The Way I See It: Michael Sagol

I was born in Brussels in 1974. I have very fond memories of growing up in Belgium and taking awesome summer holidays in the south of France, where my grandparents had a house. That European cultural experience set a good baseline for my life. I also had a lot more freedom than kids today – I was travelling on trams by myself at a young age.

[My humanities] teacher was so animated and ‘present’ – it was like he broke my mind open.

My dad passed away when I was six, leaving my mom a widow aged 26 with two young kids. At the time, she was running a perfumery and wanted to try something new. The community in Belgium is a little close-knit – you’ll go out for lunch one day and everyone knows what you had for dessert. So she ended up moving us to the States, and eventually got her visa working as a department store makeup artist for Christian Dior.

You don’t realise the huge weight and responsibility of a parent until you become one. It’s only now I appreciate what my mom did for us - bringing us to another country and starting a whole new life on our own was just insane.

I was never a great student. I like to joke that I got a 2.5 in high school, a 3.0 in college and a 4.0 in life. But there was one class in eleventh grade that went on to shape my entire life – humanities.

I couldn’t remember much about my dad, but people told me he was into films. A part of me saw acting as a way to get closer to him.

Most students either slept or cheated through that class; I fell in love with it. The teacher was so animated and ‘present’ – he would physically re-enact the poses from Greek statues to explain the classical period – and it was like he broke my mind open.

I went on to study sport journalism at the University of Missouri, writing for the school paper as an arts critic. One of the first films I reviewed was Scent of a Woman and I had a really hard time writing a good review. I realised I didn’t want to be in a world where I was observing, I wanted to be doing. So I left the program and went to Emerson College, Boston to study for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre.

I couldn’t remember much about my dad, but people told me he was really funny and into films. So a part of me saw acting as a way to get closer to him.

After graduating from Emerson, I moved to LA. One of the promises I made to myself as a jobbing actor was: don't wait on tables. I didn’t want that stigma and stereotype. My plan was to be an actor-producer instead. I had no clue what that really meant, but it sounded good. Eventually, of course, I ended up applying for waitstaff jobs but I never got them. The universe had a greater plan for me.

I remember shooting hoops with Michael Jordan and thinking this is as good as it gets.

I got an internship at Propaganda working for the management department. The production company was right across the street and one day, somebody came across and said, ‘Hey, we’re shooting a music video this weekend. Do you want to be a PA?’ That opened up my path to production.

Above: One of Sagol’s collaborators Chris Cunningham directed Madonna’s Frozen video of 2009.

My journey has been a lot of luck and happenstance. I freelanced for nine years, bouncing around and doing every job you can imagine, PA’ing, second AD-ing, even working as an assistant to Steven Seagal. I built a pretty good network so I was never out of a job.

It was a crazy time. I remember shooting hoops with Michael Jordan on the Great Western Forum [previous home of the LA Lakers] and thinking this is as good as it gets. Also, driving around these dry lake beds in California with a moody, artistic young director who literally wore the same sweater every day - that was Chris Cunningham for Madonna's Frozen video.

We must have done 500 bids, and we didn't win a single one.

One day, my old college roommate, Tom Weissferdt, called me up and suggested we should open up a company in the States doing service production for European companies. We called it Atomic Pictures.

One of the first people we sent our introduction pack to was Bert Hamelinck [founder of Roses Are Blue and CEO of Caviar/LA]. We ended up doing our first job with him, for a Guylian chocolate commercial, and a year later he came back and said: ‘It would be cool to do something together’. We started negotiating and opened Roses Are Blue Los Angeles in 2005, with a roster of Flemish and Belgian directors.

The name Caviar was chosen for the new partnership because it's high in the alphabet and also the same in every language.

Everyone was asking, ‘why are you partnering up with a Belgian company?’ Why not Swedes or Brits or Germans? But it wasn’t like anyone else was knocking down our door.

That year, between doing our first commercial and becoming part of Roses Are Blue, was like the Karate Kid for me. I was still freelancing as a production manager and there were lots of European commercials looking at shooting in the States. We must have done 500 bids, and we didn't win a single one. Each time I’d think, we’re definitely getting this one, and then they’d end up going to Argentina or Cape Town.

