Produced By August | September 2020

PRODUCEDBY THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA // AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2020

PRODUCERS MARK: NOW STREAMING ON A TV NEAR YOU

P. 18 5 WOMEN PRODUCERS BRINGING POWERFUL VOICES TO ANIMATION

P. 32 POUNDING THE PAVEMENT IN THE PANDEMIC ERA

P. 48

INCLUSION, INNOVATION AND NEW OCCUPATIONS IN THE AGE OF COVID

KEN

BURNS “I can count on the fingers of one hand the films (we’ve made) that don’t deal with race. It’s the most important thing that we deal with.”

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

NETFLIX PROUDLY CONGRATULATES OUR

OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES

OUTSTANDING VARIETY SPECIAL (PRE-RECORDED)

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY OR NONFICTION SPECIAL

OUTSTANDING STRUCTURED REALITY PROGRAM

OUTSTANDING TV MOVIE

OUTSTANDING ANIMATED PROGRAM

OUTSTANDING COMPETITION PROGRAM

OUTSTANDING SHORT FORM VARIETY SERIES

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY OR NONFICTION SERIES

OUTSTANDING HOSTED NONFICTION SERIES OR SPECIAL

OUTSTANDING UNSTRUCTURED REALITY PROGRAM OUTSTANDING CHILDREN’S PROGRAM

FYC.NETFLIX.COM

24

KEN BURNS & SARAH BURNS PHOTOGRAPHED BY DOUG LEVY

FEATURES 24 THE COVER: KEN BURNS Daughter Sarah asks him about his craft, life and current events.

32 DRAWING US IN Five female animation producers who are making stories more universal.

39 THE MOTHER OF INNOVATION Mythic Quest shows creative grace under quarantine pressure.

44 STAY TUNED Michele Greco keeps the beat for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.

48 POUNDING THE PAVEMENT Insights on working and hiring in the COVID-19 era.

4

PRODUCED BY

EMMY ® NOMINEE

O U T S TA N D I N G D O C U M E N TA R Y OR NONFICTION SPECIAL

OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A NONFICTION PROGRAM

MIKE DIAMOND OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A NONFICTION PROGRAM

A DA M H O R OV I T Z

SPIKE JONZE

OUTSTANDING PICTURE EDITING FOR A NONFICTION PROGRAM

5 EMMY

OUTSTANDING SOUND EDITING FOR A NONFICTION PROGRAM

®

N O M I N AT I O N S

20

VETERANS BRING LEADERSHIP AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE TO PRODUCTIONS

DEPARTMENTS 11 FROM THE TREASURER

20 OPEN DOORS The case for hiring veterans

A look at the numbers

12 VOICES Messiah Jacobs charts course for change.

16 ODD NUMBERS

22 GOING GREEN COVID, climate and race

54 MARKING TIME

Your pandemic favorites

56 MEMBER BENEFITS

18 FAQ: PRODUCERS MARK

57 NEW MEMBERS

The p.g.a. mark now extends to TV and streaming movies.

58 BEST ON-SET PHOTO OF ALL TIME Shaq gets persuasive.

8

PRODUCED BY

Outstanding Limited Series

Outstanding Drama Series

FOR YOUR EMMY CONSIDER ATION ®

Outstanding Comedy Series

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

Congratulations to our Emmy nominees ®

Watchmen: ©2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. ©2020 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

ANYTIME. ANYWHERE.

PRESIDENTS Gail Berman

2019 PRODUCED BY June | July

PRODUCEDBY PRODUCEDBY MERICA // JUNE | JULY THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF A THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF

PRODUCE DBY October | November

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZIN E OF THE PRODUCERS G UILD OF AMERICA // OCT OBER | NOVEMBER

2019

THE PRODUCING TEAM THAT PUT THE HUSTLE IN HUSTLERS

P AVA Duvernay

BETTING ON SHORT-FORM FOR THE LONG HAUL

P

Donald De Line

GRAB THE GOGGLES FOR A VR MAGIC CARPET RIDE

P

3 volume XV number

AVA volume XV number 5

DUVERNAY

two years of “I find it difficult to spend don’t believe in.� my life making things I

WHAT CAN SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR PROJECT?

DONA LD

DE LINE P

“What’s great about being a producer is you never know what the week will bring, breat hing new life into something in a way you didn’t think possible the week before.�

Lucy Fisher

VICE PRESIDENTS, MOTION PICTURES Lauren Shuler Donner Jon Kilik VICE PRESIDENTS, TELEVISION Mike Farah Gene Stein TREASURER Megan Mascena Gaspar SECRETARIES OF RECORD Mark Gordon Hawk Koch NATIONAL BOARD Stephanie Allain Michael Ambers James P. Axiotis Nina Yang Bongiovi Yolanda T. Cochran Donald De Line Gary Goetzman Charles P. Howard Iris Ichishita

OF DIRECTORS Paulette Lifton Dan Lin James Lopez Ravi Nandan Becky Ockerlund Nolte Bruna Papandrea Charles Roven Peter Saraf Jillian Stein

Cristina Lee Storm Mimi Valdes Angela Victor Ian Wagner Lorin Williams Magdalena Wolf

VICE PRESIDENT, AP COUNCIL Melissa Friedman VICE PRESIDENT, NEW MEDIA COUNCIL Jenni Ogden VICE PRESIDENT, PGA EAST Donna Gigliotti REPRESENTATIVES, PGA NORTHWEST Richard Quan John Walker REPRESENTATIVE, PGA CAPITAL Katy Jones Garrity PRESIDENTS EMERITI Gary Lucchesi Lori McCreary

PRODUCED BY: DIGITAL @

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/COO Vance Van Petten NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/COO Susan Sprung

PRODUCERSGUILD.ORG BRAND PUBLISHER Hannah Lee EDITOR Vance Van Petten CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ajay Peckham

LET’S GET SOCIAL

COPY EDITOR Bob Howells

PHOTOGRAPHERS Doug Levy ADVERTISING Ken Rose 818-312-6880 | ken@moontidemedia.com MANAGING PARTNERS Charles C. Koones Todd Klawin

Advertising Info: Ken Rose at ken@moontidemedia.com or 818-312-6880

Vol. XVI No. 3 Produced By is published by the Producers Guild of America 11150 W. Olympic Blvd.

Suite 980 Los Angeles, CA 90064 310-358-9020 Tel. 310-358-9520 Fax

producersguild.org

10

PRODUCED BY

1501 Broadway Suite 1710 New York, NY 10036 646-766-0770 Tel.

FROM THE TREASURER

A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS The Guild began its 2019-20 fiscal year on a firm financial footing, but just like the rest of the world, the Guild was faced with some harsh financial realities in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As sponsorship revenue immediately dried up, the Guild took many important measures to ensure its financial viability. Staff members took salary cuts and a few were furloughed.

All vendor contracts were examined and savings were taken where possible. Accordingly, as evidenced by the pie charts, the Guild has been able to continue its operations.

Despite the financial drain, the Guild introduced and raised money for two funds in order to help its members: the Members Relief Fund (operated through the Actors Fund), which has provided one-time assistance to 271 members; and the Member to Member Fund, which has allowed for a 30% dues reduction to members who apply and qualify.

As stay-at-home orders continued, we started work on the 2020-21 budget. As a result of the current economic uncertainty and in order to ensure the long-term health of the Guild, the Finance Committee submitted a very lean budget to the Board of Directors.

In rationally considering the loss of dues and new members’ applications, sponsorship dollars, and awards revenue, the Guild was forced to present a budget that would fund only what it would take to keep the Guild functioning. The National Board of Directors approved the proposed budget.

It will be awhile before members can gather in person, but the good news out of all this has been the pivot the Guild has efficiently exacted to bring all programming online. It has made our Guild a more national organization. Our committess are making more programming available now to more members than ever before. Since March through mid-July, the benefits of Guild membership have provided:

REVENUE

• 30 Live “Conversations With…”

• 23 Webinars • 19 Mentoring Roundtables • 14 WIN Coffee Breaks • 6 Happy Hours • 4 Meet the Candidates events • 1 Day-long conference (Women in Production) • 1 PitchFest Most of the virtual events are recorded and made available to Guild members online—and all for practically no cost!

Of course, we hope the current financial situation is short-term. But the Guild does have healthy reserves. We planned for a time when we might not be so flush with cash— and this is the time. If we are careful, we will navigate through this together. The Guild will be here for its members.

Please continue to pay your dues. They are the Guild’s biggest source of revenue and directly affect the Guild’s continued vitality and ability to offer benefits for our members.

PRODUCED BY CONFERENCES (LA & NY) PRODUCERS GUILD AWARDS MEMBER DUES AND FEES MEMBERSHIP APP & INITIATION FEES O-1/O-2 PROFESSIONAL FEES PUBLICATIONS SPONSORSHIP MISC INCOME

EXPENSES

PRODUCED BY CONFERENCES (LA & NY) PRODUCERS GUILD AWARDS STAFF & SELECT CONSULTANT COMPENSATION RENT, OFFICE & GENERAL ADMIN MEMBER COMMITTEE BUDGETS PUBLICATIONS FINANCIAL RESERVES

Megan Mascena Gaspar

Please note: Proportions provided above are based on year-end actuals, and not final tax returns.

PRODUCED BY

11

VOI CES

AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN PRODUCER’S JOURNEY Messiah Jacobs charts a course for change Written by Jacob Kamhis and Chris Pack

Messiah Jacobs on a commercial set in Los Angeles with crew and Director Vincent “Blackhawk” Aamodt.

W

ith backpack and headphones in hand, a teenaged Messiah Jacobs rides a New York subway from Harlem to the Upper West Side. He sits and reads the movie posters on the wall. One stands out: “Fear Can Hold You Prisoner.

Hope Can Set You Free” from The Shawshank Redemption.

Now, as a Hollywood producer, he recalls, “Those taglines were the secrets to life. I tried to equate them to my life.” And a producer was born.

As in the movies, it took a twist of fate for Jacobs to find his true calling. He attended Baruch College for a finance degree and

12

PRODUCED BY

worked on Wall Street. Then a buddy invited him to work on the set of a small production.

Jacobs’ fate was sealed. His first job was as an assistant grip.

He became a sponge, soaking up knowledge as he hauled heavy lights around the sets. “But I could hardly lift one of those lights,” he chuckles now, leaning back at his desk, flanked with a half a dozen of his movie posters.

Jacobs rotated production jobs for a bit and read every book he could find, including Save the Cat, The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood, Why

AWARDS CIRCUIT

VOI CES

Should White Guys Have All the Fun? and even You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. A born leader, he had his eyes set on the top and soon was producing indie projects and line producing larger productions in Los Angeles. He became a member of the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild.

Today Jacobs is the owner of Four Screens, a production and management company that develops films and commercials celebrating Black culture. “We are able to merge production with talent management very seamlessly,” he explains. “We manage the estate of (the late rapper) Ol’ Dirty Bastard and are working on a few projects about Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s life, as well as an animation depicting a hip-hop superhero.”

Owning a management and production company seems like anyone’s Hollywood dream, but it hasn’t come without challenges. Jacobs spent years hoping to break into the studio system. That uphill battle has only been brought to the forefront of the industry’s consciousness in the last few months.

“I had to come through the door in a different way, without an agent or gatekeeper,” he says. “I never went to UCLA or USC film school and don’t have that pedigree.”

During the COVID-19 period, he has had more time to reflect on his past, career and plans for the future. “The social uprisings, quarantine—it’s a time of discovery and reflection for people in the industry. We are finally able to talk about the inequalities in Hollywood,” Jacobs muses.

“Yes, there are Black movies and Black actors, but behind the scenes, Black people aren’t thought of or given the opportunities. There are so few executives of color in Hollywood, so few line producers, camera operators,

14

PRODUCED BY

ACTIONS, NOT JUST WORDS Messiah Jacobs, founder and CEO of Four Screens, has spent two decades trailblazing a path in the entertainment industry. He offers the following recommendations for improving diversity and inclusion in the entertainment industry.

