Recently I was talking with a friend who is a producer. I asked him if he would do something in support of his show and he replied that no, he’s the producer he doesnt do that, implying that it was below him. Inside I shrugged and thought, with that mentality your show will never grow.
I’ve been a network producer for a decade and many times I’ve asked myself, what does a producer do? My answer: a producer does whatever is needed to support the project and the team.
That literally means anything. Sometimes the job of producer is getting coffee for everyone. Or it’s booking high profile guest. Or it’s booking reservations. Or it’s managing a large crew. Or it’s being in charge of the entire editorial concept. It often means over-communicating to ensure everyone’s input is valued.
What makes a great producer is understanding what other people need and providing it to them. That’s more challenging with demanding “talent” but can be as equally challenging to suck up your ego and just do whatever it takes to succeed. We often say when a project goes well, the talent did a great job when a project goes poorly, it’s the producer’s fault.
A lot of producers that work in creating videos do not have technical skills. They can’t shoot. They can’t edit. They don’t know the difference between the aperture and the frame rate and I just don’t get that. I don’t understand how you can be a producer and not be curious. Don’t you want to know what it is you’re making? Don’t you want to know how it’s made? That doesn’t mean you’ll be the one making the picture look beautiful, although it helps if you understand how to do that.
Creating any production on stage or on screen is a tremendous undertaking. It takes a team of people focused on a goal to accomplish something. And then it’s over and then you do the next one. And every time you do it if you’re the producer, you should always be thinking yourself: How can I support the people around me and how can I make this project succeed? So to know what a producer does is essentially a series of questions that the producer asked themselves.
