Where It Began - The Move To Brighton
After 2 years of studying photograph and a further 3 years studying film at Portsmouth University, Charlie Southall was facing the same question that every young graduate will face, to move back home or to take the risk of going into the real world with just a degree and a sprinkle of ambition, having far more than a sprinkle of ambition the safe option was not as appealing, there was far more excitement in moving to somewhere that had a mixture of work relevance and a beach, the southeast town of Brighton seemed to have the right balance. So with the knowledge and trust that "something would happen" the journey began…
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Being on your own 2 feet - Setting up Dragonfly - Finding the talent
Having made the move, Charlie found himself soon running out of money. By his own admittance, he was not good at adjusting his lifestyle to fit with his lower budget situation, he spent more of his time enjoying the his new lively environment than worrying about his finical up keep. With the post university credit score there was no help in the form of money coming from the bank, signing on was the only option. Although a low point in his life, Charlie maintained the mindset of something is going to happen, he describes the feeling as instinctive, he had always observed the world and soon became aware that he was just as capable as anybody he had worked with, one memory in particular of looking over the shoulder of a reputable DOP and thinking "I could do better than that." So whether it was just inevitable, or fate had pulled a string, through visiting the job center Charlie was soon applying for a loan from The Princes Trust to start up his own video production company.
Upon receiving a relatively small sum of money, Charlie completely skipped the freelancing world and became a company director in 3 simple steps. 1)Registering a company 2) Opening a business account and 3)Publishing a website - Step 1 & 2 were surprisingly easy, step 3 required a little more thought. Charlie is a strong believer in recognising where others can perform a better job than yourself, this humble approach lead him to head hunt the talent that would build and design his website, in his eyes this website would act as his shop front in the virtual high street of the internet… " all you need today is a website, it is the shop front of your company, google and internet are the high street"
Knowing his own limits, Charlie began his search for talent at degree shows, only now turning up as the Company Director of Dragonfly Productions, with this title he was able to wiggle his way into shows often greeted with a glass of wine and a specially revered seat. At the Surrey Art Institute at Brick Lane, Charlie came across a few fresh talents "I knew a good thing when it came to me" One of which is was a graphics design student named Paul, impressed by Paul's work Charlie wanted him to design the Dragonfly Productions logo. With an open mind and trusting in his investment in young Paul, they spent a day trying to sketch the perfect logo. However it wasn't an immediate success, having worked all day they eventually hit a wall. With faith that Paul had the necessary touch they continued work into the night accompanied by pizza and beer (remember, at this point he was still trying to break out of the student lifestyle), out of the blue Paul scribbled a simple 2D dragonfly on a piece of paper which was exactly what they had been waiting for, even when they tried to re-draw it, it wouldn't come out the same. It was scanned and rotoscopped into a computer and has hovered above the elevated "fly" of Dragonfly ever since. On a similar mission Charlie found the young creative who thought of the phrase used in many of Charlie's pitches as well as the company's showreel "If a picture can say 1000 words, imagine what video can do" - A prime example of how a modest and less formal approach of sourcing talent can deliver the goods.
Ironically there is no deeper meaning or interesting story behind the name itself but through researching the dragonfly it became a useful metaphor to emulate to company, the dragonfly is said to be as ancient as the dinosaurs so it is perfectly evolved to fit in with its environment, it is able to change direction without loosing speed, this unique ability was studied by the Japanese who were trying to build an aircraft to replicate it. Of-course all of this has proved useful for pitching.
Upon receiving a relatively small sum of money, Charlie completely skipped the freelancing world and became a company director in 3 simple steps. 1)Registering a company 2) Opening a business account and 3)Publishing a website - Step 1 & 2 were surprisingly easy, step 3 required a little more thought. Charlie is a strong believer in recognising where others can perform a better job than yourself, this humble approach lead him to head hunt the talent that would build and design his website, in his eyes this website would act as his shop front in the virtual high street of the internet… " all you need today is a website, it is the shop front of your company, google and internet are the high street"
Knowing his own limits, Charlie began his search for talent at degree shows, only now turning up as the Company Director of Dragonfly Productions, with this title he was able to wiggle his way into shows often greeted with a glass of wine and a specially revered seat. At the Surrey Art Institute at Brick Lane, Charlie came across a few fresh talents "I knew a good thing when it came to me" One of which is was a graphics design student named Paul, impressed by Paul's work Charlie wanted him to design the Dragonfly Productions logo. With an open mind and trusting in his investment in young Paul, they spent a day trying to sketch the perfect logo. However it wasn't an immediate success, having worked all day they eventually hit a wall. With faith that Paul had the necessary touch they continued work into the night accompanied by pizza and beer (remember, at this point he was still trying to break out of the student lifestyle), out of the blue Paul scribbled a simple 2D dragonfly on a piece of paper which was exactly what they had been waiting for, even when they tried to re-draw it, it wouldn't come out the same. It was scanned and rotoscopped into a computer and has hovered above the elevated "fly" of Dragonfly ever since. On a similar mission Charlie found the young creative who thought of the phrase used in many of Charlie's pitches as well as the company's showreel "If a picture can say 1000 words, imagine what video can do" - A prime example of how a modest and less formal approach of sourcing talent can deliver the goods.
Ironically there is no deeper meaning or interesting story behind the name itself but through researching the dragonfly it became a useful metaphor to emulate to company, the dragonfly is said to be as ancient as the dinosaurs so it is perfectly evolved to fit in with its environment, it is able to change direction without loosing speed, this unique ability was studied by the Japanese who were trying to build an aircraft to replicate it. Of-course all of this has proved useful for pitching.
