Producers: Your advocate and servant

If you’ve met me and heard me talk about the producer role in motion design and post, you probably have heard me say that producers are advocates and servants. What do I mean by that? I mean that a producer’s job is to protect both the client and the creative team for the good of the project and the studio. Let me elaborate. 

Let’s discuss the client first. When a producer starts a project, they serve the client by creating a budget and timeline that, as much as possible, works for the client’s needs, internal deadlines, and final delivery dates. Throughout the project, the producer advocates for the client by ensuring all client feedback is addressed, milestones are hit and deadlines are met. 

When it comes to the internal team, the producer advocates for the studio and team by ensuring the budget and timeline reflect the creative workflow of the studio and the costs associated with that particular project. A producer will serve the internal team by ensuring the client feedback is provided clearly and concisely and any out-of-scope or outrageous client requests are pushed back upon as necessary. Producers also make sure their creative leads are doing their jobs so that the team can complete their work in a timely manner. 

I’ve worked on many, many projects throughout my career, and a curious fact is that I find myself protecting the creative team from the  CD or creative lead more often than I do from the unwieldy demands of clients. I understand that all of us are busy, but many times, I have witnessed artists ready to share work by the designated time and unable to because the CD or creative lead is MIA. Then when feedback does come in, there is an internal expectation that the artist must address that feedback at the 11th hour before posting to the client. 

I realize that since Covid, most of us are working from home and many of us have extended our “working hours.” And let's be real, our working hours have always been a bit cooky. Even so, I don’t think anyone wants to work insane hours, nor in many cases should they have to. In many cases, effective time management and prompt feedback could make it so everyone is done at a decent hour. So, instead of greasing relationships between client and studio, I have to protect the team from eating itself.  

This leads me to morale. A producer's job, as an advocate and servant is to protect the teams as much as possible from the insanity of the project and ensure the health of the studio by not ensuring healthy margins but ensuring healthy morale. Disrespect for others’ time creates distrust and low morale, and it’s infectious. Even when you simply witness others’ time being devalued, it can leave a bad taste in your mouth. 

I know that creative leads all recognize how low or high morale can have a huge effect on the success of not only an individual project but also on the whole organization. So, I find myself wondering these days why it’s occurring. Are the creative leads overloaded with projects? Are they not asking for help? Do they feel they need to do the work themselves because they don’t trust the team or the wrong people are on the team? 

At the end of the day, we are all in this together and we must work together to accomplish our goals and our clients. Although the role of advocate and servant often falls upon the producer's shoulders, I’d invite all team members to keep an eye out for one another. Let’s protect ourselves from the client rather than fight one another.