Wisconsin Public Television University Place Entrepreneurship in Society  John Roach, "Building a Business and Crafting the Artist in You"  February 9, 2011 UP551    cc >> Jeanan Yasiri: This course is offered through the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology. I'm Jeanan Yasiri. As we begin today I'd like to extend thanks to our partners in supporting this course, the UW Office of Corporate Relations, the UW College of Engineering for their technical support, and financial support that is offered through the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation which is committed to advancing academic education in entrepreneurship. Additionally, we'd like to thank our media partners, Wisconsin Public Television and their University Place crew for joining us and taping today's lecture. I'm very pleased to introduce our special guest today, John Roach, president of JRP, an Emmy Award winning video and film production company based here in Madison, Wisconsin. As we'll learn, John has a distinguished background in video and film productions, including co-writing the screenplay for the motion picture "The Straight Story," a film directed by David Lynch. "The Straight Story" premiered at Cannes and was released in October 1999 by Walt Disney Pictures. The screenplay was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and one of the films actors, Richard Farnsworth, received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. Prior to starting his Madison-based company back in 1985, John was a producer at CBS and ABC in Chicago. He's also worked for NBC and ESPN. 

His credits include eight Emmy Awards, a national IRIS award for best television special, and a national Cable Ace nomination. John produced the Cable Ace nominated "The Sports Writers" on TV, and he has done a considerable amount of other work including writing a monthly column for Madison Magazine. His book is "Way Out Here in the Middle," and it was published in 2003. Of course, his corporate clients are part of the story that he has to share since the organization started back in the mid-'80s. His organization has done $50 million in production work with clients such as Coke, McDonald's, Miller, and Coors. Now I asked John to come and speak with us about entrepreneurship because I think that he really demonstrates the intersection of entrepreneurship between building a business and also being an artist. So I believe he truly emulates what our thinking is in this class about thinking of entrepreneurs in a very broad perspective. Please join me in welcoming John Roach. [APPLAUSE] >> John Roach: That's a nice chair...! Hey, nice meeting everyone. I'm not going to pretend to give a real formal lecture to you. 

I'm just going to do my best to share with you what I know. The first thing is I have just a total aversion to PowerPoint. I've seen some of worst ideas presented with some of the best PowerPoint you can imagine. But I did put together some talking points so that you might have them up there. I guess the first thing we would start with, is why are we here? Always a good question to ask when you're speaking to people. I'm here to serve you today, to tell you a little bit about what I've learned since I sat in the seats you're sitting in some 35 years ago here at the UW Madison. I should qualify my remarks and perhaps help you qualify me by telling you that I'm 58, went to Madison, went to Madison Edgewood High School. I'm a total townie. Not just a Sconnie, a townie. I'm, like, genetically compromised. 

I have three children who just recently graduated from the university as well. My oldest daughter, Kate, works for Draft Foote Cone, a big advertising agency in Chicago. Middle daughter, Maggie, works for the Wrigley Company, and my son JT Roach works, actually, for our shop. So this is kind of your worst case scenario is someone your father's age coming and lecturing to you. Talking about why are we here, the majority of you will not start your own business in your life. And so I'm trying to make sure that what I have to offer you is salient. The one thing I can tell you is even if you end up the rest of your life working for a huge company with massive resources and a great pension plan and a stock option plan, you will work with companies like mine through your career. So it's probably good, if you don't end up starting your own company, to understand the mind set of people who run smaller companies who will help you do your job at a bigger company. I've always felt also, just parenthetically, I worked for ABC, CBS and the Marriott Corporation, my first job out of school was with Marriott at Great America back before Bally bought it, Six Flags. I started out working for three real big companies and learned all I could from them in order to work for myself. 

Which is a kind of something as a model that I had in my head as I started out. When I was in school at the UW it was the afterglow of the '60s. Played in a couple of bands, was kind of a high school jock, and this just went away as this crap always does. Here we go. But I always, there was a line, that has become a cliche, but it wasn't a cliche for me when I was 19 years old. And it was a line offered by Henry David Thoreau, and the line was called living the life of quiet desperation. It's become a cliche. I admit it's a cliche. I'm embarrassed to mention it, but sometimes cliches become cliches for good viable reasons. And I grew up somewhere in my DNA knowing that I did not want to be in gray flannel suit, I did not want to be in a cubicle. 

I have an aversion to cubicles. And quite honestly, if I'd been real honest with myself, I didn't want to work for anybody else. I wanted to work for myself. I was that cocky, that vain, that stupid to think, hey, maybe I could build a business around what I love to do. So maybe that's kind of what we're exploring here today. Let's start off with what is an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur, I think, is a person who finds a passion and builds a business around it. So Jeanan mentioned the arts. I have a passion for writing. I have a passion for film. But I would argue there are other entrepreneurs who build businesses around their passion. 

I would argue every guy in the NFL is an entrepreneur because he's built a business and a brand around his talents. Most Olympic athletes. Most movie stars. In the old days there were movie stars who were contract players where they were just bought and paid for and showed up to work and they put them in whatever movie they wanted them to, back in the '30s, '40s and '50s. And then all the sudden actors said, no, I have a unique talent. I want to be in the movies I want to read. I want to read the script before I show up on set. I want control of my destiny. And so I think an entrepreneur can come in a lot of different ways. Some of it is creative but you could be an entrepreneur as a computer programmer as well. 

I think the issue here is an entrepreneur is someone who has a passion that they think is unique and they're comfortable taking it to market by themselves. What's the personality profile of an entrepreneur? I would say, number one, you have to be confident. You have to be disruptive. You have to have a little attitude. I can tell you quite honestly when I worked at ABC and CBS my biggest frustration was, and this sounds vain glorious and it is, but I thought I was smarter than a lot of my bosses. And when someone made me do something that I thought was stupid or lame or cliched, it drove me nuts. I always tell the story about some friends of mine gave me heat for leaving ABC. They said, why'd you leave ABC? What are you, nuts? You're working for one of the networks. And I said, because if you're standing still in the hallway they make you produce a telethon. I didn't have much control over my own work, and I wanted to own my own work. 