• Studios should create paid shadowing/mentoring programs to develop African American unit production managers and showrunners to go along with existing writer and director programs.

• Add people of color to pitch meetings and to the project review pipeline so decision makers will consider a different market opportunity for fresh stories.

• Create more diverse movies with in-depth lead characters for people of color like Crazy Rich Asians, Waiting to Exhale and The Best Man. A market exists for such stories.

• Training does not always remove bias. Hire African Americans and other people of color as decision makers. Executive leadership and decision makers need to be made up of culturally diverse and inclusive teams.

• Use trade guilds such as the PGA and DGA as safe places to talk about race and class in storytelling.

development execs ... the list goes on.”

“Is there systemic racism in the entertainment industry? Yes, there is,” Jacobs says. “For sure in society, and now we have to be honest—we have to make changes in our industry.”

To make those changes, Jacobs and his partners already have the inclusivity template functioning at Four Screens. They’ve created their own universe as producers/managers who give people of color the chance to live the Hollywood dream. Inspired by such luminaries as Spike Lee, Robert Townsend and John Singleton, Jacobs is carrying the torch forward.

Jacobs’ experience with the lack of opportunities has made him an advocate of change and inclusion and hopes the industry as a whole will follow his lead. “Diversity is our company’s DNA,” he says.

Jacobs recently viewed a private production company’s proposal for diversity and inclusion and thinks there still is a way to go.

“I like hearing the words ‘diversity and inclusion,’ but I would also like to see action. The proposal only addressed the tip of the iceberg. Industry executives need to have an open dialogue with people of color to get the changes that need to be made,” Jacobs says.

“I want to create a dialogue. Call someone you know who has had experiences of exclusion and talk to them genuinely about their experiences.

That’s the only way you can make a solid plan of inclusion—when you understand the inside story. How can you solve problems if you don’t know they exist?”

Like the consummate producer that Jacobs is, he always wants to make the project better: “I must be a voice of change for our industry because we must do better. We must get this right for America and for a better world.”

Outstanding Comedy Series

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series

FOR YOUR EMMY CONSIDER ATION ®

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

Outstanding Television Movie

Congratulations to our Emmy nominees ®

©2020 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

O D D NUMBERS

SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC OF ’20 We’ve all seen movies or television programs about surviving a pandemic, but who thought we’d actually have to live through one? With the benefit of plenty of stay-at-home time, here are your favorite pandemic-themed programs.

WHICH LATENIGHT TALK SHOW HAS BEEN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN TRANSITIONING TO AN AT-HOME TALK SHOW DURING THE PANDEMIC?

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon The Late Show with Stephen Colbert The Daily Show With Trevor Noah Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Jimmy Kimmel Live

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FILM THAT INVOLVES A PANDEMIC AS ITS CENTRAL THEME?

25% 22% 22% 16% 15%

Contagion

40%

Outbreak

22%

World War Z

14%

I Am Legend

13%

28 Days Later

11%

WITH WHICH CAST FROM LAST YEAR’S PGA AWARDNOMINATED COMEDY SERIES WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE QUARANTINED?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Fleabag Veep Barry Schitt’s Creek

33% 27% 20% 12% 8%

SURVEY RESULTS ARE A COMPLETELY UNSCIENTIFIC SAMPLING OF RESPONSES FROM PGA MEMBERS, THEIR FRIENDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA. JOIN IN THE FUN: WE WELCOME YOUR VOTE AT PRODUCERSGUILD.ORG/ODDNUMBERS.

PRODUCED BY

FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION

OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

DAHVI WALLER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

STACEY SHER

COCO FRANCINI

CATE BL ANCHET T

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

ANNA BODEN

RYAN FLECK

MICAH SCHRAFT

CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

PRODUCER

PRODUCER

JAMES SKOTCHDOPOLE

TELEVISION ACADEMY MEMBERS: USE YOUR PERSONAL FX FYC CODE TO WATCH ALL EPISODES ON FXVIP.DIGITALSCREENERS.COM EXPIRES 8/31/20

TANYA BARFIELD

BOO KILLEBREW

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

WE NEED YOU! You asked for the Producers Mark in Television and we got it! Now it’s up to YOU to get production companies, networks and distribution platforms to submit Televised and Streamed Motion Pictures to the PGA for certification!

IS THE PRODUCERS MARK AVAILABLE FOR ALL TYPES OF MOVIES? No. Historically, only theatrical motion pictures, documentary motion pictures and animated motion pictures were eligible to be submitted for Producers Mark consideration. But we are happy to report that the Producers Guild recently expanded its determination process to include televised/streamed motion pictures.

WHEN I SEE “P.G.A.” AFTER A PRODUCER’S NAME IN A MOTION PICTURE’S CREDITS, WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Regardless of the distribution platform, it means that according to the rules of the Producers Guild’s certification process, that producer performed a major portion of the producing functions on that specific motion picture.

WHY DO SOME MOTION PICTURES CARRY THE PRODUCERS MARK, BUT NOT OTHERS? The Producers Mark is voluntary, and the PGA cannot force any copyright owner to submit for certification. All of the major studios—Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Fox—and nearly all theatrical distributors of independent motion pictures, welcome the PM process.

ARE ALL PRODUCERS ON A MOTION PICTURE ELIGIBLE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THE PRODUCERS MARK? No. On theatrical motion pictures, docu-

18

PRODUCED BY

mentary motion pictures and animated motion pictures only those individuals receiving “Producer” or “Produced By” credit may be considered for use of the Producers Mark. On televised/streamed motion pictures, only those individuals receiving “Executive Producer,” “Producer” or “Produced By” credit, whichever is the primary producing credit as supported by the submitted credits, may be considered for use of the Producers Mark.

IF A PRODUCER DOESN’T RECEIVE THE P.G.A. MARK FROM THE PRODUCERS GUILD, WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR PRODUCING CREDIT? Nothing. The Producers Mark doesn’t control or affect the “Executive Producer,” “Produced By” or “Producer” credit in any way, nor does it invalidate that credit by its absence.

WHAT IMPACT DOES THE PRODUCERS MARK HAVE ON AWARDS? Determinations for the Producers Mark and for producer award eligibility are determined at the same time and via the same process. In addition to AMPAS, HFPA and BAFTA, all rely on the PGA process to guide their decision making.

However the final selection of nominees is always at the discretion of the organization giving the award. And, while the Producers Mark also is recognized by the WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA, the PGA has agreed not to license the Producers Mark for use with any combined credit (e.g., “Directed and Produced By …”).

SO WHAT’S THE PROCESS FOR LICENSING THE PRODUCERS MARK? 1. The process is initiated by the copyright owner of the motion picture.

2. After the post-production process has commenced, but four to six weeks before credits are locked, the owner submits a motion picture for consideration via ProducersGuildAwards.com.

3. Within two to three weeks, the PGA sends out eligibility forms to every producer credited as “Executive Producer,” “Produced By” or “Producer” on the motion picture, depending on the type of production and the submitted credits, and sends confidential verification forms to a wide variety of third parties associated with the production of the motion picture: the director(s), writer(s), department heads, company executives and key crew members.

4. Once forms have been returned, the PGA convenes a panel of arbiters, each of them active and experienced producers with numerous (and recent) credits, typically in the genre or category of the motion picture under consideration. (I.e., if the motion picture is a major studio tentpole, we try to utilize arbiters with considerable experience in making those big-budget studio pictures. If the motion picture

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE Because the Producers Mark is brand new for televised and streamed motion pictures, it is incumbent on you to request that the production companies, networks and distribution platforms submit the movies you produce for them to the Guild for processing the Producers Mark. If you are currently producing a televised or streamed movie and are contractually due the primary producing credit, please contact tvpm@producersguild.org for info and assistance on licensing the Producers Mark.

is a smaller indie movie, we rely on producers familiar with that type of production. If the motion picture is produced for distribution via television or streaming platform, we use arbiters with that particular type of production experience, etc.) An initial arbitration panel typically has three arbiters.

The arbiters review all materials returned to the PGA by the producers and third parties, with all names of individuals credited on the motion picture redacted, so that arbiters can arrive at a judgment based on the testimony provided rather than the name recognition and perceived reputation of the producers.

5. Following the determination, the PGA staff informs the producers of the decision. Producers who object to the decision have five days to notify the Guild of an intent to appeal. After giving producers the opportunity to add to or clarify their testimony, the PGA will convene a new panel of arbiters. All appellate panels consist of three producers. If the initial decision was unanimous, the appellate panel will consist of one producer from the original panel and two new producers; if the initial decision was not unanimous, the appellate panel will consist of three new producers. The decision of the appellate panel is final.

SO WHEN ARBITERS ARE LOOKING AT THESE FORMS, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING? The eligibility form filled out by producers asks them to indicate their level of responsibility for a variety of producing functions spanning development, pre-production, physical production and post-production. The form also includes a free-response section for the producer

to elaborate more fully on the specifics of the production and their role on the motion picture. The verification forms filled out by third parties typically ask the respondent questions related to the nature of their collaboration with the credited producers.

For instance, the verification form for editors asks the editor to designate which producer(s) consulted with the editor regarding dailies, gave notes on cuts or participated in screenings.

ABOUT THE PROCESS?

WHO SELECTS WHICH ARBITERS VET THE CREDITS OF WHICH MOTION PICTURES? That determination is made by the PGA’s Corporate Counsel in consultation with the National Executive Director/COO.

ONCE A PRODUCER’S CREDIT IS CERTIFIED WITH THE PRODUCERS MARK, IS THAT CERTIFICATION APPLIED PERMANENTLY TO ALL OF THE PRODUCER’S MOTION PICTURES?

WHAT IF THE PGA SELECTS AN ARBITER WHO (UNBEKNOWNST TO THEM) IS BIASED AGAINST A GIVEN PRODUCER OR MOTION PICTURE?

No. A Producer’s Mark appended to a producing credit applies to that motion picture only. It represents the nature of the work performed on that motion picture alone and does not carry over to future productions.

The Guild takes proactive measures to prevent that from happening. Prior to convening the panel, the PGA provides all producers with a list of potential arbiters.

Producers are free to strike any arbiter for any reason. Such arbiters will not be empaneled for that particular motion picture. Furthermore, all arbiters are asked to affirmatively state that they have no interests in the motion pictures to be arbitrated that might result in a biased judgment. Even if all of those hurdles are cleared, an arbiter will be removed from the process if they or the PGA administrator (PGA’s Corporate Counsel or the National Executive Director/COO) feels that bias is affecting their judgment.

WHY CAN’T THE PGA BE MORE TRANSPARENT

We maintain the strictest confidentiality around the identities of the producers, third parties and arbiters involved because such confidence is the only way we can hope to get accurate and truthful information. Many producers are powerful figures in this industry and this might put pressure on third parties and arbiters to achieve a desired decision. Keeping those identities confidential is the only way to maintain the integrity of the process.

DOES THE “P.G.A.” AFTER THE PRODUCER’S NAME MEAN THAT THE PRODUCER IS A MEMBER OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD? No. A producer does not need to be a member of the PGA to receive the “p.g.a.” designation after their name. In many cases, the sets of initials you see in motion picture credits (such as A.S.C. and A.C.E.) indicate membership in an organization.

The Producers Mark is different. It’s a certification mark; its purpose is to designate that the producer has met an officially recognized standard of performance on that motion picture.

For all the details about the Producers Mark, please go to producersguild.org.

PRODUCED BY

19

O P E N D O ORS

THE CASE FOR HIRING VETERANS Skills acquired in the military transfer neatly to production Written by Brian McLaughlin

W

hen I was in my early 20s, after leading an Army infantry platoon, I served as a general’s aide-de-camp—still the most challenging job I’ve had, requiring absolute reliability.

