{"product_id":"so-you-want-to-be-a-producer-isbn-9781400051663","title":"So You Want to Be a Producer","description":"Few jobs in Hollywood are as shrouded in mystery as the role of the producer. What does it take to be a producer, how does one get started, and what on earth does one actually do? In \u003ci\u003eSo You Want to Be a Producer\u003c\/i\u003e Lawrence Turman, the producer of more than forty films, including \u003ci\u003eThe Graduate\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe River Wild\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eShort Circuit\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmerican History X\u003c\/i\u003e, and Endowed Chair of the famed Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California, answers these questions and many more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExamining all the nuts and bolts of production, such as raising money and securing permissions, finding a story and developing a script, choosing a director, hiring actors, and marketing your project,\u003ci\u003e So You Want to Be a Producer\u003c\/i\u003e is a must-have resource packed with insider information and first-hand advice from top Hollywood producers, writers, and directors, offering invaluable help for beginners and professionals alike. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIncluding a comprehensive case study of Turman’s film \u003ci\u003eThe Graduate\u003c\/i\u003e, this complete guide to the movie industry’s most influential movers and shakers brims with useful tips and contains all the information you need to take your project from idea to the big screen.“Turman has made smart, superior films for forty years. This is a no B.S., straight-forward, and clear guide to being a producer.” —Paul Newman, Oscar-winning actor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A smart, savvy survivor’s guide to the glamorous (and treacherous) producing game.” —Peter Bart, editor in chief, \u003ci\u003eVariety\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Far more than a simple how-to book, Larry tells you what it really takes to get a movie made—and how you can make a career of making movies.” —Jeffrey Katzenberg, cofounder of DreamWorks and executive producer of \u003ci\u003eShrek 2\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eShark Tale\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s worth four years of film school.” —David Brown, four-time Oscar-nominated producer of \u003ci\u003eChocolat\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Verdict\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Few Good Men\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003ci\u003e Jaws\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Whether you’re just starting in this business or a seasoned professional, there is something to be learned from Larry’s book. This is a must-read!” —Jane Rosenthal, cofounder and producer of the Tribeca Film FestivalLawrence Turman has produced more than forty films, including \u003ci\u003eThe Graduate, The River Wild, Short Circuit\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmerican History X\u003c\/i\u003e, and is the Endowed Chair of the famed Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California.\u003cb\u003eWHY BE A PRODUCER?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis [RKO Studio] is the biggest electric train set any boy ever had!\u003c\/i\u003e —Orson Welles\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      Why not be a producer? Would you rather sell shoes for a living? Or be an  accountant? Both are honorable occupations, but wouldn’t you like to wake  up eager to go to work, use every part of yourself while at work, and  maybe, just maybe, have a tiny impact on the world? That’s why I’m doing  it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We all like movies. Heck, that’s why you bought this book. We’re all  critics, too; we know what is a good movie, and we know what isn’t. A lot  of times we even think we know why. I know I do. Indeed, I felt that way  long before I got into the movie business. So, how about a job where  you’re the one who decides what movie to make, and how it should be made?  A producer. That sounded exciting to me a long time ago, and it still  does. What’s more, producing is that rare profession where you can start  at the top—if you control a super, terrific, dynamite script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There are many levels and categories of producing: line producers,  executive producers, co-producers, associate producers, assistant  producers. Line producers are physical production specialists. Executive  producers get their credits for anything from arranging the money, to  controlling the property, to being manager of the star or director, to  being the studio executive overseeing the film. The associate producer  title is a catchall, bestowed upon anyone the producer deems worthy. But  the real deal is the producer. He or she runs the show. It’s the producer,  and only the producer, who accepts the Academy Award for best picture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I actually feel the same today as I did in 1967, when I was interviewed by  a young kid writing for the now-defunct \u003ci\u003eCinema\u003c\/i\u003e magazine. That young kid  was Curtis Hanson, who has since entered the top echelon of  writer-directors with an Academy Award best-screenplay win, plus  best-director and best-picture nominations, for \u003ci\u003eL.A. Confidential \u003c\/i\u003e(after  having directed \u003ci\u003eThe River Wild\u003c\/i\u003e for me). When Hanson questioned why