Steven M. Thompson, who is one of about nine Steve Thompsons who write me, asks…
Hello, Mark. My question is what does a producer do? I thought maybe to procure money for a show or movie, or a scheduler/manager of time and money. Several years ago there was a network Charlie's Angels reboot, I counted nineteen different people credited as executive producer, co-executive producer, producer, co-producer and so on, what do all these people do?
Also noticed when a show is successful, the star of the show will show up with a producer credit in the second or third season. Is this to just show that the star now has a money stake in the show? About ten years ago, I started to hear the term "show runner." Is that a different designation for the producer?
Yeah. "Show Runner" was kinda created because some shows had so many producers, it was difficult to tell who was actually in charge. So on a show that has, say, two Executive Producers, two Supervising Producers, five Producers, three Co-Producers, etc., people refer to one of them as the Show Runner to separate that person from the others whose titles may be honorary or just part of negotiations. Here's how the negotiated ones usually happen…
AGENT: My client wants ten thousand dollars more per episode.
BUSINESS AFFAIRS PERSON: We can't afford that. How about three thousand and a Producer credit?
AGENT: Make it four thousand and a Producer credit and you've got a deal.
There's a certain amount of status in that, especially if it elevates you over someone else on the crew who isn't getting a Producer credit. But the title alone doesn't designate any particular duty or responsibility or power. Sometimes, an agent or manager involved in the sale of a project will grab an Executive Producer credit and then do nothing else. I worked on a series once where two men were credited on the same card as Executive Producers. One of them was heavily involved with every episode of the show. The other one was an agent involved in its sale to the network. I never met the man and have no idea if he even watched the show.
You can give anyone a Producer credit no matter what they actually do. Often, it's linked to who provides or secures the financing. But probably the main thing is that if someone feels important to the success of a show, they want a producer credit. And that's mainly because if the series wins Best Program or Best Comedy Series or Best Anything, everyone with certain forms of "Producer" in their title would get a statuette and be able to say "I won an Emmy."
When I was doing the Garfield & Friends cartoon show, my original formal credit was "Written by." I was the Show Runner and I was also the Voice Director and I did the Voice Casting and I did a bunch of other things but I happen to think you can become a laughingstock via multiple credits. I was recently at a screening of an independent (and largely non-union) movie where one of the men involved had his name in the credits sixteen times.
I don't know if he didn't realize how bad that made him look or if he just didn't care. He was obviously vitally important in the creation of the film but, you know, once it says you produced and directed and wrote the movie, do you really need to add in "Based on a concept by Joe Blow" and "Title Visualizations by Joe Blow" and "Editing Supervised by Joe Blow"? Do you have to devalue the Costume Designer's role by having it say "Costumes Designed by Joe Blow and Mary Whatzername?"
There are some credits that are there for union and legal reasons and others because there's money linked to those particular credits. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a guy who just gets a tingle from his head down to his toes when he sees his name over and over and over.
Anyway, I only took the writing credit on Garfield & Friends because that was really all that mattered to me. It was either after the first or second time the series was nominated as Best Animated Program that the Executive Producer Lee Mendelson realized that if the show won, I would not get one of those glistening statues with all the pointy edges. Thereafter, absolutely nothing changed about my duties or my salary or anything but it suddenly said "Written and Co-Produced by Mark Evanier." That was only so if the show won, which it didn't, I'd be included among those who got Emmys.
On The Garfield Show, which we did a few years later, I was Supervising Producer. What's the difference between that and Co-Producer? I haven't the foggiest.
I mention all this to explain that there's really no definition as to what you have to do to be the Producer of anything. There's a strict definition to get a credit that says "Directed by…" or "Written by…" But to be a Producer, someone just has to give you the title. It's a shame because some of the folks who get it really do brilliant, important things to earn it and they deserve more respect than the folks who took the title in lieu of more money.
