Produced By June | July 2021

PRODUCEDBY THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA // JUNE | JULY 2021

THE WORKING PRODUCER’S ESSENTIAL TOOLKIT

P. 23 BLINDSPOTTING TURNS A NEW CHAPTER FOR STARZ

P. 46 THE MYRIAD WAYS TO BRING BOOKS TO SCREEN

P. 55

JESSE

COLLINS

As the world shut down last year, the veteran live TV producer moved quickly to adapt and reimagine awards shows so that COVID would not stop the entertainment.

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Starz and related channels and service marks are the property of Starz Entertainment, LLC. P-Valley © 2020 Starz Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved. Power Book II: Ghost © MMXX Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. The Girlfriend Experience ©2020 Transactional Pictures of NY LP. Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult © MMXX Lions Gate Television Inc. All rights reserved. Men In Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham © 2021 Sony Pictures Television Inc. All rights reserved. Emmy® is the trademarked property of ATAS/NATAS. All rights reserved. PBR-30079-21

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JESSE COLLINS PHOTO COURTESY RICHARD HARBAUGH / A.M.P.A.S.

FEATURES 36 THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS From the BET Awards to the Oscars, Collins drew on his vast experience to produce live shows in a year of unprecedented challenges.

46 DREAMS WITH FRIENDS The Blindspotting team spin a new chapter for Starz, this time centered on the women of the Bay.

55 BOOK TO SCREEN So how does a book become a movie or series?

The producers of three adaptations dive into their journey from page to premiere.

62 PGA AWARDS 2021 The stars came out virtually for PGA’s biggest night.

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30

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CANDI CARTER

DEPARTMENTS 20 FROM THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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30 A DAY IN THE LIFE

72 MARKING TIME

Reflecting on a year of resilience

Tamron Hall Show EP/Showrunner Candi Carter shares her daily routine.

Saluting new earners of the p.g.a mark

23 TOOL KIT

68 NEW MEMBERS

The five items that producer Stephanie Drachkovitch can’t live without

Our community continues to grow with more talent.

27 GOING GREEN

70 PRODUCERS MARK FAQ

How Stillwater harnessed green initiatives from start to finish

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

75 MEMBER BENEFITS The many rewards of belonging to the Guild

76 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS Dispatches from the set of Barefoot in the Park

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BOARD OFFICERS PRESIDENTS Gail Berman

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 VICE PRESIDENT, AP COUNCIL Melissa Friedman VICE PRESIDENT, NEW MEDIA COUNCIL Jenni Ogden VICE PRESIDENT, PGA EAST REGION Donna Gigliotti PRESIDENTS EMERITI Gary Lucchesi Lori McCreary NATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS Stephanie Allain Bray Paulette Lifton Christina Lee Storm Michael Ambers Dan Lin Mimi Valdés James P. Axiotis James Lopez Angela Victor Nina Yang Bongiovi Ravi Nandan Ian Wagner Yolanda T. Cochran Betsy Ockerlund Nolte Lorin Williams Donald De Line Bruna Papandrea Magdalena Wolf Gary Goetzman Charles Roven Charles P. Howard Peter Saraf Iris Ichishita Jillian Stein REPRESENTATIVES, PGA NORTHWEST REGION Richard Quan John Walker REPRESENTATIVE, PGA CAPITAL REGION Katy Jones Garrity REPRESENTATIVE, PGA ATLANTA CHAPTER Jeremiah Bennett ASSOCIATE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Michelle Byrd NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Susan Sprung

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PHOTOGRAPHER Kwaku Alston, photographer for foureleven.agency ADVERTISING Ken Rose 818-312-6880 | KenRose@mac.com MANAGING PARTNERS Charles C. Koones Todd Klawin Vol. XVII No. 3 Produced By is published by the Producers Guild of America 11150 W. Olympic Blvd.

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ORIGINAL

FROM THE N AT I O N A L EXECUTIVE D I R EC TO R

EMERGING STRONGER As producers, your job is to solve problems, to anticipate the unexpected, to remain unflappable in the face of any challenge. Even so, the past 15 months of a global pandemic, which reminded us of the fragility, not just of our business, but of life itself, was adversity on a scale few if any of us have experienced before.

The common thread of this issue of Produced By is the various ways our members responded to that adversity. In our cover story, Jesse Collins describes how he managed to produce live events during the pandemic. The producers of Blindspotting talk about how they produced a scripted series.

