8

Producer

In the film and game industries, the job title “producer” can mean a lot of different things. It all depends on the context of the position and the medium in use. Regardless of these two factors, however, there is a definite skill set involved with working as a producer and being successful. Good management skills, experience working with people, and broad knowledge of the industry is essential for any type of longevity in either film or game.

Though it may seem that the game industry would not have much to learn from this particular film position with regard to making a cinematic game, it is the best practices of top-notch producers that bring in epic productions on time and on budget. One of the first credits you see in any film or game is that of a producer, so we know it must be an important job. But what does a producer actually do?

8.1  Job Description

The simplest description of a film or game producer is the human bridge between the management (the money) and the talent. A typical day for a game producer consists of keeping up with scheduling, tracking assets and milestones, keeping the production team on track and free of distractions, attending numerous meetings, and basically taking on any task that seems to miss falling in the laps of everyone else on the team. The challenges involved with planning and executing the production of a game can be daunting.

In the film industry, the position is much the same—lots of scheduling and budgeting—but the position usually includes many of the artistic decisions that are usually associated with a game’s creative director. A film producer often has a major say in casting for certain roles, what the overall “message” of a film will be (sometimes this is reflected in the producer’s choice of director), and where the film will be shot. But before we apply some of the best practices of the film producer to the game development model, let’s take a closer look at what a game producer actually does.

Depending on the relationship between the developer and the publisher, there can be several different types of producers working on a production.

8.2  Types of Producers in the Game Industry

A typical game studio (or developer) has several different producers working on the payroll. Usually, this can be upwards of four to ten producers working on any given project. The entry-level position is usually called an “associate producer” or sometimes an “assistant producer”—here, I’ll use ‘AP” to refer to either title. These individuals are the ground-level grunts of the producer team. They deal with the employees of the development team on a daily basis, deal with issues within the team, and are usually responsible for a specific aspect of development, such as sound design, coding, or animation. Most development teams have several APs working within the production. The AP also coordinates communication between quality assurance and production and adjusts the daily schedule to reflect any changes that are occurring in production.

In most cases, APs are assisted in the daily grind of grunt work by production assistants (PAs) or interns assigned to the team. In a best-case scenario, a good PA will take some of the workload off the AP and assist with the minutia of the studio routine—in a worst- case scenario, the PA will know nothing of game development and will become one more thing that the AP will have to manage. As most APs come from the world of production assistants and quality assurance personnel, it becomes an essential task of the studio to train and bring up this natural source of internal talent.

The next rung on the producer ladder is a title that is seen quite a bit in the film world: the line producer. A line producer is usually the go-to person when it comes to budget. Much like the film position, he or she spends the work day knee-deep in the production team overseeing the nuts and bolts of production to make sure that the project is finished on time and on budget. Line producers typically report to the studio heads and work somewhat outside the producer chain of command. Think of LPs as the accountant of the development team.

Making the move to full-blown producer is the next step in the producer’s career path. There are two types of producers—those who work for the publisher and those who work for the developer/ studio. Those who work for the publisher are responsible for getting the game produced. They answer directly to the publisher and ultimately accept the largest part of the accolades or criticisms associated with the finished game. The workload for this type of producer is the stuff of nightmares. In addition to the usual full plate of meetings, this type of producer must keep up on all the daily reports coming in, getting those same reports out to the appropriate people within the studio and at the publisher, and constantly evaluating the current project to make sure that all workflow is streamlined and working with cohesion.

Producers who work for an outside developer have similar roles, but ultimately are responsible for maintaining good relations with the publisher. Usually the publisher has producers on the studio site working as well, but the tasks remain the same with regard to scheduling, management, and communication. In addition to the responsibilities involved with maintaining the contract with the publisher, a developer-level producer also must report to the studio heads the current state of affairs using daily delta reports to ensure that internal problems remain internal.

