Lawrence Turman
We all watch movies. Many of us also read the list of credits. We see the names of producers in huge type on the screen and occasionally wonder: What do they actually do?
USC film professor Lawrence Turman answers that question – and plenty of others – in his book So You Want to Be a Producer (Three Rivers Press/Random House). And he should know. Before joining the USC School of Cinematic Arts as head of its Peter Stark Producing Program, Turman produced more than 40 films, including The Graduate, The River Wild and American History X.
Part memoir, part insider’s guide, the book contains advice from a number of colleagues whom Turman interviewed, including above-the-title figures like Brian Grazer, Curtis Hanson and David Wolper. It’s also a nuts-and-bolts resource for anyone entering the profession that Turman chose five decades ago.
“A producer is a generalist, acting as an ‘editor’ to everyone else on the film,” Turman says. “But primarily, we’re entrepreneurs: starting each and every film from scratch, deciding what to try to make into a movie. We start the ball rolling, then – like a sheepdog – keep it and everyone on the film on the rolling path that the producer had in mind from the get-go.”
Chapters cover such critical components as raising money and securing permissions, finding a story and developing a script, choosing a director, hiring cast and crew and distributing the product.
For Turman, the choice of which film to make has always come from the heart. “When I come across a story that makes my blood race, I can’t sleep until I get my hands on it. For The Graduate, I even put up my own money for the option, a cardinal producing sin.”
While filming is under way, a producer often has the least to do, Turman says – “if he or she has done their planning and pre-production well,” that is. “Then it’s a matter of crisis management when things go wrong – as for sure they will.”
If you want a low-stress career, producing probably isn’t for you. “I worry a lot,” Turman admits. “Are we getting from each scene, from each actor, from the creative technical crew all we had hoped and expected? As we watch the rushes (daily takes), are the scenes clear, entertaining, engaging? Most importantly, are they adding up to a compelling, dramatic or funny whole? The problem is, you rarely get that answer until you are finished shooting and see the rough cut.”
After filming, the producer gives collaborative input on the music, editing and, just as critically, the marketing, ad campaign and distribution. “A good producer is working on the marketing during shooting because it is so vital,” Turman says.
Why share all this insider’s knowledge?
Turman got a cold call from a literary agent who had read a New York Times story about the Peter Stark Program’s graduates.
“I was so flattered I said ‘yes’ with alacrity, forgetting that I had to actually write the darn thing,” Turman says. “Incidentally, that lit agent did what I try to teach my students to do: be enterprising.”
Turman was interviewed about his book on national programs such as public radio's “Marketplace” and TV’s “The Late Late Show.” The Hollywood Reporter’s reviewer wrote, “Turman’s book isn’t the definitive guide to such things – for such a book, he rightly notes, is an impossibility given all the variables. It all starts with wanting greatness, living with disappointment, working without rest and enduring – and in such matters So You Want to Be a Producer offers a wealth of invaluable lessons.”