Why We Left the City to Fuel Our Growth

In 2020, we saw the world go digital like never before. Coffee meetings, board meetings, and golf games with clients came to a halt. We struggled to make connections through Zoom, all the while finding ourselves free from the constant bustle we had all grown accustomed to. At first, I wasn’t a fan. I loved those coffee meetings and seeing the team come together to brainstorm. I wasn’t much of a golfer, but I certainly enjoyed any chance I could to meet with a client in person. I thought this disconnect would hurt our business, but surprisingly, it seemed to open new doors.

My home was in Toronto, and all of a sudden, I found myself working with a client from LA, without the expectation that I needed to attend all the parties and events there. It became much easier to connect from our home. Suddenly, our global world had gotten a lot more digital, and I found myself opening up to working with people from all over the world.

This was a moment of clarity. I had been running a production company for several years in the heart of Toronto and felt bound to that location. I had started my film career as a DOP and Editor, and as I built the company, I was still working for many of the clients I had started my career with. I felt bound to them and to the big city, but that was never really the person I was. I had been raised outside a small town called Perth, Ontario, and the big city life of Toronto was a stark contrast. It was the career I had wanted, but not the lifestyle I was used to or enjoyed. Like every decision, it came with both good and bad.

I loved my job. I was able to make art for a living. I traveled the world with clients, making films about so many cool subjects. So, I accepted that Toronto was the hub for our clients, and the place where we would raise our family and run our business. Even though the world had gone digital, I still didn’t imagine I could disconnect from the city that had built my career. But then, an opportunity to produce a fishing show in Northern Ontario shifted my thinking entirely.

The project was a show shot 8 hours north of the city. I’ve worked on lots of shows shot all over the world, but the team was always in Toronto. This project was different. We were producing it alongside the outdoor outfitter, and no one on the team was in Toronto. In fact, the co-producer was a bit of a nomad, traveling throughout the US in the winter and residing in Northern Ontario during the summer. We would shoot the show for one week each month, then edit remotely, sending versions back and forth and using TeamViewer for quicker edits. I found myself enjoying those weeks away from the city so much that it made me reminisce about my childhood, wondering if I could move out of the big city and into a rural area once again. Over the years of living in Toronto, I found it harder and harder to find inspiration. The city was so distracting. I didn’t always want to write or work on the computer with so much else to do. As the show progressed, I found myself gaining mental clarity and enjoying writing much more. The quiet of the country seemed to motivate my creativity.

Every time I would return to Toronto, the noise of the city seemed so much louder. Those couple of years producing the fishing show had shown me that I didn’t want to be tied down to the city. Just as that show was wrapping up, I met my wife. She was amazing. She shared the same passions with me and had the same longing for the country. She had been raised in Haiti and moved to North America when we was 9. We decided to produce a documentary in Haiti and get married while we were there.

The documentary was a chance for Shiva to reconnect with her past and for us both to do something we were passionate about. It wasn’t long after that project that we conceived a beautiful boy. Now, the question of leaving the city became even more pressing in my mind. I wanted to raise my son with the same values and connection to the land that I had enjoyed as a child. We started pushing our company to be more global. The freelancers we worked with came from all over the world, and our clients shifted. We began to focus on producing shows that didn’t depend on being in Toronto and landing commercial clients from small businesses that weren’t necessarily based in the hub of film in Toronto. To our surprise, this is when we began to experience real growth. Suddenly, our shows were being optioned, and smaller clients were excited to create with us. We knew that if we could slow our lives down, we could commit more time to creating work. I began to detach from the old clients that had kept me focused on Toronto and worked on building new relationships.

Our baby was born on Dec 2, 2024. It was this very day that the decision was made: we would leave the city and continue our business either remotely or with clients close to where we lived in the countryside. We decided to move to a small town in the Laurentian Mountains, an hour north of Montreal. It was close enough to a big city that we could still organize crews and deal with corporations, but quiet and far from the hustle and bustle we had become used to. At first, I was uncertain if we had made the right choice. We were pulling away from all the film contacts I had built over the last 20 years, but deep down, something felt right. My grandmother lived close to this town, and it would give me a chance to spend time with her and change the pace. What I didn’t expect was how positive this would be for our company almost immediately.

The view from my home office was beautiful. I watched the squirrels playing on the snow-covered pines and no longer felt that agitation I had become so used to. Now, I felt content and creative.

Over the next few weeks, I began working in the new location. Quite quickly, it seemed my creativity increased, and I was able to focus more than before. I enjoyed work so much more from this new location, and it seemed that enjoyment was massively improving our business. In the first week, we landed a brand new show, and several other opportunities began to blossom. I doubled down even harder and began to see the business grow much faster than it had in the months prior. It seemed our environment was affecting my state of mind, and my state of mind was the biggest driving factor in our company’s success. Now, our business is thriving, and we are producing content we love in a place we love. It’s become clear to me that life is holistic. We don’t have to choose one over the other, but rather take a leap of faith and build a life that has it all.

Now, I work with clients and create videos, but take breaks to walk in the woods. It gives me clarity when times are stressful and helps us focus our energy. It’s a simple change, but now we are watching the company grow like never before. Most importantly, our little family is living the life we dreamed of.