Producers are also involved with the day-to-day operations of the team, such as resolving conflicts that arise, dealing with dependencies, and working with outside contractors to make sure that deliverables are coming in on schedule (as well as payments going out in a timely manner). The key to being a successful producer is organization and communication.

Sometimes, a game project will also have an executive producer. This position might be in place of a creative director, or working in conjunction with him or her. Usually, an executive producer is involved with the business side of things. Though creative input will be required of all producers, the executive producer is usually involved with the company on a larger scale; rather than dealing with specific titles or games, usually this kind of producer is the central figure associated with the brand or franchise game associated with the developer/publisher. Sometimes, this position can also be associated with dealing with the marketing and business doings of the developer/publisher. The traits of a highly successful executive producer include strong leadership abilities and communication, a complete understanding of what makes a successful game and how to market it, and competency at determining and managing risk.

All of these producer positions are important and all of them have been associated with the film industry for decades. Now that we have identified the individual traits and skills of a producer, we can address how to improve them using the film producer as an example.

8.3  Honing Your Production Skills

I will discuss the particulars of the individual skill sets involved with production and producing; first, I’ll talk about the things that define and hone a mediocre producer into a great producer. These include communication, professionalism, organization, and leadership.

Great communication is the hallmark of a great producer. The first step in being a great communicator is learning how to listen. The best approach to this is the concept of “active listening”, or the process of focusing on the person speaking to you, and trying to understand the meaning and underlying reasons of what the speaker is trying to say. Only when you understand why the person is saying what they are will you be able to respond accurately and in accordance to what is being discussed. In addition to listening to the content of what is being said, it is also important to notice how the person is saying it. Is the speaker agitated? Nervous? Excited? Noticing these things helps place importance upon what is being discussed and allows you to place the conversation in proper perspective.

Sometimes listening means that you will be accepting criticism or suggestions that do not coincide with your own. The role of the producer is to make sure that a product is developed as well as humanly possible—this means examining all input that is provided. There will always be some level of truth to all criticism, and this truth will often have to be extracted from the editorial content of the suggestions being made. Once you have done that, take the criticism for what it is. Does it help? If so, implement it. If not, discard it and move on. Either way, communicating back and forth with your team will instill a sense of working as a team, help build consensus, and create respect within the workplace. Communication is the first step to developing professionalism in the workplace.

Being a professional producer means keeping your perspective and being objective when dealing with co-workers and problems in the workplace. This means not taking sides in arguments and conflicts, following through with correcting problems, maintaining discretion, and creating a sense of reliability. When the team realizes that you can always be trusted with solving a problem logically and discreetly, you will become privy to more of the underlying issues within the workplace. Though you may delegate some of the particulars of correcting problems to others, ultimately it should be you that becomes the “go-to” person when a crisis occurs.

The third hallmark of a great producer is organization. Mastering the nuances of great project management will assist you with this. As producing a movie can involve a vast array of logistics, film producers have relied upon quality film production software to help with this (such as Gorilla Pro, www.junglesoftware.com). Once again, the primary organization tools used in the game industry usually revolve around Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, the use of online internal sites (such as a wiki page or Perforce), and daily reporting. Once you have mastered the tools of the project management trade, it’s a good idea to schedule desk time for yourself each day. Consider the time that you spend catching up on the logistics of development at your desk to be as important as meetings and time on the floor.

Perhaps the most underrated skill of the successful producer is that of leadership. It’s the intangible trait that can define your longevity with a developer/publisher and your success with production. What makes a good leader? A good leader, in short, knows what he or she wants, gets things done, and inspires others to do the same. This means instilling a positive attitude in everyone (including yourself); empowering others to learn, grow, and accomplish; and being passionate about your work. It’s amazing how much difference it can make to work in a positive, nurturing environment versus the alternative. People want to work for great leaders and great leaders want to work for the people. Honing this skill not only facilitates a smoother production cycle, but also gives you job security at the studio.

Once you have mastered the skills of a great producer, you can apply these talents to the development of a cinematic game. Let’s take a look at how the development of a strong game concept can be achieved using a filmmaking skill set.