So I was a little cocky and I had an attitude. I was a first born and my father owned his own business so some of it was in the blood lines. I think that you have to be unafraid for fail but fear failure. Fear of failure, I would argue, is my greatest motivator. But the flip side of that is that I left a job after eight years with the network credits and went into business for myself, frankly without a business plan, without any capital, simply because I didn't think I would let myself fail. But I wasn't afraid of failing. If you look at Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, all these guys, they really started out, they did, they started out in garages. If you look at great rock artists, great writers, they lived very poor lives to start out with but they had a drive or a passion and a little bit of attitude that says, you know what, I think I got something that's a little bit different, that's a little bit disruptive that might be a little bit better or I view the world in a slightly different way and that's how I want to do it. In fact, if someone makes me not live my life that way, I'm going to lose my stuff. I would have said something else but this is going to be broadcast. 

I think that you have to be comfortable with insecurity. If you want security, if you want a job with a big company, that kind of paternalistic thing, a company that will take care of you for the rest of your life or a company you work to and then you can go to another big company, entrepreneurship is not for you because there's very little security with it. Right now as I stand here I don't know what business I will have six months from now. And yet I have a payroll of over a million bucks. But I'm gambling on myself and my people that we'll do much better than that this year. And I do that gamble every year. So you have to be comfortable with a lack of security. Risk, I think this is the biggest thing. I wrote a piece just last month for Madison Magazine talking about how this economy is going to be very challenging for government workers because some argue that the second shoe is going to drop, second shoe of the great recession is going to drop, and it's going to touch upon people in the public sector, the government sector, state a municipal governments. And I have a lot of friends and family members who work as teachers and for the DNR and all this sort of stuff, and one of the reasons they work there, I think, is that they're risk averse. 

You know pretty much you'll have a job for life, pretty hard to get fired, great pension, great healthcare. You don't make as much per annum but it's security. I have a brother in law who works for the DNR and he told me, he said, John I really admire what you have done but I know what I'm going to make every year for the rest of my life and the only way I can get fired is to kill someone driving drunk in my DNR car and even then I don't know if I'd get fired. So if you're risk averse, you probably should rule out entrepreneurship. And if you need structure, you should probably avoid entrepreneurship because frankly I think small businesses really come out of some level of chaos. Frankly you have to be pretty comfortable with chaos. That doesn't mean you don't have a vision, but executing the vision, especially within a business context, does not always fall into place right away. The one thing I'd say about being an entrepreneur too is it doesn't mean that you're this crazy pirate. I've said many times that I think being a small business owner is essentially capitalism reduced to its purist form, in that the harder I work, the more I make and the smarter I think, the more I make. If you take a job with a big corporation you could be brilliant but your compensation is set. 

Your right to claim intellectual property to your ideas does not exist. The company, when they hire you, they buy that out. And I always wanted to own the work that I generated. So we're going to, okay, good. So then Jeanan bracketed this with an entrepreneur, which is essentially a business term, and then put it within the context of being a working artist. I guess I am a working artist as a writer, director, and executive producer. I think it's worth asking, what is an artist? And I would argue that an artist is someone who has an idea and I think it's one thing to have an idea. Everyone has an idea for a movie, everyone has an idea for a TV show or a book. It's usually based upon their own life. But then you have to be creative. 

You have to create that idea in a quantifiable fashion. You have to put it on the paper, on the script. You have to capture it on film. So you have to create it and then you have to produce it or distribute it and make money on it. I'll be real candid, all sorts of people call themselves filmmakers now and it really gets under my last nerve. You'll know you're a filmmaker when you make your mortgage payments making movies. If you own a video camera and you shot four minutes and edited into nine scenes, with all respect, you're not a filmmaker. A filmmaker, I would argue, is someone who can make a living making films. I think a writer is someone who is paid to write. Now you can write vocationally or recreationally but it's one thing to like to do something, it's another to make your living at it. 

One of the things I'm most proud of is I'm a member of the Writers Guild. I get all these movies during Academy time before they're released on DVD and everything. And my kids come home and we have like our own private film fest. Like I have Social Network already. It makes me feel special. Anyhow, so that's the bit. And there's a lot of discipline and hard work. As you remember when Peter Schneider was here, there's a lot of method to the creative madness. And what I tried to do was, and I'll get to this a little later, but I tried to exploit ABC and CBS for experience while they exploited me for cheap labor. Okay? And that's what you guys are going to be. 

That's the state of your careers when you come out of college. You're cheap labor. And you have to make sure that you're exploiting your employer, and when I say exploit I mean it in a non-pejorative way, you have to exploit them as much as they're exploiting you. You have to exploit them for knowledge and experience and reputation. So after I left ABC, my option was to move to New York or LA. I was about 32 maybe, 33. And I chose to come home to Madison for very personal reasons. My wife, I had just been married a couple of years, my wife's father was diagnosed with cancer and was dying and in the middle that her six-year-old nephew was killed while riding his bike. And she and I are both from big Catholic families, and we are family people and we were going through a certain kind of like triage. We were coming back to Madison many weekends just to take care of the wounded members of our families. 

And the connection I had to our families and then the notion of moving to New York or LA and writing for a sitcom or something wasn't sitting well with me. Even with all my good friends in Chicago, I had a year, 1984, we were surrounded by death in our family and I thought how many of my buddies in Chicago would make their way to Madison to throw my bones into the ground? And I thought maybe five or six. And so it really put into focus for me, what did I care about? And it turned out that I cared about family. And that's why we moved back to Madison in '84. And I might add, it's been a great creative platform because if you're secure and your family's secure and your wife's not screaming at you, it's amazing how productive you can be. So let's talk about different kinds of art. There's commercial art and there's starving art. Commercial art, I would argue, is advertising agencies, graphic designers, doing corporate logos, all that sort of stuff. It's an artistic pursuit, but I would argue it's not purely artistic, it's commercial art. And I know a lot of artists who work for big agencies but at the end of the day they have to help sell Cap'n Crunch. 

