Who is the producer?

Producer: the core figure behind the film

For the public, movies are entertainment, which allows us to enter another world. People care about stars, stories and entertainment effects. For business people, they usually show great interest in film investment, box office, derivative products and advertisements. However, for managers who want to be inspired by the operation of the film industry, we should not ignore that there are hundreds of people behind almost every film, which lasts for months to years, and behind every picture is their cooperation, conflict and harmony. Behind the scenes of every movie, producers, producers, directors, photography directors and star actors need to "reach an agreement" on investment, art and technology. The relationship between them at work level and social level is of reference significance to the managers of innovative organizations.

Here we will focus on the "executive producer", an unknown core role in the film industry, responsible for the daily operation and planning of the film. Producers are often confused with two other roles in the film industry, the producer and the production manager. The former is the investor of the film, also known as the producer. The latter is a middle-level post in film production, responsible for specific operational affairs and responsible for directors and producers.

As for the producer's role, some people describe it this way: "He usually represents the producer or the legal person of the production company, is responsible for the overall budget of the film crew and the preparation of the specific filming schedule plan, supervises the director's artistic creation and expenditure on behalf of the producer, and also assists the director in arranging specific daily affairs. In the film crew, producers and directors are often a pair of contradictions. They are often tit-for-tat, holding their own opinions and not giving in to each other. They only shook hands when the film was finished. "

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Open any Hollywood movie poster, and we can see three or five lines of dense staff list at the bottom of the screen. For the ordinary audience, these long and thin words are almost meaningless-if there are one or several movie stars in the film that are already well known to the audience, the filmmakers will definitely increase their names and put them at the intersection of two golden lines in the poster screen.

However, the public's expectation for the Hollywood industry does not lie in what kind of artistic films these prestigious directors and actors can create. One after another, the finished products of the film industry, which make consumers amuse themselves to death in front of the big screen, are the most fascinating products in this entertainment era. Producer is the core role of film industrialization.

As the list on the movie poster of World War II shows, even though the producer's public awareness is far less than that of the big-name stars behind him, as the core figures in the film industry, their position is always ahead of the director. According to Hollywood standards, the core members of the production team are executive producers and producers.

In a film production team, there are usually two main parts. One is the art part that the director is responsible for. The director directs the actors' performance and decides the presentation of the picture. He wants to stimulate the actors' performance ability and determine the overall artistic effect of the film. The other is the operation part, which is the responsibility of the producer. Usually, he makes a film production plan: when to start shooting, when to finish shooting, and how is the progress. He is also responsible for the logistics of film production. In fact, the team he leads is responsible for almost everything except art.

Producer reality in China

"I don't know if you have read my new book" Hollywood Revelation ". In the bookstore, it is always misplaced on the shelves of movies. In fact, what I said in it is a business model. " Faced with this artistic and commercial confusion, film critic andrew chow is somewhat helpless. The same situation also appears in China's film industry, such as the attitude towards the role of producer.

On July 2 1 day, the film Namco, which was produced by Wang Xiaoshuai, started in Beijing. Previously, the film "Green Red" directed by Wang Xiaoshuai won the jury prize of Cannes Film Festival, and Wang Xiaoshuai's popularity jumped to a new peak after the film "Seventeen-year-old Bicycle".

"The case of Namtso was originally a production company that came to me for cooperation. I just finished filming and don't want to be a director right away. Therefore, the best solution is for me as a producer to integrate all resources. " Wang Xiaoshuai explains his role in the cast. "At present, many producers in China are artists, and my work in Namco crew focuses on artistic creation. For me, it is difficult to balance the market and art. "

The position of this responsibility is far from the description of the producer in the American film industry. "Usually producers are not made by pure artists. Producers should be management. He holds the money and is in charge of how to spend it, which is equivalent to the representative of the boss. He needs different qualities from the director. Producers need to know both art and business. " In response to Wang Xiaoshuai's explanation, andrew chow said:

In recent years, there are few successful producer cases in China film market. In China's film production system, the post of producer is often held by some "authority figures" who have little to do with films. Speaking of this situation, Gong, a professor of management at Beijing Film Academy, felt a lot: "I have participated in many such things. Although I don't have much social influence, if I hang a professor from the management department of Beijing Film Academy on the' producer', it is still a bit different on the surface. "

Although it exists in name only, such post setting can objectively promote the market distribution of films. In 2004, Hero and House of Flying Daggers were released in America. As Milla Max Company successfully invited Quentin valentino, the director of the box office blockbuster Bomber Bill, as the producer when Hero was released in the United States, a large number of action movie fans entered the cinema out of recognition of Quentin. However, when House of Flying Daggers was released, its overseas cumulative box office of $8 1 10,000 was less than that of $0/23 million of Hero14, even though the martial arts craze continued to heat up around the world.

