Producing a Director

One week and counting till principle photography begins on the feature film "Rising Stars." Today I'm going to spend a lot of time at locations, visualizing how the scenes will play out... blocking, camera angles and such.

One big opportunity on this movie has been the ability to begin focusing on just directing. All my past movies, I produced. Which is a big hat to wear while directing.

I got asked last night by a friend outside the film business what a producer does. "Don't they just oversee the editing and such?" I explained... The producer is the one that brings the whole movie together. The producer gets/finds/secures "The Idea." Then they get the idea written out (by bringing on a scriptwriter). Of course by finding a script, they lump these two things in to one.

Then the producer starts assembling the team, while at the same time, securing funding. Usually, whoever brings the funding to the table gets final say on everything, so that's normally the producer. The producer will approve the script, the cast, and anything that impacts the budget.

The producer during prep will assist the production team by filling in any holes. They also might test the team to find the leaks so that they can be addressed early.

During the shooting, the producer will generally stay out of the way and help where needed (usually administration fires that need put out). They protect the Director on the set.

Afterwards, they oversee all the post production, bringing all the elements together for the final version. Then the hard job begins (for the indie producer) where they work hard to find distribution.

On this movie, I'm very fortunate to have some good Producers who are allowing me to just focus on the creative... handling all the fires I usually take care of at this point.

So I'm just going to walk the campus today and visualize creative stuff.