They have to help people go to the linen sale at Kmart, which is really not a very creative story to tell. And what they do is they work in the creative arts and they use that to keep their chops, and then they pursue the finer artistic elements of their passion off the clock. One of my good buddies, in fact he's got a cabin up in northern Wisconsin, and tongue in cheek we go ice fishing every year. And these are guys who invented the Corona beer campaign, the beach campaign, one of the other guys wrote a screenplay of a film that Michael Keaton just starred in this year. And they've all worked in advertising agencies and then used that work to subsidize the finer art passions that they have. Screen writing, photography, whatever it might be. But there's commercial art and starving art. The starving artists in LA are waiters. They're all waiting on tables so that they can go to auditions or get a job as a production assistant. So what I've done is I've had this small company where I really have a lot of control and freedom. 

Freedom is huge in terms of being an entrepreneur. There is great freedom in having your own shop. And if you're in the creative arts, freedom is almost a necessity. You have to feel somewhat unencumbered. You have to feel like you're being paid to be your best self. And I really do feel that through the years that has by and large occurred with our little shop. I did give a talk to the business school and I said, and I wish this on all of you, I have never looked at the clock in my life once I started my own business. The day goes by really fast. I never know when it's lunch time. I rarely know that it's time to go home or stop at the saloon for a beer. 

And pretty much what I do is who I am. And I really love it now because with technology you can work in your pajamas at home at 6:00 AM and all this other stuff. And I always felt that way about it. I was always churning on stuff. So there's just tremendous freedom. In fact, this should be on the PowerPoint, this goes to show how I suck at PowerPoint, I would put a big thing that just says freedom. And I think freedom has value. I was offered a job in LA to produce the Dennis Miller Show which means I would have had to pick up and move to LA and move my family there. And they would offer me a lot of money. I didn't want to do it because I wouldn't have had the freedom that I have back here. 

And then small company, big company, our group has about 10 people, editors, writers, directors, all creatives. Managing creatives is a very interesting thing. And what we do, though, is that we are kind of like a SWAT team or a special forces team. When a major brand has a creative project, they call us up. And usually not through their agency. It's usually with the CEO, senior VP of marketing. They say, look, we've got this new product, we have to communicate it to all our people, all our vendors, all our distribution channels, whatever it might be. And we get that. I always view, and we're a national company, we shoot all over the world. We've shot in China, the North Pole, all throughout Europe, all throughout South America. 

Our creative director is bilingual, speaks English and Chinese. Our pieces are regularly translated into 13, 14, 15 different languages distributed all over the world. And so the metaphor that I use for my employers is the shark and the remora. Does anyone know what a remora is? Anyone? Really? Man. It's the little fish that swims along with the shark and cleans it up all the time. Have you ever seen sharks that have just got the little fish around it? So we're kind of like the remora. We're small, we're quick, and we get stuff done. So how do you know you can run and start a business? Well, number one, you probably can't. The mortality rate for new business startups is very high. There are varying statistics. 

I've heard only two out of 10 survive for two years. And only 5% of those survive for another five years. Meaning about 5% or less. Now, according to the small business bureau, which I think kind of has an agenda in terms of making it over, over half the United States workforce is employed by small businesses. A majority of the innovations and patents that come out in the United States come from small businesses, then they get bought by big businesses or they become big businesses. Here are some survival rates. There were 627,000 new businesses started in 2008. There were 595,000 closures. So that's a difference of 30,000 businesses. And there were almost 50,000 bankruptcies. 

Seven out of 10 survived the first two years, only half survive through five years, and I think that's optimistic. So how do you make it successful? Number one, you have to have the right personality type otherwise you shouldn't have your own business. You really, and this just sounds so bad, you have to dislike having other people tell you what to do. You have to have a vision for yourself or for your talent or your skill or your passion and go, you know what, I just got to do this and if I sit in this cubicle any longer, I am going to lose my mind. You have to be independent. You have to not care about money. I find this to be very interesting. If you look at a lot of early inventors and stuff, they really don't care much about money at all. It's kind of like they're fixated on this idea or this passion and that's what they have to do. And the money follows that, but the passion comes first. 

And I think that's really true. When I started my business I had no business plan, had no line of credit, the business financed its own growth, and I was actually incredibly stupid and naive about the business of my passion. And that's been my learning curve. Writing a script, directing a piece, working with talent, that comes quite naturally to me. What didn't come naturally to me is how to do an organizational chart, how to hire people, how to fire people, which is brutal. How to set up compensation. How to set up rates. How to figure out what our margins should be. So I had to teach myself all the things I didn't think I'd have to learn in order to pursue my passion. And I'll talk about that just a little bit later. 

But the first thing is when I went independent, I went independent and walked away from a really good annual income with effectively no guarantee of income. I just knew I couldn't do what I was doing any longer, and I knew that if I was ever going to try it, this would be the time. And what was that time? I was just recently married, our first child had been born, it was actually a little late. First child had been born. But interestingly enough, as a guy, and I don't think this is sexist, everyone has different genetically programmed reflexes, when our first child was born I become a much better businessman. It triggered this kind of provider reflex in me and, for whatever reason, I've told this to other guys, I just said for whatever it is it made me a much tougher, smarter businessman, much tougher and smarter about myself, what I was good at, what I wasn't good at. But you can't care about money at first because there won't be any money there. Unless you get a bunch of investors and honestly then it's not your company, it's theirs too. And this is what drove me to start my own business is I wanted to live my own life. Success is living the life you want to live rather than having someone impose a lifestyle on you. 

And it's amazing how hard you will work if you're living the life you want to live. If you're living where you want to live. If you're doing the kind of stuff you want to do every day at work. If you're working with the people you want to work with and work is fun and you're totally unaware of the passage of time you're so consumed by your work and you're living the life you want to live, that's great. And especially in the artistic stuff, as I tell my people all the time, as I said earlier, what we do is who we are. There are a lot of people who work for big accounting firms and then go home at night and play guitar in the coffee house or do stand-up comedy. I would argue there might be some quiet desperation at work there. But we are who we are in our offices which I really like. Self-promotion. If you don't promote yourself, who will? And how to promote yourself and not be an ass. 

I think it's a very subtle thing about once you decide to start a business you have to bring in customers. You have to bring in work. You have to figure out what to charge for your work. You have to make an argument for value for you work. You have to get repeat business. And you have to figure out how to promote yourself but not be a jerk while you're doing it. So I've always been, I'm not a bad self-promoter, but I'm also not bad at helping people see shared vision. Getting excited about an idea and having other people excited by it as well. But I'm a big believer in casual name dropping. Instead of walking in and going blah-dada-dada-dada-dada, I'd rather be at a party and say, oh, geez we just worked with LL Cool J last week. 

