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Production vs. Direction producing visual content

by Diego Cirera | Mar 13, 2014

When we talk about production for Films, TV commercials, or stills,

The first we think of is Money, and that would actually be quite correct, because the influence of the producer over the artistic values of the final product is somehow limited, that would be the Director’s responsibility. With honorable exceptions such as David O. Selznick‘s “Gone with the Windthe Producer has a limited role in the artistic outcome of the film. Generally speaking we can consider a Production successful when it has profits.

Since that is almost impossible to know before hand, and History of audiovisual products is full of colossal failures, a huge part of the production work is focused on cost control, here we go back to Money. Needles to say that circumstance is often a source of conflict between the Production department and the Directiondepartment, which doesn’t care much for cost control (and it shouldn’t).

So, How to effectively manage this conflict? here’s my take:

  • Always keep in mind the common goal.
  • Try to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. From Direction’spoint of view would be, am I asking for something unreasonable, and is there really no other way? From Production’s point of view, Is my quest for cost control jeopardizing the quality of the product?
  • Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Diego Cirera

About Diego Cirera

Diego is a self-taught computer geek & creative producer.
He’s been working in production for video, photography, multimedia, website production and online marketing for almost 20 years. Polyglot.
PS. If you are wondering about the gravatar, Cirera means Cherry in catalan.