It’s a smart question that really stems from realization that a four year degree in film is probably not going to be worth the piece of paper it’s printed on, let alone the thousands of dollars a wide-eyed fledgling filmmaker might spend. For an artist, the cost of college is the largest of many obstacles that can crush a young filmmaker. It’s hard to pay loans and rent, buy gas, food, and clothing on just above minimum wage.
If you are one of these people who asked the question above, congratulations you’re already starting to think about the bottom line. You’ve already realized you shouldn’t get college degree for self-improvement, you should study to make yourself indispensable to others.
Majoring in Business Degree’s such as Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing are good ways to go. But it doesn’t end there. You need to study films as well. It’s not the degree that makes you, it’s your accomplishments. If you want to be a producer, a degree in business will help, but getting your hands dirty by making a short with a group of friends is better.
Build yourself a reel of films and a sizable audience and you will be in a better position than most. Find talented student directors and offer to produce their movies. Learn as much about film as you can in your spare time. Read as many scripts as you can in your spare time. With every project, aim to make the best video in the genre.
The line between amateur and professional is surprisingly small if you take time to ensure every shot is as good as possible. Studio’s aim to make mediocre products, you don’t have to. You can concentrate on the story and take your time to craft it well.
Once you’ve graduated, there are two major kinds of producers job you can try to specialize in: Line Producers, and Creative Producers. To have a shot at becoming an A list producer you need to understand both.
Line Producers are the people during production making the budgets, calling product vendors, haggling deals, and generally greasing the wheels while the film is rolling though production. It’s a thankless logistical occupation akin to a doctor working triage. It doesn’t require an understanding of story or what makes a movie great. This job is about squeezing every dollar, getting every deal, resolving every conflict so that the final image is of the best quality, delivered on time, and on budget.
Creative Producers may never be involved with the actual making of a movie. Their specialty is packaging movies and talent together and then selling it to a group of investors or a studio to get the movie made. This is really an over simplification of what they do, but the key to being good at this job is: understanding what aspects of a movie will sell the most tickets and salesmanship. Most creative producers come from a development executive background. They read scripts constantly and have an understanding of what makes them emotionally satisfying to an audience.
Here is a small reading list that may help on your journey: The Visual Story by Bruce Block, What a Producer Does by Buck Houghton, I’ll be in my trailer by John Badham & Craig Modderno, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit by Thomas Lennon & Robert B. Garant, Making Movies by Sydney Lumet
