Hollywood producers say they are misunderstood. Here’s what they’re doing about it

After years of hustle, film and TV producer Stephen Love found himself in a situation many of his peers would salivate over: He was in four bidding wars.

Studios clamored to snap up his projects. Hollywood trade news outlets gushed about their merits, bolstering Love’s career and reputation. But all the while, Love was shooting commercials and music videos and trying to get consulting gigs to make ends meet. He even drove for ride-share companies.

The son of a preacher and a teacher, Love, 35, grew up on a farm in York, S.C., almost 40 miles south of Charlotte, N.C.

He’s come a long way from when he caught the film bug in his youth, which led him to start a videography business while still in school to shoot weddings and other occasions.

But even after the bidding wars, Love, who produced the 2016 drama “The Land” and 2023 sci-fi film “They Cloned Tyrone,” has multiple jobs. He consults on the side while running a company that makes commercials and music videos and working on branded content and deals. He’s far from the only one.

“You have to have these multiple things happening while you’re also trying to focus on the thing you really love, which is getting in the weeds and making a movie,” said Love, who splits time between his home in Hollywood and Atlanta, where a lot of production work and opportunities for newer creatives are located. “The idea that there’s producers who have been in the game for 30 years-plus, having the same issues that I’m having just 10 to 12 years in the game, can be disheartening.”

***Producers often don’t get paid for their years of project development — the early stages of making a film or show before getting a green light — meaning they can make less than minimum wage when counting up all their hours of work, even when they create a hit.
“We’re labor,” said Jonathan Wang, 40, working out of offices on L.A.’s Eastside. A producer on 2022’s Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” he says, “We are providing labor for studios, for buyers, and we are providing a real job that needs protections for it to continue.”***

According to the article it seems to be nothing but hard work and low pay, even minimum wage for a producer.

That is why even their parking valets and gardeners mock them for their poverty and low status lives.

“The lack of definition of a producer has opened the door to lots of people getting producer credits whose main role is a different function. Actors, financiers and others who are not working on set as the main point person can negotiate a credit, which then cuts into the money allocated to a project’s producers.”

You’d think a business reporter for the LA Times would better understand the producer’s role.

There are creative producers and there are those who raise money (or invest their own). Creatives do more than contribute or raise money. They have (or seek) the highly-coveted p.g.a. credential by accepting an invitation to join the guild.

The complaint in the article is that producers don’t necessarily earn enough, especially in the front end. Maybe, but if you are an independent producer you could structure the deal so that producers who do major work on the development (the part of filmmaking that takes place before money is raised) get paid for this work when production commences. (That’s how WGA screenwriters get paid for union films.)

I do not know if PGA has rules against this, but I’d be surprised if they did.

I think the article is incorrect when it claims that more producers cuts into the money that other producers get. Typically, producer credits are given to investors who have nothing else to do with the film being made other than investing. Other producers who are not investors often receive the same title, and may not even be able to obtain the p.g.a. mark.

I think the reporter misunderstood what the people she interviewed meant. The dilution of the producer credit (by awarding it so easily) is one of recognition rather than money. BUT producers may also be underpaid.

New titles are being rolled out to recognize those who make contributions to a film but do not meet traditional definitions of various titles. For example, the WGA now allows credit to writers who are not listed as screenwriters necessarily, under the heading of “additional literary material”. Likewise, I know someone who is receiving credit for “director of funding”, (a newly invented title I suggested he ask for), on at least one upcoming movie. PGA and the producers will not experience dilution when alternative credits are given.

PGA and Producers United are seeking to reduce the dilution of the producer credit. In my opinion, this will be met with great resistance, even by many producers. The reason is that it is exceedingly hard to raise money for movies because movies are very risky investments with returns that are not very competitive with other investment opportunities. The perk of offering investors a producer credit is a big incentive that Hollywood is not likely to get rid of any time soon. The producers who are trying to raise money for their films need to be able to offer this incentive to do so.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.