Two EPs and Their Ride or Die Relationship

“We are each other’s ride or die.”

There’s not much more that you could ask for when discussing your closest work colleague and fellow co-founder. They’re the words of Preymaker’s executive producer, Melanie Wickham, as she reflects on her closer-than-close relationship with EP Verity Grantham.

The pair prefer to be recognised as executive producers as opposed to ‘co-founders’ at Preymaker, the creative technology company they founded alongside chief creative Angus Kneale in 2020. This aligns with the company’s wider belief in removing hierarchies and allowing staff at any level to get involved in all aspects of the work at hand.

This attitude comes from the pair’s time spent working together at The Mill in New York, where they found that, as they progressed through the company and took on more responsibilities, their time spent actually doing the work diminished.

“I think our success is due to the fact that we’re all 100% involved.” Melanie says, “When we were at The Mill, the higher up we got, the further away we were from the process. I think we all thrive by being part of the process. That’s our sweet spot – when we’re a part of the creativity and the mentorships. They’re the parts we love most about our jobs.”

“This is why we tried to do the ‘no titles’ thing at Preymaker,” Verity adds. “People felt like you had to be promoted to the next level to negotiate higher salaries. Suddenly you’ve got the more senior title and it pulls you away from what you were really really good at.”

Melanie and Verity had differing routes into the industry, but it was the tape-to-film department in The Mill’s London office that brought them together.

“Mel came in. She was such a force – she absolutely terrified me,” says Verity. “I just watched in complete awe as she organised things, got the artists she wanted assigned to her jobs, etc. When I think back it reminds me of the trading room floor in the stock exchange, and that’s how The Mill production office in London felt to me because I’d never worked in that kind of environment before.”

They were both around 24 at the time. Melanie had landed in London after being offered the role of head of scheduling whilst she was backpacking. She’d left her life and job as a receptionist at a film company in Australia, joining the 50-60 full-timers at The Mill in London.

“That was the first time that there was an opportunity to progress,” Melanie reflects. “In Australia, and I’m guessing South Africa [where Verity is from], there just weren’t the opportunities. They saw something in me, a 24-year-old backpacker… in Australia, you’d never get those opportunities.

“I didn't have any aspirations to be a leader. I was a really headstrong 24 year old who wasn't shy about speaking up to very seasoned producers,” she adds. “It was also great timing. The role of a VFX producer was first getting recognised in our industry. The Mill saw something in me, so I reluctantly stepped into a leadership role very young!”

Verity’s way into the industry was on the more unconventional side. “I didn’t know the industry even existed. I was working in Botswana running a game lodge with a couple who I kept in touch with when they went back to Johannesburg. And it was through the woman that I got this interview to be a PA for somebody who ran the VFX arm for the post production company called The Video Lab in Johannesburg. It was called The House Next Door. And that’s how it started. I literally loved it from the second I stepped into it. It’s all I’ve wanted to do from then on.”

Coming from places where the post production industries weren’t so established meant that both Melanie and Verity had to learn to be resourceful, multi-skilled and adaptable. “In South Africa, you’ve got to learn a little bit of everything to keep working,” says Verity. “It’s that kind of society - there’s no one person doing one particular job. One person does four or five different things. You have to be self-sufficient. If you wanted to grow and move up, you had to prove that.”

For Melanie, it was a similar experience. “You had to do everything and anything to get those opportunities. You almost had to wait for someone to retire due to opportunities being so limited.”

Later working together at The Mill in New York, the pair fell into a natural alignment, centred around open communication, respect and, importantly, not competing against one another. “We complement each other. We talk to each other and share stories. Relate situations and ask each other's opinions all the time. I feel like we’ve been that way from the very beginning,” says Verity.

“And we respect each other,” Melanie adds. “For instance, we know when someone is better suited for a situation – I suppose we don't have much ego. We can talk about a tactic or a situation and I can say, ‘well listen, you’re probably better suited to dealing with this situation’, or Verity can say that to me. We know what our strengths and weaknesses are.”

The decision to set up Preymaker came from a “now or never” moment, Verity explains, following Angus’ firing from the Technicolor Group. “We hadn’t been happy with all the changes happening at The Mill. Luckily, between the three of us, we completely embraced the Cloud-based work model – a big part of Angus’ vision for Preymaker. Then covid happened two weeks after we opened. It was kind of weirdly perfect timing.”

