The journey

Marie Owens is the founder of LS Productions. She founded the company back in 2006, with the aim of showcasing the creative possibilities available in the UK and beyond to the world’s leading companies, TV studios and brands.

“I started doing LS Productions 17 years ago, just passed. As a new mum, I had a five-year-old, and two three-year-olds, it was very much a hobby business, I hadn’t run a business before,” she commented. “After school, I'd gone to work at the airport, and then as an air stewardess. I did that for about eight years straight out of school, to then getting married and having kids and then starting this little mini hobby business, which has turned into something else across the last 17 years.”

What is LS Productions?

LS Productions is a global production partner providing expert knowledge on commercials, film and TV, music videos, fashion and sports projects. Its team of creative collaborators and problem-solvers work from production hubs in Edinburgh, Manchester and London, and newly established location in Malta.

Locally and internationally, the company’s reputation has been built upon professionalism and a sustainable production approach, strengthened by its ‘people-first’ attitude. The nationwide team provides UK-based and international clients with world-class production and location knowledge, offering an unrivalled understanding of shoot logistics.

What was the inspiration behind the business?

Inspiration can come from anywhere for a business founder, and as mentioned earlier on in the conversation, Owen referred to the starting stages of LS Productions as a “hobby business,” but what drove her to take this path?

“When I got married my husband was a fashion photographer. He would be going around the world, working on small fashion shoots with production. He’d come home saying ‘production was great’ or ‘production was rubbish,’ and would tell me why.  And I realised the key to production was just being organised.”

Owen found herself occasionally helping out on shoots, especially when they were nearby, which was her first foray into the world of production. “I would help organise some things that his clients might need, and it grew from there.”

What have been the biggest challenges?

Running a business is never smooth sailing, as any startup founder could tell you.

“I could write a book on challenges because I think running a business is a consistent challenge. I don't think it's ever plain sailing, but that's part of the attraction of running the business.” Owen commented. “Some of the challenges, for me anyway, I never had any experience, so there was a big feeling of imposter syndrome.

“This was balanced off with the feeling that you don’t know what you don’t know, so go out and learn as much as you can, but don’t have any assumptions of what you already know. It was a challenge but also an opportunity, all challenges are opportunities, I think. When I started there was a lot of learning, I didn’t know the clients, I didn’t know the industry, so I just wholeheartedly threw myself into learning the industry, which has been to the massive benefit of the company.”

In the regular running of the company now it’s beginning to scale, other challenges have cropped up. “I think there’s other production challenges. We don’t have a lot of recurring business, so nearly everything is a new project. So when you’re trying to build a business with infrastructure and overhead, against the income of project based work, it’s very difficult to work out your income and your outgoings debt. So it’s taken us over this time to build a model that works.”

What have been the highlights?

In the life of a founder, the challenges are challenging, but the highs are high.

“Again, I could write a book on that. There are so many highlights,” Owen beamed. “Our client list is incredible, and it continues to amaze me. It’s been incredible from the beginning especially when we got our first client that wasn’t a client of my husband’s. I remember that first feeling of somebody actually engaging in our services and wanting to work with us.”

Small businesses are usually the last ones to celebrate their own successes, especially as most of the time it’s an ‘onto the next thing’ attitude to make sure work gets done. But winning, and being nominated for awards like the everywoman awards, allows a moment of reflection and celebration.  

“Obviously winning awards is the icing on the cake, but I think it’s about what those awards stand for. This year, we were on The Sunday Times Hundred 2023, so just to get on lists like that is just a little moment of reflection of all the hard work that’s been going on in the business.”

What does the future hold?

LS Productions is a hugely successful company, and is only due to keep expanding and getting even better.

“What happened with LS Productions, we were originally called Location Scotland, so we only did production in Scotland for fashion shoots. That then evolved to do production for commercials. And that production for fashion and commercials then evolved into moving throughout the UK. So, we now have a database of locations across the UK.

“But we're also servicing music videos and TV and film. And that is now evolving out of the UK into working into Malta. So, we've just recently opened in Malta and we're building up our presence there. we've always had a global outlook, but now we really are operating on a global level.”

Marie Owen is an extraordinary woman, and getting to the finals of the everywoman awards was very much well deserved! We look forward to continuing to see LS Productions, and Owen, grow even further.