This was followed by commanding a paratrooper unit, with ongoing life-anddeath stakes. Lastly, after serving as a major in special operations, I was General David Petraeus’ media production advisor and produced documentary shorts with Afghan crews throughout that country. So when, as a producer, I was called to rescue a feature film whose director and producer were fired the day before production was to begin ... or to rescue another film that lacked cast, locations, crew and equipment a week before filming, it wasn’t my first crisis. My background is illustrative of most veterans’ breadth of work history and life experience—valuable background that enhances their agility, capability and contributions on a shoot.

The PGA Diversity Committee treats veteran status as part of Diversity 2.0, along with gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and age. As we look for diverse views, veterans’ perspective offers an intriguing layer to storytelling, and they’re tremendous assets on a production. My producing partner, Penelope Korff, is a former Army first lieutenant.

We’ve developed a doubly diverse true story about a Black Green Beret in Afghanistan, Tiger Zero Three—written by Ken Henderson, a Navy and National Guard veteran—and fully intend to hire many veterans on this and all our projects.

About 5.7% of the U.S. population has served in the armed forces. That’s comparable to the percentage of the population that is Asian American or LGBTQ+. Yet

Brian McLaughlin with a village elder in eastern Afghanistan in 2011.

veterans face unique hiring hurdles, such as inaccurate stereotypes and underappreciation of their transferable skills.

To counter misperceptions and provide evidence of solid skills, consider these producers who have worn a uniform: Clint Eastwood (Army), Roger Corman (Navy), Norman Lear (Army), Mel Brooks (Army), Morgan Freeman (Air Force), Ice-T (Army), Ram Bergman (Israel Defense Forces), Gal Gadot (IDF) and Mark Burnett (British Army). Surely their achievement is at least partly due to valuable traits that are honed in the military—leadership, teamwork, adaptability, perseverance, responsibility, calm under pressure, planning, organization, problem solving, innovation, determination and confidence—qualities that foster success in any production.

After you’ve been through basic training, jumped out of an airplane or been shot at, challenges on a set are easy. The military also brings a national and global perspective—I served in four U.S. states and nine countries—that can add distinct voices to a writers’ room. And studies have shown that veterans have higher

productivity and lower turnover than non-veterans.

The PGA occasionally includes veterans in its activities, which introduces Guild members to qualified folks. In coordination with the 4,000-member Veterans in Media and Entertainment, veterans have also been volunteers at Produced By and many other PGA events. Over the 16 years of the PGA’s Power of Diversity Master Workshop, many of the participants have been veterans—including me in 2017. It’s been an honor to subsequently mentor in the workshop and recruit other veterans to apply. Additionally, two VME members have joined the PGA with my sponsorship.

We can all be proud of the Producers Guild’s support of veterans, exposing our members to the many advantages of creatively collaborating with former service members. Now, hire and cast them! Producing is often described as a battle—who better help you win that battle? A project I produced last year had veterans in 19% of the positions (along with 45% women and 48% people of color), which helped us accomplish a very challenging shoot.

For assistance identifying qualified vets, contact Brian at mclaff19@gmail.com or go to vmeconnect.org.

20

PRODUCED BY

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program

FOR YOUR EMMY CONSIDER ATION ®

Outstanding Children’s Program

Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking

Congratulations to our Emmy nominees ®

©2020 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved. HBO® and related channels and service marks are the property of Home Box Office, Inc.

GOING GREEN

COVID, CLIMATE AND RACE Overlapping crises call for more conscious approaches to production Written by Katie Carpenter and Mari Jo Winkler

C

OVID-19 has swept through our nation, our communities, workplaces and homes, touching each one of us and changing the way we live. It shares with climate change a shameful attribute—it harms people of color disproportionately. As we plan our return to work, reopening our film and TV productions and launching new ones, it’s imperative to acknowledge the connections between the pandemic, climate change and racism—crises that share both causes and consequences.

To combat climate change and COVID-19, we must prioritize safety and sustainability. The health of all our communities relies on the health of our planet and its biodiversity.

22

PRODUCED BY

It has now been widely reported that this pandemic, like most recently emerged viruses, was caused by human disruption of the natural world. Land-use changes, especially deforestation, puts communities in close proximity with wild animals we otherwise rarely contact. Zoonotic illnesses jump from those animals to humans. In the case of the novel coronavirus, the source was likely a bat or a pangolin. In the past we’ve also had bird flu, swine flu and others. The animal is not to blame.

Another human disruption of nature is causing our climate to change. The release of carbon emissions and other pollutants has upset the natural balance of our atmosphere, and sent the temperature of both air and water increasing to lethal levels.

GOING GREEN

The devastating impacts include increased floods, wildfires, storms, droughts and degradation of human and wildlife health. Often, due to institutional racism, the toxic impacts of carbon emissions and other air pollutants have an outsized impact on Black, Indigenous and people of color.

With all these crises, our economy suffers. Areas we have loved become uninhabitable, and lives are forever changed. Fortunately, a vaccine for the coronavirus is on the horizon, and we believe we will eventually find our way to a post-pandemic existence. The fight against climate change, however, has no such silver bullet, so we must continue to work hard to avoid returning to the destructive old “normal.”

There is some good news in the common ground between the pandemic, inequality and climate change. The global reaction to this disease and the surge of support for the Black Lives Matter movement has proven that people are willing and capable of pivoting from the status quo. If we can make the abrupt transformations in lifestyle that are being called for now in 2020, then we can make changes again, and shift systems in order to confront the climate crisis.

As we emerge from this pandemic and reopen our film and TV productions, we can take heart in the fact that return-to-work guidelines are being written and tested, and the supply chain for the tools we need is nearly ready. In many places, sustainable production practices are already in place, proving that we are capable of transforming our

business without diminishing our outcomes—and often, in fact, improving them. Now that we’ve had a taste of clearer skies, cleaner water and easier breathing, we can appreciate and advocate added incentives to reduce our carbon pollution.

By implementing environmentally responsible practices throughout the production process, we are contributing to the health and safety of all. Now more than ever, there are critical sustainable practices to uphold, protecting our air, our water and our health. We can choose to serve more organic, plant-based foods and cut red meat, as pesticides make our water poisonous and beef production leads to deforestation. We can consciously create sets using only certified hardwoods, reusing what exists and donating what we build. We can waste less water, eliminate single-use plastic, use cleaner sources of energy and make sustainable travel choices to decrease our carbon emissions.

It is often said that moments of crisis can be moments of opportunity. We can combat the virus and the climate crisis while we protect the health of our families, coworkers and communities of color. If we act together, we will make film and TV production safer, healthier, greener and more equitable, all at the same time.

Visit greenproductionguide.com to learn more about climate initiatives and COVID return-to-work resources.

Katie Carpenter and Mari Jo Winkler aim to make film and TV production safer, healthier, greener and more equitable.

PRODUCED BY

23

24

PRODUCED BY

Ken Burns Interviewed by Sarah Burns Photographed by Doug Levy

I

f you reference a certain iMovie support page, you’ll see: “3.

Click the Ken Burns button.”

No, an animated Ken Burns does not appear on your screen offering winsome historical context about iMovie and film editing. It’s a shortcut for a picture effect that apes Burns’ signature camera move—the pan and zoom across a still photograph.

The Ken Burns button seems like a small thing, a bit of pop-tech ephemera. But it tells you something about the ubiquity of the man’s work and the affection with which it is regarded that the folks at Apple not only include it as part of their suite, but cite its creator by name.

It’s been almost 30 years since Burns became an overnight household name with the release of his first epic history doc, The Civil War. Since then, he’s built his filmography (now nearing 40 titles) with unmatched consistency. But every time he might have faded into the background of the documentary landscape, he’s roared back into popular consciousness with work that is simultaneously expansive, urgent and graceful. Accordingly, his recent series The Vietnam War and Country Music have earned him new admirers every bit as ardent as the devotees of The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz.

Thanks to a happy confluence of events, Produced By engaged a perfect interviewer for this issue’s cover story: Ken’s daughter Sarah Burns, a celebrated author and documentarian in her own right.

After working alongside her father on such films as Jackie Robinson and The Central Park Five (based on her own book), Sarah this year released East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story, co-directed by her husband and creative partner, David McMahon.

The socially distanced interview took place over Zoom, between Brooklyn and Walpole, New Hampshire, on Juneteenth (June 19) of this year.

Intro by chris green

PRODUCED BY

25

THE COVER: KEN BURNS

YOU’VE DEVELOPED A KIND OF VISUAL STORYTELLING LANGUAGE THAT’S BECOME VERY RECOGNIZABLE, TO THE POINT WHERE IT’S OFTEN PARODIED AND IMITATED. BUT I’M INTERESTED IN HOW YOU CAME INTO THIS UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO BRING STILL IMAGES TO LIFE, OF TREATING THEM LIKE YOU WOULD IF YOU WERE A FILM DIRECTOR ON A SET WITH A CAMERA. It’s hard. I am the beneficiary of a convergence of a lot of different things, beginning with an anthropologist father who was an amateur still photographer. I’ve enjoyed the benefit of all the movies he let me watch.

And then most of all, learning from (documentary still photographers) Jerry Liebling and Elaine Mayes at Hampshire—that gave me a kind of humanistic underpinning and this sense of what composition is.

But then stuff just connected for me.

For instance, I saw a film on Gertrude Stein from a woman named Perry Miller Adato, who recently passed away, called When This You See, Remember Me. She used actors reading Stein on stage. And there was one moment when she cut away from the actors a little bit early and went to a still photograph of Paris, with the voices of the actors still playing. And I realized— wait a second, you don’t need to see the actors at all. You can just hear them.

It was like a big crash at the intersection of all these influences.

But everything suggested that a) the still photograph was central, and that b) you could wake it up. You could treat it as a master shot that has a long setup, a medium, a close, a tilt, a pan, a reveal, a pullout. Not only that, you could listen to it. That photograph was a representation of something that was true. It had a moment before it was taken and it had a moment afterwards.

So ... Did that car pass? Did the troops

26

PRODUCED BY

I realized the same laws of storytelling applied to me as they did to John Ford.

And that all I needed to do was treat that still photograph that I had in my hand as a master shot.”

tramp? Did the horse whinny? Did the leaves rustle? Did the cannon explode?

Did the bat crack? Did the crowd cheer?

All of those things. So it became a lens for looking at it intentionally and wondering what the story was.

Through that practice, I realized the same laws of storytelling applied to me as they did to John Ford. And that all I needed to do was treat that still photograph that I had in my hand as a master shot. I’ve been on a stage with Steven Spielberg and we’ve had that moment of recognition that, yeah, we obey the same laws. He can make stuff up. I can’t. But we operate under the same laws of storytelling.

The thing that still gets me excited is how you wake it up. We’re trying to look into it and trust that it was once alive.

What we’re trying to do is evaporate the plasticity—that’s a fancy word which means the two-dimensionality of the image. So we don’t want to do anything that shows off that plasticity; no borders.

You want to move in it as if it’s real. The soundtrack has not only period music and complicated sound effects willing it to life, but third-person voices and firstperson voices giving you the style and articulation of the past. And all of that together comprises a loose cinematic style.

Each film has its own set of exigencies that are going to require us to change the components, to recalibrate how much of each element we use. There’s lots of techniques that are available, but we can boil ours down to four visual and four aural: stills, talking heads, movies and live cinematography; music, sound effects, first-person voice, third-person voice. It’s just a calibration of each of those. If it’s done authentically, it’s style.

WHEN YOU WERE FIRST GETTING STARTED RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE, TRYING TO MAKE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND THEN SHAKERS, I THINK YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO, BUT MAYBE THAT WAS EASIER IMAGINED THAN ACHIEVED.

