Meet Your Makers: Sarah Marcon on The Brave New World of Production
Sarah Marcon is a founder / producer at Mrs Baxter. Originally founded in 2019, Mrs Baxter is an independent production agency that collaborates with brands and agencies to offer all aspects of production. She has recently produced campaigns for Côte, Trivago and Centrepoint over the years has produced for The Business of Creativity, Checkatrade, Simba, Centrepoint, RSPCA and Tiger Beer to name but a few.
Prior to Mrs Baxter, Sarah was head of production at Royle Productions, has done freelance stints with brands such as Facebook and Apple, worked in-house client side setting up a production dept and has experience production company side. Sarah started life as an account handler initially at Ogilvy then moving to The &Partnership in its start up days.
LBB> Can you tell us about how Mrs Baxter was born and how you got to this point?
Sarah> Prior to Mrs Baxter’s inception, I worked with the formidable force that was Frances Royle at Royle Productions. It’s seven years since she very sadly passed away but Mrs Baxter was built to a similar model that we had at Royle - collaborative production support with craft at the core of everything we do. Whilst Frances is no longer with us I do feel her legacy and the wealth of experience she imparted with lives on, albeit in a different shape and name.
LBB> What was your first role in the production world and how did this experience influence how you think about production and how you grew your career?
Sarah> As a student, I spent the holidays working at a production company called Harry Films based in Duck Lane. I was young and somewhat green and only got a very small slice of the action; taking messages, making cups of tea, occasionally being allowed into the basement where directors' reels were being cut and if I was really lucky, collating or faxing call sheets.
There was an enigma to what would actually happen on a shoot, what it would be like to be on set and in the thick of the whole production process. I was excited to find out more….
On graduating I ended up in account handling and did eight long hard years graft wearing a suit, sitting in research groups in Birmingham and dragging a very heavy art bag to various corners of client offices in and around the M25 and beyond. Enough was enough, it was time to take this production thing seriously and give it a proper go.
LBB> Looking back to the beginning of your career, can you tell us about a production you were involved in where you really had to dig deep and that really helped you to grow as a producer?
Sarah> Every project has its challenges, that is for sure. But I think the one that really had me scratching my head was the Zoopla campaign I produced back in 2017. The brilliant creatives at what was then 101 had come up with an idea that featured hermit crabs with physical miniature houses on their shells. Animation wasn’t the creative vision, CG photo-real crabs weren’t going to cut it. No, the creatives were having none of it, it had to be shot for real.
I spent a couple of anxious weeks speaking with what felt like every wildlife producer and wildlife expert in the UK. The conclusion was that yes we could do this and no it wouldn’t be harmful to the crabs, they are pretty relaxed creatures. But hermit crabs do come in different shapes, sizes and colours and the particular type we wanted to shoot with were only in a few gloriously far-flung locations around the globe.
Everyone had those once-in-a-career words on the tip of their tongue, ‘we open on a tropical beach….’. And yes we did. We agreed on Costa Rica - no complaints there.
Working with the brilliant Matt Fone and Riff Raff and the team at Artem we had shells sent from Costa Rica, made replicas and then designed houses to fix seamlessly on top, so they looked like they’d always been there. They looked fantastic but would the crabs actually inhabit them? A couple of prototypes were sent to Costa Rica....and after some more nights of lost sleep, word came back from Central America that yes it had worked!
Plain sailing into the shoot, five amazing days on a white sandy beach, a crazy tight post schedule with the films absolutely needing to be on air for the peak house-buying period in Spring. But we did it, we made it. The campaign is still one of my all-time personal faves but it definitely put me through my paces every step of the way.
Thank you Gus, Ryan, Jack and Serham….you were the dream creatives to work with and I’m still here to tell the tale. Just!
LBB> What’s your favourite thing about production and why?
Sarah> Taking some words on a piece of paper and literally making them come to life. There is something magical about each step of the process, bringing in the specialists in each field who all add their own bit of craft, creativity and finesse along the way.
LBB> How has production changed since you started your career? And what has stayed the same?
Sarah> So much has changed, so much has stayed the same. It used to be all about 35mm, film canisters piled up around the office, do we need a Beta and VHS for the client presentation (woe betide you if you got that wrong - the embarrassment of a tape that wouldn’t fit the machine). Physically sending tapes to stations for playout, or if you were really up against it delivering them in person, yes that was a thing. But that’s just the evolution of technology.
The principles of production have stayed the same. Yes, the budgets are tighter, you have to be more agile and think like a ninja. Yes, we now have a list of deliverables as long as the Great Wall of China in more formats than we would ever have dreamed of. AI is coming to eat us all up and bamboozle us whilst it does so - apparently. But crafting the work, knowing how to guide the process, managing budgets and timings and putting together the right team for the job is as eternally important as it ever was.
LBB> There are a few outfits that have similar set-ups. Do you see this as the future of production?
Sarah> We are in an ever-changing landscape, all the rule books have been re-written, ripped up and then re-written again. Production has been turned on its head, inside out and upside down. In this brave new world there is space for multiple models, there are no rules and no one size fits all. There will always be the huge networks, the smaller agencies, the boutique agencies. Lots of models for lots of different client needs, budgets and projects.
But yes there are similar outfits out there and we are growing, the advent of the AFA enforces our very being. It’s very appealing to certain clients and agencies to be able to call on production support as and when needed, dialling up and down without having it wrapped up in huge monthly retainer fees and salaries. All the while knowing that they are working with tried and tested producers is I think our superpower.
LBB> What’s the key to a successful production-client relationship?
Sarah> They are not the enemy, you are all people working together to a common goal. How you get there and how you see things may be different but you are all working towards the same endpoint. Too often we can all retreat into the trenches and get wound up by comments and feedback. Taking a deep breath and putting yourself in someone else's shoes, empathising with their pressures and finding a way through can be really helpful.
LBB> What do you think is the key to being an effective producer - and is it something that’s innate or something that can be learned?
Sarah> Like anything in life, training, investment of time and experience are all hugely valuable - the more you do something the better you get. Lots of the skills of a producer can be learned and fine-tuned over time of course. But you have to want to do it, loving what you do takes you halfway there.
The other half is down to being organised, creative and agile. Not being fazed by paperwork, being a tough negotiator when needed, a diplomat and gliding like a swan all at the same time. Accepting that you might not know everything but knowing who to call. Being able to read the room, listen and digest people's opinions, adding value and having your own opinions. Not being frightened to speak up and also knowing when not to speak - that’s even more important.
