Assignment 1 Portland, Oregon

Lindsay Grayzel
Goodwin Grayzel Productions
2927 NE Davis Street
Portland, Oregon 97232
(503) 740-9805
http://goodwingrayzel.com

Write up of interview conducted by phone.

Lindsay Grayzel is a freelance video producer and documentary editor with her own production company in Portland, Oregon. Her projects tend to be message oriented, though some are product-oriented. After being approached by a client with a concept, Lindsay considers the client’s needs, goals, and budget before returning a proposal. After landing the job, Lindsay writes a treatment with the project’s goals, target length, and projected costs. Then Lindsay will conduct pre-interviews with subject matter experts to determine direction of the video. She will then go out with a crew, usually a camera person and a sound person, to conduct interviews and gather visuals that will bring the project to life. Depending on the capacity in which she is working, the final stage usually involves Lindsay sending the tapes off and never seeing them again.
Lindsay got her start in the business through the Salt Lake City, Utah news industry. After working there for three years, she moved with her husband to Portland. After having children, Lindsay began to produce documentaries on her own, then began to do freelance work for other filmmakers. Eventually she developed her company and freelancing became her full time job.
Lindsay tries to define the abilities of a project in the process of writing the treatment. She says a carefully laid out treatment can define what can and cannot be done. However, even the best treatments cannot stop a client from having impossible expectations. She remembers a client who insisted on an aerial helicopter shot for a ten minute video. There was just no room in the project’s budget for such an extravagant shop. Lindsay believes being straight forward is the best policy when confronting an undoable task.
Lindsay’s best advice for media students is to not pay too much attention to the naysayers. When she first declared her career goals, she heard a lot of grumbling from people who did not think production was a reliable industry. She believes that if you are driven, can produce quality work, and are able to develop a good reel, then you should be able to excel in the industry.