Stephanie Drachkovitch shares her favorite tool for remote set viewing. Candi Carter takes you through one day producing a talk show, and Branden Chapman talks about producing the virtual PGA Awards.

As might have been expected from such a resourceful and caring community, for many of you, it wasn’t enough to focus on producing. Hundreds of you reached out to the Guild to see how you could help others in need. You formed a Covid Safety Task Force to get productions up and running again.

You established an Emergency Fund to assist producers in severe economic distress. You created Hire PGA to get our members back to work. Others redoubled their commitment to ongoing Guild work, including reviewing and expanding the Producers Mark process and participating in the Constitution Committee’s road map for our future. You curated hundreds of virtual webinars, mentoring sessions, training programs and networking events. And you played a critical role in reimagining and reinvigorating the Guild’s inclusion efforts.

For all of that—and on behalf of all of those you helped—I thank you. My thanks also goes out to our Guild staff for their unflagging commitment to the work of producers—and to Lucy and Gail for their leadership during a year that no one could have imagined when it began.

Susan Sprung

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TOOL K I T

MAKING IT WORK Stephanie Drachkovitch breaks down her essentials, from her home office setup to the one item she can’t live without on set.

T

he cofounder and co-CEO of 44 Blue Productions, the company behind documentary series such as A&E’s Nightwatch, Oxygen’s The Real Murders of Orange County and E!’s Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry, takes Produced By through her daily work essentials.

NEXSTAND LAPTOP STAND Drachkovitch got rid of her desk chair in her office a decade ago in favor of a standing desk and hasn’t looked back. “It allows me to use that kinetic energy of walking and talking,” she tells Produced By. Last year, in the height of the pandemic, Drachkovitch received as a gift a collapsible laptop stand that allows her to convert any space into a standing desk.

“It turns a conversation into a tactile visual experience for me. The standing desk has just given me so much more energy.”

MOLESKINE TURQUOISE NOTEBOOK Before she became a documentary producer, Drachkovitch studied journalism in college and made a habit of keeping a journal with her at all times. “I started out as an inveterate note taker,” she says. She continues the practice today, keeping detailed notes of every meeting, pitch and project she’s involved with. As for Moleskines, she’s accumulated a vast collection over the years.

“I fell in love with how they feel, the texture and pliability, and they fit in my purse.

Turquoise is one of my ultimate favorite colors. It’s my go-to blue color—like 44 Blue Productions—and I’m surrounded by blues.”

BANDOLIER FOR PHONE Adding a strap to a smartphone might not seem like a big revelation, but for

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TOOL K I T

Drachkovitch, a smartphone bandolier “was a game changer for production.”

Instead of carrying a purse on set, Drachkovitch uses her phone with a crossbody bandolier that has a small pouch, allowing her to carry only the essentials. “Now I just use the bandolier everywhere,” she says. “I haven’t used a purse in a year.”

LOCAL NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIPTIONS “It’s really important to be informed about your city and to know things like who your police chief is, who the mayor is and what’s going on in neighborhoods,” Drachkovitch says. Local news stories have often been crucial for 44 Blue productions, and Drachkovitch makes sure that her team subscribes to local newspapers, also helping to support local journalism. “Whenever we go into a community, especially for a follow-doc—for instance, we’re embedded at Vanderbilt University for a new series that we’re doing with their transplant unit—when we go into that town, I will instantly do a digital subscription to the local paper so that we know what’s going on, especially if we need to do a booking or look for a story idea related to the series that we’re making.”

REMOTE VIEWING RIG With 10 series and five pilot presentations filming across the country in the past year, Drachkovitch needed to see what was happening on the ground without having to send someone. The vice president of production management at 44 Blue Productions rigged up a remote viewing station so that Drachkovitch and her producing and programming partners could view everything happening. “It’s allowed for some efficiencies,” she explains. “I think we’ve gotten better interviews with people because we’re not in a room with them, with a footprint too big, that makes them feel selfconscious. It’s created, in some instances, a more intimate setting.”

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This particular remote view package is for multiview across the Microsoft Teams platform so anyone on the invite list can see and hear what is being shot in the field:

• 2x Teradek Serv Pros • 1x Teradek Link • 1x Atem Mini Switcher • 1x iPad • 1x Laptop • 2x Micro Cine Arms • Power Cables • HDMI Cables • USB Cables • BNC Cables • HDMI to Lightning adapter

Michael Douglas

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Kathleen Turner

Makes you laugh, makes you cry. It plays like a beautiful film from start to finish. MICHAEL DOUGLAS and KATHLEEN TURNER are the Tracy/Hepburn for the new age.”

