THE ETHOS OF LOWKEY FILMS

In the latest addition of Lemonade Spotlight we caught up with Lowkey Films co-founders, Connor O’Hara and Jamie Gamache to better understand what shaped the ethos at the company.

Lowkey Films puts a strong emphasis on having a professional and friendly culture, celebrating authenticity and diversity, but have you ever had any bad experiences in previous roles and how did this shape the ethos when setting up Lowkey Films?

So much of what we’re doing in Lowkey and why we’re doing it is because of some bad experiences in previous roles. We started making films together initially as 18 year olds where the sets were filled with creativity and support. Somewhere in our early 20’s we found ourselves on some sets that felt relatively uncreative and pretty toxic. It was the total opposite of what we expected and hoped the on-set environment to be. So in coming together to form ‘Lowkey’ officially we set out to be the antithesis of what we experienced within the industry - working from a strong code of ethics and values. Along the way we’ve learned from other creatives, directors and collaborators about their bad experiences and constantly take on those lessons to ever improve our working practices.

Another emphasis at Lowkey Films is making sure its a sustainable production company, could you tell us a bit more about how you achieve making a “sustainable” production company and do you think improvements could still be made going forward?

Improvements can always be made but one of the best mentalities that places like AdGreen also teach are just, make changes. Even if they’re small, make changes towards becoming more sustainable. At Lowkey of course we’re doing all the standard things, we’re paperless, we track our carbon footprint, we have a waterbutt at our office (lol) - but we’re also exploring all senses of the word ‘sustainable’. How can we ensure that Lowkey and Lowkey’s sets are a sustainable place for crews to work. This includes everything from the work life balance down to ensuring we have appropriate and flexible policies in place for things like maternity and paternity leave etc.

‘Dear Future Children’, one of your flagship documentary films, champions those who speak up about the effects of climate change. Could you tell us about how this production started and why you felt Lowkey Films was the perfect home for the film?

We boarded Dear Future Children when it was just going to be a short documentary. However, as we were filming in Hong Kong, riots kicked off. As we were filming in Uganda, our protagonist was asked to speak at a UN climate leader’s event. The situation in Chile was getting worse. We were on top of the action and a short film no longer contained our story - so after working with Franz (Bohm - Director) and his team in the development and shoot, we then supported the raising of the finance to complete post production. It’s been great to see it play in so many cinemas and enjoy a Netflix release.

Connor, could you tell us a little bit about your own film Kindling, how the project started and why you felt you wanted to tell this story to the world?

Kindling was a project created to re-represent male emotions on screen and explore grief in a new light. It was created after my friendship group lost two people close to us when we were 21. To be honest, the development of Kindling from a short film (‘Infinite’ starring 1917’s George MacKay) to a feature really was a huge catalyst in the formation of Lowkey. It took six years to raise the finance so in that time, we still wanted to create and meet exciting directors and crews. That’s why we started doing music videos and commercials.

Which process of Kindling did you enjoy the most?

Hands down the MAKING of the film. It sounds obvious, but for me my draw to work in this industry was through watching the behind the scenes of Lord of the Rings and just thinking ‘I want to be a part of being on a set’. It was beautiful to create our first, fairly high level, feature film with the same ethics, values and care that we set out to do it with.

You have a distinct roster of filmmakers, but what’s the first thing you look for when looking for new talent?

Their voice.

That can be a director's voice on screen through the stories they want to tell or the way in which they want to tell them. But it can equally be a director’s voice as an individual. We like it when a director comes to us and tells us ‘I want to provide more job opportunities for X people from X community’. It’s our belief that sustainability, not just in terms of the planet but within people too, is the thing that will keep us all working to the best of our ability. Of course the stories that our creatives are putting onto screen is important, but it’s equally important to focus on the way in which we produce that work.

Could you both tell us about what got you into the industry in the first place and what surprised you the most about working in it?

Collaboration was the main word. Collaboration and supporting the telling of stories that aren’t always our own. I think we were both surprised to learn that collaborations are sometimes restricted across our industries… but we’re always pro-collaboration!

Lemonade has become increasingly aware of the need for companies to take more responsibility for their impact on the environment, so not only was the roster a real draw for us but your drive to become B Corp was equally impressive. Can you tell us about the B Corp journey?

We’ve always believed in ethical and sustainable production so our journey started before we knew that B Corp was a legitimate thing. However the journey really began for us to become a B Corp recently. A lot of it is implementing small yet structured changes into the running of our company. It’s not just ‘stop using paper’ mandates - but more exciting and progressive changes that are implemented into the company to help Lowkey work for the employees and collaborators of the company - rather than solely for its owners (us). There’s a lot to it and it’s an incredibly stringent process with over 200 different questions to answer, but it’s continuing to change the way we all think about business and that’s incredibly exciting & important!

We love that you have your company core values up on the website. We have decided to do the same. We have had such an interesting process as a team discussing and exploring our values. How did that process look for you and do you include everyone in the conversation? Are your Directors aligned and is that something you consider when developing the roster?

So glad your values are going up on your website. From knowing you all at Lemonade, you’re great and collaborative people and that deserves to be shouted about!

I do believe the core values come from us - as for us, before we had a business model, we set out the values that we wanted to run the company with. However, EVERYONE we employ or bring onto our roster both align with our values and add to them. Values are a huge part of what makes us all ‘Lowkey’. We have a really nice and relatively slow onboarding process with most of our directors and any of our employees to ensure that our values align and the DNA of the company is the clear.

What were you doing before you set up Lowkey?

Lowkey set up initially when we were 18, but literally just as a Facebook collective - so it was A Level’s before that haha. But we’ve always had jobs; making coffees, cleaning golf courses, pizza delivering or window cleaning.

We both also met in a band so we toured and played shows when we were growing up which was a cool creative experience. However, Lowkey really established properly in 2019 after we both had stints on major features. Connor worked in the art department on the likes of Star Wars and Mary Poppins while Jamie worked in post production on feature films and TV shows.

Have you always been passionate about film? Apart from sustainability, what are your other passions?

We love human connection and in that is where our passion for film lies. Genuinely our biggest passion is probably just ‘living our best life’ and encouraging others that we work with to do the same. For us, nothing brings us more joy than a BBQ with friends and family or watching a film in the evening with our partners. We feel it to be the greatest privilege that our job allows us to do that.

Tell us something about Lowkey that we would only know if we read this article?

This picture exists from 2009 when Jamie was 16 and Connor was 15. What the fuck were we thinking…

We’ve all gone through an emo phase….