8.4  Cinematic Development

One of the first things that a film producer does in development/ preproduction of a new movie is to break down the script. “Breaking down” the script essentially means making a logistics list of every element of production in order to set up a budget and schedule. When a script is broken down, you will have a detailed list of every location, character, prop, and so on within the script. There are several great reasons for including this process in game development, but the biggest will be to help determine whether the script will need to be rewritten. Are there too many locations/levels for the game’s budget? Are there too many peripheral/unnecessary characters putting a strain on the workload of the artists? More than anything, breaking down the script is about honing the story so that it is the best possible draft and the one that will translate the story to the actual game.

Another great side benefit of breaking down the script involves taking a closer look at the locations that are to be used in the production. Are they dynamic enough? Do they make the game exciting and unique, as well as present a new challenge to the gamer? Will you be sending actual members of the production team to the locations featured to get a feel for the environment? This is yet another factor that can affect your schedule and budget. Make wise location choices. Great locations can be one of the factors that determine the game’s success.

Once you have a basic script breakdown (see the sample Script Breakdown in the Extras section of this book), you then need to ask whether the script is ready for production. If not, rewrites are in order—or the other logistics must be altered to accommodate the script (such as hiring new artists to take on the additional environments and characters). Breaking down the script also assists with identifying the major theme of the story and making sure that the script stays on subject. Often after a script has been honed to its best possible draft, it will still seem a little bit off. When this happens, producers/writers often use a technique known as getting script coverage.

“Script coverage” means sending out the script for review by various experts in the screenwriting industry. Once the person providing coverage has read the script, they will make extensive notes about the story, characters, plot, and so on. These notes can be helpful with getting your script on track. Having a great script finished, with all the logistics of the script breakdown planned in advance, will help minimize the risk associated with going into production with an unfinished story/game design.

8.5  Risk Management

As the primary task of the producer is to make sure that the game actually gets produced, it is imperative that the art of risk management is mastered. Risk management can basically be broken down into three steps: identifying the risks, prioritizing the risks, and then minimizing the risks.

Identifying all the risks involved with producing your game means getting together with every single department lead and discussing the potential problems involved therein. Risks can include problems with the development pipeline, lack of workstations, or even time. As these risks are singled out, they should be documented in detail for future reference. Identifying every risk associated with production will allow you be proactive in prevention of potential problems, as well as create a buffer in the budget and schedule to accommodate the possible occurrence of a problem. The risk assessment should focus on every aspect of development, including labor, cost, assets, time, dependencies, and so on.

Once all possible risks have been detailed, you must then prioritize them according to the potential impact that the issue will have upon production. Once the risks have all been listed per department by priority, you can then assign the major issues to leads so that they can put prevention measures in place. This is one way of minimizing risk in development.

There are other ways that risks can be avoided. These include creating a sound business plan, design, and prototype before going into formal production, creating a contingency fund in the game’s budget, and planning as much as possible in preproduction so that the production will be as smooth as possible. Preproduction planning is one of the strongest assets that a game producer can take from the film producer (realizing of course that game producers are already involved with preproduction). In most movie productions, a producer will not even get a green light from the production company to proceed into production without an extensive and thorough preproduction phase.

8.6  Preproduction Planning

One of the considerations that come into play when planning the schedule for a film involves the shooting order that will occur. Films are most often shot with the individual scenes of a script out of sequence. This is done for many reasons. These reasons usually revolve around the availability of actors, the availability of certain locations, and sometimes the weather of a particular location (such as having scenes that take place during a snowstorm). When all the logistics are taken into consideration, the shooting order can then be made.

Once you have taken into account limiting factors such as availability, the shooting order is then constructed based upon priority or difficulty. If there is a particularly difficult scene to shoot, often the producer/director will schedule that scene first so that it isn’t looming at the end of production. Finishing the hardest scene early in production means that the production crew can heave a collective sigh of relief when it is over and then move on to the easier scenes. This is a great philosophy when producing a game as well. Finishing a particularly challenging aspect of development early produces a sense of accomplishment with the dev team and can lay the ground work for producing an awesome early build. Of course, finishing the first scene means designing the first scene.