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GOING GREEN

PHOTO COURTESY JESSICA FORDE / FOCUS FEATURES

A crew member at Marseille’s coastal Calanques Parc, home to native and endangered flora

STILLWATER RUNS GREEN “The species that survive are not the strongest species, nor the smartest ones, but the ones that best adapt to change.” —Charles Darwin, cited in the Stillwater Sustainability Report.

Written by Katie Carpenter

“W

hen I started early prep on Stillwater in 2019, there were tornadoes sweeping the American Midwest,” recalls executive producer Mari Jo Winkler. “We landed in France to start production at the height of the deadly European heat wave, and upon heading back to the U.S. there were raging forest fires in California. I am so sensitive now to catastrophic climate occurrences; I can’t turn away.”

Focus Features’ Stillwater, debuting in theaters on July 30, is a crime thriller directed by Tom McCarthy and starring Matt Damon, Abigail Breslin and Camille Cottin. The film follows Oklahoma oil worker Bill (Damon) as he travels to France to try to exonerate his daughter (Breslin), who is in prison for a murder she did not commit. Shooting took place in Oklahoma City and Marseille, France.

Once the film got the official green light, Winkler approached McCarthy and producers Liza Chasin and Jonathan King about implementing sustainability protocols; they agreed without hesitation.

“I was very proud of the fact that our crew on Stillwater chose to implement a sustainability initiative while we were shooting,” McCarthy said. ”I think it’s crucial that our sets are actively mindful in doing our part to protect and preserve the environment while doing the work we love.”

As McCarthy was eager to shoot in the scripted locations, Winkler explains that they approached the project as an independent French film, hiring local production teams.

Every step of filming—from the sets to props to meals—was implemented with environmental impact in mind. The team hired

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GOING GREEN

Matt Damon stars as “Bill” and Camille Cottin stars as “Virginie” in director Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater, a Focus Features release.

local crew members and used practical locations instead of building sets. “Think of the carbon emissions avoided by not shuttling people back and forth on international flights,” Winkler says.

Winkler teamed up with associate producer Corinne Weber, whom she had previously worked with on Away We Go, the first U.S. film to calculate its carbon footprint. They walked through the PGA’s Green Production Guide point by point, translating into French as they went, and making sure the entire team was on board.

Weber, who is based in France, knew the producing challenges would be formidable. They had two distinct locations: France’s oldest city, Marseille, which still retains its old-world traditions; and the nearby cliffside Calanques Parc, a fragile and pristine coastal landscape with little history of production-size intrusion.

“Everyone in Marseille said it wouldn’t be possible, that it was too much trouble. How I do love a challenge!” Weber says.

Weber retooled the unit management and facilities department to include sustainability. “The stakes were high,” says French sustainability manager Simon Saudubois. “It was a large production with 120 cast and crew on average over a two-month period, without counting the security teams. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

And yet: “Tout le monde a joué le jeu!” adds Saudubois. “Everyone agreed to play the game. It is true that there were initially some reservations, but they were quickly eliminated.”

From sourcing recycling and composting companies, such as Lemonstri and UpCycle, to finding ways to hydrate the cast without plastic bottles, Saudubois and his team would report green measures in his daily newsletter, earning him the nickname, “Green Boy of Marseille.”

“We can no longer go back,” says Saudubois. “We know here in France that we must move forward and find adequate solutions to reduce carbon emissions.”

If a sustainability strategy is difficult to source or too expensive, a production company can apply for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Certificate in some European countries, which can be used to pay for a recycler or green vendor.

Some of the initiatives implemented by the Stillwater team included using smaller vehicles, making sure engines were not idling, and using a high-capacity battery in the camera truck to avoid the use of a generator. To eliminate all plastic water bottles, facilities manager Etienne Olchewsky rigged a battery-operated pump for five-gallon water jugs, and backpacks with water compartments to fill reusable bottles and biodegradable cups. The compost collected from production went toward creating green spaces in the 1st and 7th arrondissements in Marseille, and bags of compost were gifted to members of the French crew.

When it came to filming at Calanques Parc, famous for its 900 species of native plants (many endangered), the team crafted a sustainability plan to protect the rare flora while filming. This included setting up walkways and dedicated equipment areas for

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everyone to adhere to in order to protect the plants, and removed every trace of their waste. “We formed our own community of climate activists in Marseille,” Winkler says.

