Unit 8, 3.3 "Explain the role of a specific team within the organisation."

Unit 8, 3.3 - "Explain the role of a specific team within the organisation."


The producer’s role is vital within filmmaking. It's a role that, before I entered my apprenticeship, I took as being just the, "boring, business-side" of the industry.


The producer is involved from start to finish on the project. From the get-go when the idea is pitched, through all the stages of the filmmaking  process and beyond.


In my company, we have two producers - one producer and one co-producer. Both have their own projects they are working on. Our companies main producer is working on an adaptation of successful, cult book and two other projects, while the co-producer works on promos, shorts, and has a stake in one of our companies other feature films. 


A producer's job is essentially to get the film financed and out there in whatever capacity it needs to be (omline, straight-to-DVD or in the cinema.)


In some cases, before there are any investors in the film, the producer will put their own money forward (something I am sure that the producer at my company did on our first feature.)


Major aspects of the project are controlled by the producer. These include raising the funds for the project and hiring the film's director.


Sometimes, as with the case in my company, the director is the one that comes to the producer with the idea. This is usually singular to small companies like my own.


A producer makes all the important decisions, with the director's input. Essentially, the success of a film lies in the producer's hands (something I had no grasp on whatsoever before my apprenticeship). Though the director has a lot of say in what happens with the film, most of these decisions come down to the aesthetics of it, and not necessarily who is going to finance the project.


It will be the producer that hires someone to rewrite the script if needed, not the director.


Before learning all of this about the producer's role within a film (and my own company), I had no idea why the Best Picture Academy Award would be handed over to, what was to me, the business mogul. 


Now it makes sense why this rule is in place for the Oscars.