5

E M M Y

®

N O M I N A T I O N S

OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES INCLUDING

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS

IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

KERRY WASHINGTON OUTSTANDING DIRECTING

FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL

LYNN SHELTON

“EXPLORES RACE AND CLASS INSIDE THE LENS OF MOTHERHOOD.”

THE COVER: KEN BURNS

HOW HARD WAS IT TO RAISE THE MONEY? HOW HARD WAS IT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING AND HOW TO DO THAT? It’s funny—just yesterday I was looking through some old photo albums of your mom and me when we first moved up here (Walpole, New Hampshire) in ’79.

That was the best professional decision I ever made—to leave New York City, where I couldn’t afford the $275 rent on the fifth-floor walkup where we lived in Chelsea. We moved to this house 41 years ago. And after the first film, Brooklyn Bridge, was nominated for an Academy Award, everyone said, “So come back to New York.” But I basically pushed away a job offer that would have paid me lots of money because I was terrified that I would set my footage aside and I’d wake up 20 years later and not have finished it.

There was a terror in leaving New York.

And your mom was kind of a rock, because I was just a mess at the time. We had a little cabin—still there—that we heated up every morning with a big potbelly stove that had a giant crack in it. It took three hours to warm up. The film was brittle when we took it inside, but we kind of invented how you made a history film. I’d come armed with the first-person voices and this energetic exploration of the camera. But it was just terrifying. I honor those days, just because it was so hard to figure out how you do it, how you could convince someone to take a chance on the material, or even just on me. I mean, I looked like I was 12 years old. “This child

is trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge?

Pass.” It was really hard to swim upstream.

It was only after the third or fourth film, after the second Academy Award nomination, that I started to make just a little bit of money and could heat that cabin—not with stoves where I was running back and forth between cutting the film and chopping more wood, but I could say, “You know what? I think we can afford some oil.” [laughs]

OFTEN ENOUGH, I HEAR PEOPLE ASK YOU ABOUT HOW YOU FIND YOUR SUBJECTS. MY SENSE IS THAT THERE’S NO ONE SET WAY, BUT THERE ARE A FEW CLEAR THEMES THAT EMERGE ACROSS YOUR BODY OF WORK. CERTAINLY FILMS WE’VE WORKED ON TOGETHER HAVE EXPLICITLY DEALT WITH RACE AND THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA, AS HAVE MANY OF THE OTHER FILMS THAT YOU’VE MADE OVER THOSE 40 YEARS. WHY IS THAT ISSUE FOR YOU, A WHITE GUY FROM ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, A CENTRAL ANIMATING QUESTION OF SO MUCH OF THIS WORK? Well, I think that you cannot be honest about an exploration of American history, even if you buy into its exceptionalism, without seeing our great failure, what historians call our “original sin.” We’re one of the few countries that knows exactly when we were founded: July 4, 1776.

“WE NEVER STOP RESEARCHING AND WE NEVER STOP WRITING. IN SOME WAYS, WE NEVER STOP SHOOTING EITHER. BUT AT SOME POINT, WE DO START EDITING, AND THE FILM IS MADE THERE.”

28

PRODUCED BY

We know where our reckoning is. It’s the second sentence of the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The guy who wrote that owned more than a hundred human beings. I mean, that’s us—both “the U.S.” and “us.” And it resonates in every single film that I’ve done.

I went through my own emotional reckoning of losing my mom to cancer just as the civil rights movement was happening. I remember the anxiety and fear about her imminent death coinciding with watching dogs and fire hoses turned on Black citizens, so there was a blurring of the line between the cancer that was killing my family and the cancer that was killing my country. I absorbed it and could not distinguish it. I did not realize at the time that this was an animating feature of my being as well as my life’s work, but it is.

Today, having done somewhere between 30 and 40 films, some an hour long, some 18 hours long, I can count on the fingers of one hand the films that don’t deal with race. It’s the most important thing that we deal with. It’s our original sin. That’s where there’s so much work to do.

I ALWAYS THINK IT’S FUNNY HOW, WHEN WE TALK ABOUT POST-PRODUCTION, WE TEND TO USE THE WORD DIFFERENTLY THAN THE WAY IT’S USED IN THE NARRATIVE/ FICTION FILM WORLD. FOR THEM, “POST” MEANS THE EDITING PROCESS. WHEREAS FOR US, WE USUALLY TALK ABOUT POST-PRODUCTION AS BEING THE STUFF THAT HAPPENS AFTER EDITING IS COMPLETE—THE COLOR CORRECTING AND SOUND MIXING, FINISHING STUFF. I THINK THAT THAT SPEAKS TO THE CENTRALITY OF THAT EDITING PROCESS FOR US. CAN YOU DIG INTO THAT A LITTLE BIT? HOW DOES ALL OF THAT WORK THAT YOU DO—THE RESEARCH, THE ARCHIVAL

THE COVER: KEN BURNS

Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan during production on Country Music.

GATHERING, THE SCRIPT WRITING— CONVERGE IN THE EDITING PROCESS? I think you hit the nail on the head, the way that distinction speaks directly to the centrality of editing in our business. We could have tens of thousands of never-before-seen photographs and archives, or hundreds of hours of wonderful interviews, or groundbreaking research. Outside of the editing process, it means nothing.

So it’s a different sort of method. There’s not a set research period followed by a set writing period followed by a set shooting period. We never stop researching and we never stop writing. In some ways, we never stop shooting either. But at some point, we do start editing, and the film is made there. Everything is up for grabs, and ultimately everything coalesces.

But it’s amazing, the way that what you thought was an A+ interview may turn out to be C– when the rigorous process of editing gets ahold of it. I’ve had that happen.

AND THE REVERSE CAN BE TRUE TOO, RIGHT? I’VE WALKED OUT OF INTERVIEWS THINKING, OH, NOW HOW WAS THAT HELPFUL? AND IT LATER TURNS OUT TO BE CRITICAL.

COURTESY CRAIG MELLISH

I walked out of the interview with Shelby Foote, the first interview for The Civil War, and I turned to a trusted colleague and I said, “What do you think?” and he said, “Pretty boring.” And for the next three months I just had the worst anxiety attack. We had no idea how central his interview would be to The Civil War, just because he told stories in his own way. Whatever was quiet and soft-spoken in the context of an interview suddenly turned dynamic and wonderful in the context of telling a complex story of the Civil War.

SO AS WE TALK TODAY, IT’S JUNETEENTH, CELEBRATING THE DAY IN 1865 WHEN ENSLAVED PEOPLE IN TEXAS LEARNED OF THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR AND OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION—A COUPLE YEARS LATE, IT TURNED OUT. AND RIGHT NOW WE ARE ALSO IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC AND A MASSIVE UPRISING PROTESTING POLICE VIOLENCE AND STRUCTURAL RACISM. AS A FILMMAKER WHO HAS EXPLORED A LOT OF THE HISTORY AND CONTEXT THAT INFORMS THIS MOMENT, HOW DO YOU THINK OUR

PRODUCED BY

29

COURTESY CRAIG MELLISH

THE COVER: KEN BURNS

Ken Burns and Connie Smith during production on Country Music.

CURRENT MOMENT ULTIMATELY WILL BE SEEN FROM A HISTORICAL VANTAGE? AND MAYBE THIS IS THE FLIP SIDE OF THAT, BUT WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE? GIVEN THAT EXPERIENCE OF TELLING THESE STORIES THAT, AS WE’VE SAID, RELATE TO WHAT’S GOING ON TODAY, HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT THE PRESENT FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE? Yeah. This moment is… We use the metaphor of war to talk about the disease.

I hope we can graduate to some other metaphor soon. It’s certainly got an economic disruption on the scale of, but not quite equal to, the Great Depression.

30

PRODUCED BY

And interestingly enough, in the midst of this, the old stuff of our failing has come up. In part because we’re quarantined, we also have been able to invest our reaction to it with a duration and an intensity that actually suggests that something good will come out of it. It’s not guaranteed.

Historians—and, my goodness, I’m an amateur one—make lousy prognosticators.

But I have seen this before. Will it end people’s judging people on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character? No. But I do think we’ll be making some inroads.

People say that history repeats itself.

It does not. There’s never been an event that’s been repeated, ever. We’re not condemned to repeat what we don’t

remember. It’s a lovely phrase. It’s been sustained, I think, in our imaginations by the horror of the Holocaust. But it’s not true. At the same time, human nature remains the same. Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

I REMEMBER WORKING FIVE YEARS AGO AS WE WERE EDITING JACKIE ROBINSON AND WE HAD RECENTLY ADDED BACK IN A SCENE ABOUT PEE WEE REESE’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT EBBETS FIELD, WHEN THE GROUNDS CREW HAD RAISED A CONFEDERATE FLAG ABOVE EBBETS IN HONOR

OF PEE WEE REESE, THE KENTUCKY COLONEL. AND WE EXPLORED THE IMPACT THAT THAT HAD ON ROBINSON AND THE ANGER AND FRUSTRATION THAT HE FELT IN THAT MOMENT. AND BY THE TIME WE WATCHED THE FILM AGAIN A FEW WEEKS LATER WITH THAT SCENE IN, THE MOTHER EMANUEL MASSACRE HAD HAPPENED, GENERATING THIS NEW CONVERSATION IN THAT MOMENT ABOUT TAKING DOWN CONFEDERATE FLAGS IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND ELSEWHERE. I WAS STRUCK

BY HOW WE HAD BEEN

HAVING A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THAT MOMENT TO JACKIE, BUT THAT IT INEVITABLY BECAME RELEVANT TO OUR CURRENT CONVERSATION. Exactly. So I know that whatever topic we’re drawn to in American history, it will engage race, among lots of other themes. And when we are finished doing it, if we are disciplined enough to keep our heads down and not try to point an arrow or a neon sign saying “Isn’t this an awful lot like today?”, when we finish and lift our heads up again, it will look an awful lot like today. If you keep your eyes focused on that, whatever you do will be a mirror of the present moment—a

mirror that has some distance and more dispassion, so there’s an ability for that story to last and not just be skywriting.

So I feel optimistic about the current moment, as terrifying as it is. I’ve never participated in nature the way I am now, which is both a great boon and an old American tradition, finding God in the cathedrals of nature. We find ourselves confronting, in the most direct way, our original sin. I’m hoping that some big durable change will come. Whatever it turns out to be, it will not be complete.

And we will, 50 years from now, be saying, “Boy, wasn’t 2020 a lot like ’68 and ’54 and ’44 and ’47 and 1865, and all of these?” And the answer will always be “yes,” and we’ll always have work to do.

PRODUCED BY

31

Drawing US IN

How Five Female Animation Producers Make Universal Stories More Universal WRITTEN BY KATIE GRANT

hat do you get when five female animation producing powerhouses gather virtually for a roundtable discussion? You get to find out how they break barriers and bust through glass ceilings.

You learn how they find new voices and nurture them. And you get to see how they make their stories and storytellers more inclusive. Black, of color, underrepresented, oppressed, marginalized, young, old, any and all genders—these are some of the voices that Bonnie Arnold, Jinko Gotoh, Kelly Kulchak, Karen Rupert Toliver and Kori Rae strive to bring to their animation screens both big and small, in front of and behind the camera. And, as Gotoh puts it, they utilize these voices to make “powerful animated movies or series with a theme that transcends to all generations.”

Longtime animation veteran Bonnie Arnold was tasked with creating and moderating this panel of women who

32

PRODUCED BY

could represent those differences, and she came through with what she called “The Six Degrees of Separation of Bonnie Arnold.” Arnold began as Harrison Ford’s location scout driver for The Mosquito Coast, which filmed in her home state of Georgia.

Decades later, she is the former co-President of Dreamworks Feature Animation, with movies like Toy Story and How to Train Your Dragon under her belt. She is also an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and

Sciences and has worked with each of the panelists at some point in her career. She successfully burst the old boys’ club bubble of animation where she used to “pretend to act like one of the boys.