Meanwhile, in a small town near Oklahoma City, the U.S. team was hard at work prepping the arrival of the production, including taking remote sustainable production training with Emilie O’Brien from Earth Angel.

The script called for a scene to take place in the aftermath of a tornado. The art department sourced three city blocks’ worth of debris from local junkyards and thrift shops. Afterward, the sustainability team came in to recycle and donate all of it, including furniture, clothes and auto parts.

Then there was the issue of shooting in a state that has no hybrid vehicles to rent. The Stillwater team convinced Hertz to bring in rental hybrids from nearby Texas and New Mexico. The hope is they left them in Oklahoma, since the production might have created some demand for greener cars in the future.

The green production frontier has come far in a decade, especially at Participant, Amblin and Focus Features.

Winkler says, “Execs at each company were supportive of us from day one. It was reassuring to see a line item already built into the (Stillwater) budget for on-set sustainability.”

Winkler believes the industry needs to make a deeper commitment to alternative fuels for generators, trailers, transportation and more. “In every carbon calculation we’ve done since 2010, fuel is the biggest part of the pie chart depicting the film’s carbon emissions. We need more investment in clean technologies. It’s the next wave, and it’s an opportunity for lasting change.”

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 approaching in November, the Stillwater producers want to share the strategies that they’ve used with international counterparts.

“Since the U.S. rejoined the Paris accords, we need to practice what we preach and get serious about reducing the environmental impacts of all our films and TV shows,” concludes Winkler.

Mari Jo Winkler and Katie Carpenter are cofounders of PGA Green and leaders of the GPG Task Force. For more information on sustainable production, please visit greenproductionguide.com.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

A DAY IN THE LIFE live show producer CANDI CARTER takes Produced By along on her daily routine.

For Candi Carter, the showrunner of Tamron Hall, the day starts before dawn.

The veteran producer—who worked her way up from CNN in Atlanta to a longrunning stint producing The Oprah Winfrey Show, cofounded her own production company and executive-produced The View—often juggles multiple tapings in a day.

Carter gives a glimpse into how she organizes her busy schedule and finds time to wind down after a long day.

4:30 a.m.

I wake up so that I can be downstairs by 4:45 a.m. to complete my morning workout in front of my Mirror Home Gym. I work out four or five times each week.

5:45 a.m.

I commute into Manhattan from New Jersey and I stop at the Starbucks on 8th Avenue for an English breakfast tea. I started the keto diet at the beginning of the pandemic, lost 10 pounds and never looked back!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

6:45 a.m.

I usually arrive at the studio at 6:45 a.m. to prepare for the first meeting of the day.

7.30 a.m.

I brief Tamron on the day’s episode. We tape five shows per week, and this happened to be a two-show day.

10 a.m.

Here I am sitting in my chair in the control room during the live show. For me, it takes three different office spaces to get the job done each day: my home office, the studio office and the control room.

11:30 a.m.

I catch up with my coworkers between taping the morning show, My Teen’s Secret Life, and the afternoon show, A Journalist’s Double Life.

12 p.m.

Time for a quick breakfast!

I usually eat at my desk.

“I like to relax for a bit before I go to bed. Crocheting has become a hobby of choice during the pandemic.”

2:30 p.m.

I commute back home after the show is done taping. I work from my home office for a few hours, sometimes doing Zoom calls that can last late into the night.

8 p.m.

After wrapping a day of work, I like to relax for a bit before I go to bed. Crocheting has become a hobby of choice during the pandemic.

10:30 p.m.

Lights out!

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Jesse Collins stands in the Geffen Theatre at the brand new Academy Museum. The venue was the location of the Oscars musical performances this year.

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Jesse Collins The Art of the Live Show

It’s 48 hours after the Oscars, and Jesse Collins—who coproduced the awards ceremony in the most challenging of years with Steven Soderbergh and Stacey Sher—is feeling good. “I talked to Steven and Stacey and we felt like we did some new things,” he tells Produced By. “Yeah, not everything worked out the way we thought, but overall, we felt really good about the show and the pre-show and post-show.”

In any given year, producing Hollywood’s biggest night is a daunting task. Producing the Oscars in a year when live shows had to be completely reimagined to adapt to a pandemic presented a whole batch of new obstacles.