Ideally, the entire production will be designed during preproduction, but often a game is built before all the levels have been completely fleshed out. Again, by taking a cue from the film industry and finishing the entire production style and look during preproduction with proven production techniques (such as storyboarding, script reads, and so on), you will ensure a more consistent, quality production.

At any rate, once the shooting order is determined, there evolves a sort of pecking order as to what aspects of production must be finished first—or what cannot be produced until a preceding task is accomplished. These are usually called “dependencies” in the game industry. Figuring out the dependencies early in the process helps with making an accurate early schedule. An example of a dependency is that animators might not be able to begin making character models until the artists have drawn/ designed them.

Another task that has to be tackled by the producer during film preproduction is the balancing of “above-the-line” and “ below-the-line” talent. Above-the-line talent includes actors, voice-over actors, directors, and so on. Below-the-line is basically the crew. Though this may seem like a film-centric factor to take into account during production, it is an increasingly more prevalent concern in the game industry.

With games like Midway’s Stranglehold being directed by John Woo or voice actors such as Michael Ironside (the voice of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell hero Sam Fisher) being cast for voiceover work, above-the-line budgets for games have increased significantly over the last five years. There’s no denying that star power can increase the marketability of a game and the acquisition of name talent is at a current premium—but acquiring that kind of talent can take a large chunk out of your budget. There are several ways, though, that producers can minimize this cost.

The first way is through research: who is in between productions? Who hasn’t worked in a while? Maybe a particular actor lives in the area or will be in the area, and will therefore be a lot cheaper to acquire. This is where your negotiation skills come into play. Learning how to negotiate, make the best possible deal, and get quality talent and team on your production ultimately is the job of the producer—and should all be done during preproduction to make sure that it all fits in the production budget.

8.7  Managing Money, Assets, and Time

As already discussed earlier in this chapter, it is one of the producer’s primary tasks to work out the budget and schedule for a production. This task is usually shared during the production of a game between the creative director and the studio heads, as well as the publisher. One thing that the studio heads most likely will not help you with is actually managing all these things. Getting on track management-wise means having the proper tools to do your job. The major areas that must be addressed include scheduling, documenting, and tracking.

The major scheduling tools have been basically discussed in previous chapters: Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, and even Microsoft Outlook can be helpful when dealing with the sheer amount of required meeting time and face time. Nothing will make you as unproductive as having an outdated or messed-up schedule. Once again, the key to getting the most out of your workday will revolve around minimizing meeting overload and getting time on the floor to interact with the development team.

The documenting aspect of managing assets and reports is often the most overlooked in the world of the producer. It’s important to establish regular work habits in regard to archiving assets, keeping reports flowing, and keeping up the schedule and budget. In addition to organizing your own workstation, it’s important that many of the assets and reports used in development be available to the entire team; being privy to the current operations in the other various areas of the studio can be important on the floor and leads need easy access to those materials. This is usually achieved by having/hosting an online wiki page that every department can contribute to. By making subpages that focus on art, engineering, QA, and so on, you help the individual department leads make sure that their section is always up to date on the site. Ideally, the studio heads/producers should be able to go into the site at any given time and see what is happening in every department, as well as whether the production is on schedule and budget.

The easiest way to keep a tight schedule is to have regularly scheduled milestones; if the production is hitting the milestones on budget and schedule, the project will be on track. This is the easiest way for monitoring progress.

The second way that progress will be followed throughout the studio is through daily reporting. Sometimes called “daily delta reports”, this system is used by most developers to track what has been accomplished on a daily basis. This task can be done on an individual basis throughout the development team, but usually it’s done by section. Basically, each team member or lead sends in a daily email that lists all tasks finished that day, then a producer (or whoever has been assigned to handle this particular task) compiles the list into a department-by-department spreadsheet to turn in to the studio heads. This is an easy way to stay on top of what the team is getting done without taking up too much of your day to do it. Just keep in mind that the time the team is spending on reports is time they are not working on the game!

