Producer Quotes

I've seen too many comics who got their own shows and were undone because they worked for an executive producer who didn't understand their comedy or their sensibility.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

I love to improvise when it's appropriate and encouraged by a producer.

As a producer, I think one of the most important decisions you make is not necessarily the material you are working on but the production apparatus that you choose to develop the project with, and that determines what funding you go to, it determines many factors.

You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings.

The beauty of having a producer is that you have someone who says, You're finished.

He makes me laugh, Mick! He tended to turn up when we were having lunch and entertain us all. He bought an Enigma machine! I've never worked with a producer who was more famous than everyone put together.

Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer's job.

Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer.

I have come close to producing films. But generally by the time they hit the screen, there's about 50 people with producer credits, so what's the point. I usually find scripts I like with no money attached and take them to producers that I know and try to raise finance.

At that time, I was signed to Columbia Records as an Independent Producer. I spent many weeks forming, auditioning, rehearsing and recording demos for Kenny, who was finally signed to Columbia Records.

The only thing they really get to pick is the single. But I get to pick the producer, the songs on the record, the final masters, the artwork. Basically, I hand them a record.

When I was 17, my producer Rodney Jerkins was working with Michael Jackson at the time. He knew how much I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, so he says, 'Would you like to come and meet him?' I'm like, 'Are you serious? Of course I want to meet Michael Jackson! Where do I meet you? Where do we come?'

About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.

I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.

Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.

As a young man, I went to Paris and soaked up many hours of film knowledge from Robert Hakim in my efforts to become a producer.

I'd like to get out of here without having to talk to the producer.

The big producer is going to figure out how to deal with whatever the rules are, but the little guy who is running a few hundred units or maybe feeding 1,500 cattle a year, how will they ever comply with these requirements?

I'm thinking about a few weeks in Montreal to work with a producer I met there.

Most films I work on, the people making the film are constantly second-guessing the executives of the studio, the producer, and the audience. It is very hard to accomplish anything in that situation.

Back 20 years ago, I was recording with Bruce Springsteen, and his producer called me and said I had to be in the studio the next day to finish the sessions, and I couldn't. I had to be in court, in California. All this took like 10 years out of my life.

Susie Lynn, the producer of those segments, goes in and lays all the voices over the video.

But I'm a historian. I wasn't interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a general public.

It was all to do with the change of producer as well as political reasons I don't really comprehend.

So it is fair enough that you are paying me what I ask for, because it is my name you are using to sell the film. If the producer gives me a guarantee that he will sell the film at a lower price to the distributors, fair enough, then I will charge less!

Acting still rings my bell as much as it did in high school. Plus, I can now indulge my interests as a producer as well. My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it's still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire.

I just always want a new producer. I'm going to have a new producer on the next one. Because I'm the same person, and I feel like, I know I'm going to bring to it a certain sensibility that's me, and I want to have something different coming out on each album.

On a practical level I'm a TV producer and storyteller who's gone about as long as you can go without achieving a mass audience.

A producer has to know all about everything from set-building to costumes to acting.