And yet by April 2021, Collins, 50, had become a seasoned pro at pulling off hybrid virtual/live ceremonies. Beginning with the BET Awards in June 2020, Collins went on to deliver the 14th Annual Stand Up for Heroes ceremony, 2020 Soul Train Awards, the Super Bowl LV Halftime Show with The Weeknd, and the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.

Interview by Piya Sinha-Roy photographed by KWAKU ALSTON, PHOTOGRAPHER FOR foureleven.agency

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THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

Washington, DC, native Collins has had an unconventional journey in producing. As a talented radio DJ, he hosted shows on local urban stations in the ’90s, where he encountered the biggest names in pop and hip hop. In the early 2000s he moved into producing the BET Awards and carved a career in bringing live entertainment to screen.

That music background came in especially handy at this year’s Oscars, where performances helped to anchor the ceremony. And then during Questlove and Lil Rey Howery’s music trivia game, it was Glenn Close nailing the answer for E.U.’s Da Butt that became Collins’ personal highlight.

“I’m from DC, so that was a huge, very important part of the show for me personally,” Collins explains. “I was running out during a commercial break asking her, “You’re all set, right? You’re ready?” and she’s like, “I got it; relax.”

Close took it one step further: She spontaneously performed the “Da Butt” dance to raucous applause from the audience, and it quickly became a viral moment. “The fact that that came off was amazing. All my friends and family from DC were texting and calling,” Collins says, laughing. “It feels like DC was recognized.”

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WITH ALL THE LIVE SHOWS YOU’VE DONE THROUGHOUT THE PANDEMIC, FROM THE BET AWARDS LAST SUMMER, THE SOUL TRAIN AWARDS, THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW, THE GRAMMYS AND THE OSCARS, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES AND WHAT HAS BEEN SURPRISINGLY SUCCESSFUL FOR YOU? The BET Awards was the first major pandemic award show and we didn’t know if it was going to be received like it was. It was just a decision—these are the cards we’ve been dealt, there’s a pandemic, and no one really understands it at this point. We felt like we needed the show. We needed to be entertained; we needed to get our message out.

George Floyd had just happened. It was really a rough time, and the BET Awards is something that I feel like we all look forward to—to come together, a sense of community. We were able to do it in a different way. People liked it, and that set us on a trajectory. With the Super Bowl halftime show, again it was challenging, but I liked that we were pushing past what anybody had done up until that point. That was a live show in front of about 25,000 people. People thought that it was going to be one of those pretaped performances. We did this kind of proscenium show, but then ended on the field, which was really saying, “We are getting back to an even better version of what we had in the past.” Then the Grammys was just another step of artists and community on stages, bringing music together, and that was amazing.

Then the Oscars was like, now we have

a room full of people, we’re together and we’re celebrating this art. When the BET Awards come around again in June this year, we’re going to push the envelope even further. That’s been the best part of this—being a part of the progression in these award shows, figuring out how to not let COVID stop the entertainment and the sense of community that entertainment brings to us. Music, film—it all brings us together. It’s all a sense of bonding, and I think that’s really what we want.

YOUR BACKGROUND IS ROOTED IN LIVE SHOWS AND THE MUSIC WORLD, AND THE PERFORMANCES AT THE OSCARS ARE A REALLY BIG SHOWPIECE. SO HOW DID YOU PLAN THOSE OUT AND STAGE THEM TO MAKE THEM FEEL DYNAMIC THIS YEAR? We had five amazing songs and wanted to make sure that everybody was able to perform the whole song, and we wanted everyone to have a great creative so they could be presented in the proper fashion. Chris Robinson directed them.

Our creative team, Raj Kapoor and Dionne Harmon, did a great job of pulling it all together, along with each artist and their own creative directors. Like H.E.R. was developed by Tanisha Scott, who’s brilliant. We all came together, we wanted them to feel elevated, we wanted them to feel like important parts of the Oscar experience, and I think we accomplished that.

