
Buy craft services. That’s a joke, but honestly, there’s some truth to it. Knowing people’s favorite drinks or favorite snacks. Being aware of stuff like that because it’s the little touches that can make a big difference. If we’re doing a period piece, there have been times when I’ll wear clothing from the period we’re shooting that day just to add a bit of levity. You know, if we’re doing something from the 1970s, I’ll come to set in a full polyester suit, and it definitely gives the crew a bit of a pop.
Just letting people know they’re appreciated goes a long way too. Our shoot days are 12 or 14 hours, often on super hot days, and everybody is giving it one hundred percent, leaving it all on the field. Simply acknowledging that effort makes a huge difference.
And a lot of it comes down to the team being proud of what we produce as a department. I don’t have to motivate people a tremendous amount because there’s a lot of self-motivation in our department. There’s a lot of pride in the work we do, and that makes my job easy.
“How do you address and resolve conflicts within your team to maintain a harmonious and productive working environment?”
There’s a lot of talking that happens. It’s a series of compromises. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We’ve all got our personalities and our idiosyncrasies. There are certainly times when we’re all stressed out because of a deadline, a computer crash, or any number of other reasons when we just have to take a breath and carry on.
That being said, there is a benefit to letting some of that pressure release too. After a couple of 12–14-hour days on set, people are tired and behind on sleep, and can get short-tempered or frustrated. In those moments, you can’t take things personally. Every so often, you have to let people vent and get things off their chest so they can get past whatever it is that’s bothering them and be ready to hit it the next day.
We’ve got a good group, and while I’m sure everybody has been frustrated with someone else at some time, we always get on the other side of those stressful moments. We all understand that’s important in maintaining a good, healthy work relationship and, for a lot of us, friendship.