5 Minutes with… Anissa Payne
Anissa Payne founded NM Productions in 2017, at the ripe old age of 25. She had recognised a gap in the market for a company that championed a more streamlined, non-traditional approach to production. This idea stemmed from the frustration of having to follow outdated and overcomplicated workflows that often lost sight of goals and consequently diluted the finished product.
Starting her career working for a modelling agency in Hamburg, Anissa collaborated with clients such as Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Kenzo and Balenciaga to name a few. With that experience, she soon found herself immersed in the world of production, freelancing for some of London’s most well-known production companies.
Her proud northern English roots and values run right through NM, including her ‘no b*llshit, get things done but have fun’ attitude, earning her business with household names such as CitiBank, Range Rover, Bank of America, Nike, Jaguar, Vogue and Omega Watches. Like her, her values are echoed throughout her team. This approach has helped her and NM Productions grow year on year, producing outstanding work spanning across moving image and stills for automotive, sports, celebrity and fashion brands globally.
Anissa is passionate about supporting the next generation of creatives and producers and has forged partnerships and collaborations with charities and initiatives such as Creative Mentor Network and 10,000 Interns. In 2022 she was a finalist for the ‘Maker Award’ in the highly acclaimed Makers & Shakers Awards which recognise and honour ground-breaking ideas and initiatives from players across the global creative screen industry. This year NM has been included on the FEBE 100 List, and Anissa has been shortlisted for the Young Great British Entrepreneur Award 2024.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov gets her to tell her story.
LBB> Anissa, tell me a bit about your upbringing and how it has led to your path in creativity. Have you always known this would be your career?
Anissa> I was brought up in a few different countries. My dad was an English teacher at an international school, so we moved around a lot. I think having that exposure to different cultures and understanding different backgrounds is really eye-opening for any young person. The biggest part of my job is knowing how to work with a whole range of people from clients, agencies and crew, and knowing how to adapt and communicate in different scenarios.
LBB> And what were the first steps you took to professionally pursue creativity? What lessons did you learn from these early days in the industry?
Anissa> I'm the kind of person that has the attention span of a flea. You have to enjoy what you do and personally if I am not happy doing something, or it doesn't bring me joy, I find something else. I mean, I’m very much of the opinion that if, after giving it a good go, it's not working, move on.
When I was younger, I really wanted to work in fashion and design. And by the time I was 17 or 18, I moved away from that and decided I wanted to work in finance. Lord knows why I wanted to work in finance but I got a place at London School of Economics to study German and Economics. Then I took a year out and then ended up being an au pair in Germany, had a lot of free time on my hands so I ended up working at a modelling agency. I deferred a year, then deferred another year and in the end, I thought, I just don't think university is for me.
After moving back to London I worked as an executive assistant for the senior vice president of Hearst Magazines, then I worked for the founders of a couple of successful start-up tech firms. I saw the ins and outs of running a business and what working at a senior level looked like – which I found really interesting, and obviously this experience has helped to get me to where I am today.
Whilst figuring out what I wanted to do, a good friend of mine and a great photographer/director, Pascal Kerouche, called me up from Germany and asked me if I could help find some studios for a shoot he was directing in London. I worked at Loft Studios with the lovely Sarah Vo, who was so helpful. She guided me through because I had no idea what I was doing, I was just helping a friend out. I didn’t even know that being a producer was a job at the time and yet somehow I ended up, with the very gracious help of Sarah, putting together this shoot for ‘Pro Evolution Soccer’ with a well-known Arsenal football player. I got on set and I was like, oh, is this a job? Is this a thing? And that's what put me on track for doing what we're doing today.
After I found out that production was a thing (as it's not the stuff they teach you in school) I took a bit of an unorthodox approach to get myself into things. I've always prided myself on being a grafter and being quite resilient and not taking ‘no’ for an answer. A couple of great production companies took me on as a freelance production assistant. I tried to immerse myself in as much as I could, to learn as quickly as I could, whilst in a room surrounded by talented producers. I found myself progressing from production assistant to producer quite rapidly. First starting my experience in editorial then moving onto stills before finally finding myself producing bigger motion and TVC projects.
