Take your job seriously, not yourself

With the second film project underway for Flashpoint, students have been bustling about trying to fill their various roles to make each film a success. I have been selected as a Producer, which perhaps you can gather is why I haven't posted here in several days.

A producer's job is endless. You are always adding, changing, doing more to keep things under control. You are the boss. The buck stops at you. The nice things about it is that you have a great degree of control over everything that happens. Since you run the show, you have the final say regarding just about everything.

Just don't screw it up.

Being a producer has opened my eyes to many new ideas of how to make successful films. I can have more of a creative impact on a film. The lesser exciting part is the business aspect, but I'm not saying it is enormously impossible. It's time consuming, daunting, and sometimes very aggravating. But it gets better as time goes on, and trust me, nothing is more rewarding to a producer than getting clearance successfully.

I feel it legitimizes what we do. With all the red tape, and all the legal issues, it's nice to have permission to film somewhere.

Just don't get too wrapped up. Keep yourself in check and don't get angry with others. You may be the boss, but ultimately that means the film is your responsibility, so pissing off the crew isn't going to get the job done.

Since most of the people who read this are filmmakers, just remember this. Have fun with those long hours, don't forget to laugh, because people can be so easily frustrated with all the tedious work that goes into filmmaking.

You do it because you love it.

DM