It was fine. That’s what you had to do. But it’s nice now to be in environments where you can be you. You can be yourself.”

Creating those environments is something all these producers agree is necessary for telling truly inclusive, universal stories.

Women, people of color, and even just quiet crew members need to know their voices are heard and, more importantly, are welcome. Kori Rae of Pixar Animation and, most recently, producer of Onward, says part of her work as a producer is getting new voices heard. “The key is to get them to talk and to get their ideas out there. I have had to literally referee, in a good way, to make sure that the women’s voices were heard just at the table.”

She breaks her storytellers out into smaller groups at times so women in particular will feel more comfortable speaking up and sharing their good ideas. “Because they’re probably intimidated, especially when they’re relatively new, fresh out of school. It’s painful to watch. They just don’t want to speak up.”

Karen Rupert Toliver, Executive Vice President of Creative for Sony Pictures Animation and Academy Award winner for the short Hair Love, relayed her experience working on that project about a young black father trying to do his daughter’s hair: “To be in a room where it was mostly Black people, I’ve never had that experience in my whole career. We could talk about the material and the subject matter, what we wanted out of it, in a really honest, very raw way.” That sense of community, once created, however, needs to be nurtured. Toliver has seen good talent get hired and then leave all too soon because they were not listened to. She says it takes “making sure that there’s some caretaker on every production who’s ensuring that when women and people of color come in they feel cared for throughout and that they’re heard. I think we can do that a lot better.”

A transfer from live action producing to TV animation, Kelly Kulchak is now Head of Current Programming at DreamWorks Animation. She adds that having a diversity consultant on projects fosters an atmosphere of inclusion. She is currently working on a Jurassic Park series with a young black male lead and had the consultant affirm that they were indeed creating a character who was a strong leader. But, she says, “It’s almost easier to have that diversity in front of the camera, have it in those characters. I feel like we’re making good strides in that, but it’s the behind the scenes, it’s finding those voices, that you can have contribute as well.”

And find fresh voices, they do. Gotoh, a producer and consultant (Dinosaur, Finding Nemo, The Little Prince, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) and Vice President of Women in Animation, is also known for creating a 43% female crew for the Netflix feature Klaus. The way she did it, though, is even more admirable. She sought out animation students and an international group to make the movie in Spain—where the director, Sergio Pablos, is from—by looking first at their skills and talent, not their gender. After that process, the ratio played in favor of an almost half-female crew. But she doesn’t stop there: “I’m super excited we got to the top. We can feed the pipeline. Now we just have to do it. We have to keep a sustainable model to make that change so that all these

“It’s nice now to be in environments where you can be yourself,” says panel moderator Bonnie Arnold, producer of How to Train Your Dragon.

PRODUCED BY

33

DRAWING US IN

women and people of color and people from different countries can all succeed.”

Keeping that model sustainable can happen by “surrounding her for success,” adds Kulchak. When working on the series She-Ra, Kulchak provided an experienced team and an all-female writing staff to help creator Noelle Stevenson feel comfortable becoming the leader she needed to be. “We need to take chances on these young voices and surround them with experienced people so they are set up for success. That’s our job. I think what’s really important for us is not just hiring them but making sure that we protect them.”

Protecting these voices also means taking chances and risk. This particular group of women seem to be comfortable with risk, and Toliver offers one reason why.

“I think stories can come from all sorts of places. The thing we know is, you feel like you’re taking a shot with someone new.

And it feels like it’s more so when you’re taking a shot with a woman or with a person of color. But you’re taking a shot with a white man also—it just doesn’t feel like such a shot. I think that’s where we’re trying to check ourselves in terms of what’s a known quantity of something that’s going to work and what is a real risk.”

One thing no one in this group is willing to risk is the quality of the stories they tell. As Rae shares, “What I used to think was a cliché that Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton always said is that, ‘We make our movies for ourselves. We’re our first audience. We are the most important audience because we sit with it for five years before anybody gets to see it.’ It still is true, but it’s shifting to more on the diversity front than thinking about making films for kids.”

And when Kulchak made the transition from live action to animation—admitting she had no experience there—all that mattered to Margorie Cohn, who brought her in, was story. “She asked, ‘Well, what’s important to you about live action?’ And I said, ‘Story and character.’ She said, ‘Me too.’ And she trusted me because I had multiple years working in production that I would pick up on the animation production pipeline.” She adds, “People

34

PRODUCED BY

want to get invested in a character, in a story, in a journey, and, to me, that’s the responsibility—can you tell a great story?

You want characters that are deep and varied and unique, that a kid can just use their imagination on.”

That’s where story can take its place at the head of the table for change. As Gotoh says, “I think people are open to different types of stories. In the past it was, ‘OK, we want to tell North American or American stories, and you can bring different voices.’ But now there are opportunities where you can bring different types of

compelled to do that for others. Kulchak says, “It comes to us, it comes to other women, to reach down and help others up.” How else, some might wonder, could you become a leader in animation?

Arnold offers, “I think, as producers, we’re seen as the leader of the crews. But a lot of people don’t understand there are so many things that go on behind the scenes. There’s the studio and then there’s the director and sometimes the director is a woman, but sometimes it’s a man. None of us calls all the shots all the time, whether you’re an executive or the

“WE HAVE TO KEEP A SUSTAINABLE MODEL TO MAKE THAT CHANGE SO THAT ALL THESE WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR AND PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES CAN ALL SUCCEED.”

The women of animation, clockwise from top left: Bonnie Arnold, Kelly Kulchak, Kori Rae, Karen Rupert Toliver, Jinko Gotoh

stories from different parts of the world and put them in a three-act structure that plays to the global audience. I think we can learn from both sides, all sides.”

Each of these women—who do come from all sides—got a hand, leg or foot up the professional ladder, and now feel

producer.” Getting to the level where you do call some of the shots some of the time is tough. One way to get there is through short films, which Arnold calls “the entry point for a lot of underrepresented groups to get their feet wet.”

Rae highlights the internal program at

COURTESY PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS

DRAWING US IN

Pixar’s Spark Shorts is “finding ways for people to tell their stories in their own way,” says Kori Rae, producer of Onward.

Pixar—Spark Shorts—which was created to find undiscovered talent in animation and up-and coming-talent like Domee Shi of the Academy Award-winning short Bao. “These shorts can have restrained budgets and are quite often made after hours. It’s unbelievable to see how many people have already come out of that. People who were from documentaries, people who were coming from all aspects of production, not just story. That was an important step to make, because we kept trying to get non-story artists into directing roles and it was always such a large leap.

“So it’s taking these bite-sized pieces and finding ways for people to tell their stories in their own way. We even opened it up to any type of animation you want, including 2D or sand animation. We also came up with a new role—associate executive producer—in an effort to get potential female leaders at the studio and other people of color who haven’t really been in leadership before, to get them exposed to all aspects of filmmaking.” Citing her experience producing Hair Love from scratch, Toliver adds, “These shorts with micro budgets, where you don’t get to overthink it in the way that all of our movies get overthought, are really a blessing.”

At DreamWorks, the focus is on giving opportunities “so that they can grow with you,” says Kulchak. She continues,

“A lot of times those big positions, those executive producers aren’t available. So you want to be able to give someone the opportunity to grow in that job. I think that’s another place that we have to focus on. It’s not just writers and directors, but it’s production assistants. It’s that kid who can start and grow the way a lot of us did in the industry, and work their way up.”

Once in the door, though, it’s best if female or minority recruits don’t feel alone.

“It’s really hard when you’re the only one,” Toliver warns. “It takes a certain personality to be the only one. Certain types of women or people of color just don’t want that environment, so they may just opt out. I think trying to make sure that there are two and three and more, and they can have a community, is kind of a watershed thing.”

Geena Davis’ Institute on Gender in Media was mentioned more than once during this conversation—specifically her notion and tagline of “If she can see it, she can be it,” and the responsibility felt to uphold that. Toliver takes it step further: “I think about the empathy of understanding and what it’s like to be marginalized. But there are other kinds of stories and other depths or shifts of perception that I think we can do. Kids would understand that probably even better than adults. Those are the places

where I think we can keep pushing the boundaries. It’s the evolution of ‘If you can see it, you can be it,’ but showing more of the possibility of understanding how we’re connected.”

That connection is at once being challenged and nurtured during the time of this pandemic. In one sense, these women noted how they can now work with a wider net of international talent since everyone is working from home.

But they do miss the ideas that happened on the fly in the hallways, by the water cooler or in the ladies’ room lounges.

They voiced concerns about new hires not feeling like part of a team they’ve never met in person, and technical issues such as sending large files where lighting and sound work come in. But they are all making the best of working remotely.

Rae mentions Pixar’s new film, Soul, being virtually complete, with Pete Docter at Skywalker Studios “sitting in the theater by himself listening to” the finished product. She adds, “As producers, our skill set is heavy in planning and making the case for every eventuality. We find ourselves in react-and-respond mode because there’s very little planning you can do in this scenario. It’s got everybody a little on their back feet, and just really working hour to hour, day to day.”

In the end, it’s the ability to challenge

PRODUCED BY

35

DRAWING US IN

On the series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Kelly Kulchak empowered creator Noelle Stevenson with an experienced team and all-female writers.

when they get told no that helps these female producers keep going. As Toliver puts it, “The funny thing—the blessing and the curse for all of us—is that our experience means we have expectations. We’ve been told no a certain kind of way. There are all kinds of assumptions about how we would tell our stories that we have to unwind.

“I think that’s where really looking to the newcomers and letting them help us can change our storytelling. In my brain I think, ‘OK, I know we didn’t do this before, I know I fought for this before. I know I got noes before, but now the noes are not being accepted anymore.’ The more we just don’t accept them, and we keep asking questions and we push—I think that’s how we’re going to really change the look of the crews.

“I think that’s why shorts or other access points with lower risk will be the way that we can say, ‘Wait a minute.

This worked in this way. So we can take a chance.’ A lot of my thing is deprogramming the things that have been said to me or I’ve experienced before and to just

36

PRODUCED BY

“I KNOW I GOT NOES BEFORE, BUT NOW THE NOES ARE NOT BEING ACCEPTED ANYMORE. THE MORE WE JUST DON’T ACCEPT THEM, AND WE KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS AND WE PUSH—I THINK THAT’S HOW WE’RE GOING TO REALLY CHANGE THE LOOK OF THE CREWS.” throw them out the window. To keep challenging and finding ways to take those risks, because they’re not risks anymore. I think that something happened where we just can’t do it the same way

anymore. The audience doesn’t want that.

They need that diversity, so it’s not even just a good thing to do; it’s essential.” Let these women storytellers be the essential workers we need now more than ever.

FOR YOUR EMMY ® CONSIDERATION

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

JEMAINE CLEMENT EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

PAUL SIMMS

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

TAIKA WAITITI

SCOT T RUDIN

GARRET T BASCH

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

ELI BUSH

STEFANI ROBINSON

SAM JOHNSON

CONSULTING PRODUCER

PRODUCER

PRODUCED BY

MARIKA SAWYER

KYLE NEWACHECK

DEREK S. RAPPAPORT

Accurate COVID-19 PCR testing with same-day results at the convenience of your home, office or our drive-thru.

We offer testing at our drive-thru or at the safety of your home or office by medical professionals. We also offer recurring testing plans and specialize in on-site corporate/studio testing for larger groups. We use CDC recommended protocols which directly detect the presence of the virus.

Call or visit our website to make an appointment: www.LosAngelesCOVIDTesting.com 888-210-3985

Mother of

Innovation Producer, crew and cast demonstrate creative grace under quarantine pressure to conjure a memorable Mythic Quest .

Written by Jeff Luini

PRODUCED BY

39

MOTHER OF INNOVATION

It’s a pretty standard morning in Bungalow 5 at the CBS Radford Studios.

