Everything Has Changed and Nothing Has Changed: 20 Years in Production with Juha-Matti Nieminen

Juha-Matti Nieminen is an executive producer and chief executive officer at Directors Guild Helsinki, one of the most awarded commercial production companies in Finland. Juha-Matti has 20 years of experience in the highest level of production in Finland. In his work he focuses on top-level quality both in content and in craft.

Directors Guild Helsinki was founded in 2010, and as a founding partner Juha-Matti is happy that the company has positioned itself at the absolute top in the region in its field of expertise. Directors Guild Helsinki has produced a wide range of work winning many awards in the industry, including plenty of all major awards in Finland, together with numerous relevant awards worldwide.

Juha-Matti sat down with LBB to look back on his career from production assistant, all the way to being CEO of the biggest production house in Finland, as well as his advice for the next generation of producers.

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LBB> What first attracted you to production – and has it been an industry you’ve always worked on or did you come to it from another area?

Juha-Matti> Honestly I had close to no understanding of different departments or possible jobs in the industry before I touched it for the first time 20 years ago. I was looking for a place to do my internship, and for some reason the most logical direction to contact was production companies. Thankfully, the company who gave me a chance happened to have a trainee program on their production team.

LBB> What was your first role in the production world and how did this experience influence how you think about production and how you grew your career?

Juha-Matti> I started as a production trainee in one of the major production companies in Helsinki back then. After my internship they asked me to stay, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Those first years in the industry were both exhausting and exciting. That was well before the financial crisis, and the times were different. I can’t recall how it actually was, but in my memories we had big projects to be shot on a weekly basis. I’ve been busy throughout my career, but those years I remember are crazy.

The steps I’ve climbed to where I am today have followed pretty much the ‘normal story’: production assistant, production manager, line producer, producer, executive producer, and of course in recent years also running the biggest production house in Finland as a CEO and founding partner.

LBB> How did you learn to be a producer?

Juha-Matti> I’ve always tried to watch and learn from the ones I respect: the ones whose work I’ve been lucky enough to see from a close distance. I’ve been telling everyone that, ages ago I learned how to be a production manager from my then-colleague Daniel Kuitunen, and later on I learned how to be a producer from my business partner and the founder of Directors Guild Helsinki, Ville Varesvuo.

LBB> A good producer should be able to produce for any medium, from film to events to digital experience. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why/why not?

Juha-Matti> Yes. For me a good producer is a business-minded creative storyteller and enabler, the translator between commercial goals and creative solutions. Storytelling is the context and cinematic choices are the tools, but the medium itself is not much of an interest point for me. Of course, there are certain medium-related ‘rules’ for each, but that’s only a starting point.

LBB> What’s your favourite thing about production and why?

Juha-Matti> I love pitching, and more specifically the whole process from the first brief to the treatment presentation. I think the whole magic is there.

For me, the motivation for work comes from the fact that we’re in the game simply to deliver more value for clients, to help them achieve their goals. Everything else comes after that. For me the biggest satisfaction is being able to help them get more than they expected, which will help them more than they thought, in reaching the goals they have.

All this becomes visible for the first time in the pitch phase, and the second time in the offline edit. Which is my second favourite part of production.

Oh, and please don’t get me wrong. Everybody loves shoot days, of course, but for me there isn’t the same magic anymore after 20 years in the business as there is in those other phases of the project.

LBB> How has production changed since you started your career? And what has stayed the same?

Juha-Matti> Everything has changed and nothing has changed. This is pretty much a point-of-view-related question. When I started, everything was shot on 35mm film. I remember clearly the first visionaries trying the first editions of RED One cameras, which were soon followed by Arri Alexas. As well as how digitalisation then actually happened quite quickly throughout the industry.

I’ve seen the 3D era, the VR and AR eras, the virtual studio boom, and of course now we are living in the AI era. Meanwhile, the basics behind all technical aspects have stayed the same.

The value of any motion picture, no matter whether it’s a commercial film or a social media video, is still based on one fact: Does it evoke an emotion? Do you feel something when watching it? Storytelling skills are still the superpower of all content makers, directors, and producers today.

LBB> What do you think is the key to being an effective producer – and is it something that’s innate or something that can be learned?

Juha-Matti> Producing is probably one of the most wrongly understood jobs in the industry. What ‘producer’”actually means to different people is entirely related to their experiences. What have they been used to getting from producers? What does an effective producer actually mean? Is it someone who can make things happen? Arrange it all together? That’s not rocket science for sure, but it does require a certain kind of person with a producer’s mind and head, logic, and resilience. But does that make one a great producer? I personally think it’s not enough.

A great producer is able to understand the commercial goals of the client and the core creative idea of the agency. A great producer is a crucial creative partner to the director when diving into the project and putting the execution plan together. First as a treatment and later as the actual outcome, the film.

A producer is not just the voice of wisdom and the guardian of costs, but the enabler who finds the right solutions to maximise the potential of the creative idea so that it delivers the most value for the client and helps reach the commercial goals.

LBB> Which production project from across your career are you most proud of and why?

Juha-Matti> There are plenty of these. I try to do my best so that I can be proud of every single piece of work I have the pleasure to be part of. But of course, some stay deeper in my mind than others. If naming just one out of plenty of great ones, I’d name the film we did for author Tommi Laiho’s novel ‘Broken Ones’.

For me, that project meant the possibility to show how creativity and storytelling should be used to deliver the message in advertising. We came up with a disruptive starting point for the content and carried it through to the final film with the most detailed craft possible. We stayed absolutely loyal to the story and made every single decision based solely on the assumption of how the film would become the best possible.

The budget was anything but huge, but the idea was strong and as so many times before, it paid off. The film was awarded around the globe from The One Show and Clios to the Golden Drum Grand Prix.

LBB> As a producer your brain must have a neverending "to do" list. How do you switch off? What do you do to relax?

Juha-Matti> Hahah. True. I am a mixture of being ultra organised and logical, but also a mess when it comes to my own operating system. I quit the to-do’s years ago. I found them taking more than giving. I get things done. I don’t know how my head does it, but it works best under a good amount of pressure.

And I don’t stress. I literally decided some 10 years ago to give up stress. I had my time carrying it, and it was a heavy weight. Then one day I just decided that stress is not a good driver, so why have it in my life? And yes, simply deciding it made the difference.
I don’t have much of a problem relaxing or switching off even in the middle of the most hectic projects. Even on vacations, I can simply pick up the call and contribute on whatever is needed, and then return to vacation mode straight after without it impacting my mood.

Essentially, I think that’s the ‘harm’ this job has done to me over the years. But I’m not complaining. Some might call it resilience, but I don’t even think about it.

LBB> What’s the key to a successful production-client relationship?

Juha-Matti> Two-sided trust and respect. I keep repeating the cliché that the best jobs are done in good company. It’s a naive phrase, of course but also more than true. When there is real respect between all parties (not forgetting the agencies here), it generates trust. And only within the circle of trust can everybody contribute their full potential.

I don’t like to play games. I crave honesty and can’t help being honest myself. I try to always be able to say what I actually think, as I believe that’s the real reason why people hire me. I think I owe that to my clients.

Just to clarify, I don’t consider myself a social idiot. I get along with people quite well.

So, to put it short: social intelligence together with competence is what makes a production–client relationship successful.