In 1997 the advertising scene didn’t really extend beyond London’s Soho. Undeterred – and fuelled by Manchester’s attitude of creativity – Simon Lewis set up The Gate Films, helping the city to steal a slice of the advertising pie all for itself. From the very start, Simon’s ethos was to create premium film and photography, “We always talk about film, we don’t talk about video and it’s to clearly make the distinction between the two as film is our craft,” says Simon.
The proof can clearly be seen in the work The Gate has done for some of the biggest names in the game including Puma, Net-A-Porter, Mercedes, Vodafone, and Heineken. The company has also picked up a slew of awards, including multiple for the thought-provoking ‘The Boob Life’ campaign for Tommee Tippee.
Today, The Gate Films is part of Tag after it acquired the company in January 2023, with Simon heading up film at Tag while retaining his position as CEO at The Gate.
LBB chatted with Simon about his start in the industry, his reasoning for joining Tag, and why David Beckham was key to making his very first shoot a success.
Above: Tommee Tippee’s ‘The Boob Life’
LBB> Simon, your career started with physically handling film as a runner and also cutting negatives for transmission. Have you always been interested in film – on-screen and the literal stuff?
Simon> I was only really good at two things when I was a kid. One was photography, the other was maths, and I didn’t want to be an accountant. My mum had a dark room and I was always fascinated by the chemicals and the actual processing, how you would get an image kind of out of nothing; it just seemed miraculous. I was more into the physical side of film as an actual kind of magic. You could shoot something onto a piece of celluloid and it’s just a bunch of chemicals that would then make an image. It was photography that I was really into when I was younger and that’s what I went on to do at college. I became a runner while trying to get into the world of photography. That’s when I discovered moving image over stills.
I found the editing of images together to make a story really interesting. When I was starting out, you actually just cut film. A lot of animation happened at that time in Manchester, things like the series Danger Mouse. I remember looking at film and being given a load of film to make some clips out of, sticking them together to tell a story. To then watch it come to life was pretty great. It didn’t feel like a job, more like playing around really; I think it still does.
LBB> What attracted you to directing specifically? Were there any particular films or directors that inspired the journey?
Simon> I see it as a combination of things, starting with leadership. The director, in my opinion, is there to bring the best out of everybody else. A kind of team leader. A lot of directors might see it very differently, but I didn’t when I was directing. It was all about surrounding yourself with brilliant people and doing your best to get amazing things out of them. So whether that’s an actor, a director of photography, an editor, it’s empowering them to do brilliant work, and just being able to knit them all together. That’s fun. There’s a real buzz to it. I still love physically being on set, even though I direct very rarely now. Whenever we’re shooting anything, I try to get onto the set, not just so that I can say hello to the clients and agency, but mainly to feed off that energy.
LBB> How and why did you set up The Gate?
Simon> We started in ‘97 and back then when I went to agencies all we got were rejections because we weren’t from London. Soho was the place everyone went if they wanted to be a commercial director or producer. That’s where you needed to be and that’s where any agencies outside of London wanted to go. With my roots and family in Manchester, I knew that I needed to start a production company and, at some point, those agencies were going to start listening to us. So that’s what I did.
LBB> What were some of the favourite projects you worked on in your time as a director?
Simon> I worked closely with quite a few great creatives who I then became great friends with. Martin Parkes for example, a creative director who’s still at McCann, and I did a lot of work together. When that kind of work relationship becomes a friendship, you get more out of it. You’re working super hard for each other, and you really do collaborate properly, you’re not just being told what to do. That work is particularly memorable to me.
When I got the kit launch job for Umbro in 1997 – the year we set up The Gate – that was one of my first jobs. I arrived at the shoot and I was previously told I’d be given a couple of the Manchester United players to work with, but they gave us the whole squad. We only had them for 15 minutes, and I had to organise them because they were like a bunch of kids. I was completely starstruck and sweating and going red and I couldn’t feel my legs – all of my heroes were lined up! Then David Beckham took the lead and said, “Come on, lads, this guy’s got a job to do. Let’s do it quicker, get it sorted. Quick. You go there, Andy Cole, you go there” to someone else. He was brilliant, a natural leader. He kind of did my job for me. That was great, very memorable.
LBB> You’re based in Manchester. What’s the city’s creative scene like compared to London?
Simon> When I started The Gate, the advertising scene was tiny, almost non-existent, but the music scene was massive. In the ‘90s, the label Factory Records was at its biggest and it ran the club and venue, Hacienda. There were loads of bands coming out of Manchester and the whole scene started to attract more creative people. Grenada was one of the big ITV regions at the time, and a lot of really good drama and documentaries were coming out.
Today there’s a huge amount of TV, film and advertising people in Manchester, which has created a kind of cool scene. I think it’s still more based around the directors and the film talent in the north. So much drama now gets shot in the north because it’s cheaper and better to do it here, and the weather’s better for drama too.
Manchester always has its own edge, it’s got the music history, and a bit of attitude too.
LBB> What were some of the standout pieces of work that The Gate created?
Simon> Manchester is famous for fashion with that history stretching right back to the Industrial Revolution. I’m proud of a lot of the work that we’ve done with fashion labels, especially the journey we went on with Misguided as we started working with them when the company was just three people selling clothes in Salford, around the corner from our office. We built a relationship with them and helped them create their first ad. Over 12 years, we made all of their content and advertising for them. It was great to be able to help a business grow and to see people actually make money via our craft.
The Tommee Tippee campaign my business partner and wife, Rhiannon, and I did with the Manifest agency was really stunning. It won multiple awards and it helped to dispel misconceptions around breastfeeding in public and it helped to change perceptions around the issue too.
LBB> The Gate was acquired by Tag in January of this year. Can you tell us why you decided to join the Tag family?
Simon> There were two main reasons. A modern production company today needs investment, it needs backing, because technology, virtual production, innovation, AI, all of these things that are part of commercial filmmaking now are expensive. Those things are needed to be at the cutting edge. So from that perspective, it was important to get a partner who could back us and help us grow. While The Gate was already working on national clients, we’re now able to work globally for international clients, and have the ability to push and invest in new technology that’s going to help us stay at the forefront of what we love to do.
LBB> How has your role evolved since the Tag acquisition?
Simon> I think my role is educational and that’s kind of working both ways. So that’s educating myself about Tag’s clients, the broader Tag offering, what being part of a global organisation is – learning about that and educating myself to be able to then educate all of the people in my team. On the flip side of that, it’s really educating everybody at Tag, the team and the clients, on exactly what it is that we do and we can do for them. How we do it and the process behind creating premium film as opposed to things like ‘YouTube utilitarian film’, and how it can be beneficial for them.
LBB> You’ve been with Tag for five months now. Can you tell us what’s been happening in that time and how you’re merging your two roles?
Simon> We’ve been pretty busy with our own clients so now it’s a balancing act together with Tag work. We’re on an upward trajectory while getting to grips with the larger organisation. The new chapter is really exciting and everyone is enjoying now having lots of colleagues all over the world. Tag has been fantastic, there’s no pressure to immediately integrate, we can take our time.
LBB> What does the future hold for you, The Gate, and Tag?
Simon> The dentsu agreement to acquire Tag is exciting as it’s going to give us access to an even bigger network with even more premium clients. But the simple answer is I don’t know what the future holds, which is great because it’s a lot of fun.