8.8  Postproduction

In addition to the challenges and complications that arise during preproduction and production of a film, it is also typically the job of the executive producer to find distribution for the finished movie. Although this is not usually a problem in the game industry—you most likely will not have gone into full-blown development without a deal in place—there’s no denying that producers are often the ones pitching a game to the publisher and attempting to make the sell. But again, this is usually done before any production is done on the game.

During postproduction in the game industry, the game producer is usually more involved with making sure that localization is on point and working with the publisher to handle the various marketing duties involved with a new release. This includes the ad campaign, print campaign, getting media coverage, and attending conferences to promote the title. Hopefully, during production you will have created a great, cinematic trailer to promote with. Now is the time to unveil it and promote your game.

Film producers have been promoting at film festivals for many years and have learned hard lessons there. Using these lessons, a basic set of rules for success at a game conference is the following:

1. Take quality assets. Make sure that you have great screenshots, press kits, trailers, and demos for the conference— and make sure people see them.

2. Bring swag. Nothing draws people to your booth/area more than having free stuff to give them. Keep in mind that things you give away with the game’s logo on it will go a long way towards putting free advertisement on the streets.

3. Go to the parties. Nothing makes a better presence or gets you farther than glad-handing at the parties. Schmoozing with media and making the game’s presence known at the fun events gets you great press.

4. Do some guerilla marketing. Get posters up all over the place, get flyers into the goodie bags, and put postcards in the hands of everyone possible. It all adds up to making a big impression on the public.

5. Try to speak at the conference. Another way to get to a lot of people is to get a speaking gig there. Sometimes it’s as easy as contacting the conference (just do it far in advance when they are still planning it).

Doing well at conferences is one of the “soft skills” that producers should all have inherently—and if they don’t, they should be developing these skills, which go a long way when working with your public relations department.

Interview: Bob Sabiston, Founder of Flat Black Films

Bob Sabiston grew up in North Carolina and received his bachelors and masters degrees from the MIT Media Lab. He owns an animation company, Flat Black Films, headquartered in Austin, Texas, since 1993. He and his team of freelance animators produce some of the most eye-popping animation around. In addition to being the creative director of the company, Bob writes the software for all of their animated films. Their work includes the recent movies Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and The Five Obstructions. Also, Flat Black Films’ own short films have been winning awards and breaking new ground in computer animation since 1988. These include RoadHead (1998), Snack and Drink (1999), Beat Dedication (1988), Grinning Evil Death (1991), and most recently, The Even More Fun Trip (2007).

Newman: Your studio, Flat Black Films, usually has a team of animators/artists working on a project. How do you manage a group of individuals to stay within the artistic vision of the project? Describe the workflow in your studio.

Sabiston: Well, I try to manage the “artistic vision” of a project so that it can comfortably grow out of the collaboration between a group of good artists. I think that ultimately, what looks good is a good artist doing their work with the minimal interference possible. There is an expectation out there that something needs to look the same to hold together or appear cohesive. Really, I think it is just a matter of selectively using each person’s very different styles. The vision is attained just by working daily with the same smallish group of people; it grows organically from that I think.

Newman: One of the challenges of working in the game industry is staying up on technology. Though game artists have laid the foundation for standardization within their field by using the same basic programs, programmers have yet to do so. What have been some of the challenges you have faced in the film industry with coping with technology?

