Growth - Part 1

 Hi everyone.  We're so sorry we haven't published any pictures recently but we'll explain why over the next few posts.  Everything is good with us - no bad news to report - actually things are going great.  I'll explain some below but will leave most of the explanations to someone else.  In case your eyes - and maybe another body part 😋😇😈! - have missed me here's a repost of a photo from the WFMC days.  I love seeing the bit of me in the guy's camera. . .

So now the reason for the delay.  We left Michelle and the BOMT sooner on Sunday than we would've liked because some of us - Maria, Roxy, Lacy, Daphne, Lin, and myself - were going on a retreat along with our VP (Elaine) and the President of North American Operations (Elaine's boss) whom we'll just call John.  Also there was the director of Studio ABCD - a dutch guy named Jeroen (pronounced Yah - roon') and Deke (remember him?) - the choices of attendees will be explained by someone else over the next few posts.  Anyway, the main topic for the retreat which only ended last (Wednesday) evening was: Where does Studio M go from here?

OK, a little background.  Our Agency's management lead team (from the US west coast) has poured A LOT of capital into Studio M.  Our building by itself is now larger than studios A, B, C and D combined.  The two studios sit on numerous acres of land and much of that has been developed into beautiful movie sets with ponds (natural and man made), serene woodlands of live oaks and spanish moss, and just about any set one could imagine in Florida (yeah, no mountains 😃).  Studio M is their most profitable film studio in North America but because we are fairly small our total contribution to the Agency isn't huge.  So what do you do with a highly profitable business?  Of course, you invest in it to grow it - with the emphasis on grow.  And so, in 2022, we've been growing into the space by adding more performers and support staff.  Again, someone else will explain the growth.

Let's face it, Studio M, while successful, was kind of loosey-goosey in its management style with the trust we all have in each other leading us.  But with growth we needed real organization.  And the first choice in building an organization is: who will lead it?  That decision was actually made a couple of months ago but we're only now letting you in on it before we start writing about the others who have joined us because we were still organizing.  We wanted the local director of Studio M to be one of us - we were adamant about that.  And so it is.  Who would you have guessed?  (Cue the Jeopardy theme music.)

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The new Director is:  DANA!  Elaine and John didn't want it to be me (nor did I) because they want me in front of the camera as much as possible.  Michelle's focus is solely on the BOMT.  The most obvious choice was Maria but she didn't want it; she's kinda "been there, done that, want to focus on my photography passion, especially with Marti".  Lacy has also run the business when it was just a studio and a trailer for an office, but she didn't want that responsibility even as she rejoined us full time for other reasons.  So that left Lin and Dana.  They are probably our two toughest ladies that can show love and compassion but also can be stern with slackoffs.  Dana won out because of her history with us and, quite honestly, because Lin was more important behind the camera rather than managing.  Also, Dana likes putting things in order and that's just what we need.

OK, I'll stop there.  Dana will fill you in on our structure and all our new hires.  And, hopefully, we can all get back to publishing here.

Thanks for your patience!

Marti (OYO)