LBB> When did you decide you were ready to establish NM Productions and what gap in the market did you want to target with the company?
Anissa> Honestly, I started NM Productions out of frustration. I worked for a lot of fantastic production companies who gave me incredible opportunities, taught me a lot, and created great environments for their staff and freelancers. However, on the flip side of that, I also worked for some not so lovely production companies. There was one company in particular where the working environment wasn't great and it didn't sit right with me. I thought, well, if they can do it, then I'm going to give it a go. The next day, I went out and set up a company and just went round knocking on those metaphoric doors. The first job I got was a Christmas campaign for a well known high street fashion brand.
I saw that having the flexibility and being open to helping out, no matter the budget and the expectation, was my gap in the current market. Everyone has their limits and it's really important to know your worth but I do think having a real ‘northern grafter’s’ mentality has kept us going. The mentality of if we can do it, we'll get the job done and we'll keep going until the final hour. For NM, it's all about being flexible, it's thinking outside of the box and finding a way to make it work whilst ensuring that everybody's taken care of, fed, watered and paid fairly.
LBB> The company is now in its sixth year. How have the last six years changed you and what have your best moments been in NM? What does the company look like now?
Anissa> I think that's normal for any growing business in any industry to have its highs and lows, wins and losses and frustrations. When the company first started, it was just me and slowly but surely the team grew and now we sit in this lovely office on the corner of Redchurch Street in Shoreditch, London, with a team of young and incredibly talented people.
We've won some really incredible projects, had the pleasure of collaborating with some talented directors, DPs and photographers. We're hitting big milestones as a business, which in this current climate is really humbling. We're just really excited for what's to come in the next six years.
LBB> What frustrates you the most in the industry and how do you use your position of influence to change it?
Anissa> I suppose my frustration is that it's not really what you know but who you know, making it hard to break into the industry and get your foot in the door. To a certain extent I do understand – there is a great comfort in working with people you know and trust. In a lot of instances, there's a lot of money at stake, and a reputation to maintain so I can understand why sometimes people don't want to take a punt on someone or something they don't know.
Something we do as a business is try and create opportunities for people from different backgrounds and allow young people to learn about the industry. We go into schools, we do panel talks, we run internships. We're also going to be running a creative workshop this September where we’ll be taking directors, DPs, grips, photographers, hair and makeup artists and storyboards artists into a school. The kids sign up to workshops and really get a practical understanding of who the photographer or the storyboard artist is, what they do, how they got to where they are now. The aim is to try and open up the industry to the next generation. For me, that’s crucial. I fell into production and I want to do my bit to show young people the plethora of roles available to them. We’ve also taken on more initiatives, such as our pledge to the 10,000 Interns Foundation and partnering with Creative Mentor Network. We’re trying to do our bit where we can!
LBB> And on the flip side, what do you love most about the current state of the industry?
Anissa> Seeing new talent coming in with waves of new ideas, seeing new technological advancements like virtual production and how that’s always advancing and improving… I think it’s exciting and it makes this industry really interesting to be part of.
I’ve been learning on the job since starting in production and as a company we know how important it is to keep evolving. It can be challenging but it can also be motivating. I’m one of those people that can’t sit still, someone once called me a ‘steam engine in trousers’, so those challenges get me out of bed in the morning.
LBB> What is the most exciting thing on the horizon right now?
Anissa> We're working on a really beautiful hotel rebrand for one of our American clients with my dear friends and incredible directing duo Venkay. It’s been a year-long project, maybe more, and I can't wait to see it all come together.
I'm also excited about creating a coffee table book for one of our photographers, Boo George. Boo’s a well regarded and highly talented fashion photographer who, as I’ve also recently discovered, is an amazing documentary photographer. In September we're going to be hosting a book launch and gallery exhibition for him, with profits from all proceeds going to the charity of his choice.
And we also can’t forget that we’ve been lucky enough to make it onto the FEBE 100 List this year, which I’m over the moon about! I’ve also just found out that I’ve been shortlisted for this year's Great British Young Entrepreneur of the Year award - which is an absolute honour. It's been quite a year for us already and I can’t wait to see what happens next!