You worked with LL Cool J? I know he's old. I'm old. And then, oh yeah, I was out in LA shooting. Who are you shooting for? Oh, Coca-Cola, LL Cool J is doing a spot with them. Really? Oh, yeah, it was the same director we worked with on the Tom Hanks project.  Tom Hanks? You worked with Tom Hanks? Yeah, he did this Fox kids show I was working with and the director was also doing the spot. So you kind of casually drop this stuff around. Celeb names are big and traveling is big. So you say, I just got by back from Innsbrook. What were you doing in Innsbrook? We were shooting the US Olympic ski team for Miller. 

Really, you do work for Miller? Yeah, yeah, we do. Tell me more about it. Oh, it's not that big a deal. I just flew to Innsbrook and went skiing with the US Olympic ski team and almost fell down a glacier. [LAUGHTER] A crevice. So, especially if you're the owner, the prime mover of the business, you are, they call it the rain maker. You have to make it rain. You have to make the jobs come in. [LAUGHTER] What? Not like Rain Man. What? [LAUGHTER] Oh, you have to make it rain. 

[LAUGHTER] And make it rain money. So casual name dropping is a great way to promote yourself. I also think it's cool, I love social media and Facebook and all this sort of stuff because I love to throw up little pieces or little casual mentions of projects we're working on right now. And I always like it when the client, this is a really good point, I can't believe I didn't put it down, I love it when the client comes to us as opposed to us tugging on the client's sleeve for business. It's always best when we heard about you from someone. And our work has always been our best promotion. Business of show business. This is what I tell, again now this is kind of crafting this entrepreneur with arts. They call it show business. There's show and there's business. 

Let's just take a half step back. I've always thought, and there may be classes at the U about this now, but for like the kids who are in drama, I hope they have a class about how to hire an agent. Okay? How to review a rights document or a release form for what you should release for the use of your image and likeness. I hope they offer a course in if you're cast in a role in the movie, what is your residual layout. How do you become a member of the Screen Actors Guild? What the benefits of the Screen Actors Guild. When does the healthcare kick in. Does it cover getting your eyes done. And all the business parts of being an artist and selling your work. So these are just some of the things I had no idea about. I just knew I wanted to shoot film and tell stories, do TV shows, write screenplays. 

I had no idea what a line of credit was. I was clueless. I ran my business for 10 years and then the bank said don't you think you should have a line of credit? I said, sure, what's that? Now that's embarrassing for me to admit. Really embarrassing. You're nodding. You're right, it is embarrassing? [LAUGHTER] You're smarter than me. I had no idea how to hire people. We had a little success early so I thought I was golden and I would just say I've got a great read on people. Wrong. I made so many bad hires and then took too long to fire people. 

Compensation. I kind of knew how to get a comparative, when we brought in a writer or a director or something like that, I kind of knew what they should be making per annum, I didn't know how to have the compensation discussion and how to frame here's what we can pay you. Well, geez, nah, nah, nah. And I said, well look, if we pay you a hundred grand, given the expense of having you as an employee, you have so have $400,000 worth of billings. Now if you think you can do that, then I'll pay you a hundred grand. But you'll lose your job in a year if you don't do that. Because if you have an employee for a hundred thousand dollars, you have 15% of that is for FICA, social security, you've got another 15% for healthcare and dental. Then you've got the rent for their office, their computers, their travel, their phone line, their cell phone, their Apple iPhone, their iPad and all the sudden I finally had an accountant who said here's what it really costs you to have an employee. And here's the return you should hope to have. You should hope to have a three to one or four to one return on every employee you have. 

So when someone comes in and asks me for more money, I always say to them, great, how are we going to both make more money together? I want you to have more money, but it's got to be a good deal for both of us. Margins, how to operate your business on margins, how to price the value of your work. Huge lesson. What do you charge a day, some of the people ask you. Or how much is a finished minute. You really have to sit down and do some math and quantify what your creative talents go for on the marketplace. And then you have agents and percentages. I have an agent in LA for screenplays. And then the last thing I would say is someone has done this before, the models exist, I was really stupid in that I did not seek out the models. I just made stuff up as I went along for too long a time. 

So if I would give any of you counsel, if you do end up starting your own business or going into some sort business that lets you leverage your creative arts, right away reach out to someone and find the business model because if you have a stable business model, your art will be so much better because you shouldn't starve. If you're starving as an artist, maybe your art isn't that good. You know? Is any of this making sense? Am I engaging you at all or do you all wish you were elsewhere? Nod your head, move, do something. Okay, back there, you're okay? Thank you. Appreciate that. Signs of life. Okay, people, one of the things I've learned, I'm really talking about running a small business here in creative. Creatives are notoriously difficult to manage because they're never happy. They have the highest incidence of depression and they never feel that they're being compensated enough. But no one's ever happy with what they make, but many can be happy with what they do. 

People will work for less than they think they should if there having fun and feel appreciated. That's a huge element and it took me a little while to figure that out. What we do is who we are as opposed accountant by day, stand-up comedian by night, I covered that. Expectations and delivery. One of the things that I learned later, is to just have, and again I'm talking to you guys like you're running your own business, that's what I'm talking to you about, you have to have really honest discussions with your employees to find out what your expectations are and what their expectations are. And you have to have that discussion. You have to screen these employees. You have to really take a hard look at their experience, and I've always felt you have to make sure they worked in a big market for show business. That's critical. If you've never worked outside of Madison, you probably don't know what you need to do, know what you need to know to work with us at least. 

But I never knew how to have these, it's an HR function. Nothing could be more boring than human resources. That's what I thought. And yet, I have come to appreciate people who know how to have these discussions with employees. And, again, if you start your own business, reach out to people who will help you for this. You'll be amazed how many consultants are out there. For a thousand bucks a day, they'll save you a hundred grand. Technology, anyone watch Modern Family? Okay, I'm known as Phil Dunphy around the house. Can't wait for the new iPad. In fact, my nephew is on the lead technology team for the new iPad 2. 

