The job of TV/film producer is not easily defined, and in fact it differs significantly for different types of production, eg feature films, commercials, documentaries, sitcoms etc. Although this article is mainly concerned with music promo production, the producer's task is always largely one of organisation and people management, and so there are no rules to say that a person shouldn't move sideways from one area to another.

Status

On larger projects the term producer is used with a variety of rather vague prefixes to mean a variety of equally vague things. The title of executive producer tends to infer a senior position although it is sometimes merely a matter of status and the custodian's involvement may possibly be no more (and indeed no less) than the provision of a large amount of the production budget.

An associate producer is usually a person who works with the producer, possibly to head a production team that will consist of one or more production managers and production assistants. The production managers will be responsible for all the day to day arrangements for the shoot but will look to the producer (or executive producer) to make the major decisions who will in turn be ultimately responsible to the client, ie the record company and the band, for delivering the final product and for keeping within the budget. A production assistant is more or less a junior production manager.

The titles are very flexible, and on smaller productions you may have just one person solely responsible for all production concerns, or sometimes the director might also be the producer. Some producers will have more direct creative input than do others but the job is basically to provide the organisational cohesion to makesure that everything happens when and how it should according to the client's wishes, with sufficient diplomacy that no one gets too upset in the process.

Education

There are courses available that deal with production as part of a more general curriculum (see below for details of colleges) but they are mostly at post-graduate level or designed for people already in the industry. Most successful producers, it seems, came up through the ranks. Gordon Lewis is the man behind GLO, one of the more successful and respected music promo production companies in town. However, he didn't always get to wear the big hat:

Gordon: "I came up through ITV, ie London Weekend Television. There I worked my way through the system and got a series of breaks, because breaks are what it's all about, don't let anyone tell you anything else — most people come through the system. I started as a messenger boy, worked in the film library, then in the video library, then I went into transmission checking off all the programmes to make sure that it was the right episode of a series, or the right day of a series of adverts, and so on.

"LWT is a weekend company, and so my 40 hours was built into Friday, Saturday, Sunday. A lot of the editing of programmes was done at weekends and so working there gave me a chance to meet a lot of top directors and producers. The best of those were freelance, because if you're freelance you can do more of the work you like and get more money etc. One of the guys I met was a director called Mike Mansfield who at that time was just about to set up his own company and he asked me to come and work with him for a while. Initially it was just for three months, but that turned into five years. I learned an awful lot with Mike."

At 23 years old, Helen Langrove is currently head of international music video production for Lee Lacey. Her beginnings couldn't have keen more humble:

Helen: "I started off at seventeen as a receptionist at Shepperton Studios, and then from there I went to work for Ridley Scott (a large TV production company) as head of post production."

This seems not unlike a hospital porter being promoted to brain surgeon... how?

"I was at Shepperton for about two years, and as the receptionist and bookings person I was the one that all the clients saw and talked to every day. I would really recommend it as a way to get in, and in fact I was offered a lot of jobs while I was there, one of which was the one from Ridley Scott. It was quite incredible because I knew nothing about post production at all; I was thrown right in at the deep end and just had to learn to swim as I went along.

Just Keep Smiling

"The only reason I survived the first few months of that job was because I suddenly realised that, not only did I not know what was going on, but nobody else did either. Somebody would say, 'let's get the LRI's and the dupe prints down on Wednesday', and everyone would say, 'yeah, good idea', because nobody really knew what they were!"

After a year with Ridley Scott, Helen managed to get some financial backing and left to startup her own music promo production company, Umbrella.

Helen: "I approached some established directors, put some show reels together, and started going round the record companies promoting my directors; you have to convince the record company's executive, who is also under a huge amount of pressure, that you can do the job and that you are the right person to entrust with his budget. I had quite a few contacts, but it was the same old situation — everybody wants to have lunch with you but no one wants to give you a job; the first year cost me about £15,000, and most of that was on phone calls and entertaining. It was about four months before we got a job, and after that things were a little easier, but even then we just didn't have the size to do what I wanted to, which was to expand into the American market. That's why after about a year I took the job at Lee Lacey which gives me the freedom to work with acts internationally."

After all the organising is done, the point of the whole exercise is the production of the right video for the client, and so an eye for the right director is a major factor.

Gordon: "In 1981, after five years with Mike, I decided to set up on my own. There were a lot of people around calling themselves directors but there was nothing really outrageous or new happening, and so I wanted to set up on my own and find some new blood. Taking on new directors is like backing horses. You can get a gut feeling about someone, it can be a great idea and they might be full of confidence — 'I know I can do it', and all that, but until it's actually done and on the screen, you just never know if it's going to work; as a producer you have to take risks if you're ever going to do anything out of the ordinary. In many ways I'm totally in the hands of the director: a producer is as good as his director, and vice versa, it's very much a two-way partnership.

The Risk You Take

"Tim (GLO director, Tim Pope) is very much in demand these days, and Peter (the second GLO director, Peter Care) is now becoming established; Consequently, the sums involved can be very substantial, for instance next week Peter is doing a Thomas Dolby shoot and the total budget for that is around £60,000. In one way a successful producer an have a lot of fun and there is a certain amount of glamour involved, but on the other hand it is a lot of responsibility; I mean what happens if the record company doesn't like the final product, or the band don't like your director and walk off the set, or the company who are financing it go into liquidation and leave you with the bills? At the final count it's all down to the producer and so you have to have very good organisational skills, you have to be able to judge and handle people and you have to be very level headed under pressure."

Is being a video producer less risky than being a director?

Gordon: "No, not necessarily. On the other hand, video direction is very much a young man's thing, there are always fresh new faces coming up with new ideas — maybe that's why I became a producer (laughs), and that's why I've got two of the youngest guys around as my directors. I'm better at organising and keeping it all together, that's why I'm a producer."

National Film and Television School, (Contact Details)
London International Film School Ltd. (Contact Details)
Polytechnic of Central London, (Contact Details)