I didn’t realise it at the time, because I was so depressed, but it taught me some valuable lessons about the art of bidding and what a dollar's worth.

Above: Peter Farrelly’s comic spot for Gillette shot through Caviar in 2009.

The name Caviar was chosen for the new partnership because it's high in the alphabet and also the same in every language. I thought it sounded kind of uptight and snobby. But as the little guy in the States, I didn’t have much say in it.

I remember being on set on my first American comedy dialogue commercial with tears in my eyes.

Bert was doing a lot of Belgium and Flemish comedy in Europe, but none of that translated over, so we couldn't get any of our European comedy directors arrested in the States. Then we got approached by a director who wanted to pitch Keith Schofield – who’d joined us in 2005 – some short film ideas. We asked him: what are you doing in commercials? Not much, he said. That director was Peter Farrelly.

We ended up pitching this promo with Pete for the ESPY Awards with Justin Timberlake, who was the host that year. I remember being on set on my first American comedy dialogue commercial with tears in my eyes, because it was just so fucking cool. That commercial was the universe showing me: comedy is where you’re going to go. Between 2008 and 2012, there was a realisation that Caviar wasn’t going to be able to steal [directors like] Tom Kuntz. So we were going to have to build our own thing.

All these people were creators; they were shaping culture.

After Pete [Farrelly] came over, we brought on Jody Hill, who’d sold his film The Foot Fist Way to Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. He had never done a commercial, and I hadn’t seen the movie, but I thought if those guys think it’s funny, it must be funny.

Somehow, we found ourselves in this weird slipstream of the new wave of American comedy talent, none of whom had done commercials before. It just snowballed and directors like Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland), Jake Szymanski (Funny or Die), Jonathan Krisel (Portlandia) and Jorma Taccone kept flocking to us. It was a bit like: you work with all my friends, let's work together.

Above: Jody Hill’s hilarious, star-studded spot for Supercell last year.

There were other companies that had feature directors, but what we did was different. All these people were creators; they were shaping culture. But pitching was really tough in a world where you’d be showing clips of their shows against commercial reels. It called for a leap of faith. Clients would ask: can they tell a story in 30 seconds? And I’d always say, a joke is 30 seconds.

A humility of self has been bestowed upon me by a bunch of people, and I’m a people pleaser as a result.

What’s behind Caviar’s success? You’ve gotta keep trying. The persistence part of producing doesn’t get highlighted enough.

I wish I’d produced any of the big visuals ads from the 2000s, like Honda Impossible Dream or Lacoste The Big Leap. Honda Grrr is another favourite because the craft is insane and it makes you fall in love with this little story.

The best advice I’ve ever been given is be nice to everyone on the way up, because you're going to see them all on the way down. A humility of self has been bestowed upon me by a bunch of people, and I’m a people pleaser as a result.

I was brought up in a world when you pick up the fucking phone and you figure it out.

The biggest change in the role of a producer? Communication. I was brought up in a world when you pick up the fucking phone and you figure it out. Now it’s DMs, Slack, texts… there's so many different channels.

Above: Sagol is inspired by the craft of Honda’s 2005 ad Grrr.

Having a constant line of communication is so key for a producer. It forges relationships that will last your entire career. I'm still friends with people I worked with 20 years ago. But for the new generation, it seems that ‘let's go in it together’ mentality is a little trickier. I don’t think the work is necessarily suffering, but it feels like the human relationships might be.

We're crafty in the production world, and we're going to figure out a way around it because we always do.

Right now, I feel we’re at an apex with AI, trying to figure out what it means for us as an industry. We're not putting our heads in the sand, we're being super proactive and getting informed. At our post-production facility Loom, AI is in all the workflows, but no-one’s remotely worried because it helps people like Corentin [Desaedeleer, managing director at Loom] do their jobs.

Although when it comes to generative AI, I don’t want to be the person that oversees people on laptops creating prompts. I want to be out making stuff. We're crafty in the production world, and we're going to figure out a way around it because we always do – but I just hope that on the other side of it, there will still be people telling little stories.

If I wasn’t running Caviar LA, I’d want to be an intern on This American Life with Ira Glass. It’s the OG podcast that brought back storytelling to radio. Or I’d open up a sandwich shop selling Sagol’s Bagels.