Production
The Producer's job evolves from the widely underestimated discovery stage, where they find good material and corral together those who will bring it all to life, through to production and delivery: the sensitive, effective, creative and collaborative management of priorities. Every film is a prototype, and every complex decision in film production, however familiar-seeming, is strangely individual. Producers have the duty and privilege of managing filmmaking decisions from conception to presentation. We know that they are the producers partly because they arrive in this process first, and quit last
Film school units, with their overwhelming flavour of creative ferment and their limited resources, tend to call people Producers who in fact have the creative power of Production Managers (important people who need the job of the Producer properly filled to protect them from a life of servitude). This leaves the vital role of Producer caught up in the allenveloping powerbase of the Director.
Filmmaking is a collaborative art built on real dialogue between creative partners, and for this reason we emphasise the role of the Producer. So that, for instance, we don't like taking script meetings without the Producer present. In a small unit producing can be effectively combined with just about any job - other than Director.
A minority of students on the MA Filmmaking programme come to the LFS having decided to pursue a career in producing, although there are many distinguished producers amongst the graduates. Most LFS Production teaching is about project development, script and resource issues. The school teaches the essential detail of production management: preparation, script breakdown, budgeting, scheduling, unit management and the tasks that will be undertaken in the Production Department, from First Assistant Director to Continuity. We offer standard production forms and agreements through the student intranet to back up this work. Producers are also Script Editors, feedback monitors in the cutting room, and lobbyists to the school and outside supporters.
Production is taught in the school by Ben Gibson, the Director, and by visiting lecturers.
Recent visiting lecturers, Sixth Term Honorary Executive Producers and panelists include: Mark Blaney, Simon Channing-Williams, Steve Clarke-Hall, Chris Collins, Natasha Dack, Mike Downey, Ellis Freeman, Amos Gitai, Robert Jones, Asif Kapardia, Janine Marmot, Eliza Mellor, Jeremy Nathan, Keith Northrop, Rebecca O'Brien, Nikki Parrott, Lisa-Marie Russo, Iain Smith, Sylvia Stevens and Ben Woolford
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