You can’t make films alone. Well, you could. But it would be pretty hard to film, record sound, and act in a film all be yourself. Telling good stories involves lots of people at different stages doing different things to deliver an impactful and engaging experience to an audience. As a producer who loves coming up with ideas for films, there is no greater joy than finding collaborators who really buy into the idea, are invested in getting the film made, and telling the best story possible.

So what’s the shot gonna look like?

I’m three days away from my shoot for this semester. It’s been six months in the making. A few days ago, I realized that the film that we’re shooting this weekend is quite different from the one I pitched six months ago. And I surprised myself when I realized I was totally okay with that. I tend to be pretty protective of my ideas, but I realized that there’s so much more that’s possible when you let people make your ideas theirs as well. Every time someone new joined the team, the story changed, and it was always for the better. Accepting that change isn’t always easy. Like I said, I’m pretty protective of my ideas. I had to learn to not see a suggested change as someone telling me my idea wasn’t good, but as them showing me that they wanted to be part of this project and were offering a piece of themselves to help make it better. In the process of getting all these contributions, I started to see things that I didn’t before and the story began to take a new form that works better than anything I could have come up with on your own.

Something else that comes about from encouraging input from your collaborators, from a producing perspective, is that you get a glimpse into how other departments think and approach the story. That’s important as a producer because, although you don’t have to know how everything works, understanding how your DP or sound mixer is approaching the story and deciding what they need, gives you better insight into how they make creative decisions, which then gives you the ability to make better logistical decisions.

My Director and DP at a location scout talking about coverage.

I’m excited to see my project come to life on the camera, and I’m excited to see everyone’s contributions manifested on set through camera movements, production design, and wardrobe. And I’m excited that, chances are, the film that gets edited together may not be the film we shoot, because someone new will come into the fray, who will hopefully also bring themselves to the story in order to make it the best one we can tell.