So You Want to Be a Producer

WHY BE A PRODUCER? This [RKO Studio] is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had!Orson Welles Why not be a producer? Would you rather sell shoes for a living? Or be an accountant? Both are honorable occupations, but wouldn't you like to wake up eager to go to work, use every part of yourself while at work, and maybe, just maybe, have a tiny impact on the world? That's why I'm doing it. We all like movies. Heck, that's why you bought this book. We're all critics, too; we know what is a good movie, and we know what isn't. A lot of times we even think we know why. I know I do. Indeed, I felt that way long before I got into the movie business. So, how about a job where you're the one who decides what movie to make, and how it should be made? A producer. That sounded exciting to me a long time ago, and it still does. What's more, producing is that rare profession where you can start at the topif you control a super, terrific, dynamite script. There are many levels and categories of producing: line producers, executive producers, co-producers, associate producers, assistant producers. Line producers are physical production specialists. Executive producers get their credits for anything from arranging the money, to controlling the property, to being manager of the star or director, to being the studio executive overseeing the film. The associate producer title is a catchall, bestowed upon anyone the producer deems worthy. But the real deal is the producer. He or she runs the show. It's the producer, and only the producer, who accepts the Academy Award for best picture. I actually feel the same today as I did in 1967, when I was interviewed by a young kid writing for the now-defunctCinemamagazine. That young kid was Curtis Hanson, who has since entered the top echelon of writer-directors with an Academy Award best-screenplay win, plus best-director and best-picture nominations, forL.A. Confidential(after having directedThe River Wildfor me). When Hanson questioned why I chose to go into filmmaking, I replied: "Nothing could be more rewarding or stimulating. I think everyone in the business feels the same way. If every salary were cut in half, not one person would leave. I chose producing because it would coalesce both my background experience and modicum of ability in business with what I immodestly and laughingly thought of as my good taste and judgment. Boy, what fun to decide whether a picture should be made, to decide or influence a decision that something should be done this way instead of that way, and to see if I can get this artistic quality here within the framework of that kind of budget money there. Each day has new challenges, new battles, new struggles, new frustrations, new satisfactions. Each day as I wake up I figure I'll walk into the office and get hit with a right to the heart and a left to the kidney, but I love it. It's uphill all the way because it's so competitive and ephemeral and frustrating. There are many frustrations within the framework, but the satisfactions are just enormous. Even the complainers love it." There's hardly a better job around. A producer is the person who decides an idea, a character, or a story is worth telling. I initiate every single film project upon which I work; most of them would not have seen the light of day had I not decided to make them. I really believe that there are things nobody would see unless I photographed them. Diane Arbus That's exactly how I feel about most of the films I've produced. I'm the "starter" and also the "finisher," and am therefore inTurman, Lawrence is the author of 'So You Want to Be a Producer', published 2005 under ISBN 9781400051663 and ISBN 1400051665.