“Be A Champion of Your Production” with Ben Kalina

Ben Kalina is the chief operating officer of Titmouse, a multi-hyphenated animation studio and pop culture brand with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver.

As the COO, Kalina oversees production and development across its three studios and helps promote and maintain the studios’ overall vision, facilitates all current and developing productions, and manages production techniques.

Prior to Titmouse, Kalina worked in production at Warner Bros. Animation and VFX. During his time there he helped develop its digital pipeline and worked on transitioning the studio from traditional paper animation to a digital workflow.

While serving as producer on Amazon's original series ‘Niko and the Sword of Light’, the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Animation Program. Other credits include: ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’, ‘Big Mouth’, ‘Mike Judge’s Beavis’ and ‘Butt-Head’, ‘Frog & Toad’, ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ and ‘Digman!’.

Ben recently sat down with LBB to discuss accidentally landing in leadership whilst at Warner Bros., the importance of mentorship on his career, and why Titmouse prioritises transparency.

LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?

Ben> The first moment I realised I was in a position of leadership was when I was at Warner Bros. I was a production manager, but in a small team. At the time (early 2000’s recession) there were not many productions up.

Our resources were a little limited and I focused on increasing efficiency in our productions. With that came a lot of directing teams cross-departmentally.

It was sort of an accident that I ended up in that position – people were looking for solutions and I saw a path to streamline things. The next thing I knew, I was directing teams.

LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?

Ben> I don’t think I ever sought out leadership. I can remember one day just realising somehow I was good at it.

Initially I was just doing my job, then you blink and you realise you have all these people you’re responsible for.

I never had a mentor early in my career, so it was later on that I started to focus on my leadership style. At one point I met Mark Taylor (former Dreamworks and Nickelodeon SVP). I’d often get dinner with Mark and run my ideas by him. Bouncing thoughts on leadership and evolving our studio off of Mark (who was years ahead of me in the industry) helped give some structure and context to the things I was figuring out.

I’d strongly suggest to anyone who's new to a leadership position, or on the track to a leadership role, to seek out a mentor. It helps reinforce and support any thoughts you’re having.

The one thing that I always stuck to was that the final product comes first. Not meaning that you can’t lead with empathy, but we’re in a creative industry, which requires a lot of problem solving. You can have best practices for how to make things, but at the end of the day we need to make the best animation we can (with the limitations we have). So, we need to constantly break the mould of how our teams are set up.

LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?

Ben> Covid-era production. The industry was going through a big surge at that time (peak TV) and then covid came along and now you have remote teams.

Our studio has always been known for having a strong culture to it, and suddenly we’re at our highest head count ever (I think we got close to 1400 at one point) and everyone was remote.

We had to find ways to keep people aligned with our styles (creative and work culture) while being apart. It wasn’t easy since we’ve always really stressed that each production is different and needs to have room to operate independently, while also having some foundation in studio best practices.

I think we had 27 series at the height of the boom and had to try to keep them on track while keeping production methods different and giving them all attention.

LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?

Ben> I had no idea I wanted to be in a leadership role. It really was a surprise to me when I started doing it that I was good at it. A few of my peers would shrink from having hard conversations or trying to lead a team. For some reason it felt natural, which I didn’t expect. I actually wanted to be in more of a creative role for a long time (and had a few early on), but finding something that felt natural for me seemed like a good move.

LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?

Ben> It really depends on the person and situation. I didn’t have any training, and was way into my career when I found a mentor. Mentorship totally helped, but I think a certain amount of it is natural. I grew up in a family of artists and business execs, so I guess the leadership side just imprinted on me more.

LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?

Ben> Making time! At our highest point we had 27 series up and about 1400 employees. When I started at Titmouse, we had about 40-50 employees.

As you grow you need to say goodbye to some things you really want to hold on to. Knowing everyone’s name, being involved in the career growth of all employees, knowing the small details of every project, watching every cut, having time for more casual conversations.

It feels weird when you realise that not only do you not need to be as in the weeds as you used to be (because you have a team), but it’s sometimes better if you’re not that in the weeds (because someone else will have more time for issues than you).

You then need to pick your battles, which project needs the most attention from the top, and which team members would benefit the most from your time.

LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?

Ben> Oh yes, we all do. I’ve always been fairly direct when it comes to opinions and picking a direction. I think the early days of Titmouse greatly benefited from the original team’s directness, transparency, and ability to move fast.

I’ve had to learn that sometimes you need to take the time to get everyone on board when moving things forward and slow down debate/discussions on certain topics. That one is a constant battle for me.

Maybe 10 years ago when we had a surge in new employees, I remember one of the new artists saying, “You and Chris (Prynoski, founder of Titmouse) seem to argue a lot.” That couldn’t be more wrong. Chris and I get along really well, but then I realised people aren't used to seeing the CEO and COO be so open about their thoughts on direction in front of the teams. We’ve started keeping some of it behind the scenes now, but I think it’s also good for people to see the thought process when we’re trying to figure out the right solution for problems.

LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?

Ben> Be as open as possible! There are things you can’t share if they’re NDA’ed up, or you’re midstream on something. But, when it comes to our thoughts on a project, performance, issues and successes of projects/staff, etc. it’s important to be as transparent as possible.

Whenever I’m hiring someone in a department leadership role, I tell them we’re very open here. If you don’t agree with something, you need to tell us your opinion and why. As long as there’s a reason for the statement we’ll have a good conversation and figure out a solution.

Usually in interviews we’ll try to lead them to a few points where they need to give honest feedback on processes. We have to see if they’re able to open up and tell us their real opinion or if they’ll just agree with us. I like a team that can voice their opinions as long as they come with an objective POV.

LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?

Ben> I did! I didn’t find Mark Taylor until I was many years into leadership, so I got a different type of benefit from it. I’d already self-taught a lot of basics, but I didn’t know the vocabulary or have much structure to things. Taking the time to meet with someone experienced (usually every month) helped reinforce what I was doing and give me the tools to organise my messy self-taught methods.

A few years ago Mark retired. Over drinks I asked a friend, “who will help mentor people now that Mark’s out of the industry”. When they replied, “Well that's your job now,” I almost had a panic attack. After that I’ve tried to give time to a few more people and check in with them.

There’s currently two or three people I’ve started meeting up with every month to try and help them in their careers and I keep a reminder on my monthly calendar to check in with our teams to see if there’s anyone that might need some more time/input on their careers.

LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?

Ben> It's not easy, but it gets easier to deal with. The entertainment industry has been having a strange couple of years. 2021 was an all-time high for animation production and since then productions have been slowing to 2018/2019 numbers. And, the whole thing feels very similar to the early 2000s around the recession and the writers’ strike impacts. Had I not lived through that I’d probably be more worried right now.

Transparency with people during this time is a really good thing. It’s not going to bring in more work, but being overly optimistic or a complete pessimist about the state of the industry doesn’t help the team.

If you’re overly optimistic, everyone is surprised when things get set back or they think you don’t know what you’re talking about.

If you’re pessimistic and everyone thinks that the sky is falling, the work suffers.

Let people know what's impacting the team, why, and any data you have on it. The entertainment industry is constantly changing, so we need to talk about it openly so we can all find the next project/direction.

LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?

Ben> I don’t want to take the majority of the credit here, but this has been something we’ve all stressed at Titmouse. Our HR team does regular reporting on diversity through the company and that’s led to some interesting conversations. Gender diversity has actually been pretty even across total staff and studio leadership, with our Vancouver office being over 50% female for a long time now.

Shannon Prynoski, our co-founder, started the Titmouse Foundation, which provides scholarships and mentorship programs specifically for underrepresented artists. We partner with schools and organisations like Black Women Animate to create concrete pathways into artistic and creative leadership roles.

LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?

Ben> Culture is so important to the success of Titmouse. I wasn’t here in the early days, so I can’t take credit for building a lot of the culture, but everyone in leadership has made it a point to maintain it as we grow. Everyone at the top is still very accessible, and we make our offices and our culture about the artists.

During Covid, I had to write a document for our producers on culture, specific to producing shows. It felt pretty corporate at the time, but with the boom in production and everyone being remote, there were a few moments when we saw things drifting away from the culture we know. It’s too long to copy the whole thing here, but the points I always stress are:

• There’s no Titmouse Way

1. Each production’s system is bespoke to its needs
2. We avoid rigid pipelines to keep styles fresh
3. This does not mean we should ignore previous experience/best practices, but we will never shoehorn a production into a model for the sake of ease.

• Be a champion for your production. Make the best show you can, put every dollar on the screen, just don’t lose a dollar without alerting the studio (we still need to make payroll while making great work). If you’re under budget, find a way to make the project better.
• The crew is not yours. Do not say my production coordinator’ or ‘my artist’. Unless someone is a direct report and possessive nouns are needed for clarity, they should be avoided. You are a team. A production coordinator is your project’s coordinator or ‘our coordinator.’
• Take care of artists.

This does not mean Free Pizza Wednesday. This means watch out for pitfalls and course-correct before the team gets there.

• Transparency and Honesty – Do not be a yes person, do not be a no person.

Try ‘Yes, but…’ and ‘No, but…’ when you feel like you have to say yes or no. Make sure to get your reasons for a yes or no across to the person you’re delivering the information to.

LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?

Ben> In no particular order:

• Mentorship
• A strong partnership with the other leadership at the studio. I think I talk to Chris more than most people in my personal life.
• A ton of books, podcasts, and YouTube videos from when I was trying to figure out how to run things after accidentally ending up in charge.