In its first year Dragonfly Productions scored jobs for the likes of Virgin, NHS and Pepsi, without missing a payment it only took less than a year to repay the £3,800 loan to the Prices Trust and the company was steaming forwards. Being a bit of a "big mouth", again by his own admittance, Charlie had told his friends, ex classmates and just about anyone he knew that he had started his own video company, and it was at that time that he has the memory of realising that he could not fail, and that a feeling that has never left his gut. In order to win some of the early jobs or pitch to big clients Charlie would have to pretend to be bigger than what he was, in the back of his mind he knew exact who he needed to be, but he just didn't have the proof or experience to lay on the table to begin with...
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3. Cameraman to businessman - Attraction theory
Charlie views running his business as an enjoyable hobby, with no long term plan or financial target, his reward is the excitement of running a company, the excitement of pitching and winning the job over someone else followed by the fulfillment of doing a job well and producing high quality work. He still loves doing camerawork but being the director of the company he finds operating the camera is something he is now missing out on, now he is hiring the cameraman. A small compromise as there is still the chance to be creative from a directors chair. It wouldn't be the first term of his choice but Charlie is a businessman, and he became this without fully comprehending it, and whether its measured on his product or the company's growth its clear that without any formal training he is a great businessman.
His certainty and self belief were the driving forces behind his success but the wheels that steered him in the right direction rotated around the attraction theory. The attraction theory is a very sensicle theory that separates "drifters" and people who are going in their desired direction, essentially if someone has enough faith and confidence in where they want to be, it will be pulled towards them. Charlie's personal interpretation is that if you believe you are going to be doing something, every step you take, every communication, every thought, is taking you towards it, most of the time you are not even aware but you changing to make it happen. In Charlie's case he always knew he he would do great with Dragonfly so he was walking into pitches with the confidence that he will get it, even back in 2005 when he first set up the company he was visualising being who he is today, the visualisation would then leak out through speech and body language resulting in clients and everybody else seeing this successful company director in front of them. Admittedly today he no longer has to visualise who he wants to be as he has already become that person.
His certainty and self belief were the driving forces behind his success but the wheels that steered him in the right direction rotated around the attraction theory. The attraction theory is a very sensicle theory that separates "drifters" and people who are going in their desired direction, essentially if someone has enough faith and confidence in where they want to be, it will be pulled towards them. Charlie's personal interpretation is that if you believe you are going to be doing something, every step you take, every communication, every thought, is taking you towards it, most of the time you are not even aware but you changing to make it happen. In Charlie's case he always knew he he would do great with Dragonfly so he was walking into pitches with the confidence that he will get it, even back in 2005 when he first set up the company he was visualising being who he is today, the visualisation would then leak out through speech and body language resulting in clients and everybody else seeing this successful company director in front of them. Admittedly today he no longer has to visualise who he wants to be as he has already become that person.
4. Where Dragonfly is today - Big Deal with charity (charity background)
It may sound like a steady development over 7 years but it certainly wasn't without it's fair share of fear and worry. In 2009 Dragonfly went 9 months without a single contract and not a penny of investment, being in Asia at the time it was tempting to give it up and move on, but he saved it. There are still times where he finds his work intimidating, recently he was asked to produced 10 videos in just 2 weeks by the Imperial London Business School, even for those who are not fully aware of the time scales of video production stages that is an insanely quick turn around and all of the responsibility is on his shoulders. Dragonfly are constantly breaking their own, records the type of work the company are receiving and producing now is a whole new league, 2012 has been a new chapter, bigger clients and higher budget. Another recent job has a £100,000 budget, he is particularly excited about this one as it is a charity and Dragonfly's roots lie in charity, now he is able to produce videos that have an important meaning, which makes hime even more excited. Having worked from the bottom up Charlie is able to appreciated his deserved cliental and work volume, a complete contrast to some of the early days of having to produce a video on a tedious subject where it was impossible to do more than a good job. "there's not so much pretending now, its refreshing to be confident and honest, its wonderful, we've become what we were pretending to be" It's almost humorous that he will refer to Dragonfly Productions as "we" when even now he has nothing to pretend, although there is a lot of people involved with and working for Dragonfly it's still primarily him behind the emails, answering the phone and calling the shots, perhaps it's just a stuck habit from the early days of the company.
Outside of his company Charlie made time to set up the Brighton kids film school, a way of keeping the charitable cycle rolling, it was originally his creation but as Dragonfly has become more demanding he has outsourced the management of the program.
This might all seem like the perfect ending to a story but there's many more stories on the road ahead, Charlie has very recently expanded Dragonfly Productions into Asia, as well as 2 or 3 other small businesses, he loves the thrill of setting up a business and following through with ideas, of which he is never short, "they keep me up at night, I am plauged by new ideas, i'm inpatient and i like change so god knows what ill do next" |
Probably the least obvious but most effective contribution to this snippet of a journey being possible was from the Prices Trust, the initial first steps of affording the website and sourcing the talent was generously offered with faith. Not only does it encourage the finical kickstart but having people believe in your idea and simple give on that basis, it's the perfect balance of inspiration and pressure to pursuit an idea. This humble beginning is reflected through Charlie's life as he continues to give opportunity and inspiration to other young minds in the form of the film school, young graduates and the people he has worked with, it's a cycle that's life is dependent on pure generosity to be met with self belief and ambition. Charlie's story demonstrates the importance of self believe and ambition, not everyone will have the confidence or will to commit to their ideas but as long as there is self belief the rest will follow, a talent is only ever worth something if it is driven by ambition, without ambition a talent, an idea, or an adventure is non existent.
If you are interested in working with Dragonfly/Charlie Southall. You can apply here - Work With Us
For all other inquiries, contact [email protected]
If you are interested in working with Dragonfly/Charlie Southall. You can apply here - Work With Us
For all other inquiries, contact [email protected]