What Is A Producer?

What does a producer do?

Live a life of glamour, parties and celebs?

The odd cell phone call between lunches?

Catch a private screening, among friends?

In my case, sadly not.

The truth is, I don’t really know what a producer does.

I just do my job “ Make shit happen” “ Have an idea & run with it”

Text Stress On time On budget On brief My Job Skills Network Clients Designers Programmers Thinkers Creatives Planners Illustrators Animators Film-makers Editors Copywriters Graffiti artists Musicians Sound designers Corporations Journalists Organisation Plan Document Brief Pitch & present Co-ordinate Foresee Negotiate Budget Multi-task Problem-solve Critical Art direction Technical Manage Trust Creativity Reliability Quality

Why do you need to know about producers, you’re creatives?

I do all the stuff you can’t do You do all the stuff I can’t do = Symbiosis

How do you become “a producer”?

Text Rejected Oxford, ECA, Radio 1, Jazz Cafe, JWT, Grey, Hi-Res!, Pentagram, The Guardian, Penguin, Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, Channel4, &c &c My Career Path My Career Path A Levels (91-93) English, French, German. Art & Design. Degree (93-97) English Lit. Canongate (97-01) Gopher. Assistant. Amanuensis. Damien Hirst. Andy Warhol. Gil Scott Heron. Connections Fun. No money. Recommend it. Screenbase (01-05) Work in. Work out. Burn out. Apt Studio (05-) Creative consultancy, Great boss.

Some Work 1. Canongate Books

Snowblind Damien Hirst, Howard Marks. 1998

Andy Warhol: The Factory Years. Nat Finkelstein, Angus Hyland. 1999

The Pocket Canons. God, Angus Hyland (1999)

2. Pop Promos for Books

Short Films inspired by books Open brief ‘ Viral’ online distribution Film festivals, DVDs, Creative Review Drive traffic to Canongate site Sell lots of books Wrote business plan for SAC / Lottery Awarded £25,000 development The Concept

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. (Dir. Intro) Gil Scott Heron promo: www.aptstudio.com/portfolio/gil.htm

Hey, Nostradamus! (Dir. Mickey Stretton) Doug Coupland promo: http://www.aptstudio.com/heynostradamus/

Life of Pi (Dir. Hoss Gifford) Life of Pi promo: http://hossgifford.com/pi/

The Baghdad Blog (Dir. Intro) Baghdad Blog promo: http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/

Anatomy: The Long Tail

Get offered a promo 4 week deadline Random House UK (New Client) Personally requested by CEO Talk to Hoss: “ yes, it can be done” Objectives Build Word of Mouth Announce it to geeks Encourage UK sales Make RH look cool Strategy Chris’ blog - massively popular Launch exclusive PDF through blog Use promo as extra honey pot: YouTube, Google Creative Commons, Adwords Belt & braces Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy). Luck i.e. get paid to do some sexy promo work again. Whilst on holiday. We’ll come onto that... Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

‘ Nutshell’ the book Simple, smart, minimal animation of key statistics and insights from the book. Visual language of informatics, but made sexy and funky with elegant typography. Mixture of vector, 3d, type. ‘ Win an award’ Creative brief

Visual approach & mood References “ Tone of voice” Audio reference Voice reference Find balance between winning work & setting bar way too high Pitch approach to client

#1 Royksopp, Remind Me Royskopp promo: http://64.207.133.64/spotPopupMovie.php?id=911&qual=1

#2 Orange, The Sea Orange ‘The Sea’ ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raji46D-N2E

Text Text Text #3 Sony Bravia Bravia ad: http://www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviaextcommhigh.html

#4 Nannou, Aphex Twin Nannou: http://videos. antville .org/stories/1286803/

SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS. VOICEOVER Visuals “ WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US. OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS. THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.” Stage 2: Final Script, voiceover and timings Single dots fly past the camera with animated annotations appearing as they pass with the names of the hits that they represent. 2 sec 50f An explosion of less vibrant dots creating a galaxy of non hits, not annotated. Camera starts flying through galaxy. 10 sec 250f Galaxy of dots swarm to fill pie chart with hits accounting for small slither of pie. 19 sec 475f Hit dots from pie chart swarm to fill highly ordered grid formation. Animated annotation tags hits as ‘Books in Borders superstore’. Miss dots now swarm in to extend grid 40 times larger (gun scene in Matrix stylee) and tags misses as ‘40 x more books on Amazon’. 26 sec 650f All dots fly through air doing a sexy swirl and ending up building the long tail graph curve. Book fades in to right of graph. 35 sec 875f Graph dots fly to build Chris Anderson’s face as book spins to back to reveal testimonial quotes. 44 sec 1100f

Stage 3: Creative process

Beery bubbles

Labels

Pie Charts

Pie Charts w/ labels

Long Tails

Stage 4: Audio. Brief “ Find the voice” (No budget for professionals) My view: Female Accented Future of business: China

Voiceover: Xiao “ WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US. OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS. SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS. THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.” __________ REJECTED BY CLIENT ___________