I chose  to go into filmmaking, I replied: “Nothing could be more rewarding or  stimulating. I think everyone in the business feels the same way. If every  salary were cut in half, not one   person would leave. I chose producing because it would coalesce both my  background experience and modicum of ability in business with what I  immodestly and laughingly thought of as my good taste and judgment. Boy,  what fun to decide whether a picture should   be made, to decide or influence a decision that something should be done  this way instead of that way, and to see if I can get this artistic  quality here within the framework of that kind of budget money there. Each  day has new challenges, new battles, new struggles, new frustrations, new  satisfactions. Each day as I wake up I figure I’ll walk into the office  and get hit with a right to the heart and a left   to the kidney, but I love it. It’s uphill all the way because it’s so  competitive and ephemeral and frustrating. There are many frustrations  within the framework, but the satisfactions are just enormous. Even the  complainers love it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There’s hardly a better job around. A producer is the person who decides  an idea, a character, or a story is worth telling. I initiate every single  film project upon which I work; most of them would not have seen the light  of day had I not decided to make them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI really believe that there are things nobody would see unless I  photographed them\u003c\/i\u003e. —Diane Arbus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That’s exactly how I feel about most of the films I’ve produced. I’m the  “starter” and also the “finisher,” and am therefore involved in every  aspect and most details of production. It may begin with an original idea  of mine (\u003ci\u003eCaveman\u003c\/i\u003e), a book (\u003ci\u003eThe Graduate, The Flim-Flam Man\u003c\/i\u003e), a play (\u003ci\u003eMass  Appeal, The Best Man\u003c\/i\u003e), reading a play prior to its production (\u003ci\u003eThe Great  White Hope, Tribute\u003c\/i\u003e), an original screenplay (\u003ci\u003eFull Moon on Blue Water,  Second Thoughts\u003c\/i\u003e), or an idea a writer brings to me (\u003ci\u003eRunning Scared\u003c\/i\u003e). In  all cases, I arrange for the financing, without which a project can’t get  off the ground. I work closely with the writer structuring and detailing  the story. I select the director and, with him or her, select the actors  and consult about   the look and style of the picture, as well as the actual production of the  film, including hiring the crew, editing, selecting the composer, and  discussing what kind of music is to be used and where it should be placed  in the film. I am also involved in the ad campaign and the overall  marketing and distribution strategies. As producer, I am the editor and  sounding board for all the other creative talents, hopefully enhancing  their work and coalescing all into a unified whole.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As a producer, you use every part of yourself. It’s always challenging;  you’re never bored. It’s creative, it’s working with interesting, diverse  people, exercising your taste, your judgment. You also get to meet and  know unusual, accomplished people—in my case, everyone from Wernher von  Braun, father of the space program, to Noel Coward, to Henry Kissinger.  The job involves travel to unusual places, for me from the Kentucky Derby  to the car races in Le Mans. Each movie project becomes a journey of  discovery. Each has different types of characters; each is in a different  setting or environment; each deals with things you haven’t seen or heard  before—you’re learning and growing all the time. And each movie involves a  new, different set of collaborators—all worldly, creative, and  stimulating—and many will become lifelong friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI love making movies . . . so much. I mean, there’s   plenty of pain and heartache, and every day is a roller coaster. . . . I  will never retire. I am a person who wants to discover and learn, and that  sort of drives me. . . . The experience of every movie is a different  experience of the variables in that equation, and that’s not only exciting  and dynamic, but it’s challenging in that trial and error, hopefully, if  you’re aware, moves you to a better, more evolved place the next day\u003c\/i\u003e. —Brian Grazer (Academy Award–winning producer of \u003ci\u003eA Beautiful Mind\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What could be more gratifying? Very little, I think. And I’ve just been  talking about the icing on the cake. The cake for me is my personal  expression. The idea or theme behind each film I choose to do is my  conscious or, sometimes, unconscious signature, through which I express my  values to my peers and to the world. I like to think—I do think—that I can  affect the world, or at least a few people in it. My concerns, my themes,  seem to be consistent. \u003ci\u003eAmerican History X\u003c\/i\u003e, a film I executive produced,  made audiences confront how destructive hate can be. It’s the story of an  American racist neo-Nazi skinhead who ultimately rejects that way of life,  but whose own brother is murdered as a consequence of his actions. \u003ci\u003eThe  Great White Hope\u003c\/i\u003e, which I produced thirty years earlier, was also about  racism. It was the story of the first African American heavyweight boxing  champion, Jack Johnson, who, by merely holding the title of world’s best,  inflamed not only the white boxing establishment but many people  throughout America. When Muhammed Ali visited the set, he told me, “That’s  my story!