Seb, as he is affectionately known by his friends is an epitome of honesty, fairness and integrity, moulded by his humble upbringing and life experiences. Meet this Sales Assistant turned House Detective turned Chief of Security into the ideal employer who faithfully only sleeps 4 hours everyday for the past 30 over years other than days when he is under the weather - Mr Sebastian Tan, founder and Group Managing Director of The Shooting Gallery, one of the largest production houses in the region. In January 2007, he made into Marketing magazine's inaugural "The Singapore 20" list of people who make the business in this town tick.

Company: SHOOTING GALLERY ASIA PTE. LTD. Address: 136 Joo Seng Road 1st Floor Brilliant Building Website: http://www.shootinggalleryasia.com Interview with Mr Sebastian Tan by Kevin Seow on 03-Apr-2007. Student can be reached at kevin.seow.2003@business.smu.edu.sg   Business Profile: Shooting Gallery is a one-stop shop for cutting-edge photography, TVC and Film production and digital imaging service with a unique touch.   Interviewer's Comments: Uncle Seb is one of the most humble and inspiring entrepreneurs I have ever met. Despite his success today, he still lives a very simple life and he chooses to share the company's profits with every single employee in the company right up to the dispatch and cleaners. His favourite meal today is no caviar and escargots in an Avant-garde restaurant but just fried eggs with dark soy sauce and chilli over plain steamy rice, reminiscent of his childhood day treats. I have so much respect and admiration for Uncle Seb, my humble writings would not be able to do justice for such a great individual.   1. What is the nature of your business? We are in the business of providing a one-stop shop for photography, Television Commercial & Film production, and digital imaging services with our various creative departments, networks and facilities   2. What made you embark on this venture choice? I desperately needed a job upon graduation in order to service my home mortgage. So, even though I had initially intended to pursue a career in "Art", I went ahead to secure myself a job as an assistant to a professional commercial photographer, 3 months before I graduated from art school. Initially, for a job and experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found that I had a tremendous amount of passion and energy for it. Soon, clients started calling the studio asking for me and it came to a point where I was disallowed to communicate with clients directly. Some of the clients advised me to leave the company and a photographer from another company who heard about it asked me to join him to be an eventual partner. He offered me great monetary benefits, promised to build a studio for me and in the course of working; the studio would eventually be mine. It was not so much about the money but I thought maybe I should leave because things are not working out here, so I went to my photographer boss and told him about it. To my surprise, he threatened to close the company and all my colleagues would be jobless should I leave. He asked for me to stay on, work for him for another 5 years and the proceeds from 50% of the profits that I generate will be sufficient to transfer the ownership of the studio to me. So despite the better offer from the other company, I accepted the proposal, as I could not allow my colleagues to become jobless. But as it turned out, he had been discreetly looking for someone else to build a new team to replace me while I was there for the next 2 years. I had stayed at this first job for 7 years. On 1st April 1987, he told one of my colleagues, Raymond, not to take in any more jobs for me after the 15th of April. So right up till 15th April, we were booked up every day with shoots and on the 16th; we handed over everything and walked out with nothing. I never got paid for what was promised and was told, "this is purely business, if you do not understand about business, you will get burnt". On that very day, I made a pledge to my exboss that I will set up a business that is based on honesty, integrity and fairness and I prove to him that businesses need not have be dishonest or dirty to be successful. This became the pillars and principles for The Shooting Gallery and I always tell my people that we will always practice and apply the principles fairness, honesty and integrity as a cornerstone in all our dealings.   3. How does your business work? Clients come to us with their briefs and storyboards and we work with them throughout the whole production process from the pre-production period till we deliver the finished product.   4. Did you have the capital to start the business or did you have to borrow from someone to get started? I only had about $4000 and a used car. The good thing was that when I was working in the previous company, I used to buy equipment for the company with personal funds from my bonus or salary because my boss always feel that we have enough equipment and can make do with what we already have. Since I strongly believe that we need appropriate equipment for different purposes, I bought them so that we can all do a better job. The suppliers are aware that I've been doing this, so when they heard that I had to start my own company; they gave me their full support. One particular supplier, William Yong actually had enough faith in me to allow me to take what ever I need and pay when we can. I am very thankful and indebted to him; We took about 60 to 70k worth of equipment and could only pay with an initial $4000 that I had. So after we left on16th April 1987, we started shooting for ourselves the very next day. We were doing many things concurrently, in between shoots; we had to register the company, source for locations, renovating the studio etc. Clients and friends helped. Jonathan Bonsey helped with the design and production of the Shooting Gallery logo and identity. We were happy things worked out well; we managed to pay off all our debts in 6 months and in 2 years, we became the largest commercial photography studio in Singapore.   