good advice from
good thing
With virginia whitwell + nick batzias
“Don’t be worried about doing a variety of things, having different roles in different productions, different scales of shows and different types of shows, because it will all inform who you become.”
— Virginia Whitwell
“It’s understanding why you want to make something…because if budget shifts, money falls out or you lose a location… if you’re on the same page [with your co-producing partners] as to why you’re making it, you know what you’re defending and what you’re preserving.”
— Nick Batzias
Season 1; Episode 3
We chat to Virginia Whitwell and Nick Batzias from Good Thing Productions about their transition from Madman Productions to starting up Good Thing Productions. We pick their brain on how to pick your co-producing partners, the important conversations to have with those partners and your creatives early on, the human element to the film business, the importance of building your team around you and the commercial differences between documentaries and narrative productions.
Virginia whitwell
Partner & Head of Production
goodthing productions
Virginia Whitwell is a highly experienced film practitioner and producer having been in the industry for over twenty years. She is the Head of Production and Partner at Good Thing Productions after five years as Head of Production at Madman Production Company. She has co-produced and produced many scripted and factual projects including That Sugar Film, Save Your Legs!, A Month Of Sundays and All For One. Hailing from the UK, as a freelancer she worked on numerous productions all over the world. Her extensive production experience includes projects for Warner Bros, HBO, Lucasfilm, EON, 20th Century Fox and Universal.
nick batzias
Founder & Managing Partner
good thing productions
Nick is a long standing member of the Australian film industry. At Madman Entertainment, Nick worked in the assessment, acquisition and programming of films for Australia and New Zealand. In late 2012, Nick started the Madman Production Company (MPC), as a natural evolution into production for the business. More recently, Nick has started his own venture – Good Thing Productions, absorbing the existing slate of production and development from MPC. Production is now his primary focus.
A passionate believer in film and creative development, Nick works with upcoming and established filmmakers from development and finance through to distribution. He has produced and executive produced documentaries and narrative features, as well as television series.
Nick’s production credits include feature SAVE YOUR LEGS! (2012), Australia’s highest grossing feature documentary, the award winning THAT SUGAR FILM (2014) and A MONTH OF SUNDAYS (2015) which had its world premiere at TIFF in 2015 as well as TV/Web Series WASTELANDER PANDA (2013). Recent projects include documentary/narrative hybrid feature SPOOKERS with director Florian Habicht, and feature documentaries ALL FOR ONE and WESTWIND. Nick has also Executive Produced a number of independent films and documentaries as well as television programs.