Sabiston: We use our own software, which has a whole set of challenges all its own. But I face a similar problem simply with the release of new versions of the OS for the computers we use. For example, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) broke my program. Now I have to go back into all that code, which I haven’t worked on in a while, and figure out why. The transition from OS 9 to OS X was horrible too, but worth it of course. But it’s sobering to think that I will have to keep my program alive, essentially, as time marches forth, by staying on top of changing API programming. Also, we move to HD and all of a sudden everything’s getting bigger, which affects everyone in terms of needing more disk space, faster computers. But for us animators, drawing on these 1920 × 1080 screens, the temptation is now there to dive into an even greater level of detail. It’s good, but it’s bad, possibly akin to wanting to hear a vinyl album over a CD or mp3.

Newman: When you were working on the films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, you were in a position to collaborate with director Richard Linklater concerning the look of the films. More so than any other films, these films are closely related to games in that they are “real” but animated. Describe the artistic process of interpreting a director’s vision and keeping the film cinematic rather than cartoon-like.

Sabiston: Well, our specific type of animation is “rotoscoping”, which already has the benefit of being traced over live action, if you’re looking for cinematic over cartoonish. But I think with Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, I think we both had the same general idea of the look for each film. We were on the same page there, which helps. As far as process, regular meetings and reviews of artwork again just kind of naturally lead to a shared understanding for the look of something. Scanner was much more detailed, and was kind of the opposite of Waking Life, in that it maintained this single, consistent, very detailed style the whole way though the movie. Ultimately, I had little to do with how they ended up seeing that through. I think Rick, as well as the studio, panicked when they realized what an actually huge task that would be when compared to Waking Life.

Newman: Your particular brand of animation is unique in that you begin with living actors, then rotoscope over the top of the image. This is not unlike the use of motion capture in the game industry, then animating over the movements of the real actors. Have you found any particular methodology for directing actors that seems to translate the best into your projects?

Sabiston: Most of what I’ve directed, when we animate, has been documentary. So I’m just recording people being themselves and then picking that over for good moments. Although I agree that the rotoscoping process has much in common with motion capture, there’s the hand-drawn aspect to rotoscoping. The artist does give the animation an emotion, an expressiveness, and individuality that motion capture doesn’t really have. I think they both have good uses. The film Beowulf, for example, seemed like a pretty good use for the motion capture, whereas Waking Life wouldn’t be too good done that way. Video games: it would be interesting to see one that really made good use of rotoscoping’s advantages. I don’t think it would be your typical game.

Newman: When translating emotion into a project, color and light can play a big part in establishing a desired mood. This can be particularly difficult when dealing with animation. What is your philosophy regarding the incorporation of light and color?

Sabiston: Because of the tracing aspect to our animation, we pick up most of our light effects from the video source. So in those instances, you’d just be facing the same lighting and color choices as a live-action filmmaker, with the exception that you know you have this second opportunity, during the animation, of changing things. On the other hand, you can also ignore all the video color and lighting and just do your own thing. I think then it comes down to your personal tastes, visual aesthetic, as a visual artist.

Newman: Often, game developers are at the mercy of their publishers for budget, major artistic and technical choices, and the marketing of the final project. When preparing a project for a client such as Linklater or Charles Schwab, what best practices do you recommend for keeping good communications and creating the desired product for the client?

Sabiston: Hm. It depends on the client, I guess. Some clients you work with closely and want to get as much of your own vision in there as well, because you truly care about the film, the subject matter, whatever. On the other hand, if your own ideas clash with theirs or they want to make all of the decisions, then they are the boss in my opinion. That’s kind of what you have to accept with the money you get for working for someone else. I’ve learned on Schwab not to get too emotionally involved when your own artistic interests aren’t at stake. It isn’t worth the anguish if you don’t get your way, and it is good practice I think to try to control your ego in that way, to really subscribe to the saying “The customer is always right.” It can be annoying, though!

Newman: What advice do you have for young digital artists?

Sabiston: Really figure out just what it is that you enjoy, specifically, about the field you’re in. And do that as much as you can. Part of getting out of school and going to work is the dreaded realization that no matter what you do, you are probably going to be stuck somewhere, doing something, for most of your days. If you can find something you enjoy enough to sit there and do it all day, every day, you are bound to get good at it.