It's going to have a profound effect on the way we do business. I already do conference calls every morning with my younger brother, who now runs the business day-to-day, on FaceTime. It's a tremendous business tool. Now imagine that with an iPad instead of a smaller screen. Technology allowed me to work from Madison. This is just pathetic but when I started my business in Madison in 1985, computers really weren't used. There was no such thing as Fed Ex. The airlines hadn't been deregulated so getting a direct flight to New York was difficult or impossible from Madison. There were no cell phones. I typed my scripts on a typewriter, an IBM Selectric. 

And technology allowed me to be globally competitive from Madison, Wisconsin. We're regularly bidding against groups from Los Angeles or London or New York or Minneapolis or Detroit because it really doesn't matter where you are, it matters how good you are. And so technology, the investments in technology, historically have been the best investments I've made in my business. Mark always says control the means of production. In film production it's kind of a subcontractor business, you subcontract your lighting guy, your sound guy, your gaffers, your grips, livery, food, all that sort of stuff. But the more of those services you internalize, the better your margins are. And what has happened for our little company is that technology has conspired to make it more profitable for us to buy gear than rent it. So now we have two full blown Apple Final Cut HD edit suites. We have a mixing studio. We have three HD cameras, we just took delivery of another one. 

What does that do? Well, it allows us to make money on our own gear. But more importantly it allows me to cut my clients a break plus a piece of business so I'm not running into overtime on edits and these sorts of things. The more control you have over the tools of your art, the better off you are. And I probably don't get out of my pajamas until 10:00 in the morning every day. I start at 6:00 in the morning drinking coffee. I do most of my writing early in the day, this is creative ideas, scripts, whatever it might be, before the affairs of the day cloud my mind. Coffee is a great drug for writing, as you guys probably know. And so I'd literally, I used to have to get up in the morning at 6:00 and be there to do a show in the morning and all this sort of stuff, but it's the most productive time of my day, and I do it in my pajamas which I think is just tremendous. And I'm literally calling all over the place. I think more and more you guys are going to be working remotely. 

My daughter works for Wrigley. She works at home on Fridays. Just doesn't even have to come in the office. It's also quicker. I worked in Chicago and commuted on the Edens expressway for eight years. I wasted three hours a day in my car. And this was pre-cell phones. You couldn't have any productive time in your car. Total utter waste of time. It's much easier, I obviously I'm telling you guys stuff you already know, to research. 

And in terms of the world of creative, it's also easier to engage in what I call benevolent theft. When we go into idea sessions, I always go online and look at piece that is are similar that have been done. What is the language of the day. They say there are no new ideas, there's just benevolent theft. You don't want to rip anything off. You shouldn't be satisfied with that. But most of everything has been kind of done. And so what I like to do when we have our creative sessions is I like to prime the pump with pieces from YouTube that I've gone out and grabbed to say, okay, what can we do that will be cooler, better than this? And the technology allows you to do that so wonderfully. And then if you have invested in technology, it's been my experience that you're one step ahead of your competitors. I have a client who completely dug the fact that I had the Apple iPhone 4 and was able to FaceTime with him in the morning before his meetings started. 

It makes a statement about you and your company. You have to be wise about a technology investment. You have to be sure that you can get a return on that investment because if you sink money in bad technology, not only is it costly, it's also a bad metaphor for you as a businessman with clients. But I've seen a lot of clients now call me for what kind of technology they should invest in. And big companies usually don't invest in cutting-edge technology because it's too hard. Okay, so I want to talk about humanity because I don't really view myself as a, although I've been a businessman, I don't view myself as, I don't refer to myself as a businessman. I'm more of a dad and a father and a friend and a brother and all that sort of stuff. And I have a lot of friends that I worked with collaboratively in business that are friends. I really do think that business is relationships. My daughter Margaret, Maggie, went to work for Wrigley, and she's in charge of sales analytics for all these different sales people all around the country, 400 people who call every day and complain about their commissions. 

And she's had the job for a year and a half and she finally went on a business trip two weeks ago to Charlotte and gave a presentation to everyone and all these people she'd been working with remotely for a year and a half came up and said, wow, is it great finally meeting you. And she felt the same way. So in the midst of all this technology, I think the humanity actually becomes more important. There's nothing like having dinner and beers with a client to get a read on them. I know how my clients view me. They say we need something fresh, call Roach. And now Roach doesn't mean just me, it means everyone in my group. We need someone ho won't let us down, call Roach. Because the humanity of this entrepreneurial artistic stuff is that if these things get screwed up, our clients get fired. And they have kids and they have houses and all this sorts of stuff, and I've seen people hyperventilate before big shows when we're controlling how their career is perceived and it comes off swimmingly and you're just a freakin' hero to them. 

And that's how our business grew. We became a hero to someone at Miller who got hired at Coca-Cola, all the sudden we're doing big projects for Coca-Cola. Another person went over to SC Johnson, and our business grew exponentially because A, we had fresh creative ideas and B, we were dogged. We would not let the project fail. And in so doing, we would not let our client's reputation be compromised. So I don't know if that makes any sense to you. Okay, things I find myself saying now that I'm old. I ask my employees to solve problems, don't create them. No one likes working with a whiner. Raise your hand for help. 

I think if you're an employer, if you're in my position, you have to keep your eyes on your people to see who's struggling. Because in the creative arts, in what we do, deadlines, a lot of pressure, it's not a 9:00 to 5:00 job. It can be 12 days in a row, 12 hours a day, and you have to really be sensitive to your employees who are struggling. And what they do is they don't tell you they're struggling. They're going to try to take one for the team or struggle through, but they endanger the project. So I always tell people, please, raise your hand for help. I need help. It's three words that are really important to be able to say. Throw good people at problems. Small businesses, most every small business has an expand/contract model. 

There's seasonal things, there's work load things and so we always have a deep bench of freelancers that we can throw at problems. This is, raise your hand for help, in terms of a manager, is immediately followed by throw good people at the problem that this person needs help with. Hire good people and get out of their way. Phil Knight is the president of Nike. He has one of my favorite quotes, and it's profane so I'll clean it up. He said 90% of my job is finding the right people and the other 10% is getting the bleep out of their way. I really do believe that finding the right people to fit with your group is great. For all this talk about technology and everything, human assets are actually more valuable now than they ever have been, I would argue. A particular literate human asset in the American culture since we've moved out of mass production economy into an information economy. Do it all with an easy grace. 

