You know the difference you can make for someone’s project in a day, or even just a few hours. Yet we have a hard time believing other creatives could do the same for us. This is walking. This is the left foot and the right foot of commanding larger budgets for your projects: invest in quality, then get more money.

I was having lunch with a friend who me if I wanted to start producing narrative pieces. I’ve produced a ton of commercials, but I haven’t produced anything narrative. I told her no. Two weeks after that, I produced my first narrative short film for Fuel the Fire Film Fest.

Switching between tabs and triangulating tasks is exhilarating. It feels like you’re in a space ship command center, shouting orders, shooting down bogeys, mapping a new course all at once. Except it’s a surefire strategy to burn out–quick.

Uh oh. There was a hiccup. Plans changed. Someone forgot the skateboard. Whatever it is, here’s my three step process to deal with changing plans on a video shoot.

As a producer, you need to be consistently moving tasks and vendors and bookings forward, every chance you have, in order to get the production ready in time. There’s no time to get lost in a doom-scroll session because you didn’t take breaks. 

My favorite place to find locations for videos is through Peerspace. Peerspace is like Airbnb, but for film locations. People can list their homes, studios, bars, offices, or open fields as locations for rent on Peerspace.

I have a friend who is getting into production. He’s gaining the skills to be a good producer. But he hasn’t produced a shoot entirely on his own yet. And therein lies the predicament.

Is it going to work out? Is everything going to be ok? Is this project going to get finished? These are all valid questions, especially when you’re producing a video shoot for the first time. Or the second, third, and even tenth time.

Sending notes to an editor is an integral part of the video-making process, but it’s difficult to convey exactly what’s in your head. Videos are visual, and words only go so far to explain your vision. I’ve found five best practices that help clients get the video they want without exasperating their editors.

If you’re always pushing the envelope, you’re always stressed about whether you can pull it off. You’re never in the moment, because you’ve never done it before.

One of my lights burnt a hole through a silk. Not the best look. But, I had fun and the other people on set seemed to enjoy working with me. Over the next few months, I received 2 or 3 messages trying to hire me as a gaffer on other sets.

Anyone can be a commercial producer if they can communicate clearly and make decisions efficiently.  Time is only on your side if you use it, so get to work on finding a crew and a location as soon as you can. 

If you’re producing a creative project, there are a thousand ways to get it done. For a while, these decisions paralyzed me. That was until I saw a funny meme.

You can find a lot of models for under $100 per hour in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They have great search criteria for specialty, age, height, gender, ethnicity, weight, hair color, union status and more.

More brands should partner with real life influencers, instead of celebrities. Polestar interviewed Karen Nyberg, an astronaut who spent 180 days in outer space, orbiting earth. They pulled sound bites from a long-form interview, and put together a compelling ad.

Sure, I could get a 10-person production planned in a day. If all my go-to vendors are available, if the ideal locations are available, if the rentals we need are available. The trouble arises when things aren’t available.

After the first day of shooting, I got to my hotel room, opened my laptop, and sent emails for two hours. I immediately got flashbacks to 2019. Pre-producing one project, while producing another, while post-producing a third. It’s a lot.

I think he was wearing sketchers, and a baggy sweater. His posture was not great. He wasn’t that tall. He greeted everyone softly, with a much smaller voice than I imagined. I was surprised that this was the guy ESPN chose for their commercial.

It’s hard to “get in” as a producer. But once you’re in with a few directors and production companies, a few connects is more than enough to keep you busy. So how do you get in with these people?

The good news with these is that we don’t have to come up with 75 completely unique concepts for each video. They’re almost identical except for the copy we’re split testing. The bad news is that if we make one mistake, it usually gets applied to all 75 assets. Then we have to fix and re-export each one.