5. How did you cross path with photography? When I was young, my passion was more in art than in photography. I always like to meddle around with things around me to make it look more beautiful. After my national service, while waiting for a few job applications, I was working part-time at John Little's as the house detective and without me realizing, I was already working as the Chief of Security for three years. But the interest in art has always been in me, so although it was not my job to be involved in displays and signage, I was always kaypoh enough to chip in my two cents and help the store to write signage and the set-up of displays. One day, a floor manager pulled me aside and said, "Seb, you should leave because you are not doing justice to yourself. You are too good to be staying in this company and wasting your talent." She introduced me to some of the advertising people servicing the company and I was quite overwhelmed by the experience. I took her words to heart, and left to attend art school. So I am very thankful to her for recognizing my artistic inclination, and for being the catalyst behind my decision to explore advertising. I studied advertising art at the Baharuddin Vocational Institute. When I was asked to join a photography studio as an assistant, I figured a bird in hand is worth two in a bush, and I accepted it as the Studio was willing to wait till I graduate in 3 months time. Though after that there were a number of better job offers made to me but it is in my upbringing that a promise must always be fulfilled and besides the photographer was willing to wait 3 months for me to finish my course, so I was committed to join him after graduation. I would say it turn out to be a blessing in disguise as looking back I am glad I went into photography instead of advertising art, because I'm a very restless and hyperactive person and photography allows me to do so much. I get to do things that most people would not have a chance to do, I get to go to places where most people do not get a chance to go, and I get to do different things almost everyday which if I were to do art, I would probably spend a lot of time drawing or conceptualizing in the studio, which I might not be able to sustain for long. I start to really enjoy photography a lot.   6. How did you learn photography? I learnt the basic foundation in art school, but the bulk of the learning was when I was actually doing it on the job. On the job, I have to think on the feet, think very quickly to solve problems and that is very challenging. Every time I do a new job, I have to think of something new. It was an eye opener for me and I learn that in the advertising world, a lot of times you do not have to do things by the rules, you should learn to break the rules like for example you look at an ice-cream and to shoot it, you do not have to use a real ice-cream, it can be mash potato, flour or butter, as long as you can make it look like a real ice-cream and it looks good and nice, you can do the job instead of using a real ice-cream as by the time you set up the lights and props and adjustment, the ice-cream would have melted. So you always have to think of what you do to make the best out of what you need without having to use the actually things sometimes. I also do a lot of research on how to get certain things done for certain projects. At end of the day there is no substitute for hard and systematic work, you must be very hardworking and have the passion for it. This is an industry that is driven by passion, you must be passionate about what you do, enjoy what you do and try, learn along the way. Even mundane stuffs like cleaning and sweeping the floor, there are lots of things to learn, like when the floor is stained, you must know whether to use turpentine or thinner, water based or oil based substance to remove the stain. Through the learning, you gained the relevant experience and capabilities so that you can solve whatever problems that come your way in the future.   7. Financially were you doing ok as in were you required to support the family when you decided to go for the photographer assistant job which only pays $400 a month? No, I have to support the family of my mum and me. I live a very simple life because of my upbringing. I lost my father when I was very young, my family is financially poor and I grew up on welfare support. So I grew up living a very simple life where I do not have a lot of things. So with the little amount of salary, I made do with the money to pay for the house, the living expenses for me and my mum.   8. Tell me about the first few projects experiences? It was my first day of work and the photographer I was assisting was not feeling well so I had to stand in and shoot on his behalf. I am not even familiar with the equipment but I had to just set everything up and do the shoot on my first day of work. Furthermore, those were the film days where you could not see the results immediately. I remembered the night after the shoot, I could not sleep at all, I kept thinking if I had loaded the film correctly, did I expose correctly and many others concerns ran through my mind. It was only when I saw the photos the next day and everything turned out well and I was so relieved. After that first job, the photographer was kind of impressed, and from then on though I was an assistant, I was working more like a junior photographer along with him and I was given a lot of freedom, and he would even asked me for my opinions and let me do all the initial set-ups.   9. Were your love ones (parents, friends) supportive of your career choice to be a photographer? My mum did not really know what I was doing but she trusted me to do what I wanted to do in life.   10. Can you tell me a bit