Dog Eat Dog bite back

Executive producers Mark O’Sullivan [pictured left] and Harvey Ascott have opened a new London-based production company.

Dog Eat Dog (DED), are a group of producers and directors whose defining purpose is "to create excellent work for a competitive price".

Launching with five directors on their roster, their founding clients include Marshall Headphones for whom they've already shot a series of campaigns, the first being for Marshall’s voice-activated speaker range enabled by Alexa, which launched globally last week.

We caught up with O'Sullivan, formerly a global EP at Believe Media in LA, and Ascott to find out whether their bark is worse than their bite...

How long have you two known each other for and when/how did you first come up with the idea of launching a production company together?

We met four years ago in a pub in Venice Beach, LA. Having spent the last few years working on various projects together we saw a gap in the market for a producer solution led company that can adapt to any financial situation and be agile in today’s environment.
 

And what made you choose the name Dog Eat Dog?
I’m sure that’s pretty obvious! 
 

It’s a challenging time for production companies with the rise of IHPCs, tight budgets etc – what do you feel you’re offering that will make you stand out in the London market?
It’s a dog eat dog world and an ever-changing market but our underlying philosophy is to be less a supplier and more an extension and partner to brands and agencies. We are sharp, better at our jobs and more competitive financially.  This model is already proving valuable in the work we have already been doing - offering a full-service capability, anything from content and commercials all the way through to branded entertainment and film deals.
 

How many directors are currently on your roster and who are you most excited about signing? 
We currently have five directors on our roster here in the UK, Anders Jedenfors, Jeffrey Darling, Kevin Castanheira, Paul Dektor and Daniel Skoglund.  However, globally we are building strategic alliances with other production companies to extend our roster to give our partners huge diversity.
 

Do you have any work in the pipeline you can tell us about?
Yes, we recently finished shooting another global campaign for Marshall speakers, the first being the Alexa Marshall which launched last week. We are also currently in post on a movie and just inked our first TV deal... so all systems go!