YOU WERE CONTENDING WITH MANY CHALLENGES AT THE OSCARS THIS YEAR, GIVEN

THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

THE PANDEMIC, LOCATIONS, HOLDING THE SHOW TWO MONTHS AFTER IT USUALLY TAKES PLACE AND GOING HOST-LESS ONCE AGAIN. WHAT WERE YOU HOPING YOU COULD DO THAT THAT WOULD MAKE IT FEEL DIFFERENT? We tried to find a location that could fit the creative narrative of intimacy, to create a full room. We knew that we were only going to be allowed so many people. We didn’t want to have a stage with an empty room and we didn’t want people spread out where it’s like this massive arena and there’s just 50 people in there. If we were going to create a sense of community on television, we had to have a sense of community in the room. It was designed from the moment you walked in. Our pre-show was in that patio area where people could walk around and have drinks and mingle, and it set the table for when they walked into a room. They were sitting at tables with their friends, and bringing that together was phase one of trying to create a great Oscar experience. As for where we didn’t use packages and we told stories, again, that was speaking to the narrative of community. We wanted to let people understand who these people are that are nominated, especially those in the craft awards. Yeah, we could run a package and show the hair and makeup from the films, but we felt like it was more interesting to tell you about the people who applied that makeup and created those looks, so you understood where they came from and what their dreams were. There was an online campaign that supported that—where you could find out more about these people with the hope that it would inspire people watching—to show that films are not just made by actors and directors; there’s a whole community of people behind them.

THE ACADEMY HAS BEEN CONTENDING WITH RELEVANCY THE PAST FEW YEARS, AS WELL AS ABC

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If we were going to create a sense of community on television, we had to have a sense of community in the room.

It was designed from the moment you walked in.”

WITH THE OSCARS RATINGS. SO HOW DO YOU MAKE THIS AWARD SHOW MORE COMPELLING TO TODAY’S AUDIENCE, ESPECIALLY WHEN SO OFTEN THE NOMINEES ARE PRESTIGE FILMS THAT AREN’T NECESSARILY WATCHED BY THE MASS AUDIENCE THAT YOU’RE HOPING TO DRAW? THIS YEAR, GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, DID IT ALLOW YOU TO HAVE A LITTLE BIT MORE FREEDOM? I think everybody knew going in that this was the year to shake things up. In a COVID year, I think it was like, how can you even do a show? So it did give us a tremendous amount of freedom: different location, different look, satellites all over the world, talking about nominees instead of packages. This was the year to take a risk and do something completely different. ABC and AMPAS were very supportive from the beginning.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THE INDUSTRY AND SET YOU ON THE PATH TO YOUR CURRENT PRODUCING CAREER? I was an intern at a radio station in DC and then I got on the air. I did nights at a station in Ocean City, Maryland, and then I went back to DC and I got on WPGC, a big, big urban station. From there, I went to LA, got on another radio station. Then my break into Hollywood came from Robert Townsend and Faizon Love. We all were friends, and I used to hang out with them at the comedy clubs. I had lost my job and I was down to like my last unemployment check and Townsend said, “You can be a writer on Parenthood,” and he gave me a script to punch up. It’s funny, I had at some point decided that I wanted to be a writer. Marlon Wayans was nice enough to tell me the program that I needed to write with and he gave me a book—Syd Field’s Screenplay. Then I showed Marlon the script and he said, “This is terrible.”

But then Townsend got me a job as a writer trainee on his sitcom. From there, I just bounced around different shows and

PHOTOGRAPHED BY KWAKU ALSTON, PHOTOGRAPHER FOR FOURELEVEN.AGENCY

THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

Jesse Collins at the Academy Museum, which will house exhibits showcasing Hollywood film history. It opens September 30, 2021.

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F O R YO U R E M M Y C O N S I D E R AT I O N ®

O U T S TA N D I N G T E L E V I S I O N M O V I E A N D A L L O T H E R E L I G I B L E C AT E G O R I E S

“QUIETLY PROFOUND” – IndieWire

“HEARTWARMING… UPLIFTING” – CinemaBlend

© 2021 Disney

PHOTO COURTESY THE COLLINS JACKSON AGENCY

THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

Jesse Collins at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, ahead of the 2021 Super Bowl LV Halftime Show, headlined by The Weeknd.

I met John Cossette, who passed away some years ago. John made me a writer and coproducer on BET 20th Anniversary, the first BET awards show. That was when it all connected, because I was able to use my radio and music background for entertainment with award shows. Then we were off and running, and we’ve been doing award shows for BET ever since.

When John passed (in 2011), I was able to start my own company, and we’ve been rolling ever since.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE A DJ DURING THE ’90s HIP HOP AND URBAN MUSIC SCENE? It was a crazy time because that was at the height of the East Coast, West Coast beef, the height of Suge and Eazy-E going

at it. All that stuff was happening, and you were seeing the bad-boy era grow.