From the beginning, Preymaker’s mission statement has remained the same: “Every decision has to come down to creativity, people and technology.” Surviving the early brainstorms and scrapped business plans, the statement acts as a guiding principle for every decision, and as an internal and external reflection of the company’s unwavering commitment to creativity, its talent, and its cloud-based model.

Exploring how they split the workload itself, Verity shares that between herself, Melanie and chief creative Angus, they are less rigid in their set responsibilities than they initially thought they’d be. “I think we all thought I’d be doing HR, Mel would be finance and setting up the bidding systems and Angus would be creative. What actually happened is that we all have grown in so many different areas, and depending on what the situation is, we decide who’s going to tackle it.

“We’ve all dipped into all of those things and we’ve all grown so much in areas that we had no experience necessarily leading. Mel and I have plenty of conversations with our creative leads and advise them often. Because it’s not just about creative. It's about leading and dealing with other people. Mel and I learned a lot about finances and we’re getting much better at handing things off to each other.”

This ties into Preymaker’s overarching removal of titles, ensuring that people aren’t siloed or restricted by the job role they're in.

“There’s no hierarchy with us, except that we - myself, Mel and Angus - negotiate the jobs and can have final say, but we’re right in there with everyone,” Verity continues. “We don’t go by ‘the founders’, ‘the owners’ or ‘the partners’ … we avoid using that language. If anything, we call ourselves EPs. I think there’s great value in that. Everyone feels we’re completely approachable. We’re there to help. To problem solve. We’re just in it with everyone.”

This approach, Melanie adds, has made an impact on the culture too. “Our people can quite clearly see what the expectations are, regarding how to behave toward your partners and people who you work with. And how you value your artists, partners and clients.”

Building this strong, inclusive culture around both the work and social occasions offers Preymaker’s talent a work-life balance that can be hard to find in the industry. “We’re not always perfect,” says Verity, “but these were things we really really wanted as a part of our culture and cloud-based model.”

It's paid dividends too, with anonymous feedback from across the company sharing their thoughts on Preymaker’s culture: “The team always makes me feel seen and appreciated, both in and out of work.” said one team member, whilst another offered: “Our work spans far beyond boxed off departments. We learn and support each other and curiosity is a flame that is always ablaze.”

Preymaker’s cloud-based infrastructure was designed with both efficiency and artist experience in mind, and has helped the company to grow rapidly over the past five years.

Melanie says, “There’s a monetary cost attached to working this way, but it's definitely the most creative way to operate. But now we’re incorporating AI in creative development, rendering, and many areas that give us other ways of elevating the creative. Preymaker is constantly evolving.

“We keep pushing the artist experience to be the best it can be. A lot of people, when they come to work with Preymaker, say it’s one of the best set-ups of a visual effects company that they have ever seen. Our tech team is very key to what we do on a daily basis. It’s interesting that the tech teams or the engineering teams of companies aren’t given the recognition that they truly deserve.”

Beyond building an innovative, ever-evolving company that is consistently working at the top of its game, Melanie and Verity have helped to mentor and shape the careers of some of the industry’s top VFX producers.

“When we started Preymaker, we had a non-compete aspect to our contracts with The Mill. We couldn’t poach our favourite producers,” says Melanie. “We made the decision - whether it was a direct or indirect decision - to start with some junior talent and grow them. Interestingly it does involve a lot of our time but the rewards are off the charts on many levels. We get so much joy out of seeing them succeed.”

“Mel and I learn so much from our producers right now,” Verity adds. “They’re juggling more than I ever had to when I was producing. They’re dealing with six or seven different forms of communication. They’re managing to be polite and organised. They speak to clients beautifully and manage a huge team of artists almost going at 30 times the speed as we did when we were producing.”

“We’re so proud of who our producers and our production team have become,” adds Melanie. “ We want our producers to be great partners to our clients, but we also want them to really care for the talent that they’re working with, and respect their artists and fellow co-workers.”

The “ride-or-die” duo also have each other's backs, as work colleagues, friends, confidants, and at times, therapists. They help one another through the “delicate dance” of post production, says Verity, and prove that open communication, honesty and kindness will always make an impact – one felt by Preymaker’s talent and clients alike.