I don't think you should let them see you sweat. I think that you should not panic. And it is really comforting to the rest of your team members when everyone knows there is a lot of pressure and a light fell and the talent showed up drunk, or whatever it might be, to handle it all with an easy grace as if you've been there before because that keeps everyone else from panicking. Okay? Now I'm going to contradict myself. Same thing as create drama-free zones because drama isn't very productive. And if you have drama people stop being candid with each other. And in the creative arts you have to be candid and trust each other. Does anyone know who Mel Brooks is? Yeah, anybody? Move, somebody move. Raise your hand. Mel Brooks? Anyone know? So I worked with Mel Brooks when I was young and he was touring for one of his movies, History of the World: Part II, and I was thrilled to meet him. 

I met a lot of celebrities, worked with them, and I usually take it in stride but I was really thrilled to meet him. I thought his movie The Producers was just the most dangerous damn thing I'd ever seen. So the security calls, Mr. Brooks is on his way to seven, which is where our studios were. I go there and meet him at the elevator. We're in the exact same outfits, khaki pants, blue shirt and a blue blaser. He goes, son! Take him into makeup and he goes, what did you think of the movie? And I said, it was really great, Mr. Brooks; I really admire your work. He said, no, what didn't you like about it? I said, really? He goes, yeah, I know what's working, especially if you're young; I need to know what isn't working. And I said, well, it wasn't as good as The Producers. And he goes, I'm never going to make a movie as good as The Producers again. And it taught me a great lesson. 

He had no emotional investment in what was wrong with his project. None. He wanted notes. He wanted to hear what was wrong with it. And that was a revelation to me because I worked with a lot of people who if you even made the slightest off-handed comment about something being off they would just lose their stuff completely. He was at the top of his game at that time, and he wanted me, a lowly producer in Chicago, to tell him where he missed. And he was totally, totally, utterly cool about it. And it was a great lesson to learn. Righteous anger. Now after I've said all this stuff about drama-free zone and easy grace I think there's times where you have to rear up on your hind legs and say nobody's going to treat my people like that. 

I'm going to have you removed from the set if you pull that crap again. Is that understood? Thank you. [LAUGHTER] Because people will beat you up, and you can't let them beat you up. Of some of the work I've done, the thing I'm most proud of is accounts I've resigned because they treated my people poorly. One of my people, we were shooting Muhammad Ali at Atlanta Olympics, and one of my people got heat stroke and the client came in and made some really inappropriate remark about one of my, kind of saying one of my employees was a slacker, when in fact this person's health was really in danger. Heat stroke is nothing to mess around with. And I informed Coke after that shoot that we would no longer work with this person. You've have to have righteous anger. And I also think that if you're running the shop, it's really critical, you want easy grace but you have to let people know that you have passion and you care. And so I don't think you ever go out of your way to humiliate someone, but if something is being done inappropriately or in a slackish way you have to say, hey, what are we doing? This must be done well and it must be done well by 5:00 because that's when, boom, you're a pumpkin because we can't go into overtime. 

Please focus. Thank you. The other thing is you can't beat people up all the time because one out of every three shoot days you're going to have to ask the crew to skip lunch. Okay? People get really, I never care about lunch, but people really want their lunch. So you always have to buy them a big free meal afterwards. But you can only go to that well so often and you can only do it if you treat them well. I don't know if this makes sense to you. There is no big time. I don't think there's any big time. I've worked with presidents, movie stars, all that sort of stuff. 

I have found it to be best to act really casual and straightforward with them. Don't bug them about autographs. Don't say, I've admired you all my life. Just say, Whitney, Rod Stewart, President Reagan, President Bush, this is what we'll be doing, and Michael Jordan it will take us about 15 minutes, Mike. I worked with Michael Jordan a lot. Mike was great to work with. If you told him, hey Mike. He goes, you again? Yeah, yeah. I said 15 minutes you're going to stand over here. We've got all the copy for you. 

All you have to do is walk into your mark. We'll mic you up. You'll be out in 15 minutes. He goes, I'm timing you. I said, you've timed me before, did I let you down? He goes, no you haven't. And that's all you do. You don't say, hey Mike, can you sign this for my nephew, all this sort of stuff because it's business time. And they're paying him about a million dollars an hour. Do not confuse activity with achievement. This is one thing I always tell my young employees is just because you're bustling around doesn't mean you're getting anything done. 

I think that that mantra helps you re-prioritize all the time saying what is my intention today? What has to be in the can? What has to be done today? Am I serving, am I moving the ball up the hill or am I just running around madly? Message discipline. I think this is important for everything that you work on because the world is full of words now. There's just all sorts of messages flying around. So it puts a premium on you knowing what you do, you knowing what you want, you knowing the case statement of the project you're working. What is the end result required? So message discipline all the way down the line because it is so, we live in a world of total utter constant distraction. So the person who actually knows where they're going and what they're doing is ahead of 99% of the people. Critical path, that's the same thing. You just have to, when you're in the midst of production or running your business or whatever it might be. And this is stuff that you ordinarily wouldn't tell artists but it's like what are we supposed to do here? One of the things I have found with really good artists, they are really buttoned down and disciplined. They don't waste any time. 

They care about their work, how it sounds, how it looks, and everything else is secondary. Get down off your cross, we need the nails. I hate martyrs. That's a Tom Waits line. I use that all the time when someone is whining too much. Get down off your cross, we need the nails. That's all. The only two other things I'd share with you is I traveled for 30 years to make this business work. It was really difficult. Travel is not fun. 

It's fun when you're young and you're in a nice four star hotel and you get to order room service and you're going oh, this is great. But if you do it for 30 years, it's not really fun. So if you're working with people and you're making them travel a lot, give them some love. And what else? Just the work-life balance. Of all the stuff that I've done, I mean the Cannes Film Festival, writing a David Lynch film, for any of you who know David Lynch, he's a pretty cool director, being surrounded by paparazzi, all that stuff was really cool, but honestly at the end of the day I'm glad that I'm a reasonably good husband and father. And if I wasn't, I think that other stuff would not, life's pretty unbearable when you don't have your personal side together. That's just me. Other people can swing it just fine but I need a good base. That's all I have to say. I hope this is helpful. 