Looking back on it, everybody was so young, people were making so much money, and there was nobody to tell everybody to slow down—like this could end really bad, everybody’s getting a little too caught up in this. Unfortunately, the end result was that we lost two amazing artists that I wish were still here today.

Imagine what the world would be like with Tupac and Big in their 50s. What would have become of their careers?

Looking back on that and just seeing their explosion—it’s tragic. It’s like when people post things about Ruthless Radio. I wish Eazy could see what we’re all doing today because these guys were at the forefront of it all. I’ll give you just a crazy moment.

YES, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT CRAZY MOMENTS! So we shot the performances on the roof of the Academy Museum, which is right across the street from the Petersen (Automotive) Museum, which is where Biggie got shot. I look over and was like, “That’s the Petersen, and that’s where the truck (that Notorious B.I.G. was shot in) was. I remember driving that night, I remember leaving the party, and I saw Big in his truck and we were all going—well, I don’t know if he was going, but I was going—to the Trackmasters party up in the hills. I remember saying “what up” to him because he had been in the party all night, and him being like, “I’ll see you.” And then (I remember) driving up Fairfax, not knowing what had happened, and being at the

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THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

PHOTO COURTESY TERENCE PATRICK

Jesse Collins backstage at the 2021 Grammy Awards with nominee and performer Harry Styles and Styles’ manager, Jeff Azoff.

Styles won his first Grammy that night.

party. You’re getting paged, and people are talking. You’re starting to hear about it. It took time to even find out what happened.

Things are so immediate (now). You just Google it and you TMZ or whatever. It was a crazy moment. I remember standing there the night (this year) we were shooting, and being like, wow, this museum is where it happened and now here we are, shooting performances for the Oscars.

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you call somebody, especially someone that you want to be in business with, be organized, know what you’re going to do.

Don’t call Tyler Perry to be like, “So what do you have for breakfast?” Unless you’re at that point in the relationship, have a point and make it meaningful for both parties so that people will pick up your next call. Even if it’s a no, it had a point.

You won’t get a chance at a second, third or fourth call.

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE THAT YOU WERE GIVEN, ESPECIALLY TOWARD THE START OF YOUR CAREER, FROM ONE PERSON?

WHAT WERE SOME OF THE TOUGHEST LESSONS THAT YOU LEARNED ABOUT PRODUCING IN YOUR EARLY YEARS?

A friend of mine, Drew Tillman, gave me the best advice that I still use to this day.

He said, “Don’t waste phone calls.” When

Learning patience. John (Cossette) used to always say you’ve got to just be patient with stuff. You can’t just get on a call

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and say, “It’s got to be like this, this and this,” and drive everybody crazy to make it exactly the way it is in your head.

You’ve got to let it evolve, let people help make the idea grow. What I learned on my own is the responsibility of being a producer. In a lot of cases, I’m financially responsible. The network trusts me with X amount of dollars to deliver the show.

You’re responsible for your word when you tell an artist that such and such is going to happen. They have to believe you that that is going to happen and that it’s going to be great. You realize that to some extent, everything is your responsibility.

The buck really does stop with you.

When it’s an issue, you’ve got to be the one to take the bullet, to take the blame, to exit and to move forward.

THE COVER: JESSE COLLINS

AS A BLACK PRODUCER WORKING ON AWARDS SHOWS IN THE PAST YEAR, ESPECIALLY WITH THE RESURGENCE OF THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT, HOW DO YOU WEAVE THESE ISSUES WITHIN THE WORK THAT YOU DO? Look, it is a part of Americana at this point, it is a part of American culture, whether people want to accept it or not, and it’s not going away. We’re going through a shift in this country. What the BLM movement is doing will be studied for decades, and some people are going to be on the right side and some are going to be on the wrong side of history.

So I think it’s important for me to make sure that you keep the narrative going, keep exposing it. It doesn’t mean that you have to do a lecture or a package every time. There’s so many ways to integrate the story. Sometimes it needs to be heavy-handed, and sometimes just our existence in a situation sends a message. Sometimes it’s a line. Regina (King)’s opening to the Oscars was beautiful because it wasn’t all about that. It was like, “Let me just send this message, let you know where I’m at.” It was very personal for her, and then she went into the show, which means that she made it a part of the show—because it is a part of who we are right now.