"One of my films was also produced by Quentin, but it was not realized for some domestic reasons. Otherwise, when it is released overseas, if there are famous producers, it will receive more attention from all sides. " Wang Xiaoshuai said, "Both Tian Zhuangzhuang and Jiang Wen have worked as producers, and their role is to support young directors to take the first step. Like my producer Namco, I also hope to help the market of this film. "

Balance between telephone poles

In the crew, the director and producer are two power centers, and sometimes there are even conflicts or ultra vires, so that one party's power is completely overhead. "Producers often claim that' the crew is in harmony'. In fact, this situation is absolutely rare. If there is a media report that an important member of a crew has withdrawn from the crew because of physical discomfort, it is actually the result of the power struggle within the crew. " Andrew chow thinks.

The Hollywood blockbuster Gone with the Wind 1940 won the best picture Oscar. However, during the filming process, the film crew was interfered by the iron-fisted producer David O 'Selznick, and the guide changed hands. After the film was released, the American media pointed out that Gone with the Wind was actually completed under the close monitoring and careful guidance of Selznick. As for the so-called Oscar-winning director, in fact, the workload of the three directors before and after is only about half that of Selznick.

In China, Jiang Wen, who appeared twice in high profile, frequently pushed himself into the center of the drama storm because of his strong acting skills. From the day when Jiang Wen produced the film Looking for a Gun, director Lu Chuan hinted in various media more than once that the film was only a film "directed by Jiang Wen and signed by Lu Chuan", which showed that Jiang Wen, as a producer, interfered with the director's affairs too much. Two years later, "The Barber", which started shooting for several years but didn't see the finished product, exposed the contradiction between producer Jiang Wen and director Chen Yifei in front of the media.

Faced with frequent conflicts between domestic directors and producers, Wang Xiaoshuai said: "Producers and directors should not be antagonistic. I will try my best to communicate smoothly with the director and push the film in the same direction. "

The producer's duty is to find a balance between artistic effects and commercial interests. If the director is in charge of finance, he will usually stubbornly insist on increasing capital investment to ensure the quality of the film. However, any commercial project is not allowed to overspend endlessly. Because of the contradiction between artistic position and administrative position, directors and producers need to communicate frequently. Both sides should weigh the weight and decide whether to insist or make concessions. The movie Titanic was a huge box office success, but director James Cameron had to face the embarrassing situation of "no drama to shoot" for a long time. Because Cameron is too strong in the cast, the producers simply can't control the flow of film funds. People in the industry clearly realize that such an extreme success model will not be copied.

"The production team of commercial films must have checks and balances. Although power can sometimes make movies move forward more smoothly, if only one person in the crew has the final say, the whole production process will become an irrational gamble. " Andrew chow said. Cleopatra is the tragic product of this imbalance of power. Under the director's totalitarian rule, this box office poison hit a huge deficit of180 thousand dollars. Coupled with inflation and other factors, it was an astronomical figure for the American economy at that time, and the investor 20th Century Fox Company almost went bankrupt.

Noun explanation:

Producer, also known as "producer", refers to the investor of the film. The commercial nature of the film determines that the producer is the owner of a film, and has the right to decide all the affairs of filming, including what kind of script to shoot, hiring directors, photographers and actors, and sending filmmakers to manage the filming funds, audit the filming funds and control the whole filming process. After the film is finished, the producer will develop and print the film and publicize and sell it to the market.

Executive producer. Producers are usually appointed by producers or production companies as legal persons. Responsible for the total budget of the film crew and the specific shooting schedule plan of the film, supervise the director's artistic creation and expenditure on behalf of the producer, and also assist the director in arranging specific daily affairs.

Production manager (literally translated as production manager) is a middle-level post in film production, responsible for specific operational affairs and responsible for directors and producers.

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