So You Want to Be a Producer

Steve Jobs isn’t just one of America’s best-known computer entrepreneurs. He’s also a movie producer.

So is former New York Deputy Mayor Ken Lipper, Chicago real estate developer Tom Rosenberg and Sidney Kimmel, the Philadelphia garment tycoon behind the Jones New York clothing label.

Actress Alicia Silverstone, just a couple of years removed from the high school scene she satirized in the movie “Clueless,” has a studio production deal. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the grade school-age twins who appeared on TV’s “Full House,” have a deal to produce videos and interactive products.

Then there is Los Angeles fashion mogul Carole Little, who makes movies in partnership with her husband, from whom she is separated, and his live-in girlfriend. They are about to start shooting a film about a man-eating, 40-foot anaconda that her husband describes as “ ‘Jaws’ with a snake.”

These days, everybody’s a producer--or at least it seems that way. The ranks of producers have swelled as outsiders increasingly dabble in Hollywood; fired executives negotiate severance packages that include movie-making deals; more stars and directors want to expand their reach, and anyone with good connections or sufficient leverage can bargain for a producer’s credit.

When it was first published 10 years ago, the Hollywood Creative Directory listing of movie and TV producers contained 350 companies and about 1,500 executives. The latest version has 1,650 companies and almost 6,000 executives.

About 100 people apply each month to be listed in the directory, with about two-thirds turned down--mostly because they don’t have a track record. The Producers Guild of America, which has 450 members, gets 500 applications a year. Most are rejected, including one recent applicant who said he wants to make movies portraying space aliens favorably because Hollywood has given them a bum rap.

“It’s come to the point where everyone in California has two jobs,” said Producers Guild executive director Charles FitzSimons. “What they do for a living, and producer.”

While some dismiss the proliferation as one of those quirky business rites of Hollywood, veteran producers argue that the liberal awarding of producing titles has gotten out of hand, diminishing the stature of the profession.

Trend Criticized

“Producers have become devalued as a group,” lamented Lawrence Turman, whose productions range from “The Graduate” to “The River Wild.” “It doesn’t mean there aren’t great producers who do great, meaningful work. But as a class, they’ve been devalued because of the proliferation.”

What’s more, others argue that the plethora has bloated costs because fees are typically paid to each producer. Those on the A-list usually make $1 million or more in fees, with some also enjoying enough clout to get a good chunk of the movie’s business. Even producers who have little to do with a movie can take home a six-figure check.

In some cases, a producing credit and fee are used as a backdoor payment: for instance, arranging for a studio to pay a production fee to a star’s manager in lieu of the management fee that normally would come out of the actor’s pocket. Studios also routinely use production deals with stars and directors to guarantee them access to talent they want.

It’s a rare movie these days that takes only one, or maybe two, producers--the tradition in early Hollywood. Hal B. Wallis got sole credit on “Casablanca,” and David O. Selznick is the only name listed on “Gone With the Wind.”

Contrast that to last summer’s “Assassins,” a Warner Bros. action film starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. Its credits list six producers, three co-producers, six associate producers and two executive producers. One studio executive said today’s movies and TV shows feature “more producers than Teamsters.”

Indeed, one of the more creative exercises in Hollywood is coming up with variations on the job title, Besides those already mentioned, there are line producers, co-executive producers, supervising producers, coordinating producers, consulting producers, segment producers and executives in charge of production.

So what do they all do? One of the problems with answering the question is that producing always has been a vaguely defined profession whose demands can range from working 12-hour days on location to simply knowing the right people. In its purest form, it can mean having the most influence over the shape of a movie: choosing writers, directors, actors and virtually everyone else associated with a movie.

The traditional definition is someone who acts as the chief executive officer of a picture, overseeing such areas as script development, hiring and casting, budgets and problem-solving.

The Producers Guild lists 26 functions, including determining the final shooting script, overseeing day-to-day operations, supervising music recording and even “the approval of makeup and hair styles.”

Turman has a simpler definition: “A producer is the person who makes the picture happen.”

To be sure, a first-rate producer is a big help if you want a hit movie. Some, such as veterans Richard Zanuck and Ray Stark, are as hands-on as their predecessors. Others function more as deal makers, finding material, getting it ready and collecting a fee before moving to the next project.