Voiceover: Kelsey “ WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US. OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS. SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS. THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.” ___________ REJECTED BY CLIENT ___________

Voiceover: Maria “ WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US. OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS. SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS. THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.” ___________ AUDITION ACCEPTED ___________

43 individual takes to tape in the studio None of them perfect Cut up and piece together one take

Meanwhile, back at Hoss’ ranch, a wireframe... Wireframe run-through: http://64.13.209.91/apt/wireframe.mov

Scene 1 fully rendered with lables Rendered scene 1 http://64.13.209.91/apt/scene1.mov

Proof w/ Boards of Canada audio track... and a happy client Proof: http://64.13.209.91/apt/proofBOCaudio.mov

Final renders, 4 days to go before deadline Everyone happy Sudden heatwave in Scotland Hoss’ motherboard & graphics card blow up Hoss buys new MacBook to handle it No right click Hoss buys 3 motherboards and graphics cards from 3 suppliers 1 gets there on time But not before Hoss’ stag weekend in Ibiza Render farm contract expires When you have a happy client, and are on time - shit happens. Video: http://64.13.209.91/apt/pstormmed.mov

Final Version www.longtailbook.co. uk

What kind of a person becomes a producer?

What is a producer? Networked Clients Talent Emergency services Literate Client needs, talent needs Design, technical - whatever your field is: speak that language fluently Make yourself an expert Focused Planning, timing, resource, detail Has Plan A, but also, Plan B, Plan C... Hungry Looking at new projects New talent New approaches New technologies Lateral thinking Lucky “ Golf is a game of luck. The more I practise, the luckier I get...” always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

p.s: Anatomy: Salam Pax

Get offered a promo 4 week deadline Guardian / Atlantic Books 5k budget Pitch: hi-res, banksy, intro adrian convinces me: “ we’ll squeeze it in between robbie & bobby” Meta-marketing Put up website to capture email addresses & google Belt & braces Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy) Luck 15,000 email addresses captured in six weeks GNL photo archive GNL server platform Salam blogged it Aphex got involved Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

• thursday 19 september 2002 – I really wish that Massive Attack would start worrying about the delay in their album release rather than this • friday 21 March 2:05pm They said that nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and are flying 'presumably' towards Iraq. Anyway, they have six hours to get here... • saturday 21 september IRAQI PEOPLE WILL EXPERIENCE PROSPERITY UNKNOWN TO THEM IRAQI PEOPLE WILL SEE THEY HAVE A FRIEND WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE – Sure, IRAQ WILL NO LONGER CONTRIBUTE MONEY TO TERRORIST GROUPS – Wwe will contribute cheap reliable oil to keep western economies going • Monday 23 september Remember – never try to do work or drive while listening to Bjork or Aphex Twin – they do strange things to your brain cells. • saturday 12 October THE WHITE HOUSE PLAN TO INSTALL AN AMERICAN-LED MILITARY GOVERNMENT IN IRAQ. – Don’t expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new colonists Stage 1. Read book, draft script, agree script. • Saturday, 2 November 2002 – I think by now we all agree that I talk too much and need someone to take the keyboard away from me. • tuesday 12 november WORLD SEES CHANCE FOR PEACE – Funny, the world sees peace while I have to prepare a bomb shelter in my house.. • tuesday 17 december – There are three things you can do whenever you like in Iraq get seriously ill get arrested get executed • sunday 16 march – No one inside Iraq is for war (note I said war not a change of regime). We are not suicidal you know. How could 'support democracy in Iraq' come to mean ' bomb the hell out of Iraq?' • thursday 20 march – Someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been taken over taken by US broadcast. That didn’t happen (6.40 am) • friday 21 march 6:05 Two more hours until the B52s get to Iraq MAINSTREAM MEDIA REPORTS Salam’s Blog

Salam’s own photos - not good enough Photo library - too expensive What to do? Go through entire GNL photojournalism archive for images tagged according to our script Stage 2. Source Assets for the promo

Stage 3: Luck Intro does work for me Intro does work for Warp Warp publish Aphex Twin Aphex loves Salam Aphex gives us any tune to use, for the promo,free

Treatment

Animatic Animatic: http://64.13.209.91/apt/TestBlog.mov

Final Cut Baghdad Blog promo: http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/

Final Cut 15,000 email addresses 1,300,000 hits 70,000 Unique Visitors In 14 Days 15,000 Downloads Of Chapter 1 Integrated Campaign With Guardian Newspapers & GuardianUnlimited Project Delivered In 5 Weeks Massive Profile International Coverage & Attention Creative Review OneDotZero, DVD, Tour BBC 'We were knocked out by the creativity and intelligence of Screenbase. They connected our book to its market perfectly, and were fast, accurate and highly responsive to our needs. I would recommend them unconditionally to anyone seeking to market their books in a smart way.' Toby Mundy, Atlantic Books

Thank you. [email_address] com

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What Is A Producer?

by apt on Nov 28, 2006

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What Is A Producer? — Presentation Transcript