Media executive and producer Sophie Watts can do whatever she wants, and an industry holds its breath.
PHOTO BEN COPE INTERVIEW CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD
As we were putting the finishing touches on this issue, breaking news rocked the entertainment industry. Sophie Watts, the 32-year-old who co-built STX Entertainment, decided to resign the role of president in search of her next challenge. As an old friend of Veni editor-in-chief Warren Noronha, she graciously offered to give us an exclusive interview showing how she started from scratch to become a top executive, and what her future plans might be.
VM: You’ve recently resigned as president of a large global media company, STX Entertainment, which you had cofounded. Tell us how you reached the top on the business side of things?
SW: I was raised in London and the English countryside by a father who’s a journalist and my mother who was at MTV. She was an early pioneer of the notion that nothing should hold you back and helped revolutionize the modern pop music video. My childhood certainly drove me to do things differently and to work hard. But people can open doors for you and you still have to walk through them.
VM: What did you walk through first?
SW: My mother got me a summer job as a PA on a music video, which was my introduction to 16-hour workdays and what had to be done — you learn very quickly when you put salt in someone’s tea instead of sugar not to make that mistake again. Then I had an internship at Elle Magazine. By 19 I was already producing music videos when I got into Cambridge University to study economic history. So it became a mixture of a very traditional education with weekends spent on the train to London to work on these music projects.
VM: How did your studies prepare you for your career?
SW: I wrote my thesis on the rise of China in entertainment and global ambitions, and at STX we had very strong ties with China. But after Cambridge, having worked in entertainment, and seeing all the money coming in from the US, I decided to go to America with two suitcases and not much in my back pocket to see if I could figure it out.
VM: What did you do once you arrived?
SW: It was a lot of cold calling and a lot of very gracious executives in Hollywood who opened their doors to me. I cobbled money together for various documentaries, including one called “Bully” which was picked up at the Tribeca Film Festival and is used in schools. Then I was introduced to a real gentleman named Gareth Wigan, who was the co-chairman of Sony International, and who had a really global view on how to approach content. He told me that the magic of entertainment is being able to move people with tears and laughter, and I agreed and said that’s what big stars can do. And that’s when he said that we’re in an era when the traditional star has been disenfranchised. It’s about the theme park or the comic book or the toys. And the people who make that content are doing exactly the right thing. But there’s a real area where if you can just harness the voice of the artist and embrace the change in technology they can reach hundreds of millions of fans directly who’ve actively chosen to follow them on a social media platform.
VM: So how did STX come about?
SW: I was introduced to Bob Simonds, who was trying to develop star-driven movies. And I said what if we took the star and used every medium to help them reach their audience. That was 2011, and we started with two people wondering how we could do it differently. We cold-called every theater chain and said we could give them star-driven movies, and then called artists saying we wanted to work with them, not just drop a script in their lap, which dilutes the artist’s voice rather than supercharging it. And it’s now seen as a pretty traditional movie company, but it’s really about using individuals with strong voices to cut through the noise to reach audiences.
VM: And STX is much more than a traditional movie company, correct?
SM: Absolutely. That that is only half the story. It is a non-siloed company that makes every form of content, including film, which just happens to be the most publicized group of the company right now. Its other divisions include reality television, scripted television, and digital, including virtual reality. For example, the STXreality Chinese show “Number One Surprise” was viewed over a billion times within its first month of launching in China on Hunan TV network.
VM: What are you best at?
SW: Building. Doing everything I can to change the way people engage with content and artists. I had six years of building a company from nothing that I’m so extraordinarily proud of. That was my dream, and I’ll continue to shout it from the rooftops.
VM: What’s the next dream?
SW: I think for the consumer in a frictionless manner to engage with the things they love the most is a really interesting opportunity. Obviously there’s a massive consolidation in big media right now, and I think the new and different digital players will really emerge as very important voices. So I suspect it will be something in that vein.
VM: But as you’ve said it’s such a changing landscape. Do you ever feel like you’re trying to read tea leaves, or need a crystal ball?
SW: I actually have a very simple response to this: we have more choices than ever, there’s more content than ever, and it’s easier to access. But I truly believe that if you back the artist, it cuts through the noise. It’s an ecosystem where you can engage with a piece of content with an artist you love, then purchase a consumer product. China jumped over the laptop generation and went straight to mobile phones, and they’ve approached this incredibly successfully. It’s a big, big opportunity that I believe will come next. I hear all the time is this dying or is that dying, and my response is always that things are changing. Netflix has been amazing, but even that is just a different version of what HBO used to be. In the end I believe the purest voices will win.
VM: Indeed they always do. I think of the Perito Distribution in which the top 10% in any endeavor have 50% of the, say, music downloads or top-grossing movies, while the bottom 90 fights it out for a slice of the remaining half. So my question is, what is the role of the emerging artist who doesn’t have 500 million social media followers?
SW: The Spotifys and YouTubes of the world for the first time have enabled really easy sourcing of emerging artists. You no longer need a record deal. I see it all as a tremendous opportunity, not a hindrance. But how to make it to the big time is the age-old question. It’s just the reality of how things work.
VM: With all of the do-it-yourself possibilities, how should emerging talents balance their energies between going after big but low-percentage breaks, and doing creative things themselves and trying to get people to see it?
SW: It’s a two-way street. Never stop making what you love. Support yourself in any way that you can to do what you believe in. With a smart phone, at zero expense you can record yourself at home and put it online with the potential of reaching millions. So don’t stop writing, filming, and recording, because if you love it it’s not a job. But I also think you need to pick up the phone. You can call 50 people today and maybe no one will speak to you, but you’ve got to try. The world is about connecting, not trying to do it yourself and reap the rewards. That’s how you grow in your artistry.
VM: What was an unexpected lesson you’ve learned along the way?
SW: The first thing you have to really learn is that you can’t do everything by yourself. You need a team supporting you that you trust. If you’re going to be running into people at two in the morning wandering the halls of your office, you want them to be people you respect and trust. And if you’re having fun, you tend to be good at what you’re doing, and if you’re good, you tend to be successful. There are many ways for things to go wrong, but if you’re having fun you find a way not to give in. You only live once, so you have to chase it. Pick up the phone and call or email. You can always find me, and I’ll always respond. I thrive on connecting with people. Whoever you want to connect with, pick up the phone. That’s the one thing I’ve always tried to live by. But who knows? I’m just a kid in the picture.
