Ben Proudfoot was able to see the big picture when it came to starting his short-film business.
Attempting to navigate a niche for himself in a crowded field, Breakwater Studios Ltd. was founded in 2012 by the filmmaker and entrepreneur, who is from Halifax. His company has offices in Walt Disney’s original office building in California, as well as in Proudfoot’s hometown.
Recently, the CEO of Breakwater was named to the Forbes list of 30 people under 30 working in media. The American business magazine evaluated more than 15,000 nominees, coming up with a group it describes as “600 revolutionaries in 20 industries.”
Others in Proudfoot’s category include such people as the 26-year-old White House correspondent for the Atlantic and the 29-year-old editor in chief of Teen Vogue. The panel of judges included CNN host Don Lemon.
“Business is great,” said Proudfoot, 29, during a phone interview from Los Angeles.
“The good news is that when I started this business eight years ago, the concept of anyone being able to make or grow a business off of short-form filmmaking was ludicrous. When was the last time you ever paid to see a short film? Never, right?
“Essentially, this whole transition to streaming and how we get our stories and how we get our movies and entertainment has totally blown any rigid kind of format or run time out of the water.”
Breakwater specializes in bite-size documentaries like a recent film about a former fish and chips mogul made for the New York Times. It also creates sponsored films that, while still non-fiction stories, represent a vision that certain brands would want to be associated with.
“For sure, the company has grown a lot,” Proudfoot said.
“We are 12 full-time employees now at the company. We probably, on any given day, have somewhere between six and 10 independent contractors who are working on different films.
“Breakwater has a unique business model in that we have artists in residence. They’re not employees but they have a permanent place to run their independent operation out of at Breakwater. They don’t pay rent, and we don’t tell them what to do.
“But the concept of the company is that the best movies are made when all the human beings who make the movie are physically in the same place, which is shockingly not how movies are made today. They’re made over email and Dropbox.”
Proudfoot’s idealized vision of moviemaking was formed in Halifax.
“That’s what I thought Hollywood was like. I’d go down to Video Difference and get the Back to the Future series or Indiana Jones or whatever and I’d watch these behind-the-scenes things.”
Becoming a student at the University of Southern California was a culture shock; maybe more than one.
“When I moved to Los Angeles for school, that’s what I thought it was going to be like,” said Proudfoot.
“Nobody told me it was this fragmented business that was so hyper-focused on the bottom line that no one had time to think about what was the best way to make a movie. It was all about what was the best way to make a buck.
“I said, ‘Well, if I’m gonna commit my life to this, I might as well attempt to create a system that did work that way.’ So, when I stumbled across the building where Walt Disney started his company in 1923 in Los Feliz, I took a loan from a friend and I rented an office in February 2012. I had no business. I had no clients. I had no money. I had nothing but the love and support of my friends and family. That’s where it began and it just sort of has been cobbled together and grown and grown.”
Proudfoot said he has benefited from a huge amount of luck in that the start of Breakwater coincided with shifts in distribution and the advent of big brands directly commissioning films.
“We would have had to have had a far different strategy to make a go of it,” he said.
“The branded content business, which is a lot of what we do, where big companies commission original films from us, they’re not commercials, they’re not corporate videos as much as they are films that we tailor and have crafted to please the brand and achieve their goals while pleasing ourselves and achieving our goals as filmmakers.”
It all started after Proudfoot made a student film that was popular on the Vimeo website, and representatives of a brand reached out to see if he could make one for them.
“It was something that happened to me that I just reacted to. I did not create it and I did not foresee it, that’s for sure.”
At the time of this interview, it was still very much dark and early in California, where Proudfoot was getting ready for a busy shooting day. Breakwater is making a film about a Los Angeles school district musical instrument repair shop. It was commissioned by an organization Proudfoot did not want publicly disclosed right now but suffice to say it’s a fairly prestigious outfit.
As for the Forbes honour, Proudfoot thinks he may have been nominated by a friend who had been on an earlier list. In addition to getting to attend forums and meetings organized by the magazine, the distinction provides visibility.
“It’s very important in the film business to be known for what it is you do and what you offer,” Proudfoot said.
“As someone at the very beginning of my career, telling our company’s story and telling my story as a filmmaker, as uncomfortable as it makes me, is important.”
Sounds like it might make an interesting film.
