Here’s What a Film Producer Does, And Why

borrowed excerpts from Gabrielle Nadig’s article Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Became an Independent Film Producer for “DEAR PRODUCER”

First things first. I did not really understand what a producer did before I started doing it and I still frequently come across people in the industry who do not know or do not value what we do. So I’ll explain…

There are so many great writers and directors with a vision, but there are so few people who can bring that vision to life. These skills led me to be a producer rather than a director because I loved the idea that a producer could build something out of nothing. We are putting the literal pieces together to create a film.

The director/producer relationship is a creative partnership. The director and the producer have to be on the same page about what kind of story they are telling and how they are telling it. They are collaborators in the truest of sense for years on a single project.

Did I become a producer to worry about taxes and accounting for multiple entities over several years? No, but it’s part of the job and I will do it because at the end of the day, I, as the producer, am responsible for my investors money and it is my job to make sure it’s managed properly and that includes taxes.

The indie film industry and the Hollywood industry at large value the director over almost everything else. Everyone is always searching for the new, hot director, but we never stop to think about the producer whose contributions got that director on the map in the first place.

The directors will reap all the success of a film if it is good (and even at times when it is not so good) and will more than likely get pulled up into the Hollywood system. When the director wants to bring their producer with them on bigger projects, the director often doesn’t know how to fight for that producer to move up with them or they get push back from their agents and managers. More often than not, bringing their producer with them on their next project is not even an option. 

Of course there are exceptions to this scenario: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Steven Speilberg and Kathleen Kennedy, or Paul Thomas Anderson and JoAnne Sellar, Christina Vachon and Todd Haynes or Lynette Howell and Derek Cianfrance.

Directors have countless ways they are supported or promoted onto bigger projects. Almost every major studio has a training or mentorship program for emerging directors where they can shadow industry veterans. When directors work with good producers, they make better films. If we know this to be true then why isn’t the industry at large supporting producers like we do directors?  I hear a lot that the only way to get hired on a larger budget film is if you have experience on a larger budget film. That’s a chicken and egg scenario. No one is going to hire me to produce a $10m movie if I haven’t produced a $10m movie before. 

At the end of the day, I want my directors to succeed. Seeing them get great jobs and direct bigger movies or television after I’ve produced their first feature validates the potential I saw in them. I had good taste and spotted their talent before anyone else. It would just be great if producers had the same opportunity to rise up and prove themselves on bigger projects in the same way their directors get to prove themselves.

READ ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY – DEAR PRODUCER