ENDA Episode 32→ The time when the Endless Apprentice learned the importance of Production (Part 4)

Being a producer has given me certain advantages that even today helped me in my professional path:

➡️ It allowed me to make connections with multiple people from different areas and different parts.

➡️ It has allowed me to be part directly and indirectly of other projects. For instance, I was able to gain some commissions by renting the equipment I owned to other short film projects.

➡️ Administrative tasks and paperwork: I know how the production documents are made and why, making it easier to follow the production workflow.

➡️ Organizative skills: probably the most important thing, even when I do my papers, my filing names or even my nuke scripts, I always need to keep everything in order so I can understand what is happening.

➡️ Team managing skills: I manage teams both for live-action and animated short films, I’ve dealt with multiple types of personalities and interpersonal conflicts that you can imagine.

➡️ New job opportunities: I will never forget how during a job interview the Compositor position changed to a Supervisor position when the interviewer knew I had production experience.

➡️ Empathy: sometimes or most of the time is easy to point fingers or throw all the fault of the problems at the producer or the production team when it is not true. I’ve seen it and have experienced it. So when I meet with an assistant producer, a coordinator or even a producer is easy to establish a conversation, because I can give myself an idea of what they must be going through for the project.

At the end, yes, the production has given me plenty of skills and knowledge that I’m grateful. It is also true that it has given many bad habits, but nothing that can not be reversed with the right mentorship.

If I balance the positive and the negative aspects, I would say that I have learnt many of the things that have shaped an important part of my journey’s path.

Would I be a producer again?

Honestly…?

Yes, but only if the salary is extremely high and includes some profits…. What can I say? Some habits die hard.

Do you know someone who works in production too?