about your childhood? I grew up on welfare as I lost my father when I was only 16 months and my mum was not very strong and could not really go out and work.   11. Has your childhood affected your life and how you run your business? Since I was young my mum taught me the most important virtues in life. She told me that we can be poor, but we do not beg, we do not steal. The only thing that you have is your pride. Whatever you do, so long as you do the right thing, nobody can take away your pride or your honesty. This is something I hold on to till today in whatever I do. So I grew up not having much, but I was happy. To me money is not that important, happiness, health and doing the right thing is more important. That is why the way the company is run here is pretty unique. We do not operate it in the way like who are the bosses and how much money the bosses should make because I believe in sharing. We run the company on the basis that everyone who contributes to the company gets an interest in the company. So every year, a system is worked out to split the profits among everyone in the company. I think because of the way the business is run here, some of my senior people here have worked with me for more than 20 years and even the younger employees who left us continued to maintain good relationships with us.   12. How is your work hours and schedule like? The time we put into our work can be really crazy, sometimes it can even be almost a full 24 hour day because of the urgency of the job, especially when it is coming in from overseas. We used to work 7 days a week when we first started but I soon realized that we would not be able to sustain our energy at this level for too long. After the first year, we made the decision that we will not work unnecessarily on weekends, first on Sundays, then on Saturdays as well, until after the recession in 2005, when we revert to a five and a half day week. So now it is not so much for me but for my people, to have the weekends off to recharge and relax and we work our butts off during the week.   13. What are some of the challenges you faced when you first started? Collection is a major challenge. We started with nothing and to produce a job, we'll need funds to begin with. Most Agencies/Clients here takes about 6 months to pay us. Those that pay in 90 days are considered good paymasters. In order to address that, we had to go around offering a 10% discount for early payment. Now that is impossible, as we may not even have a 10 % margin given the competitive market and high operational costs. While salaries, rentals and other costs have gone up, fees have not appreciated proportionately over the past 2 decades. In fact fees today are much similar to those charged by photographers in the 80s. I had actually predicted that if photographers were not able to get returns from additional usage rights or other source of additional revenue, no good studio or photographer would be able to survive in the industry. The challenges of deciding to grow or not, the challenges for space, whether we can sustain the overheads if we move to a bigger space, everything was moving at a very fast pace, we have to multitasks and manage many things concurrently.   14. Who/What is your source of inspiration? I always get very inspired by good work; I appreciate the hard work that is being put in by everyone involved in making that good work possible. I am very passionate about my work so throughout the 30 over years, I only sleep 4 hours everyday other than days when I fell sick, but I do not feel tired at all, in fact I feel very energetic, fresh, happy and ready to go when I wake up in the morning.   15. You are so busy that you do not even have time to sleep, what keeps you going on non-stop? (Laughter) I have no choice, there will constantly be a thousand and one things to be done and I know that I will never be able to finish up all my work, so I always have to prioritize whatever that needs to be done first. I guess it is my restless nature and my passion that keeps me going. If I keep still, I will fall asleep, so even if I see a piece of rubbish on the floor, I would have to pick it up and throw it away instead of leaving it there for someone else to clear it. (He went across the room to pick up a piece of rubbish as he speaks)   16. Could you tell me about the first big break for your business? I have never really thought about this all these years. I guess when we started Shooting Gallery; I have already won a number of awards from my previous works and because of the history and the way we started the business, since day one, we were already having a lot of work because clients already know of our quality and expectations.   17. Please tell me about your proudest achievement to date in your business? I am still waiting for it (burst into laughter). I mean I am quite happy with what we have achieved so far. I think we have come to a stage where we have grown so much that we have no choice but to keep on growing because if we do not, we will go down. On hindsight, if I were to know that we would grow so rapidly, I would have pegged the growth to sort of maintain a good balance and control.   18. Do you recall your worst day in business? Have you ever felt like giving up? I would not say there is a worst day but there are good and difficult clients everywhere so definitely there will be days when we have to deal with difficult clients. Sometimes we might not agree with the client on certain issues and as much as we can give our advices, at the end of the day the client makes the decision because they are paying the money. Sometimes you have a concept that you think would look great and you would be proud to have in your portfolio, but the client could think this is not the direction they wanted and changed the whole thing to something that they like but you do not like, so you would get disappointed when it happen, but we have to be realistic and be fair to the Client as ultimately we are paid to do a job and we have to respect their right and accept that they know their target better.   