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe idea of getting to sit in a room with a cup of coffee and talk about a  story for a few hours is really one of the privileges and pleasures.  There’s nothing more fun than talking about some movie like \u003c\/i\u003eMemoirs of a  Geisha,\u003ci\u003e and you sit around with some really smart writer, and you’re  talking about how some woman might behave in 1920s Kyoto. And then,  literally a half-hour later, you’re talking about Custer and how he  changed American history. I just love a day that takes you from ancient  Rome to the Old West\u003c\/i\u003e. —Doug Wick (Academy Award winner for \u003ci\u003eGladiator\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Even the seemingly “guns and giggles” \u003ci\u003eRunning Scared \u003c\/i\u003e(Billy Crystal’s  first screen role), which I co-produced, had a serious underlying theme: two cops (Gregory Hines is the other) who are near   retirement decide to play it “safe” and avoid getting hurt by not tempting  danger. Except all hell breaks loose and they succeed by reverting to  their true natures, by not “running scared.” The moral? You’ve got to try  your hardest all the time, whether you’re a cop, athlete, or producer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003ci\u003eThe Best Man\u003c\/i\u003e, based on Gore Vidal’s play and which I co-produced, is a political movie about compromises, backroom deals,  distortions of the truth, the power of the press, and the glare of public  life, all of which are as pertinent today—if not more so—than decades ago  when we made the film. Those themes are pieces of myself. I’d like the  titles of those films, plus others I’ve produced, engraved on my  tombstone. (Well, there are a couple I’d like excised.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Is there anything more exhilarating than completing a film that began life  as an idea in your head and then sitting in a crowded movie theater,  hearing the audience laugh, or hold its collective breath, seeing tears  flow, and perhaps hearing some applause? For me, no—unless it’s seeing my  sons grow and flourish. But they also began life as an idea in my head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Is it a roller-coaster ride? For sure. One reason to be a producer is that  it’s a damn exciting life. I guarantee you’ll never be bored. But you’ll  also never be relaxed. As the great baseball player Satchel Paige said,  “Don’t look back. Someone might be gaining on you.” It’s not that it’s a  competition with your fellow producers. There are just so few movie slots  at each studio, and so many—too damn many—producers chasing them. That’s  why you have to be creative. And isn’t using your creativity in trying to  make movies, and then actually making them, the biggest reward? I think  so. You’re constantly using your imagination, your ingenuity, and your  brain power. Each day at work you’ll be living to the fullest. So why not  play the game, where you decide what movie to try to make, and sometimes  get it made? What beats that? Maybe scoring the winning touchdown in the  Super Bowl . . . but even that takes less creativity than producing movies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEach movie presents a genuine new challenge. On every movie I feel like  you learn something you need to know, that I didn’t know. It never gets  dull\u003c\/i\u003e. —Christine Vachon (\u003ci\u003eFar from Heaven, One Hour Photo, Boys Don’t Cry, Happiness\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If your imagination is fired about becoming a producer, I say go for it.  Or go for whatever your dream is because if you don’t, you’ll live to  regret it. “I shoulda; I coulda,” are words you do not want to even think,  much less utter, five or ten years down the road. My   favorite line in all of musical literature was written by Oscar   Hammerstein, in \u003ci\u003eCarousel\u003c\/i\u003e: “I let my golden chances pass me by.” Or, as the  poem by Whittier says, “Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest  are these, it might have been.” However, if someone—family or a friend,  perhaps—can talk you out of it, beware . . . you probably won’t make it.  It is tough and it is competitive. If you’re not prepared to give 100  percent, just about all the time—and I mean more than an eight- or  nine-hour workday—forget about it. But if you are, if you do, I guarantee  it’s worth it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eUntil one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,  always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),  there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless  ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself,  then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that  would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from  the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents  and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed  would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now\u003c\/i\u003e. —J. W. von GoetheFinding Your Story*Obtaining the Rights*Developing the Script*Hiring Your Cast \u0026amp; Crew*Distributing Your Movie","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302472208613,"sku":"NP9781400051663","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400051663.jpg?v=1767736856","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/so-you-want-to-be-a-producer-isbn-9781400051663","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}