What does a Movie Producer do?

​

Movie Producers are very similar to what the corporate world calls Project Managers (PMs). Similarly, both of these roles are responsible for developing, planning, organizing, and executing specific projects for an organization while ensuring these projects are on time, on budget, and on-brand.

​

In essence, a producer is expected to pick up a creative idea and turn it into an executable project strategy. They orchestrate all of the essentials required for the creative and business aspects of a film project. They are the overall decision-makers from development through distribution.

​

• Producers are the instigators for the inspiration of an original story idea. They usually hire writers to develop the idea into a screenplay or secure a screenplay's rights from a screenwriter that has a similar concept of their original story idea.

• Producers decide on the budget scale of the film.

• Producers allocate funding from sources, such as crowd-funding, grants, investors, studios, and distributors.

• Producers collaborate with the director on creative ideas for the film and approve production costs derived from this creative process.

• Producers identify and solve possible problems throughout the entire production process.

• Producers hire and delegate specific responsibilities to the line producer.

• Producers agree to selected locations and hire key department heads for the production.

• Producers regularly communicate with the cast and crew to preserve a professional work setting.

• Producers have the legal responsibility to maintain the health and safety of the crew on set.

• Producers deliver the final picture to the distributors at the end of the production process.