We are reviewing dailies from the fourth day of a scheduled 55 days of production for season 2 of Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet for Apple TV+. There’s a little excitement, as today the company is on location at Zuma Beach. The shoot features principal cast on horseback with the action captured using multiple cameras and cranes for a magic-hour scene.

During a discussion about setups that will require visual effects supervision, the phone rings: “We’re shutting down.” That was March 13, 2020.

Three weeks passed and we were confined to our homes with no production start date in sight. Our showrunner, Rob McElhenney, desperately wanted to put people back to work, and he had an idea.

Could we produce a proof of concept remotely in few days to present to studio executives in order to secure a green light for a special quarantine episode?

In order to be relevant, it had to be done immediately. Such content would need to be released while the public was still in quarantine. A successful outcome would put the entire staff and crew back on payroll for three weeks, regardless of whether or not they would be participating in the production.

A day later, with script in hand, an iPhone-enabled cast and a five-member post team, we embarked on this endeavor.

Within 72 hours, we delivered an almost nine-minute reel for the studio’s consideration. This initial experiment would prepare us for the greater challenge ahead: Create a half-hour episode of superior video/audio content that would far surpass the quality viewers were being fed during COVID times. The episode

40

PRODUCED BY

would need to stand up over time and be written, produced and delivered in under three weeks.

As we awaited word from the network, we began preparations. This entailed securing 40 iPhones, testing external mic’ing options and figuring out workflow. We identified an external mic that, in conjunction with strategically placed sound blankets, would eliminate the roomy sound inherent to remote productions. When the studio gave approval to proceed, we set about installing the appropriate camera/mic apps on each phone and gathered additional equipment, comprising AirPods, a phone mount and lighting package for each cast member.

Of utmost importance was keeping people socially distanced and safe under the COVID conditions. Once equipment was acquired, it was sanitized, packaged and distributed to cast members in the Los Angeles area and to one cast member in New York. A detailed document instructing how to record properly—along with illustrations—was created and circulated to the team.

Our DP and production sound mixer consulted with the cast to identify the best locations in their dwellings to shoot.

We held Zoom tutorials to walk everyone step-by-step through this process.

The phones would be treated as camera cards/hard drives. Once there was a pause in shooting, we would do a “break” and switch to a separate phone for later scenes. We would cycle the phones back to the cast once the media had been transferred to the dailies house. The raw media from our NYC location would be transferred to the dailies facility via a

file-sharing service. Then low-resolution dailies for offline work would be uploaded remotely to editorial.

Because the 4k cameras on the iPhones are on the opposite side of the screen, we had to devise a way to properly monitor framing and lighting and to verify audio/ video recording. This was addressed by mounting the phones so their screens would face the computer cameras used by the cast on Zoom. This allowed us to confirm settings and to determine if/when a camera had locked up due to overheating.

We could then alert the cast immediately and not lose a take.

Zoom meetings were set up and the actors connected their AirPods by Bluetooth to their computers. This enabled the cast to see and hear each other, thus allowing them to interact as if they were on set.

The Zoom sessions were recorded so producers could review the scenes, while the phones were being cycled from cast residences to the dailies facility for processing. This allowed us to save time by identifying select takes for editorial.

In the meantime, our VFX editor was in constant communication with producers to make creative decisions on the layout of the graphic design and interface of the video conferencing platform used within the episode. This was an important task to get out in front of, knowing the time it would take to render multiple layers of material into the platform for finishing.

Efforts were made to get takes in a single performance, as any edits or take changes would be difficult to hide because the characters would remain on screen in the video conference for long periods of times. A few big edits were covered with a creative “glitch” effect, but these felt authentic, since viewers are familiar with hiccups during their own video conferencing experiences.

The initial plan was to assign scenes to each editor in an alternating fashion for maximum efficiency, but ultimately both editors ended up handing scenes off to one another. Remote offline editorial was supposed to be accomplished with

MOTHER OF INNOVATION

An array of iPhones, tripods, and other recording equipment had to be assembled and distributed to pull off the Mythic Quest remote production.

Helpful Hints Thinking of attempting a remote production? Keep in mind the following: • Know delivery requirements • Identify appropriate camera/ sound gear and associated applications • Set up reliable file-sharing applications • Know your Wi-Fi capabilities • Scout locations for picture/ sound • Consult with finishing houses • Create detailed workflow document with illustrations • Be patient • Test, test, test

a screen-sharing editing application, but after crashing systems multiple times, we had to pivot to FaceTiming with the editors’ phones in stands facing their client monitors for the showrunner to review in real time.

In addition to the normal live-action content, there were some VFX elements that needed special attention. One involved F. Murray Abraham, in NYC, recording a scene where his character accidentally launches an app that turns his head into a panda head. This required instructing someone not accustomed to downloading, installing and using such apps, while someone in LA recorded it on their device.

Another challenge arose in the penultimate scene where one of our

characters decides to break quarantine and leaves his residence to visit another character and physically hug her. We were fortunate because the actor on the receiving end of the hug was quarantined with her real-life husband, so we had him double for that character. However, the husband’s physique did not match the actor he was doubling for. So we had our actor take still photos of himself in front of a white wall, which we sent to a VFX house. They were able to alter the physique for a believable match.

This scene also required some unique audio challenges. The story called for the audio source to be coming from an iPhone held at the character’s side and muffled in clothing. In order to provide the mix stage

PRODUCED BY

41

MOTHER OF INNOVATION

with multiple tracks/options of the same take, we recorded ADR on two separate iPhones—one using the external mic close to the actor’s performance and another on its internal mic across the room from the actor. This gave us the tools—along with adding clothing muffles—to create a realistic mix for this encounter.

The final Rube Goldberg scene was the longest, most researched and planned element of the production. Prior to even scripting the episode, previsualization had commenced on this sequence. We utilized clips from YouTube to do the build in editorial, while trying to determine rigs that our characters would realistically have in their homes. Timing out each mechanism, how to best shoot, determining the cutting pattern, identifying necessary VFX and incorporating the music score was an elaborate process that took many shapes until final picture lock. The end result represents the culmination of true group thought and cooperation, while serving as an uplifting and inspiring conclusion to the episode.

Finishing the episode in 4k with an Atmos mix was a mad dash of virtual review sessions—both online/restore and color grading—and sharing of QuickTime

42

PRODUCED BY

files for mix approval and final QC. The streaming service had to turn the episode around for localization in mere days, rather than the traditional six weeks.

Once delivery was confirmed, we celebrated accordingly with an online premiere for cast and crew followed by a virtual wrap party on Zoom.

This production was the occasion where the familiar expression “fix it in post” would be more accurately described as “make it in post.” Despite the immense amount of work and disorientation of time of day and day of week associated with the schedule, our team was incredibly fortunate to be able to participate in this endeavor.

Jeff Luini, producer of Mythic Quest, is a 30-year industry veteran and producer of such series as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Silicon Valley, Arrested Development and many more. This episode can be found on Apple TV+ as Season 1, Episode 10 of Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet. After positive critical reception, he has been consulted by other shows to discuss their remote productions. He welcomes questions at jluini99Nos@gmail.com.

Roll the Credits There are not enough superlatives to describe the acuity, effort and calm under pressure of our team to complete this task. They each deserve to be mentioned by name: Editors—Steve Welch & Josh Drisko VFX Editor—Chris Stewart Assistant Editors—Matt Crocker and Sean McKinley Associate Producer—Sean Palsgaard Post Supervisor—Jacob Mullen Sound Supervisor—Matt Taylor Music Editor—Joe Deveau Production Assistants—Emma Pasqualino and Bella Tallarino For Picture Shop Dailies Head— Chris Barrios For Company 3—Heydar Adel (Online Editor) and Cody Baker (Colorist) For Formosa—Sam Ejnes/Diego Gat (Re-recording Mixers)

COURTESY SERGEI BACHLAKOV/NBC

STAY

Tuned

44

PRODUCED BY

Michele Greco: The Masterful Metronome Who Keeps Zoey on Time.

Written by Kevin Perry

M

usic is madness. It consumes us, it elates us, and it connects us in mass mirthfulness, even during the darkest of times. To galvanize our sense of belonging, we hum along with the human condition, no matter how dire it may seem.

COVID-19 has deprived the entertainment world of sweeping Broadway shows and big-screen spectacles, so we turn inward.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist creates a musical experience that is simultaneously intimate and epic. The wonderfully ambitious NBC series proves that the tune in your head just may save your life, and the show’s producer, Michele Greco, is conducting it masterfully.

“It all starts by picking the song.” Greco has a lilting friendliness in his tone that understates just how grueling it is to produce a weekly musical extravaganza. “We used to have weekly phone calls with the studio, with the music team and, of course, Austin and Mandy.”

Greco sings the praises of Executive Producer/Creator Austin Winsberg, and Executive Producer/Choreographer Mandy Moore—the “creative brains who spark the beginning of the process,” explains Greco. “When

PRODUCED BY

45

STAY TUNED

you get into episodic, which is cycles, then you have eight days for each cycle.”

That’s eight days to schedule, shoot and wrap a fabulous foray into the title character’s mind, complete with elaborate stagecraft and the rigors that go along with any television production. “Once the song is chosen,” Greco continues, “we put it in the key that works for the actors, whoever is singing it. And in the meantime, we’re trying to clear the song, because the time is reduced, of course. Hopefully you get the song cleared, because you’ve already started your work.”

Music rights are vitally important to Extraordinary Playlist, since the soundtrack is essentially Zoey’s inner monologue.

Zoey is portrayed by the show’s star, charismatic crooner Jane Levy. Her brain cycles through classics by such icons as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis as well as modern megahits by Miley Cyrus, DJ Khaled and Katy Perry.

Thanks to a twist of magical realism, Zoey perceives the world through a musical kaleidoscope while trying to find her tether to sanity, society and her ailing father. He suffers from a neurodegenerative disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), yet it doesn’t prevent him from singing and dancing with his daughter in her fertile imagination.

The subject matter strikes a solemn chord with Greco.

“This project really touches my heart,” he reminisces. “My father, Italo Greco, was an artist. He worked as a composer on Italian films. He wrote songs for Lina Wertmüller.

I’m sure you know who she is.”

To refresh your memory, Wertmüller was the first female filmmaker ever nominated for the Academy Award for best director. Greco has always collaborated brilliantly with supercreative women, as his work on Playlist firmly attests. His perspectives were forged during the formative years spent with his father and the legendary ladies who surrounded them.

“Every week, on Thursday afternoon, I would read scripts with him. Sophia Loren would be there.” Nostalgia cradles Greco’s

46

PRODUCED BY

Michele Greco (right) chats between takes with Zoey’s costar Skylar Astin.

voice as he resumes the chorus. “I very much enjoyed those Thursday afternoons.”

Days stretched into a career for young Greco, who gleefully followed in his father’s footsteps. “From there, I was a PA, a runner. I would get coffee and pizza for different film crews shooting in Rome,” he recounts. “My big break came in 1996 on the first American production I worked on, Dangerous Beauty. I was a location manager, because I knew the areas in Rome so well. There were not a lot of other location managers who were fluent in English.”

Greco’s worldliness expanded, along with his proficiency in all aspects of production. He circumnavigated the Mediterranean, spending the better part of a decade in Morocco, where he met his wife in 2000. Next stop: the Balkans, where Greco suffered the slings and arrows of a demanding period film.

“When I was working on Spartacus in Bulgaria, we were shooting a scene with a thousand extras,” narrates Greco.

“There were 600 slaves in the woods, 400 soldiers in the field, 75 horses and at least five cameras. How could we stay

on budget? We decided to rehearse the battlefield scene on Saturday.”

Taking an entire day from the cramped schedule was a risk, but his collaborators were fit for battle. “It was genius,” Greco assesses.

