What Is A Producer?

What does a producer do?

Live a life of glamour, parties and celebs?

The odd cell phone call between lunches?

Catch a private screening, among friends?

In my case, sadly not.

The truth is,I don’t really know

what a producer does.

I just do my job

“Make shit happen”

“Have an idea & run with it”

Text

Stress

On timeOn budgetOn brief

My Job Skills

Network

ClientsDesignersProgrammersThinkersCreativesPlannersIllustratorsAnimatorsFilm-makersEditorsCopywritersGraffiti artistsMusiciansSound designersCorporationsJournalists

Organisation

PlanDocumentBriefPitch & presentCo-ordinateForeseeNegotiateBudget

Multi-taskProblem-solve

Critical

Art directionTechnical

Manage

TrustCreativityReliabilityQuality

Why do you need to know about producers, you’re creatives?

I do all the stuff you can’t doYou do all the stuff I can’t do

= Symbiosis

How do you become “a producer”?

Text

Rejected

Oxford, ECA, Radio 1, Jazz Cafe, JWT, Grey, Hi-Res!, Pentagram, The Guardian, Penguin, Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, Channel4, &c &c

My Career PathMy Career Path

A Levels(91-93)

English, French, German. Art & Design.Degree(93-97)

English Lit.

Canongate(97-01)

Gopher. Assistant. Amanuensis. Damien Hirst. Andy Warhol. Gil Scott Heron. ConnectionsFun. No money.Recommend it.

Screenbase(01-05)

Work in. Work out.Burn out.

Apt Studio(05-)

Creative consultancy, Great boss.

Some Work1. Canongate Books

SnowblindDamien Hirst, Howard Marks.1998

Andy Warhol: The Factory Years. Nat Finkelstein, Angus Hyland. 1999

The Pocket Canons. God, Angus Hyland (1999)

2. Pop Promos for Books

Short Films inspired by booksOpen brief

‘Viral’ online distributionFilm festivals, DVDs, Creative Review

Drive traffic to Canongate siteSell lots of books

Wrote business plan for SAC / LotteryAwarded £25,000 development

The Concept

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.(Dir. Intro)

Gil Scott Heron promo:www.aptstudio.com/portfolio/gil.htm

Hey, Nostradamus!(Dir. Mickey Stretton)

Doug Coupland promo:http://www.aptstudio.com/heynostradamus/

Life of Pi(Dir. Hoss Gifford)

Life of Pi promo:http://hossgifford.com/pi/

The Baghdad Blog (Dir. Intro)

Baghdad Blog promo:http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/

Anatomy: The Long Tail

Get offered a promo

4 week deadline

Random House UK

(New Client)

Personally requested by CEO

Talk to Hoss:“yes, it can be done”

Objectives

Build Word of Mouth

Announce it to geeks

Encourage UK sales

Make RH look cool

Strategy

Chris’ blog - massively popular

Launch exclusive PDF through blog

Use promo as extra honey pot: YouTube, Google

Creative Commons, Adwords

Belt & braces

Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy).

Luck

i.e. get paid to do some sexy promo work again. Whilst on holiday.

We’ll come onto that...

Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

‘Nutshell’ the bookSimple, smart, minimal animation of key

statistics and insights from the book. Visual language of informatics, but made sexy

and funky with elegant typography. Mixture of vector, 3d, type.

‘Win an award’

Creative brief

Visual approach & moodReferences

“Tone of voice”Audio referenceVoice reference

Find balance between winning work & setting bar way too high

Pitch approach to client

#1 Royksopp, Remind Me

Royskopp promo:http://64.207.133.64/spotPopupMovie.php?id=911&qual=1

#2 Orange, The Sea

Orange ‘The Sea’ ad:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raji46D-N2E

TextTextText

#3 Sony Bravia

Bravia ad:http://www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviaextcommhigh.html

#4 Nannou, Aphex Twin

Nannou:http://videos.antville.org/stories/1286803/

SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.

VOICEOVER Visuals“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.

THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”

Single dots fly past the camera with animated annotations appearing as they pass with the names of the hits that they represent.

2 sec 50f

An explosion of less vibrant dots creating a galaxy of non hits, not annotated. Camera starts flying through galaxy.10 sec 250f

Galaxy of dots swarm to fill pie chart with hits accounting for small slither of pie. 19 sec 475f Hit dots from pie chart swarm to fill highly ordered grid formation. Animated annotation tags hits as ‘Books in Borders superstore’. Miss dots now swarm in to extend grid 40 times larger (gun scene in Matrix stylee) and tags misses as ‘40 x more books on Amazon’.

26 sec 650f

All dots fly through air doing a sexy swirl and ending up building the long tail graph curve. Book fades in to right of graph.

35 sec 875f

Graph dots fly to build Chris Anderson’s face as book spins to back to reveal testimonial quotes.

44 sec 1100f

Stage 2: Final Script, voiceover and timings

Stage 3:Creative process

Beery bubbles

Labels

Pie Charts

Pie Charts w/ labels

Long Tails

Stage 4: Audio. Brief

“Find the voice”(No budget for professionals)

My view:Female

AccentedFuture of business:

China

Voiceover: Xiao

“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.

OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.

SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.

THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”

__________REJECTEDBY CLIENT___________

Voiceover: Kelsey

“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.

OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.

SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.

THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”

___________REJECTEDBY CLIENT___________

Voiceover: Maria

“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.

OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.

SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.

THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”

___________AUDITIONACCEPTED___________

43 individual takes to tape in the studio

None of them perfect

Cut up and piece together one take

Meanwhile, back at Hoss’ ranch, a wireframe...

Wireframe run-through:http://64.13.209.91/apt/wireframe.mov

Scene 1 fully rendered with lables

Rendered scene 1http://64.13.209.91/apt/scene1.mov

Proof w/ Boards of Canada audio track... and a happy client

Proof:http://64.13.209.91/apt/proofBOCaudio.mov

Final renders, 4 days to go before deadlineEveryone happy

Sudden heatwave in ScotlandHoss’ motherboard & graphics card blow up

Hoss buys new MacBook to handle it No right click

Hoss buys 3 motherboards and graphics cards from 3 suppliers1 gets there on time

But not before Hoss’ stag weekend in IbizaRender farm contract expires

When you have a happy client, and are on time - shit happens.

Video:http://64.13.209.91/apt/pstormmed.mov

Final Version

www.longtailbook.co.uk

What kind of a person becomes a producer?

What is a producer?

Networked

ClientsTalentEmergency services

Literate

Client needs, talent needs

Design, technical - whatever your field is: speak that language fluently

Make yourself an expert

Focused

Planning, timing, resource, detail

Has Plan A, but also, Plan B, Plan C...

Hungry

Looking at new projectsNew talentNew approachesNew technologies

Lateral thinking

Lucky

“Golf is a game of luck.

The more I practise, the luckier I get...”

always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

p.s: Anatomy: Salam Pax

Get offered a promo

4 week deadline

Guardian / Atlantic Books

5k budget

Pitch: hi-res, banksy, intro

adrian convinces me:

“we’ll squeeze it in between robbie & bobby”

Meta-marketing

Put up website to capture email addresses & google

Belt & braces

Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy)

Luck

15,000 email addresses captured in six weeks

GNL photo archive

GNL server platform

Salam blogged it

Aphex got involved

Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.

•thursday 19 september 2002 – I really wish that Massive Attack would start worrying about the delay in their album release rather than this

•friday 21 March 2:05pm They said that nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and are flying 'presumably' towards Iraq. Anyway, they have six hours to get here...

•saturday 21 september IRAQI PEOPLE WILL EXPERIENCE PROSPERITY UNKNOWN TO THEM IRAQI PEOPLE WILL SEE THEY HAVE A FRIEND WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE – Sure, IRAQ WILL NO LONGER CONTRIBUTE MONEY TO TERRORIST GROUPS – Wwe will contribute cheap reliable oil to keep western economies going

•Monday 23 september Remember – never try to do work or drive while listening to Bjork or Aphex Twin – they do strange things to your brain cells.

•saturday 12 October THE WHITE HOUSE PLAN TO INSTALL AN AMERICAN-LED MILITARY GOVERNMENT IN IRAQ. – Don’t expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new colonists

Stage 1. Read book, draft script, agree script.

•Saturday, 2 November 2002 – I think by now we all agree that I talk too much and need someone to take the keyboard away from me.

•tuesday 12 november WORLD SEES CHANCE FOR PEACE – Funny, the world sees peace while I have to prepare a bomb shelter in my house..

•tuesday 17 december – There are three things you can do whenever you like in Iraq get seriously ill get arrested get executed

•sunday 16 march – No one inside Iraq is for war (note I said war not a change of regime). We are not suicidal you know. How could 'support democracy in Iraq' come to mean ' bomb the hell out of Iraq?'

•thursday 20 march – Someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been taken over taken by US broadcast. That didn’t happen (6.40 am)

•friday 21 march  6:05 Two more hours until the B52s get to Iraq

MAINSTREAM MEDIA REPORTS

Salam’s Blog

Salam’s own photos - not good enoughPhoto library - too expensive

What to do?

Go through entire GNL photojournalism archive for images tagged according to our script

Stage 2. Source Assets for the promo

Stage 3: Luck

Intro does work for meIntro does work for WarpWarp publish Aphex Twin

Aphex loves Salam

Aphex gives us any tune to use, for the promo,free

Treatment

Animatic

Animatic:http://64.13.209.91/apt/TestBlog.mov

Final Cut

Baghdad Blog promo:http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/

Final Cut

15,000 email addresses1,300,000 hits

70,000 Unique Visitors In 14 Days 15,000 Downloads Of Chapter 1

Integrated Campaign With Guardian Newspapers & GuardianUnlimited

Project Delivered In 5 Weeks Massive Profile

International Coverage & Attention Creative Review

OneDotZero, DVD, TourBBC

'We were knocked out by the creativity and intelligence of Screenbase. They connected our book to its market perfectly, and were fast, accurate and highly responsive to our needs. I would recommend them unconditionally to anyone seeking to

market their books in a smart way.' Toby Mundy, Atlantic Books

Thank you.hello@aptstudio.com