Even those who don't believe in climate change believe we should develop renewable energy. Americans get it: it's time. This is not controversial. It's actually right in the wheelhouse of American business.
The producer is at the center of entertainment. The producer is being forgotten, and producers must seize the center of activity.
Producers are now employees, not creators.
I would say the producer is the person who is there from the beginning to the end of the project. Either the person who creates, generates, or discovers the project, the person who performs many of the functions that are necessary to getting that project to the point where it is financed and then where it is in production, finished, marketed and released.
Hey, if I had my choice for social engineering, I'd declare an automatic R-rating for any movie that depicts television commercials. There's a truly dangerous influence on our children.
The pilot system in television is utterly broken. It's a huge waste of money.
The world is filled with terrible things that can influence children, and movies have depicted them since time immemorial. Should every terrible thing warrant an R-rating?
The vast majority of our film producers are independent producers who live hand to mouth trying to get projects made that they love. They are not owners, they're not money people, and in fact, those who just have the money don't always get a producer credit.
One of the reasons the producers' credit has been so weakened in recent years, and given to people who didn't deserve it, was that people didn't understand what producers did.
You always have to remember in this business that the public doesn't care about us. It's very important to keep that in mind. If there is a public perception at all, they see the producer as a big old guy who smokes a cigar and has lots of money and lots of power. That's not what a producer is and, if it ever was what a producer was, it certainly hasn't been for a long time.
It's very hard to make a living as a producer these days. The reality of the business is the studios have cut way back on overall deals for producers and cut way back on development. The fee for developing a project has not changed for 20 years, and a producer can't live on it.
Our business,The Producers Guild, has a good record in some areas, and a bad record in others. There are many well-intentioned people trying to change things. The Producers Guild has been committed to this for years now, and I think personally does more than any other guild to give opportunities to people who come from outside of, I guess you'd call it, the expected avenues for advancement.