I don't know if it was. I'd love to hear some questions, and then I'll be able to tell if you heard anything I said. [APPLAUSE] >> John's actually been to class before. He was here when Peter Schneider came last semester, who, of course, is an old friend of yours. >> He actually wasn't an old friend, that was the beauty of it. Peter Schneider was the guy from Disney who gave you guys Ariel and Lion King, gave you your childhood. And he gave the green light to a screenplay that I wrote that ended up being this thing. And you guys haven't seen it. It was a very small film but a cool film. It's in the Internet Movie Database top 200, all that sort of stuff. 

But it was about an old man who drove his tractor across Iowa to see his dying brother. Very simple film. Totally weird film for David Lynch to make who did Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and this was a totally against type film for him. But they flew us to France and we walked up the aisle and waved at the photographers and every time I turned and waved they said, who the hell is that? Get out of my shot. [LAUGHTER] Okay, questions. >> And you guys know just raise your hand, and I'll be happy to hand the mic over. I'm looking for those hands to go up. I've got one right here. >> Hi, my name is Rhea Harvey. >> Hi, Rhea. 

>> And my question for you is would you or have you done an advertisement for a company or a product with which you've had an ethical qualm with? >> I have turned down two projects because of that. We did work for the Miller Brewing Company which was owned by the Philip Morris Company, and we did not take any work from the parent company, Philip Morris. I do like beer. I have a real problem with cigarettes. Lost my father-in-law to lung cancer, and so we went out of our way not to take any work from them. And I also don't, we've done political work as well, but we don't take work from far right-wing republicans who are anti gay, it's just not who we are. I don't mind moderate republicans. I think there's a good argument to be made on the moderate side of both arguments, but when the talk becomes hateful we don't care to be part of it. That's a great question. And, by the way, when we have ethically sketchy projects come in, I meet with the staff to make sure everyone is comfortable with it. 

And there have been times where certain members of my staff have recused themselves from a job even though the rest of the staff wanted to do it. I'll give you an example. Someone who is a registered republican doesn't want, registered republican doesn't want to help a democrat become governor. So they just don't work on the project and we respect that. I thought I lost you and you have a question because you were nodding off. [LAUGHTER] >> Sorry, I had surgery this week. >> What did you get cut on? >> What? >> What got cut on? >> My foot. >> Oh, sorry. Okay. [LAUGHTER] >> My name is Eliah Rinzel, and I was wondering have you had any decisions, maybe some jobs you took that you wish you wouldn't have or just big decisions you've made that you didn't like. 

>> That's a great question. Some of the most difficult jobs that I've had have been the most rewarding and profitable. And over time, I'll give you an example, anyone here from Chicago? Anybody? Remember Steve Dahl? Does anyone know of that name? He was a radio guy they blew up Comiskey Park. My first special was a really edgy special with him. Won my first Emmy for it. It was a brutal project. Difficult talent, difficult, we were shooting in Memphis. It was a send up of Elvis Presley. And yet, the creative idea was really, really good. But it took years off my life. 

Would I do it again? Yes I would. Writing The Straight Story was really hard work. Would I do it again? Yes I would. I think what I have found is if a job is really difficult, ask for more money than you can turn down. Meaning it's not worth having a lot of personal friction with a client who's got a $10,000 who doesn't know what they're doing and they're a jerk because at the end of the day every job takes what it takes and you can't afford to do it poorly. Even if the client doesn't know, you know. So the lesson for me is unless someone really treats you or your people, crosses the line in terms of respect, then sometimes you just have to put your head down and make it a mercenary act. But the only regrets I have is the times I worked really, really hard for clients who didn't appreciate it and didn't pay for it. That answer your question? Thanks. Yes, Alyssa. 

>> Actually we've got the mic right here and then we'll get to Alyssa. >> Okay, I'm sorry. >> I'm Jewel. Of all the awards and nominations-- >> Jewelryana. >> Yes. It's different. Of all the awards and nominations you've received, is there anything that means, maybe to the general public something might be really prestigious but to you it doesn't mean as much? Is there an award that you've received that means more for any reason? >> Right. I have to say I honestly don't care that much about awards. But I will say that nominated for an Independent Spirit Award was really cool. In case you guys don't know what that is, that's like the cool pre-Academy Awards party that happens the day before the Academy Awards, and it's all the young new independent films. 

It's where Pulp Fiction won and where, what was that movie about the guys who got caught in the forest and they made the whole social myth about it? Blair Witch. You know, it's the smaller indie films. And we got nominated for best first screenplay, and we were with some really cool company. In fact, the guy who did Election and all that sort of stuff. So that was really heady and then having the film premier at Cannes Film Festival. That was serious boogie because that was part of film lore. And then to have Richard Farnsworth, who is the old guy who had the lead in our film, get an Academy Award nomination for best actor which is one of the top three awards. That does mean something to me, but here's what means more: the morning that the Academy Award nominations were to come out, Disney did a campaign for us as screenwriters as well. So we were up for best screenplay, best original screenplay. In fact, on my wall at home I have the print ads that Disney ran in Variety magazine saying for your consideration John Roach, Mary Sweeney, best original screenplay of The Straight Story. 

But I didn't want to sit at home and watch it. They announced it on Good Morning America or whatever the hell it is. So I went cross country skiing in the arboretum. We had gotten six inches of snow. It was just beautiful and I was hoping someone from our production would get a nomination, either David for best director, Sissy Spacek for best supporting actress, or Richard Farnsworth for best actor, or possibly Angelo Badalamenti for the soundtrack which is beautiful or maybe, a long shot, us for screenplay. But I really didn't have a viable hope for that. And I got in my car and I had voicemail in my car and there were 38 voicemails. And the first one I punched, and by the way there was a Cannes Film Festival premier and then a Hollywood premier. Marilyn Manson sat right behind us, he came for the premier, and my daughter goes Marilyn Manson is sitting right behind us and over there is the president of the United States. Which was Bill Pullman. 

