Important lessons I learned about producing
A special guest newsletter from Culture House Co-Founder & Executive Producer, Nicole Galovski
Hey Team!
Can you already tell from the greeting that the newsletter is missing that California cool girl vibe and it’s giving more “volleyball captain”!?
Well - you’re right, Carri’s vibes are actually freezing cold (she’s in the arctic) so this is Nicole and I’m guest writing the newsletter this week.
As many on this list know - for the last year and a half the Film/TV industry has been sloooooooow — greenlight freezes, and layoffs, and strikes, oh my. The slowdown has affected almost every artist and company I know to varying degrees, including us. But when it rains it pours, and we at Culture House find ourselves at the start of a very long, exciting, roller coaster of productions telling stories about travel, domestic violence, music, motherhood, reproductive rights, and global women’s initiatives. So… don’t worry if you don’t hear from me til December! Consider the newsletter Proof of Life.
Our upcoming production blitz inspired the theme of my guest writing opportunity: One of the Most Important Lessons I learned about producing a few years into my career.
The question I get asked the most is “what does a producer do?” I define it differently depending on who I’m talking to but - a producer is the person who either creates a vision or is brought on to work with the creator of a vision for a piece of storytelling. A producer then builds the team, and figures out the path to make that vision a reality and get it out into the world.
Early on in my career, I took the job of producing to also mean protecting that vision from everyone and everything – from the creator, from the team, from every problem, obstacle, and fire (literal and figurative) that had the power to destroy it.
Experience and time helped me realize that protecting the vision was only half the job. Its almost shocking the number of people that it takes to make something in film & TV, which is why the industry can be so hierarchal and reliant on fixed power structures (which are real and yet can be dangerous). What I missed early on is that the other half of the job is protecting your team (and yourself) from the vision and the chaos it can inevitably cause. As a producer, you are the person that is supposed to be thinking of how the vision could affect others, voice it, and make changes because the hierarchy doesn’t always allow others to do so. I saw incredible producers protect people so skillfully on a set that it changed my life and the trajectory of my career.
It is a nuanced balance to find - one that I/we don’t always get right. But striving for this balance and learning better ways to achieve it is one of the reasons we make this work.
To all that read the newsletter in different industries – I hope the relevance of the duality of all of our positions resonates. That we need to protect our dreams and the things worth fighting for, but we must never lose sight of the power we have, and must use, to protect others and ourselves from those dreams.
We’re here figuring it out with you.
IN THE CULTURE
Catch us diving in to The Bear season 3!
Catch these OOO email replies hitting your inbox early :) a rest before the storm.
It was great to be with you this week. We are off next Friday for the holiday, I’m talking about Rae’s birthday obviously, but will see you here again on the 12th. If you miss us in the meantime, you can find us at @culturehousemedia on IG.
Team on 3… 1, 2, 3 TEAM
Nicole, Carri & Rae
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