19. When was the moment you realised that you have made it? I have not made it yet (burst into laughter again), I am still in the process of growing the company.   20. What are some of the things you have had to overcome to succeed? I think I have learnt along the way that while there are a lot of friends, there are also a lot of people with hidden agendas, so I while I will always be sincere in my dealings, I also know that not everyone may be so honest and we have to handle the insecurities and jealousies, accepting everyone at face value without trying to be overly suspicious or nothing will get done. But whatever it is, I will still do my best and treat everyone with sincerity, honesty, fairness and integrity.   21. What are some qualities that you feel you possess which differentiate you from others that made you successful? I think a large part of Shooting Gallery's success is due to its people's strengths, its 'clean', honest, fair and drive to do quality work. So these qualities became our strength when many clients come to us because they are comfortable working with us, our track record and the way we do business.   22. What qualities you think are important to be a successful photographer? I think one very important quality is to have the eye to see things, to appreciate it, to record it and to play it back. Most of the times we see things, we do not really see it, record it and play it back. Let's see someone poured you a cup of coffee in the morning, how many times do you actually look at how the coffee being poured into the cup, the reaction of the coffee and the cup, the swirl of the coffee, the bubbles formed, the steam coming out, the look of the coffee, how the light comes through it, the shine, the glow, the colour, and the texture. How many people would see that, record that, play it back when they have to create that in the studio. If you cannot recreate the exact look, the coffee is going to lack the special quality and it is not going to look fresh or apetising. Anything around us no matter how subtle it is may be, is something that we need to apply when we need it. If you have been observing, when you need to create something, you then be able to express how it looks and gives you the advantage to add value to the project you are executing. The next important quality is then to be able to present your ideas as if you are unable to express your vision clearly and convincingly to your client, you may not given the job. Having 'the eye' is the most important quality for a photographer, your sense of composition, colour, textures, a lateral thinking mind and the dare to be different, to surprise!   23. Do you think to succeed as a photographer; the talent is inborn or can be nurtured? I think the talent can be nurtured. Of course there is inborn talent but sometimes it takes people around you to help your recognise the talent, and groom and nurture the talent within but I still think most importantly you must have the interest, the passion and wiliness to work hard. Without these, you cannot go anywhere. If you have the talent, but without the passion, you would not drive yourself to excellence because you are not interested.   24. What are your plans for expanding the business outside of Singapore? Apart from Singapore, we currently have offices around the region in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and New Zealand. Other than generating businesses from the other regions, we have plans to set up internationally so that we have support and contact points to bring our clients to international locations for shoots instead of being confined to the region where we have our offices. But most importantly are the people in the company, we are driven by the people, without the people we cannot grow.   25. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time? When I was young, I told myself I hope to retire at 40, but I am now 52 (laughter) and I am still working everyday. Well if along the way, there happens to be someone I am comfortable with, I might want to take it a bit easier, maybe spend more time with the family because all my life, it has always been work and sometimes it can be a bit lonely when the house seems so quiet, so I always keep myself busy in the garden as I enjoy gardening or come back to the office.   26. In your opinion, how would you define entrepreneurship? I would not call myself an entrepreneur because I should be a bad businessman as I am driven by my passion for my work. Entrepreneurship is recognizing an opportunity and being bold enough to grab the opportunity, develop and expand on it because if you do not try, you will never know.   27. To what extent does one's educational level help or hinder entrepreneurial-ship? It depends on what you are doing, what sort of education you have. If the business requires certain knowledge and skill sets, then you need the education to prepare you for it. In the creative industry, the education is only important to make sure you get the basic foundations right but beyond that, it is up to the individual's capability, capacity and drive.   28. What qualities would you think a person should have to inspire others? I think doing things wholeheartedly and always give your best. Do it right or do not do it at all. You should always be true to yourself no matter what you do, to work hard and to work systematically. I have this quote that I remembered till today from my secondary school principal who wrote it in my report book in 1971, "There is no substitute for hard and systematic work, from each his best, the path of duty is the way to glory." This quote still inspires me till today.   