Special Skills
An executive producer must be a good businessperson, a leader, and
have strong people skills. "It's a people business," says Machlis. "You
have to be able to get along with people. You have to be able to see what
makes people tick. You also need an understanding of decision making,
and be able to think on your feet and make the right decision when
things are tough." Executive producers must also be creative problem
solvers. For Cider House Rules, Blomquist explains, "I had to learn about
apple farming and how to keep the apples on the trees longer than they
normally stay, because we needed to film late in the season."
Advice for Someone Seeking This Job
Blomquist suggests getting on set as a production assistant or intern
and observing what everyone does, then determine what you want to do
and map your path. "If you want to be a costume designer, design things
and go and work on smaller movies as a designer. If you want to be a
prop person, work only in the art department." Once you know what it is
you want to do, commit to work only in that area. Too many people take
jobs in areas they are not interested in, just to make money. Before long,
they get typecast in the role of a production assistant or grip, when what
they really want to do is produce or direct. "They wake up and it's three
or four years later and they are a fill-in-the-blank, because that's what
they get identified as.
"Get on a set. Observe. Then take what you've learned and put it into
practice. Go schedule a movie, even if it is in the abstract. Get a script and
break it down into a production board. There are computer programs for
all of this stuff that will help, but they don't do the thinking for you. You
have to think. You can't shoot nights and then [shoot] the next day,
because the crew can't finish at 6 A.M. and start back at 7 A.M. So, if you
go from nights to day, you're going to lose an entire shooting day. You
have to shoot Friday night into Saturday so people have the weekend to
turn around, and you can start [shooting] days again on Monday."
Unless you have enough money to finance a production yourself, you
will not start out as a producer. Get on set as a production assistant and
strive to get in the director's guild so you can work as an assistant direc-
tor (AD), then make the leap into producing. Or go into locations and
work into production management, then into producing.
"Do anything you can to learn as much as you can about all different
facets of the filmmaking process," says Machlis. "Experience as much as
you can and make sure you have great people skills."
User Comments Add a comment…