This is the latest in a series of profiles on Canada’s commercial production sector – and more specifically, on BIPOC-led companies and organizations that are working to improve diversity and representation in front of and behind the camera. You can read the first instalment on industry non-profit POV Film here, as well as subsequent pieces on production companies Fela, Pique and Alfredo Films.

Though the pandemic was a challenging time for many production companies, it was also one in which the founders of I’ve Got Dreams – originally Day Job – found clarity of vision and ambition.

“It made us open our eyes even wider and decide we needed to destroy some of the barriers we had,” explains Juan Expósito, a co-founder and creative director at the company. “We had to look beyond what we were doing, expand our vision and see what else we could introduce to our offering. We also took a pause to sit down and think about what was going on – and we saw the demand for communications assets. A lot of companies had to go entirely digital, so they started to demand an insane volume of material.”

That was the first pivot for the company, co-founded by Expósito alongside Shane Deen, Corey Way and Doug Izon as something of a side hustle in 2019, while the four of them were still working, well, day jobs. Over the course of the next year, the group quit those gigs to go all-in on what was then the creatively-named DayJob, initially envisioned as a production company.

DayJob’s clients starting primarily with non-profits such as Green Iglu, eventually building a portfolio and reputation that landed work alongside large agencies on brands such as TD, Amazon, Mercedes and Ecobee.

But the pandemic forced the first of several pivots. While productions were temporarily shut down, the group turned their focus toward brand work. At the same time, they started looking into other markets – both in the U.S. and Mexico – to augment its cultural perspective.

“We were looking to generate something different in our company alongside production, and we found creative branding enhanced by different cultural perspectives is really powerful,” Expósito tells strategy. “We thought about how we could incorporate branding and different ethnic perspectives into our work to enhance our offering and also position ourselves to generate different outcomes and craftsmanship.”

Of course, there was also the other half of the business. Alongside their production work through DayJob, the group also owned and operated Crayon Studios – spaces open to the public where creatives could work. They launched the first location early in 2019, initially, as a space to do its own shoots, but when friends began asking to use the space, it was decided to open Crayon to the public.

The Toronto studio was a success, with full bookings nearly every day, leading to a second location in Vancouver. When Vancouver was established, the group set their sights south of the border, where they saw bigger markets and “a lot of cool work” being done, Deen says. The Chicago location ended up being an asset both for the studio business and for DayJob.

“As we were growing through the pandemic and getting to bid on jobs in the U.S., the question we were always asked was if we had presence down there,” Deen says. “Being able to answer yes to that question checked a big box for a lot of clients, and it also meant we didn’t have to ship our gear down and pay a bunch of travel expenses. Where we used to have to send down a whole crew, now we could send one or two people down to work with a local crew.”

The U.S. expansion was big, but it also presented a new challenge: a marketing agency by the name of Day Job already existed in the U.S. That sent the team back to the drawing board on their own brand identity, which was also needing an update to reflect “how we had evolved over the course of the pandemic.”

“We wanted to lean into our evolution,” says Deen. “We needed a name to match our growth and our vision. We picked the name I’ve Got Dreams almost as a proclamation for anyone who has an idea of a brand or product they want to bring to life. If they have a dream, we can help realize it.”

As part of the rebrand, the group folded Crayon Studios into the works, bringing everything under one banner. At the same time, it started taking on work in the Mexican market as well as partnering with Mexican creatives, which brought a wealth of new perspective into the mix of a company that is already 70% BIPOC, according to Deen.

“That was the initial thinking – to bring a different perspective and work with people who aren’t super immersed in Canadian and U.S. culture, and then figure out how to merge that perspective with the existing one,” Expósito says. “It enriches how our team, internally, sees things and operates against different creative challenges, and that’s what put us in the nice position to make this move with culture, operate with culture and bring cultural, impactful ideas through a specific community our clients want to be more engaged with.”