Producers

J

Jerryv

Active member
In lack of a special 'producers' part of the forum...

A lot of people wishish to become a director, DP, editor, but i never read stories in forums from/about people wanting to become producers. Its seems that no filmmaker 'dreams' of being a producer.

The quistion is, is producing considered a creative job?
I know what there job is, but its unclear how much creative "controle" they have (i dont mean the Excutive producers).

The second quistion is, who wants to becoma a producer?

:dankk2:
 
Jerryv,

There are a couple of good books regarding producing:

Creative Producing - From A to Z by Mryl A. Schreibman
This book answers a lot of your questions regarding being a creative producer or being an Indie Producer.

So you want to be a Producer - by Lawrence Turman
This book describes how to be a producer for studio motion pictures and I would say is based on the 'old school' producer.

I would suggest that most independent filmmakers are director/producers and often writers.

I personally wanted to become a producer first, director second. Because a producer, in it's original form, puts the 'product' together. The producer comes up with or acquires the story, finds the director and often the talent to create the movie, and gets the financing to bring it to completion. The producer handles the business end of the production.

I prefer being a 'creative' producer, in that I want to help independent filmmakers get their stories onto the 'big' screen, but I also want to have creative input into the production (not control).

That's my 2 cents. I hope that helps?

RobertE
 
In the beginning, a producer actually produced. I remeber many a producer sitting behind me ni the 80s with experience, opinions and even wisdom. Today's producer was yesterday;s intern/gopher. While it's refreshing in the edit suite to hear "what do you think" that question use to mean "I am open to your input as well", not "I have never done this, have no idea what I have gotten myself into and am gonna let you bail me out while i head to the mall."
Of course, I'm generalizing here but this is what I have seen over the last 20 years or so.
 
Well i dont have a first hand answer for you but i have to say i want to be a producer.

First and foremost i consider myself a writer/director (or soon to be director) but i would like to get into producing more then my own stuff down the road. Because i like helping people accomplish there goals and think it would be a very exciting thing to guide a film from the Producer position.

However i think the question is a Producer a creative job is very much a viewpoint question.

Good Point though, you always here people who want to be a Writer, Director, Actor or DP but very rarely does anyone say they want to be a producer and i think this is mostly because people view the producer as having to do alot of the dirty work of a production and not as glamorous as the other positions.
 
grinner said:
In the beginning, a producer actually produced. I remeber many a producer sitting behind me ni the 80s with experience, opinions and even wisdom. Today's producer was yesterday;s intern/gopher. While it's refreshing in the edit suite to hear "what do you think" that question use to mean "I am open to your input as well", not "I have never done this, have no idea what I have gotten myself into and am gonna let you bail me out while i head to the mall."
Of course, I'm generalizing here but this is what I have seen over the last 20 years or so.
Click to expand...

Everyone who's been around the block a few times is going to have a boatload of horror stories about every above and below the line position there is. When I started in the mid 70's and co-produced my very first film I was right in there learning everything under the sun. I can't ever remember feeling in over my head. Its always been the most fun when you have to figure out how to pull off the seemingly impossible with next to nothing.
 
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