29. What are some of your own values that you practiced in your business and would like to pass down to others, particularly the younger generation? Honesty, integrity and fairness. In reality not everyone will be fair to you but you have to always do the right thing to be answerable to your own conscience.   30. What advice would you give to young people who aspire to be like you? Work very hard and give your best. You cannot equate monetary rewards with your level of contribution. If you are passionate and dedicated, you give your all. Do not chase after money; let the money chase after you. When you are driven by passion, hardwork and dedication, you will shorten your learning curve and you'll be very good at what you do. Many people will be chasing after you, offering you more for your excellent services. If you set out with the mentality to do only what you are paid, and not add value to you work unless you are going to be paid for it, you will find out eventually that your progress will be very slow because no one is going to pay you to learn at their expense. So if you compare the 2 approaches, someone who is always helping out without thinking of the money, will end up learning and developing mush faster that a calculative person. I am a very restless person with a helpful personality, always eager to learn. I would always be asking around to see if anyone needs my help and I enjoyed doing all these extra things. I actually learnt so much from it and it had shortened my learning curve so tremendously. My advice is no mater how old or successful you are or appear to be at your age, you must always think that you can do better and have lots more to learn and catch up. The moment you started thinking that you are the best and you know everything, then you are in trouble because you will stop learning, stop developing and start going down. No matter how many awards you have won and how much recognition you have received, you should always remain humble and think that the best job is tomorrow and there is always room for improvement, then you can sustain your success and growth. It is very natural for young people to be afraid when they first started and there are many things they do not know. I went through all the same fears, uncertainties and curiosities. Do not be afraid, it is part of the learning process.   31. Do you feel that the future photographers have a higher chance to succeed than the current photographers? Why? Looking at the local commercial photography scene, it is going to be tough for everyone. Budgets keep going down and expenses keep going up and if budgets do not appreciate and clients are not willing to pay for services, it is hard to find and keep quality staffs. So I do not think it is going to be lucrative for everyone unless things change.   32. No matter what business, most entrepreneurs would rather protect their own competitive edge to ensure their own prosperity. To my knowledge, you have been putting a lot of your personal time and effort to help improve and grow the photography industry for the photographers in Singapore, why do you want to do it? Maybe it is more of an Asian thinking, but I've always believe in the general good, the concept of 'prosper your neighbour to protect your prosperity'. If the whole industry is growing and thriving, there will be more opportunities for everyone. If I am only concern about my own survival and the industry does not grow, I cannot grow as well. So I think it is good for me to share and help the development of the industry. Another thing is that I feel that I have benefited from the industry and I appreciate what the industry has done for me so I should do my part to contribute back to help the industry and the next generation to continue to grow.   33. It is quite an open secret that in your industry, your assistances or apprentices would just work for about 2-3 years, trying to learn as much as they can within the time frame before they leave the company to start their own studio and become your competitors, so does it affect how you teach them? I cannot be afraid or feel insecure that my assistants are going to learn the tricks of the trade, leave and be my competitor. On the contrary, the more protective and afraid I am the more reason for them to do that. Naturally, if they are not going to benefit from the experience, they will leave. If the company cannot support or benefit the person further or contribute to his/her development, he/she is unhappy, I would not stop the person from moving on to seek fresh challenges elsewhere. But this does not make me feel afraid of them leaving or hinder me from imparting what I know; in fact my worry is not that they are learning, but rather that they are not willing to learn. My philosophy is simply that if a person is interested to grow and develop, by being passionate, he or she will not only benefit him/herself but also the company will have a good team of motivated workers who are efficient and productive. I will give my 101% support to develop and realize their full potential. There is no reason then for them to leave if they are happy and their needs and interest are met and taken care off by the company otherwise, they may actually be redundant and a burden to the company. I would then rather they leave so that I can give the opportunity to someone else who is motivated to learn.   34. Aren't you afraid they will become a strong competitor of yours some day? I always wish the employees who left all the best and our door is always open to them if they need help or anything in the future. My only condition to them is that they should be fair to the company when they leave. Naturally, most people think that the grass greener on the other side of the fence, but it may always not be so. We had many employees who had left us and wanted to come back and whenever possible, we do take them back. Over the years we had some of ex-employees telling us that the best days of their working lives were in Shooting Gallery and it is something that is really heart warming to hear.