Fast-forward from ancient Rome to modern-day America. “When I moved to Los Angeles, I had to rebuild my career from nothing. The system was all different.

There were so many rules.” Greco quickly harmonized with Hollywood, racking up producing credits on projects as disparate and beloved as Mad Men, Chicago P.D., SMILF and Community.

Experience honed his producorial vision, but nothing could soften his Spartacus scars. Referring to a long take in recent episode, Greco recalls: “I remembered that battlefield scene and used it for the Zoey steadicam shot. If we ruined too many takes, the steadicam operator would get tired, so we had to plan it carefully from the beginning.”

Greco is describing the elegantly gut-wrenching season finale in which Zoey must confront love and loss in the only way she can: musically. “It was one

STAY TUNED

extended take, shot inside the house, lasting a total of eight minutes. There were several parameters to achieve. We were doing time-lapse outside the house and moving furniture inside the house. It took a whole day of rehearsal to get it right.”

Never one to covet the spotlight, Greco refracts the attention and once again shines it on his cast and crewmates.

“Everyone worked at the top of their craft to make that scene work. I just tried to give them what they needed. I figured we had to spend money to save money. By rehearsing the day before, we were able to get the shot done early. I am here to help everyone do a better show.”

Nobody appreciates Greco’s dedication and creativity more than Extraordinary Playlist ceator Austin Winsberg. “Michele

says. “The space had to simulate the locations where the actors would eventually perform their part of the routine, but this was Mandy’s playground.”

Greco often directs the conversation to Mandy Moore, “who is phenomenal,” he beams. “We had to make the most of her limited windows of time. The confidence Mandy was able to give the team was incredible.”

Reaching a crescendo of ebullience, Greco continues, “This cast sings like no other.

They dance like no other. It is a rolling machine. Every day, every hour, needs to build on this incredible momentum and move to the next challenge.”

The confines of time and space challenged Greco every eight-day cycle,

“CREATING A NEW MUSICAL EVERY EIGHT DAYS IS A MASSIVE UNDERTAKING. MICHELE HAS A MASTERFUL WAY OF KEEPING THE TRAINS RUNNING.” is a true collaborator on Zoey’s and someone I could not imagine doing the show without. Creating a new musical every eight days is a massively ambitious undertaking. Michele has a masterful way of keeping all the trains running while juggling a million different problems and never letting anyone see him sweat.

He always smiles and says yes to my impossibly extravagant ideas and then figures out a way to execute them. He is a partner, a problem solver, and makes a damn good pizza, too. What more could you ask for?”

Always the considerate producer, Greco would invariably answer: time and space.

“We had to make sure that the rehearsal space was big enough,” Greco

but he persevered. “Once Mandy had perfected the routine with her crew of professional dancers, it was time to incorporate the cast. At this point in the process, the actors had already prerecorded their singing track, so we could use it as accompaniment on set for the dance number.”

After mastering the complications of blocking, Greco turned his attention to the unforgiving calendar. “To make things more complicated,” he chuckles, “Jane is involved in almost every setup, every scene.

“Once I had roughed out a schedule, I had to verify it with so many parties.

Jane and Mandy were the busiest people on set, so they were important to consider

first. Once the schedule was nailed down, it was time to attack the next episode, and the eight-day cycle repeated.”

Reeling from the recollections, Greco says, “At some point, everyone needs to catch their breath.”

With a cleansing exhale, Greco summons a renewed vigor for season 2.

“There are a lot of unique challenges on this show. The scheduling is so tight, and the episodes are so full, so complex.”

Most humans would regard this kind of workload with tones of exhaustion or frustration in their voices, but it only fuels Michele Greco, who sounds as though he might burst into song extolling the virtues of diligence.

“The key to success is having a great team to help you to do it, because, y’know, you will never be able to do it alone.”

Cue the flash mob of teamsters and grips flooding into frame to illustrate just how much Greco inspires them to execute the impossible, episode by episode. Reflecting on the success of season 1, Greco says, “It was all worth it. We all really love the show. From the first table read, people were crying. That made us work so much harder to make it all happen. Everyone was so invested and so emotional.”

In addition to the cast and crew assembled eagerly around the rehearsal table, there is always an unseen yet unparalleled special guest in attendance.

“My father,” Greco intones. “He passed away seven years ago.”

Harmonizing his sense of resilience and reverence, Greco simply states, “Death is part of life, but it’s the hardest part.”

Michele Greco embraces his legacy, laughing off his A-type artistry in true Zoey fashion. “My wife hates me because my side of the closet is in perfect order. I am half Italian, an artist like my father. My mother is German. That’s my producer side.

I like to see everything coming together.”

Production is an enduring waltz between passion and perfection. Greco orchestrates the chaos and creates a symphony for the sake of Zoey’s ravenous fan base. The beat goes on, and Michele Greco is its Extraordinary impresario.

PRODUCED BY

47

P ro d u ce rs a S har nd H e Ins iring ight E x pe s Ab in th rts out e Er W a of ork ing C OV ID-1

by Ja 9. cob Kamh

is

48

PRODUCED BY

how they’re surviving the COVID-19 crisis and the responses you’ll hear will be as varied as the stories they tell.

Some are hiring while others wait for clearer health guidelines. Still others have raised their budgets for COVID and are swinging into production, depending on genre, location and inner fortitude. One producer mentioned he was taking the year off to play golf.

KEEP SWINGING “It’s been busy during COVID but there’s also a fear of what’s next,” says producer Jennifer Hutchins in Austin, Texas.

She is supervising producer for a 10-episode documentary series about animal rescue for CBS All Access with directors Richard Linklater and Bill Guttentag.

Hutchins has other documentary projects in the pipeline and plans to hire producers, editors, writers, graphics support, colorists and mixers. Some of her hires can be virtual, including producers, writers and post-production.

“There are opportunities right now if you stay positive and lean into this,” she says, advising potential hires to present themselves confidently that they can

get the job done in a new type of work environment. She wants to hire people who own their own equipment and who can wear many hats, especially given the demand for smaller crew sizes.

As founder of All Entertainment Business, which she runs at a financial loss, Hutchins supports entertainment industry professionals to build their network and possibly find work as they connect with employers seeking to hire.

It was once a physical event held at an Austin hotel, but now it is only online at allentertainmentbusiness.com.

She says sometimes working in the industry makes her feel she’s up against a baseball-pitching machine: “You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball and keep swinging,” she says.

PRODUCED BY

49

POUNDING THE PAVEMENT

50

START CONVERSATIONS

SHOOTING TENTPOLE SPECIALS

During 2016-17, Los Angeles-based producer JJ Englert says he hired about 300 people for his music video, commercial and other productions. For current projects, he is looking for production assistants, camera people and boom operators.

Englert started his online hiring platform Industry Jump a few years ago at industryjump.com for use when his regular, trusted staff was not available. Industry Jump additionally supports the promotion of member filmmaker clients with social media promotion. He also suggests job seekers check out Production Hub, The Mandy Network, entertainmentcareers. net and Staff Me Up. He advises retraining and learning new skills to present your versatility when looking for work.

After graduating from Chapman University film school, all Englert could get was a security guard job at a production company making a BMW commercial.

He did a good job and became UPM for an Acura commercial. The company later asked him to produce a TV program in eight European countries.

Englert suggests networking on Facebook and staying in contact with your network. Track who is doing what, who is being hired where, and offer congratulations when that happens. Remind that person, “Let me know if you ever need anything.”

Call people periodically. “Employers may not have thought about you before, but they might now,” Englert suggests.

When posting on Facebook or LinkedIn, keep your network updated on what you’re doing and people you’ve hired. Promote local film productions.

Start a conversation about an industry topic such as filming in the COVID era.

That way, people will think of you when it comes time to hire. Stay relevant and be someone an employer would like to hire. “If you only wait by the phone, someone else controls the growth of your company,” he says.

Also on the forefront of the social justice movement is Black Entertainment Television network (BET), owned by ViacomCBS. The company creates TV shows, movies and programs for Black people by Black people. Over the years, more people of color have joined the company since its start in 1980, according to Fetle Negash, Production Executive for the scripted department.

“Positions have been eliminated, but after the dust settles, hopefully we can bring some people back,” Negash says. However, some virtual productions and awards programs have been made, which may have set a blueprint for future productions. “The recent success of the 2020 BET awards program shows that we perhaps can shoot more tentpole specials and unscripted programs in the same manner, while continuing to remain concerned about the safety of our staff and crew,” she adds. Programs are filmed in Los Angeles and Atlanta.

BET staff are currently building budgets for future programs while researching personal protection equipment. “It’s very much step-by-step during the COVID crisis.

We thought production could begin in August, but now, opening in phases are still being planned. Those who work on productions will have to remain in their pods on set, interact only with their team, and the talent will be quarantined until needed,” says Negash.

PRODUCED BY

Fetle Negash on the set of American Soul in Atlanta.

JJ Englert (right) on a commercial shoot for Paramount’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

POUNDING THE PAVEMENT

ADAPTING BY GOING MICRO The focus of David Millbern, Vice President of Production and Development at Here TV, is now microbudget shows because he can make more of them during the pandemic. “We can’t stop making content, and are adapting to the current health situation,” says Millbern, who is also an Emmy-nominated actor-producer.

Here TV is the first and largest LGBTQ channel available on all cable and OTT platforms. “We see ourselves on the forefront of the social justice movement globally while producing with micro crews and casts to remain safe during this period,” he says.

Here TV seeks producers and creatives who can authentically tell stories of LGBTQ people as they intersect with other underrepresented identities. “We constantly search for producers and other creatives to tell those stories,” Millbern says.

Budgets lately have been $50,000 to $500,000. An example of a low-budget short documentary is Girls Voices Now, where underrepresented young women were provided cameras and mentors and told to go out and depict their stories on video. “They matter and should have a voice,” Millbern says.

Certificates were presented for the creative effort.

STORYTELLING WITH DIVERSE LEADS Burbank-based Nallnay Pictures, owned by producer Sadé Sellers, is a new company that wants to tell stories with Black female leads and with a heavy emphasis on diversity. Sellers, formerly VP of Content Acquisitions and Development for 1oneninety5 Productions, now is looking to hire a UPM for upcoming projects. She has optioned Stoner Road, a story about three women on a cross-country trip.

“The emphasis is on women,” says Sellers. “We want to give diverse people a chance.” She also is interested in making movies such as National Treasure with a Black person as lead, or Jurassic Park with an Asian person as lead. On set, she wants to provide childcare for single moms because women should not be forced to decide between work and family.

When it comes to hiring, “I won’t turn away someone just because they don’t have the experience,” although she feels she must get to know the person first. On one movie she worked on, a hired producer was asked to keep the costs low but wound up lodging the crew in a crack motel, she explains.

Storytelling is key: “I want to tell stories that are not typical minority stories or struggle stories where people are in despair or in slavery,” Sellers says. “I want characters to experience joy and happiness as well. Black people are always suffering on the screen for some reason.” She likes action, adventure, and fun plots, along with high-octane, entertaining stories.

A Long Road To Freedom: The Advocate Celebrates 50 Years is narrated by Laverne Cox, pictured here with Billy Clift, David Millbern and John Mongiardo.

TELL YOUR STORY Jobs are out there, but it’s clear that job seekers must still pound the pavement. Personal and career decisions must be made, says Joanne Webb, director of The Career Center at The Actor’s Fund, Western Region. Her background is theater, film and TV, having also worked at CBS, ABC and Disney in various posts.

“Producers should see what’s happening instead of what’s not happening,” she says. Webb believes producers have many talents and abilities to use inside or outside of the industry.

Producing is a type of project management, so a job, even if temporary, can be similar though it may not have the title of “producer.”

Some producers have writing experience.

Others may want to transition into lower or higher education, based on their background.

If the job search takes too long, perhaps producers can find similar work in a different field, where they can gain the same sense of accomplishment, she suggests.