And, although some producers have dubious power and credibility, a cadre of influential ones have emerged by building organizations that resemble mini-studios, churning out scores of movies and enjoying wide autonomy from the studios. Some of the better known include Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, James G. Robinson’s Morgan Creek, Arnon Milchan’s New Regency Productions and Joel Silver and Scott Rudin.

But these days a producing credit can go to anyone who had the slightest involvement with a movie. Managers of actors routinely get credits and fees on films in exchange for securing the services of stars. People who bankroll movies often are listed as executive producers. And anyone who controlled the rights to a film story, even for a brief period, usually ends up listed as some variation of producer when the credits roll.

Some lawyers and agents have become highly cynical about the use of producer credits as a bargaining chip in negotiations. One prominent deal maker says that “star baggage” and “director baggage”--where stars and directors insist on an associate serving as a producer--are common.

Then there is what lawyers sarcastically refer to as “the scholarship”--awarding young executives a production credit so they can build a track record. In such cases, the price tag for a studio or for the financier bankrolling a movie is usually negligible.

“Studios agree to give producing credits to anybody and everybody, and everyone who asks for them as part of a deal. If someone owns the rights or financed a movie, they get one. You bust your ass on a picture, and you’ve still got six guys listed with you,” said Marvin Worth, whose credits include “Malcolm X,” “Lenny” and the current release “Diabolique.”

Hollywood’s glamour always has acted as a magnet for successful business executives in other professions, dating to the days when Howard Hughes and Joseph P. Kennedy were in the business.

Chicago businessman Rosenberg says he once agreed to give producer credit to a man whose sole contribution was lending $10,000 to the author of a book on which a movie was based.

Jobs asked for an executive producer credit on Walt Disney’s hit “Toy Story” a few weeks before it was released last fall. His contribution: starting Pixar, the high-tech company that did the movie’s computer animation. That irked Disney executives, who quietly grumbled that Jobs was asking for a producer credit on a sure-fire hit when he had little hands-on involvement in the making of it. Nonetheless, Jobs was interested in a title, not a fee, and Disney accommodated his wishes.

Those with acting and writing skills increasingly want to expand their reach by serving as producers as well. Typically, business associates who helped build an actor’s career also want a credit.

Andrew Karsch, whose credits include producing--with Barbra Streisand--best-selling author Pat Conroy’s “The Prince of Tides,” says he agreed early in the development process to list Conroy’s business partner, James Roe, as an executive producer. Karsch acknowledges he did so for self-protection, to make sure he’d always be linked to the project.

“He was looking to get into films, and Pat didn’t know me very well,” Karsch said. In the end, Streisand, who directed and starred in the film, took over the hands-on producing role.

Qualifications Vary

The only real requirement for calling oneself a producer is printing a business card that says so. The Producers Guild doesn’t have the labor union status and clout of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America. Each of those organizations has strict guidelines governing how credits are dished out.

Rosenberg says he got into the business in the late 1980s at the suggestion of a college friend and a screenwriter he knew.

“I said ‘I don’t know what a producer does,’ ” he recalled. “They said, ‘You are one. You just don’t know it.’ ”

Rosenberg formed Beacon Communications, later sold to communications company Comsat Corp., then formed Lakeshore, which last year negotiated a major deal with Paramount and has offices on the studio lot.

The more puzzling question is what, if anything, can or should be done to stem the runaway growth in the number of producers. Although established ones gripe about the abundance, they are at a loss to suggest what to do about it.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which will hand out the Oscars tonight, in recent years has tightened the requirement to get into its prestigious producers branch. (Its members are allowed to vote on the Oscars. Only producers--not executive producers, co-producers and others--can win an Oscar for best picture, another reason why people often compete hard to get the right credit).

Members are required to have two credits. Films in which many others share credit count only as a fraction. The academy application also requires completion of a form with questions about participation in acquisition and development of a film along with the pre-production, production, post-production and marketing.

Still, with so many people wanting the status of producer--and with studios all too eager to grant it when competing for good material and stars--it’s unlikely anything will be done soon.

“So much of it,” said one top studio executive, “is about positioning and posturing and making people look good.”