Independence Day had just been out. Our kids were like eight. [LAUGHTER] And so they did the whole walk and everything. And my daughter Maggie, who ended up getting a double major in English and comm arts here, all I got on the voicemail was screaming. And she had met Richard Farnsworth. She had met everyone. She was very excited and she goes, Richard got a nomination, Richard got a nomination, dad. And you could hear screaming in the background and that was the voicemail. So that's what I cherish the most. It's the intersect between that formal recognition and the feel good human side. 

Is that fair answer? >> Hi. You clearly have a natural talent for writing and film and you kept mentioning that you had to teach yourself or look elsewhere for business advice. >> You bet, I'm still learning. >> What degree did you graduate with? >> History. [LAUGHTER] For all of you who don't know what you're going to do. You're in school and you have to declare a major. I became a history major. I took the path of least resistance. I tried a couple drama courses; I didn't fit in. I tried some comm arts; I didn't like the classes. 

And I loved reading history. It was reading and writing and I just have a vivid imagination and history always, I loved reading history and also there's a lot of writing with history. So I pretty much am your typical confused humanities graduate from the University of Wisconsin. And I might add, you guys are lucky, Madison is a culturally very cool place compared to some other schools in that it's the cultural mix of Madison, not the formal education and courses sometimes, that give it its edge. From my generation, Hollywood is filthy with Wisconsin graduates and there was no film school at the UW. There he this were all history majors, soc, English. All sorts of this kind of polyglot humanities sort of thing. And there are tons of people in the movie business in Hollywood. Yes, sir? >> Yes, sir. How are you doing this evening? >> Good. 

>> My name is Aaron Henry. >> Aaron, how you doing? >> I'm doing well. My question was regarding, I know you work with a lot of people and who did you have the opportunity of enjoying that group of people or that person to work with? Who did you enjoy the most? >> Yeah, well David Lynch because I learned a lot from him. There are some people who've I've worked with professionally who I stayed in touch with. Does anybody know the TV show Cheers? Okay. You know George? I mean Norm? George Wendt? The fat guy who drinks beer? He became a friend of mine. He was in Second City. He's a good friend. Chris Farley was a good friend. I consider Dave Lynch a friend. 

And then there are a lot of other people that I worked with who, if I mention what we worked on it would be a really good connect. It's like teammates or camps you've been at where you connect with someone and then you reconnect and it's a joyous memory, it's a beautiful thing. There's a lot of show business that's kind of like summer camp because you come together for a magical six weeks and then everyone goes away and all you have are the memories. But then when you get back with these people you remind them, hey, we worked together on The Straight Story. Oh, my God, how are you? Yes. Boom. Then I would say the other thing is just the core people of my office. Directors, writers that I've worked with who are just good friends. Then also, it's kind of fortuitous, I'm going up to the cabin this week. Tongue in cheek, we go ice fishing. 

It's a joke. All these guys wear Armani suits and crap like that. They have no idea how to ice fish. We hire an ice fishing guide. [LAUGHTER] That's how hopeless we are. But these guys that I've mentioned, they've written movies, big television commercial campaigns, one of them is the president of NBC stations. And I get together with them to compare notes because that's the one thing I would say is you don't always have someone to talk to about am I doing right by my business, by myself, by my people? Am I losing my edge? And it's like going on a retreat with these guys every year. And we bounce ideas and stuff. I'll give you an example. If I was a professional athlete it'd be like going away with someone and talking about agents and endorsements and trainers and all that sort of stuff. 

It's the same thing. It's someone you can huddle down with who's in the same business you're in, which by the way there really aren't many people in Madison who are in the same business I am in. I can't go down to the village Bar or Wando's and say, hey, what are you charging for lighting guys now and stuff like that. So those are the relationships I cherish. If there's any famous people, I don't know, I'm sure there's some famous people who are friends but I don't think of them as famous anymore so I can't bring up their name. I just don't, fame's a weird thing. I wouldn't wish fame on anyone. >> Okay, so you talked about how relationships are really important, I was wondering how you separate friendship from business and if you've ever been in a situation where business had a trump over friendship? >> God, you guys are asking great questions. There's a line in Hollywood that says, Hollywood: no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. I try not to do business with friends. 

I have a buddy of my who is my roommate out of college who is retired at 40. He made millions of dollars with Salomon Brothers. And he called me up after The Straight Story and said, hey, maybe I can get some investors for your movie. And I said, cool, Bob. I still can't believe you're retired plus you weren't that smart. [LAUGHTER] And he laughed. He's great on rock and roll trivia though. And he said, well, I wouldn't invest because I never invest in anything where I can't sue the other people involved. And he said, I would never want to sue you; you were the best man in my wedding. I think it's a very difficult thing. 

My brother is my partner in my business. My younger brother, 15 years younger than me. It's an Irish Catholic family, he was "oops." [LAUGHTER] And you really have to do a lot of work if you're going to work with friends. You need more work and more paper to work with friends than strangers or enemies, I think. That's a brilliant question. All your questions have been good. I'll take a crappy question. Anyone have a crappy question? >> Do we have a final question here? >> Hi, I'm Lauren. >> Hi, Lauren. >> And I was just wondering, what would you say is the hardest part about your job? >> Pressure. 

Tension. The fear of failure and travel and firing people. [LAUGHTER] I hated firing people. Just hate it. I get clinically depressed for a month after firing people. There are people who like firing people but that was always difficult for me. If I could just finish, Jeanan. I'm really grateful for you guys to let me speak to you today. I'm enough of a Irish Catholic boy to feel that I can never enjoy any success unless I feel like there's some good karma associated with it. And what I hope is today, I probably bored the living crap out of a huge percentage of you, but it's my hope that one or two of you may find yourself in a position where you might possibly remember one little morsel that I threw out today that will help you at a hard time of your life. 

I couldn't be happier for you guys. You guys are in a really cool place in time. This economy sucks but it's rebounding. And you guys are coming out and you're smart and you're cheap labor and you're from a great school with a great reputation. So I wish you guys nothing but the best. If anyone has any follow-up questions or anything and you want my email or anything, I'm happy to help out, and you can get it from Jeanan, but I wish you all just the best of luck. And thanks for letting me talk at you. [APPLAUSE]