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3rd Year Project: Research into my roles - Producer

In order to maximise the effectiveness of myself for this project, I decided to do some more research into the main roles that I was going to be undertaking, namely Producer, Director and Editor. I have been in these roles before, however they were not for a project this big, therefore I wanted to know more about what these roles mean and how they influence each other

The role of Producer is one that I have been in before, but I have always been part of a group, so being a producer working on my own made me nervous, as I was not able to get the opinions of other people and then make a final decision. I knew that the Producer made the majority, if not all, of the decisions for the film, such as who acts in it and the locations. However, there were some things that I found out about the role that I did not know. I did not know that their primary responsibility is to foster an environment in which the creative talents of the cast and crew can flourish. Producers are therefore ultimately accountable for the success of the finished film. A producer often has to find the idea, bring together the creative team, secure the financing of the project and then be responsible for delivering the film or TV programme to the distributor or broadcaster. One quote that I found about being a documentary producer was from Christine Venegas, who is a documentary producer in Los Angeles, and she said that "Being a producer means you have to do everything if you want to see the project through. Most documentaries are done on a shoestring budget, and you wear many hats in the course of the project."

One other thing that I found out about the role of Producer is the producer's role carries on all the way through the project, from the idea to the final release or transmission of the  project, the development, pre-production, production, post-production and marketing. It is rare to find one producer who has the expertise and vision across all four phases of production, therefore producers normally delegate some functions to executive producers, co-producers, line producers and associate producers. However, as mentioned before, it is the producer who is ultimately responsible for the majority of the producing functions throughout all the processes.

There were also some skills that I found out that a Producer needs. I knew that they had to be good at communicating with people, but I did not think about the other skills that a producer needs to have, such as being a good businessperson, strategists, motivators, negotiators and creative visionaries with the ability to spot potential problems before they materialise and the drive to do whatever it takes to get the production made. They need to be able to see the commercial opportunity in a creative idea and know how to secure the finance and team to see that idea see production and distribution. I think that the reason as to why I hadn't thought about a producer having these skills is that I thought the producer delegated roles to other people who had some of these skills, and the producer made decisions based on the work that these people presented

After doing this research, I can see how straining the role of Producer can be for people, and also how important it is. I can now see how I am going to have to change what I do when I approach my documentary. I am going to have to make sure that I include all that I need, as I do not have anyone to delegate any jobs, so I will have to be careful with planning

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