Nowhere We’d Rather Be: 10 Years of Someplace Nice

Ten years is a long time in the world of production. In fact, it’s a long time anywhere. In 2013 Barack Obama was still president, and anyone discussing TikTok was most likely referring to Kesha’s debut single. It was also the year that EPs Chilo Fletcher and Estelle Weir took the plunge and set up their own full-service production studio, giving it the understated - but perhaps entirely accurate - name Someplace Nice.

Above: A whistle-stop tour of the past decade of Someplace Nice.  

A decade later, the studio can afford to look back on a plethora of head-turning work for clients like McDonald’s, Air Canada, Toyota, KFC, and countless others. And the foundation supporting it all has been Someplace Nice’s holistic approach to film craft. Described as “the tenets of mutual respect and understanding”, it’s a way of doing business on which the studio has walked the walk in addition to talking the talk. Just take the way Chilo and Estelle celebrated their 10 year anniversary, for example. 

“We felt the best way we could celebrate the landmark was to give back”, says Chilo. “Over the past 10 years we’ve seen calls to action in broadening representation in our industry. Initially it seemed like lip service because we weren’t seeing real change, but the killing of George Floyd ignited an anger and frustration across continents that fueled true social change and the call for representation was stronger than ever”. 

So, in their own way, Someplace Nice decided to make a contribution towards that effort for greater industry representation and social inclusivity. “Hence, we have decided to put the funds we would invest into a celebration into a charitable donation”, continues Chilo. 

Specifically, that donation went to imagineNATIVE, a charity committed to creating a greater understanding of Indigenous peoples and cultures. To achieve that, the organisation promotes and presents contemporary Indigenous-made media art including film, video, audio and digital media - thanks to the support of donations like that from Someplace Nice.

It’s just one example of how the studio works with the knowledge that it’s part of something bigger than itself. But, if there’s any concern that those lofty goals might come at the expense of the day-to-day business of crafting quality work, the past decade has been an instructive lesson in why that simply isn’t the case. Reflecting on the projects which stand out most in her memory, Chilo looks back to a 2019 effort for the deodorant brand Purelygreat. 

“‘Purelygreat ‘Witch’ is one of my all-time favourite pieces of work we’ve produced”, she notes. “The client signing off on a smouldering charred hand holding the product felt like a once-in-an-advertising-lifetime opportunity”.

That tangible excitement around a moment of pure creative quality is refreshing, but it’s perfectly routine for Someplace Nice. That being said, it hasn’t been an easy or automatic process to establish the studio as one of Toronto’s most notable creatively-driven players in the production world. 

“When Chilo and I started the company I remember bumping into a few EP’s who implied we might be crazy to be doing this - although it had never occurred to me even once that this might not work!”, laughs Estelle. “And here we are 10 years later going strong. I could not have done it without the right partner by my side. I think one of the biggest keys to our success has been how different we both are but also how working together with those differences has been one of the keys to making it work”. 

As Chilo recalls, the duo were confronted with certain unhelpful attitudes earlier on in their industry careers before striking out with Someplace Nice. “We both worked at male-run companies where we were designated into sales roles and were led to believe that you had to have a background on set, and climb a very specific ladder, to ever be an executive producer. Thank goodness we didn’t listen”, she says. “Our success was almost instant because as reps we had the same contacts and had built reputations with them, so we are always encouraging people to move toward their ambitions without regard to the naysayers”. 

That hard-won position from which Someplace Nice’s founders now give advice is particularly helpful to the filmmaking community around them, given the speed of industry change which the studio has navigated since its inception. “When we first started the company there was a separation of digital and broadcast productions and production companies”, recalls Chilo. “But we didn’t want to choose a lane. Our assumption was that eventually the two worlds would marry and we just needed to be a solution regardless of the screen the work would end up on”. 

Ten years down the line, that bet has obviously paid off. And that commitment to ‘being the solution’ has remained as relevant throughout as it was back in 2013. “The asks just keep getting bigger on every job, but we are always game to problem-solve”, explains Estelle. “So whether it's shooting broadcast, socials, or stills, we have always managed to make it happen”. 

Looking to the future, there’s no sign whatsoever of that speed of change slowing down. “I’m so curious about how AI will be implemented in our industry, and how that will reshape both the agency and production model”, muses Estelle. “Although, I’ve no doubt that our industry will always need a human touch when it comes to creativity”. 

There are few better studios to hear from when it comes to the power of a human-focused approach to the work. The story of the past ten years show’s that there’s a permanent role for Someplace Nice’s mantra of mutual respect and understanding in the film crafting process. 

And if the industry can figure that out, there’s every hope it will remain Someplace Nice to be.