30+ Tactics I’d Use To Succeed If I Was Starting Out As A Cinema Producer Today

It ain’t easy out there on the path to producing!

The producer-to-be, around age six, with his Pop and Mom.

If you have made it through the other ten or so posts leading to this, you’ve earned it. And you are probably wondering why the F couldn’t have led with this one. You want a short cut, right? “Just get to the juicy bits on what the business part that works is, Ted!”

But I hope you understand that my long answer can be boiled down to the fact that there is no short cut. That’s why these are called tactics, and not answers. I have some friends advise me to stop giving away the cow.  It’s enough that fill your glass half full with milk, how do I expect you to swallow the whole cow now!

Precisely. You can’t. All of this is a practice. A process. You have to do the work and be in it to win it, as corny as that is. It is the only way that it works. You have to have the love. Lean in to it. And if you don’t have the love and are just a tad lacking, you know what you have to do, right? Sad, but true.

Tactics are that spot that everything gets real. It really is pretty fun I find. You’ve observed the big picture. You see what is happening in the world. You examined yourself. You recognize where you industry is. You’ve done the work and have the skills. You stand distinct. Nothing really matters though until you take action. What are you going to do now?

These tactics may be designed for me, or the me I imagine I’d be if I was just starting out in my producing side of things, and really could not leave the cinema side of things. Of course this means that version of me has probably been in the business at least ten years working my way up, getting the lay of the land, and developing those distinct skills. I actually did produce pretty quick out of the gate – three years in or so – but it took me seven more to truly begin for real.

Some of these tactics probably need some further explaining. Some I have explained already and have linked to them while I can. The ones I haven’t I generally hope to do a subsequent post on.

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Ted’s 30+ Tactics To Launch Your Producing Career In 2024

1. Do it for the love. Or don’t do it.

2. Develop a creative process and practice it with devotion.

3. Learn the maintenance required, and recognize it is part of the job. Give it the time it needs.

4. Achieve some form of financial balance, if not security, generally by making do with less.

5. Stand for something. Set tenets and first principles.

6. Chose a lane to begin: studio or non-dependant, cinema or series, fiction or doc, US or international, and if international, specialize from there. Maybe focus on a specific form or budget.