Harry and Julia: The Heart of GPN

To celebrate GPN’s 20th year anniversary, the team had the absolute pleasure of interviewing both the founder, pioneer and driving force behind GPN, Harry Tracosas and the owner, Julia Weichinger.

Julia Weichinger recently became the new owner of GPN, although she’s been a part of the team since 2011. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Julia in person, the team would like to introduce GPN’s owner and general manager, the woman responsible for keeping GPN’s spirit alive and growing alongside Harry Tracosas.

THE WAY INTO THE BUSINESS

Harry began his film career in New York City in the late ‘70s as a production assistant and then key grip. He later moved to Miami where he started a production services company and eventually migrated to Los Angeles. He travelled the world for years, meeting people and companies in film, and saw the need to connect production companies in order to create a safety net for producers around the globe - because nothing of this nature existed.

Beyond GPN, Harry has a mountain of experience in film and film production. He has been all around the world on shoots and has collected memories and stories that have filled his cup of life to the brim.

Julia worked on her first project in 1995, she was hooked and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she had arrived in the place that was meant for her. She loved the fast pace, the travelling and the energy of film and quickly took on the role of location manager and unit manager. As a freelance unit manager she was sent all over the world, Cuba being her first stop. Since then, film ignited her passion for travelling and going to exotic and remote locations. She had amazing experiences on award winning projects - swimming with dolphins in the open sea and cuddling with tigers topping her charts.

Throughout her film journey, Julia met a lot of production service companies. She experienced some very beautiful and also some less beautiful moments. During her 15 years of travelling, she learned where the advantages and disadvantages were for shooting abroad. These first hand experiences are what led Julia to wanting to work with GPN.

GPN WAS BORN

Harry had this idea since the early 1990’s, before the internet existed, and made it a reality in 2002 when the internet had established itself as a massive tool for communication and global connection. He put together companies that he knew and trusted, researched companies that were working in countries that were production hubs and had significant production capabilities and in 2003, things began to take shape.

He went to Cannes yearly making new connections and re-connecting with those in the industry and talked about GPN and his idea to bring the best of the best in film production globally under one roof.

Harry’s intention for starting GPN was centred around connecting good, kind, decent, honest, hard-working people who had something valuable to offer the film world rather than profit being the incentive. It’s a given that any business is set up to make a healthy revenue, but the driving force behind GPN does not come from setting out to make money. It comes from integrity, honesty, mutual responsibility and accountability for everyone involved. These are the core values which have sustained GPN for the past twenty years and what keeps it thriving as a top notch production services oriented business.

The foundation of GPN is that it is a family. Each company has a responsibility to uphold GPN’s high standards because even though the companies are individual and working in different countries, they are all a part of the team that gives GPN its reputation as having the very best players throughout the world. Each company in GPN’s network honours its core values and this is what connects them in 100 countries worldwide.

Harry has handpicked the companies that are in the GPN network because he knows that these companies honour its philosophy. Their work, the way they treat their clients, team members, crew and productions mirror the beliefs that Harry has set as the basis for being a GPN member.

JULIA JOINS GPN

Julia met Harry in 2008 in Cannes. They instantly clicked and understood each other on both a professional and personal level. Harry told her about GPN and Julia was immediately interested because it was something that she also thought was necessary in the film world. In 2009 Julia started using GPN as a producer and shot her first project in Uganda, with Mario of BlueSky, a GPN production service company.

Fast forward two years and Harry asked if she’d like to join GPN as the European representative.

She began bringing the GPN network to European production companies. The first country to really get on board was the UK.

They immediately understood the concept and philosophy of GPN and loved it, especially the bonding and the safety net.

In 2022 Julia took over the role of general manager for all of GPN.

Julia also saw the need to start a table top division as a part of the GPN network. “There are amazing people out there doing such cool things that I knew we need to connect and support them. We now have two digital table top studios in our network. Our latest addition is the virtual studio La Planet Rouge in France.” Julia said.

THE FUTURE OF GPN

It comes back to connection, to trust and to friendship. These are the principles that Harry lives by, that fuel him and that spurred him to create GPN and take it from an idea to where it is today. Keeping the human aspect to this ever changing world is what sets GPN apart from others in this business. This is a company based on trust, mutual respect, accountability and integrity- core values that will always prevail.

GPN continues to grow and expand. The aim is to work with new clients and go into countries that GPN is not yet serving. GPN has already started breaking into long format, independent films and non-scripted shows and will undoubtedly continue to uphold GPN’s high standards for production companies, agencies and clients around the world.

“I’m also very much looking forward to connecting with as many of our family members in person as possible as well as watching what these creative genius’ produce. This is what makes GPN such a special job, it’s always exciting and we can always learn new things.” said Julia.