What does a Producer ACTUALLY do?

hey what is up my name is rubidium and today on the crimson engine we are looking at produces what do they do who are they how do you become one how do you get rid of one most people who don't work in film I kind of understand what a director does they see pictures of directors doing miss Howe pictures of directors doing this and they sort of understand that that's the person creatively responsible for the film they don't really get what the producers role is in a film where they are in the hierarchy of the film what their responsibilities are and why there are so many different types of producers the first person we're going to talk about is that producer themselves sometimes called the producer producer to differentiate them from the executive producer associate producer co-producer line producer and so on this is the person responsible for the film financially and logistically as opposed to the director who is responsible for the film creatively now more often than not that producer is the one that hires the director it's the producer might be the one that wants to make a movie that has the money to make a film that's raised the money to make a film then they have optioned the rights to a story of a book then commissioned a screenwriter to adapt that book into a screenplay then they've looked around and hired the director that they think is the best fit with the story that they want to tell then they are there to help the director achieve their vision and by help I mean make the director achieve their vision because the producer is the one whose ass is on the line essentially should the film fail and who stands to make a lot of money should the film succeed sometimes the main producer is called the creative producer they're the ones that gather all the elements that make the film happen and in the hierarchy of a film they're pretty much at the top they're the ones that that hires that directs that and if the director is not doing what the producer wants that fires the director and replaces the director now very seldom two producers put their own money into films never put your own money in the show and two they higher they raise the capital to produce the film from various sources it could be the studio it could be private investors it could be the stock market it could be venture capital firms or hedge funds it could be anyone that has money that wants to make more money and that brings us to the second main type of producer the executive producer if you've taken the wrists and invested your money in making a film you probably want your name on it and if the producer won't give you a full producer credit there's a thing called the executive producer which could be the person that pays for the film but more often than not it's the person that facilitated the film getting made so either if they didn't directly invest in it they brought the project to the person that did give them the money or they champion the film in a different way you often see famous directors being executive producers on other people's projects like Steven Spielberg executive Li produced trance the transformer movies I don't know anything about that particular process but he probably made a few calls and like vouched for Michael Bay and the project to the studio that ended up getting it made he walked away with you know tens of millions of dollars because without his name on the film it probably wouldn't have got made without him vouching for the film without him investing his name in the film it wouldn't have got made and that's what makes an executive producer as you can probably tell there's a big fight about who gets to be producer and who doesn't get to be a producer and the PGA that produces Guild of America introduced new guidelines where to get they couldn't stop non producers meaning people that were just finance is or studio executives putting their name on the film its producers so what they did it was injured this thing called the PGA title and you may see you know in the last couple of years popping up on film credits and to get it you need to be on physically onset for like 80 percent of the shoot day it's known as that you can sit in your office write a check and then get your name put on the film as a producer to get those you can but to get those pga letters after your name you physically need to come to set for 80 percent of the shoot days and be there now very often being powerful Hollywood directors producers on their own films this is because the producer not the director makes financial decisions about where to allocate money how much to pay people that's not the directors job but if the director wants to have total creative freedom if they want to you know build giant sets if they want to will they want to be able to make office to whatever cost they want regardless of cost they actually also need to be producer on the film so that they're in those meetings and they have the right to allocate money so you know you'll see Ridley Scott James Cameron Christopher Nolan you know those kind of guys also serving as producers on their own films one step down from the producer producer is the co-producer now this is someone who serves a produce a function but in a junior sense they may they may have helped they may have made Cole's like the executive producer they have made got the film help the film get made or they may be physically onset doing things like a producer would burn as much part of the essential financial creative team as the main producers so there's a critical co-producer which you can give to these people that's between producer and associate producer so super juicer is a much smaller credit it's sort of given to people that almost has a gratitude it's like this is where you've Kickstarter you find the 200 backers that contributed to the film all get associated producer credits it's it's a small credit people in Hollywood know that it doesn't actually mean that much unless you're the one getting it which case it means a lot even heard of people that were actually assistants on the film or served in smaller roles who really gave everything to the movie and helped to get made because they were just there every day and ready to work the producer turn around and made them associate producers to say thank you for their hard work and there's no limit to how many associate producer credits you can put on a movie now we get to the rubber meeting the road which is the line producer the line producer doesn't is also interchangeable with a unit production manager and this is the person who's onset cracking the whip making sure that we the film unit makes it stays making getting everybody paid negotiating salaries it's sometimes referred to as leg work and the producer will hire a line producer so that they don't have to do all this nitty-gritty sort of nuts and bolts stuff so that there's someone at that ultimately who the crew or the cast goes who if they have an issue so that the producer can be looking at the big picture this is the line producer I hope that makes things clear this is by no means gospel you know different people have you know when the reason that it's so hard to know exactly who's in charge of a said or who's who has the power on a film is that these credits are very fluid and you know an associate producer can be willed it can actually be the person wielding all the power you never know it's a pretty good bet that the producer on a film or TV show will know where the money's coming from and the be the ones responsible for spending it to get the product that they wanted the end to sell it and recoup those profits all the director wants to do is create a great film what the producer wants to do is make sure that that film makes money thanks so much watching hopefully this was helpful leave your questions in the comments and I will see you next time you

Channel: Crimson Engine

Views: 364,991

Keywords: filmmaking, film school, interview, film, short, movies, video, digital filmmaking, directing, cinematography, filmmaking advice, film distribution, sundance, screenwriting, screenwriter, guerrilla film, film festivals, indie films, film festival, moviemaker, indie film, independent film, festival, canon, tips, producing, ae, after effects, premiere cc, davinci, lut, raw, raw video, how to, techniques, tutorial

Id: 71Oh4gQ-1jM

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 13 2018