Grant weaving his black magic

And I’m aware that you like to hear about the region’s young people who have gone on to successful and interesting careers.

This one is a ripper.

A little bit of black magic

Some of you will remember Grant Petty.

He attended Shepparton’s South Tech from 1983 to 1986 and followed that with a computer electronics course at Shepparton TAFE in 1987-88.

Today, he is founder and chief executive of Blackmagic Design, which he started with his partner, Doug Clarke, in 2001.

They now have 10 offices around the world: Singapore, Amsterdam, three in the United Kingdom and four in the United States.

The head office is in Melbourne where all the design and some of the manufacture takes place.

Blackmagic Design employs about 2000 people.

Grant’s company designs for the entertainment industry.

He wanted to make creativity available to all — from a kid at school to an award-winning cinematographer to Netflix — and set out to change the industry forever.

It appears that he has succeeded.

Of the 30 most successful films of all time, 20 have used Blackmagic products.

You may have heard of Star Wars: The Last Jedi or Avatar.

Or perhaps you’ve seen the TV shows Big Bang Theory or Game of Thrones.

And Grant is on the Financial Review’s ‘Rich List’ (not that this was ever one of his ambitions).

Blackmagic has never been about money, it has always been about ideas.

When someone says, ‘What about this — it could make film editing easier and quicker?’ — someone else says, ‘I can make that work.’

And then, there’s a new product and the world wants it. Not only is it innovative and time-saving but it is so much cheaper than its competitors.

The price point surprised Grant (it turned out that they are good manufacturers, too).

An early product sold for $1995 with their nearest competitor selling for $14,000.

Grant Petty — the man who made it happen

I first came across his story when talking to Ian Wong about Australian design — there is a Blackmagic camera in the current exhibition at Shepparton Art Museum — and, as Grant was educated locally, I asked Ian for more information.

He sent me an article from the Financial Review.

I was aware that Grant works 16-hour days and has for many years, but I sent him an email anyway. And he called me, spot-on 4pm — which was our agreed time.

I had, by now, done a considerable amount of research and prepared a list of questions.

I should have been prepared for ‘extraordinary’.

Our conversation ranged from fallen empires, middle management, the possible failure of capitalism and the freedom of locally owned country newspapers to innovate and evolve — to marketing and his beautiful family and his mum (now living in Geelong and still a little bewildered by Grant’s enormous success).

And we talked about public housing.

His parents’ marriage had come adrift and Grant moved from NSW with his mother and brothers to an apartment in a public housing block of units in Elsternwick (also the home of a young immigrant named Ruslan Kogan, who you may have heard of).

However, his mum had originally come from the country and wanted to go home.

They relocated to a commission area in Numurkah and Grant attended Numurkah High School.

It was in Numurkah he was told to ‘f... off back to the commission where you belong.’ I’m sure you can fill in the dots.

Grant, already with a keen interest in technology, transferred to South Tech, and his father organised a private rental for them in Mooroopna.

So, I asked him if he thought public housing should be scattered through the community, or have a specific area allocated to it.

I gave him two examples — one of a young boy who was perpetually embarrassed by his home in a government housing block and walked a very long way home from school to disguise the fact; the other a young single mother with two daughters who lived in a government supplied home, among privately owned homes — and how isolated and alone she felt, unwelcome in her neighbourhood.

He paused — the only pause in our entire conversation — and finally drew on his own experience.

“I never felt alone living in a commission area. In fact, it was a long time before I realised we were disadvantaged. Everyone around us was struggling financially.”

He said he had not previously considered the possibility that scattered public housing could result in isolation or loneliness.

He also talked about many successful people having emerged from public housing — and he has a theory that might explain this.

“Many well-educated people, from comfortable homes, come into society knowing how things are done and understanding why,’’ he said.

“Often, they are not the ones looking for change or searching for new ideas.

“However, people from humble backgrounds are freer to see the world in a new way, as they don’t have the same constraints that the community places on them. I encourage my children to think this way.’’

Grant said that the government supplied him with a home and an education and provided a single mother’s pension for his mum, but he reckons he’s paid it back with overseas sales totalling more than $3.8 billion to date.

He also talked about the importance of computers at South Tech.

First, there was one — and it was rarely available.

Then, as the school was disadvantaged, there was soon an entire room filled with them.

It was Grant’s idea of heaven and he frequently went to school at 6.30am (he says that he knew the cleaner well).

He met Peter Barber at school and came across him again, much later, in Indonesia.

Peter became a part of Blackmagic for several years and has since retired.

Grant did work experience at television station GMV6 and had several jobs including working at horse and dog race meetings.

Our conversation had now run much longer than I intended — three times longer than I had originally asked for.

I felt it could have continued much longer, but I called a halt — fully aware of how much Grant’s time was worth.

So, I thanked him and he said he had some marketing jobs to do — and it was then we talked about marketing. I had asked less than half of my questions.

Someday, someone much more capable than I will write a book about Grant Petty.

It will be about dreams and ideas and innovation and very hard work; about passion and belief, and about building a worldwide organisation from the ground up — without outside capital — and with an estimated value today of about $2 billion.

It will be an extraordinary book.

No ‘Under the Clock’

I’m sorry. I know many of you enjoy this, but all the articles I have on file are too long for the space I have.

And as I’d cut the Grant Petty story several times, I felt an obligation to do justice to the man and the time he had given me.

I simply couldn’t cut it further.

He is inspirational and somehow rejuvenating. I came from the conversation believing that every problem simply needs a good idea.

However, when I look around the world, it seems to me that many countries — including ours — are rather short on ideas right now.

Parts of the US are reducing funding to the police, with exactly the results you’d expect; Britain has a PM who thinks he’s above his own laws; and here we have an estimated 50,000 people in Canberra — a huge protest — that the media is, largely, ignoring. (They are protesting the handling of the pandemic here and around the world.)

Do all leaders need reminding that going to war — in an attempt to reunite their countries — is not a new idea, or a good one?

May it be easy, my friends.

Marnie

Email: towntalk@sheppnews.com.au

Letter: Town Talk. Shepparton News. P.O. Box 204. Shepparton 3631.

Phone: Send a text on 0418 962 507. (Note: Text only please. I will call you back, if you wish.)