The role of the Producer

A Producer comes up with the ideas first and foremost. Ideas for programmes, films, or items, or people, pieces of music and subjects for discussion. Then they create the conditions for film, television or radio production.

The Producer initiates, coordinates. supervises and controls matters such as fundraising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors. The producer is involved throughout all phases of the filmmaking process from the development of the project to its completion.

Some examples of successful producers are:

David Puttnam is one of the most successful British Film Producers. Hailed as the saviour of British Films in the early eighties, he began his career in advertising. He has produced such films as Bugsy Malone, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, The Killing Fields and Local Heros. Discovering directors Ridgly Scott and Alan Parker, also from the world of advertising.

Jerry Bruckheimer is another very prominent film and television producer in the genres of action, drama and science fiction. His best known series are CSI: Crime Scene Investigations and The Amazing Race. His best known films include Top Gun, The Rock, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Black Hawk Down, Pirates of the Caribbean, King Arthur, Con Air, Gone in Sixty Seconds and National Treasure. Jerry Bruckheimer also started his career in advertising coincidentally.

My experiences this semester so far with production have mainly come from producing a radio programme with Adam, Tom and Aleicia as part of our Sound module with Gill Sargent. Although the project itself was very much a 'group' one, and we all took on multiple roles, I felt I naturally took on the role of executive producer, steering the project and making executive decisions regarding time tables and scheduling, editing and music, and allocating tasks. I don't feel this was in opposition to anyone else in the group and thoroughly enjoyed the role. I was also the main presenter throughout, which I felt worked well, particularly with the flow and the continuity of the piece. I also wrote much of the script, a role that naturally falls to the producer in radio broadcasting.