The Tight Five: Origin Stories from The Second Row

The Tight Five: Origin Stories from The Second Row is a series of conversations with smart, thought-provoking folks who are doing great things in ‘The Front Row’ of work, mental health, marketing, service and technology and how they came to their personal and professional path in life. The series is named after the moniker of the combined Front Row (two props and the hooker in the middle) and the Second Row in the rugby scrum.

Episode 4 of The Tight Five features Dan Gruenpeter, Executive Producer and Co-owner of Bottle Tree Pictures, which specializes in documentary films as well as corporate video production. Dan and I have collaborated on more than a few projects over the years. He’s a top notch partner and a hell of a guy, especially when the check for lunch arrives!

We touch on a range of topics, including his very cosmopolitan background, why he is proud to call himself an immigrant, how to direct a shoot in Tokyo from Boston and how the calm leadership of Nelson Mandela has impacted his world view. It’s a great conversation and I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity, I will post the entire conversation transcript and video next week.

Matt Landry:

Okay. So, this is episode four of the type five stories from The Second Row and today we've got Dan Gruenpeter from Bottle Tree Pictures. He's a co-owner, business development extraordinaire, and he's been kind enough to answer my five questions.

Thanks for joining us, Dan.

Dan Gruenpeter:

Thanks, Matt. Great, great to be here.

Matt:

All right. So, you have a very cosmopolitan history that we've chatted about before. How'd you end up settling here in the United States?

Dan:

In short, my husband got a job in Chicago, but he was actually supposed to be in upstate New York, but he didn't get that role, but we ended up being Chicago, which was an amazing consolation prize.

Matt:

Yeah, that's a win for you.

Dan:

Yes! We ended up firstly in Chicago, which was a great year and a half. I think I still find it was too short of a time because it was such a great place. So that same job of my husband’s took us to Boston where I met my current business partners, when we worked at a local rental house and we eventually decided to set up a production business. We were in in Boston for six years and then we recently ended up in the Bay area, just South of San Francisco in California. So, there's a bit of my background.

Matt:

Could you share a bit about your journey before you got to Chicago in terms of where you were born and where you were brought up.

Dan:

Absolutely. So, I'm a very mixed bag, which is very diverse, but within Jewish culture, it's actually not such an amazing thing because we all from everywhere, my background is very varied.

I was born in South Africa in 1980, where I lived for the first few years of my life, with a South African mother and an Israeli father, of German background, which I'll go into shortly. Both of Jewish descent, we ended up moving at the age of age of five in 1986 to Australia, where I spent most of my life and grew up. After going to university, I spent six years in the UK, where I met my husband and actually got into the film industry. I went back to Australia, spent a few years there, subsequently when the United States then came up, as an option we decided to take the big leap into the US!

Matt:

Why has video become such a popular way to communicate over the last few years, why do you think that has so much power versus other kinds of content?

Dan:

I think the secret to video is that you can actually see it, as opposed to like blogs or podcasts, I think being visual gives it that extra bit of power. But strangely, while there is obviously a visual side of it, the sound plays a big part in that as well. You can have something really nice visually, but if sound doesn't work, then the whole thing gets distorted.

Matt:

Okay. I know you've been asked this question a number of times. What exactly does a producer do?

Dan:

That is a very good question. I'm learning that every day. I think it's a very broad role and what I've learned, while running a production company and running a business is a very varied role. I think the term producer can mean a lot of things. I can definitely speak to within our organization where I've got my amazing business partners who are creatives, who have amazing vision.

So generally, my role consists of business administration, business development and client relationship management. My specialty is more in line production, line producing, production management, as opposed to creative producing.

Matt:

Whenever we've talked about doing projects together, you like sure, I know somebody in Mumbai. Sure. I know someone in Tokyo. Sure. I know somebody in Mexico City… How have you brought that background to your work as a producer, are there ways that you've seen that kind of happen?

Dan:

Yeah, I'd love to do more international work. I think it is because of my varied background, from being born in one country and having family living in multiple countries around the world. I've been fortunate enough to be an immigrant and I think to have been an immigrant in multiple countries, which gives you the chance to meet a lot of people, so my network has been growing since I was quite young.

Having to move countries wasn't out of choice, but out of necessity. It was to get a better life initially, that's been part of my family's history for generations. I don't think we've lived in a country for more than two generations since the late 1800s, to be honest and I think but I don’t think that my story is not very different to other Jews around the world. We've always moved around, but I actually think it's been a really big benefit. It opens up your mind to different cultures, different ways of life.

I've got an Israeli father. I grew up in Australia. I'm now in the US, but I'm also German, as my dad is of German descent. So, I took up my German passport, a couple of years ago, it was my COVID project.

Matt:

So you were talking about COVID, and this is to the fourth question I sent you, so you spent a little bit of time getting your German passport and getting an EU passport, what are some of the impacts you've seen from a business perspective in some of the communities you work with, such as people liking video more?

Dan:

It relates back to the last question. I remember when we first met, when you were in a previous job, and we did a production virtually in Tokyo, Japan. So that that was the power of using connections around the world to try and make something work, because we couldn't physically be in the same room.

We were tasked with shooting a series of interviews with a gentleman who was high up in Toyota, at their offices, during COVID, in Japan, where rules were way stricter than the U.S. We're based in Boston. We then had to find a crew in Tokyo, which we found through my network, that is how we met the crew and within a day of having the brief, we had a crew ready to go to the Toyota offices in Tokyo and shoot.

That was really powerful in and of itself that we were able to direct from halfway around the world. I think from a business perspective and from the client’s perspective it was great because they didn't have to pay for flights, for us to go over to shoot. So, it was cost effective and we did it well. It was great at those times and sort of great for our business at those times, but on the flip side, while it was powerful back then, is that still powerful these days?

Matt:

What book or author has been a touchstone for you throughout your career as you've been traveling around that really kind of touch your heart and have kind of been a guiding light for you.

Dan:

Yeah, I'm probably going to go for three just because it's a bit difficult. I think from a personal interest side, Simon Sebag Montefiore. Who has written a number of books on the Russian Revolution, Stalin, and Russian history. I just love documentary and I'd like to think our business is going more into the documentary space, as 2023 has been a year that we've jumped into documentaries. We did one in South Africa, in Soweto, which was really a life changing experience personally and we've got a few others on the docket.

As a business leader, I'm going to have to say Steve Jobs. Being an immigrant myself and a real student of immigrant history and success stories. While he himself was not an immigrant, his parents were. I think to be able to enter into a world, being an immigrant is that you leave something behind and you’re immediately at a disadvantage, but it's something that works within immigrant souls that pushes them, that gives them a drive to succeed..

And then politically, I'd have to say Nelson Mandela. I mean as somebody that has suffered anxiety issues in the past, having to deal with them, people like Nelson Mandela put life into perspective. So, just in terms of leadership, somebody that dealt with the worst of the worst of humanity, can be so forgiving and actually lead from the top and create a group of followers. He would definitely be my political thinker of our time. I just look at him and I say, what am I suffering anxiety for!? I've really got no worries compared to what other people have gone through.

Matt:

Perspective and sacrifice are definitely a lesson he's taught many people.

Dan:

Yeah. And calm leadership, just to be calm and slow and steady and that wins the race.

Matt:

Well, Dan, thanks for spending some time answering my questions. It was a fun conversation.

Dan:

Thanks, Matt. Yeah, that was great.

Matt:

Cheers. Lunch is on me next time.