Present a good profile on social media and have a story to tell about yourself on a Zoom interview. “Producers are so good at telling other people’s stories, but they sometimes are challenged about telling their own,” Webb says.

The Career Center offers workshops such as Job Search During the Pandemic. They are also offering a 50+ boot camp (others can attend) to help with ageism, creating a community and formulating goals. The Center also has a 50+ speaker series called Creativity Doesn’t Age. Updating one’s skills set can lead to creating new opportunities: “It may be possible to create your new version of ‘producer,’” Webb says.

Britni Redditt, Natalia Castellanos, Bella Meza, Misty Easler, Sadé Sellers and Karol Moses during filming of Survival. PRODUCED BY

POUNDING THE PAVEMENT

BE FEARLESS RESUME SPEAKS VOLUMES Just as a producer can read the first page of a screenplay and discern a lot about the story and the screenwriter, a resume can speak volumes about the producer who wants to be hired.

Angela Silak and Cindy Kaplan of Hollywood Resumes observe that job seekers sometimes don’t know how to present themselves for the work they want. They may be great candidates, but they are missing opportunities. This makes the hiring process more difficult for everyone, they say.

Hollywood Resumes perceives growth and increased possibilities for hiring on-set COVID-19 compliance officers, gaming, esports and streaming.

In the age of COVID, they say, potential hires need to communicate their problem-solving skills more than ever. If the job applicant was instrumental in figuring out how to move to a remote setup or if they learned a new remote workflow method, that information definitely should be included on the resume and in the cover letter.

Additionally, they see more jobs requiring producers to create high-production-value projects with a low-cost, remote setup.

One caution to prospective employers is the possibility of unintentional implicit bias in their hiring practices. Seeking a “culture fit” can often exclude good candidates. Hiring managers should also consider the many types of workforce diversity. Obvious ones are racial, ethnic, sexual or gender identity. Less considered but still important are physical ability, religion, nationality, class and age, say Silak and Kaplan. Employers may want to review the Implicit Association Test at implicit.harvard.edu/implicit. Silak and Kaplan caution job applicants to avoid doing what one person did—sending them a resume that included a full page of photos of the job applicant dressed in various cat costumes.

52

PRODUCED BY

After producing for 35 years, Mark Grossan now straddles his workload between CBS and Disney TV. “I go back and forth,” he says, adding that he is hired by studios and showrunners.

“Because of the pandemic, completely new job opportunities are being invented every day,” he says.

“Jobs like COVID supervisor and other work related to the pandemic did not exist three months ago. We’re hiring people familiar with Zoom, FaceTime and other technology platforms who can also mentor other crew.”

Grossan says his hires need to be comfortable with working from home and the other challenges of productions today. Not everyone is comfortable working with these restrictions, he adds.

Examples of restrictions include COVID protocols, entry only to certain areas, work with certain people only (the pod), special security procedures, getting checked regularly and filling out daily health questionnaires. Despite these challenges, “I’m looking for people who are gung-ho,” he says. “And those who are tough, level-headed and focused to get through the production challenges of today.”

He strongly recommends that job-placement apps be developed for entertainment industry job seekers to expedite their hiring. It’s time our industry had them, he adds.

Meanwhile, when looking for work, job seekers should be fearless, he says.

They should contact whomever they want. That’s what Grossan did.

At the age of 25, Grossan sat in a waiting room of a studio office where the top executives were situated. The receptionist gave him the brush-off. When she wasn’t looking, Grossan jumped up and ran into the executive’s office. The executive told him to get out, but Grossan began blurting out his pitch before he was thrown out. What do you think happened?

He got the job. “Be fearless,” Grossan says.

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

MARKING TIME The Producers Guild proudly salutes the following whose credits have been certified with the Producers Mark. The list includes both theatrical and VOD/streaming releases due to current circumstances with COVID-19.

ABOVE SUSPICION Colleen Camp, p.g.a.

Tim Degraye, p.g.a.

functions on the motion picture.

Jared Ian Goldman, p.g.a.

Brad Simpson, p.g.a. & Nina Jacobson, p.g.a.

ARTEMIS FOWL Kenneth Branagh, p.g.a.

Judy Hofflund, p.g.a.

ATHLETE A Serin Marshall, p.g.a.

BODY CAM Matt Kaplan, p.g.a.

CUT THROAT CITY William Clevinger, p.g.a.

Elliott Michael Smith, p.g.a.

Sean Lydiard, p.g.a.

DA 5 BLOODS Spike Lee, p.g.a.

Jon Kilik, p.g.a.

Lloyd Levin, p.g.a.

DESPERADOS Mason Novick, p.g.a.

Elizabeth Grave, p.g.a.

Kelli Konop, p.g.a.

DIVOS! Jayson Bernard, p.g.a.

Ryan Patrick Bartley, p.g.a.

Matt Steele, p.g.a.

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: THE STORY OF FIRE SAGA Will Ferrell, p.g.a.

FEEL THE BEAT Susan Cartsonis, p.g.a.

FORCE OF NATURE Randall Emmett, p.g.a. & George Furla, p.g.a.

Luillo Ruiz, p.g.a.

THE F**K-IT LIST Dan McDermott, p.g.a.

Matthew Signer, p.g.a.

Michael Duggan, p.g.a.

54

PRODUCED BY

Gary Goetzman, p.g.a.

INHERITANCE ALL DAY AND A NIGHT

Certification via the Producers Mark indicates that a producer performed a major portion of the producing

GREYHOUND

Richard Barton Lewis, p.g.a.

David M. Wulf, p.g.a.

THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND Judd Apatow, p.g.a.

Barry Mendel, p.g.a.

THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME Jesse Berger, p.g.a.

Jason Michael Berman, p.g.a.

MAX WINSLOW AND THE HOUSE OF SECRETS Johnny Remo, p.g.a.

NEVER TOO LATE Antony Ginnane, p.g.a.

THE OLD GUARD AJ Dix, p.g.a. & Beth Kono, p.g.a.

Marc Evans, p.g.a.

David Ellison, p.g.a.

THE OUTPOST Paul Merryman, p.g.a.

Paul Tamasy, p.g.a.

Marc Frydman, p.g.a.

Jonathan Yunger, p.g.a.

THE RENTAL Vince Jolivette, p.g.a.

Elizabeth Haggard, p.g.a.

THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM Robert Cort, p.g.a.

SPACESHIP EARTH Stacey Reiss, p.g.a.

Matt Wolf, p.g.a.

THINK LIKE A DOG Andrew Lazar, p.g.a.

WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS Mickey Liddell, p.g.a. & Pete Shilaimon, p.g.a.

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

MEMBER BENEFITS ■ Free access to a multitude of PGA Webinars on all facets of producing featuring the most experienced producers in the entertainment industry.

■ Eligibility for PGA Mentoring Program.

■ Access to CSATTF online safety training videos.

■ Participation in the Motion Picture Industry Health, Welfare & Pension Plan.

■ Admission to special PGA pre-release screenings and Q&A events.

■ Wide variety of discounts on events, merchandise, travel.

■ Full access to PGA website including events, calendar, social networking tools, and extensive members-only video library.

■ Vote on Producers Guild Awards and receive discount tickets to the event.

■ Access to PGA Job Board, online resume search, employment tools and job forums.

■ Listing of contact and credit information in searchable online roster.

■ Complimentary subscription to Produced By.

MEET TEACHER JESSICA

One book changed her life.

Photo Credit: Save the Children / Rachel Palmer

Jessica’s world is now wide open because she can read.

She attends a school sponsored by Save the Children – and wants to be just like her teacher one day. For 100 years, Save the Children has been ensuring children’s needs are met, in the U.S. and around the world. See how one small act can change the life of a child.

56

PRODUCED BY

Learn more at savethechildren.org/change CHANGING A LIFE LASTS A LIFETIME

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

NEW MEMBERS The Producers Guild is proud to welcome the following new members, who joined the Guild between May through July 2020.

1

8

2

9

3

10

4

11

5

12

6

13

7

14

PRODUCERS COUNCIL Julia Benello Dani Bernfeld Michael Blevins Jonathan Blitstein Bradley Bogart Kenneth Brown Dan Carrillo Levy 1 Holly Carter 2 Melissa Casasnovas Rudy Castellon 3 Sharon Chang Michael Chow 4 Julie Christeas Michelle Clay Taika Cohen Gabriel Correa Matt DeRoss Reuben Evans James Garavente Jannat Gargi Michael Glassman Jeffrey Goldman Ross Greenburg Sam Grey David Joseph Gugenheim Siegfried Harris Felicia Henderson Nikki Heyman Paul Hilborn Todd Hurvitz Nic Izzi Ani Kevork Melissa Kirkendall Danny Koerber Sin Ae Kwak Vivian Lee

Isaac Lee Kevin Leeson Katelyn Lieber Fernando Loureiro Tracy Manser Jae Marchant Susan Margolin Kevin McCollum Chris McLoughlin Ian Michaels Jeanette Milio Andrew Muscato Riccardo Neri William Newman Jonathan Nolan Russell Posternak Emma Ratliff Devin Reeve Kathy Rivkin Daum Britton Rizzio Sergio Rizzuto Jennifer Roth Samuel Sandweiss Alan Terpins Brent Travers Katerina Valenti 5 Matthew Vaughan Eugenio Villamar 6 Michelle Visage Jonathan Wang 7 David Webb Kevin Williamson Eleanor Winkler John Zaozirny Shelley Zimmerman

AP COUNCIL Chadi Abo 8 Emily Aldana

Courtney Andrews Julie Lynn Athans-Lochridge Hugues Barbier Zachary Bidman Alexandra Bowen Sean Brennan Adam Brewer Kyle Cadotte Nika Castillo 9 Jeremy Coman Emily Croke Natalie Damico Luciana Dickens Rachael Gallaghan Nicole Garcia 10 Zachary Garrison Timothy Glover William Greenfield Jake Hattabaugh Kate Hodges Mike Hogan Courtney Kent Chloe Kent David Lally Michael Lebensfeld Camille Leganza Gilana Lobel Jeremy Long Sandrine MagloireSzlasa Vanessa Maruskin 11 Katie Moorehead Laurel Moskowitz Candra Nazzaro Becky Neiman-Cobb Clayton Nix Adam Ohl Rowena Pedrena John Peet

Meghan Rhoad Kelly Rose Aimee Roth Max Sachar Sandra Scott Michael Scott Matthew Seife Scott Stanley Kitty Swain David Targan Michele Tasoff Jacob Velcoff Matt Waldeck Ben Wilson Sara Wilson Leah Winkler 12

NEW MEDIA COUNCIL Julian Beak Vicki Beck Christopher Edwards Siddharth Ganji Kathleen Grace Greg Hayes Brian Janes Paul Jastrzebski Jeff Johnson Sarah Louden 13 Mehrad Noori 14 Stephanie Ouaknine Alex Parks Kyle Prestenback John Richards Stephen Rosolio Jake Sally Michael Salmon Varun Verma

PRODUCED BY

57

BEST ON-SET PHOTO OF ALL TIME

SLAM DUNK

B

ack in the ’90s, Brian Robbins and I were producing four shows simultaneously for Nickelodeon.

On one of them, Shaquille O’Neal was a Rod Serling-like host.

But like a lot of people getting their first taste of showbiz, Shaq wanted to direct. This is how he convinced me to give him a shot!

—Mike Tollin, Producer The Last Dance ■

We know what you’re thinking. “Best of all time? No way. I’ve got an on-set photo way better than that.” If that’s the case, we dare you to prove it. Submit it to BOSPOAT@producersguild.org. Before you submit, please review the contest rules at producersguild. org/bospoat. Because no matter how great your photo is, we have no desire to get sued over it.

58

PRODUCED BY

Š2020 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, CA 90038

323.956.8811 TheStudiosAtParamount.com