It’s nothing to be scared of. This is our progression, as humans, as Americans, and we have to embrace it. People are opening their eyes and they’re realizing, “Oh, we were pretty messed up. That was racist.” I’m sure there are execs that are sitting there and they’re realizing, “Hmm, I’ve had this black executive on my team but oddly enough, I only asked him about Kevin Hart; I never asked him about what he thinks about Brad Pitt. It’s always like, “You think Kevin could do this?” As opposed to, “What actor could do this?” That moment of clarity for people of color in Hollywood is like when the people in the room with you aren’t just asking you about talent that reflects your community.

“THIS IS OUR PROGRESSION, AS HUMANS, AS AMERICANS, AND WE HAVE TO EMBRACE IT. PEOPLE ARE OPENING THEIR EYES AND THEY’RE REALIZING, ‘OH, WE WERE PRETTY MESSED UP. THAT WAS RACIST.’” WHAT SPECIFIC PIECE OF ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUNG PRODUCERS THAT ARE ENTERING INTO THE INDUSTRY NOW? I think young producers entering the industry understand that the gatekeepers think that you are entitled. Just know that going in, and so prove that you’re not. Be willing to do the extra thing. Work really hard to get the thing that you want, or come in with it all together and done— but prove that you can do the work. Don’t just chase the title, chase the job and everything that comes with it. When you walk in the door and (say) “I did this little thing, so I want to be executive producer,” you won’t actually learn how to be an executive producer. So even if you get the credit on that one project, that moment will go away, and you won’t be able to recreate it. Whereas if you really learn the job and do other jobs leading up to it, then when you do get that credit, you also get that respect from the community, which is actually better currency than the credit. Because as a producer, a lot of it is on your word. To be able to tell the studio, “Oh yes, I can deliver this. Oh, yeah, this will work. Oh, yeah. I won’t go over budget,” they’re really just trusting

you, and that trust only comes from a community of people saying, “Yes, they delivered.” You only can build that by really understanding the job and working your way up.

WHAT BARRIERS DO YOU FEEL STILL EXIST, ESPECIALLY FOR PRODUCERS OF COLOR OR FOR UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS RIGHT NOW? That saying from Hamilton, being in the room where it happens—we need to be in more rooms and be a part of decisions. Not just the urban films, not just the first black person to do whatever story. We need to be in every story, just like someone white can be in any room. They get to be a part of that process, and when they’re making a movie that happens to not have a lot of people of color in the cast, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have people of color behind the scenes, or people of color in the room giving the green light for that film. Because we are not limited to understanding only our stories, our culture. We’re the ones that are culturally connected to understand all of them.

This interview has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

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Dreams With Friends How a Sundance debut, box office challenges and a pandemic shaped Starz’s new series, Blindspotting .

Written By Piya Sinha-Roy

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L-R: Jaylen Barron (Trish), Benjamin Earl Turner (Earl), Candace NicholasLippman (Janelle), Atticus Woodward (Sean), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Ashley), Rafael Casal (Miles) and Daveed Diggs (Collin)

PHOTO COURTESY EDDY CHEN / 2020 STARZ ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

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he story of how two Bay Area rappers, neither of whom had written a script before, managed to cowrite and lead an indie feature on their first try may seem like one of those rare Hollywood stories of beginner’s luck. But in reality, the journey of Blindspotting from Sundance hit to Lionsgate release to Starz series debuting in June, demonstrates a determination from producers Jess Wu Calder, Keith Calder, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal to create something authentic, and to persevere even in the most difficult of situations.

When Blindspotting made its debut at the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, it marked the culmination of an arduous decade-long journey for the foursome that brought it to fruition. So when the television arm of Lionsgate approached the Calders, Diggs and Casal about expanding Blindspotting into a Starz TV series, they needed some convincing.

“We had spent over a decade working on this to tell a specific story, and we all felt like we had told it,” says Jess Wu Calder. “I think that was our initial hesitancy.”

As Diggs elaborates, “We told them no several times.” The project was deeply personal for both Diggs and Casal, who drew on their own lives to pen the story and to play Bay Area best friends Collin and Miles. Revisiting those characters for a Blindspotting series wasn’t of interest to the creators.

The story of Blindspotting begins in 2007, when Jess Wu Calder and Keith Calder, the team behind Snoot Entertainment, explored the idea of reimagining a musical. “Keith and I

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DREAMS WITH FRIENDS

were really passionate about trying to figure out a way to do what we thought was a cool different version of a musical where, instead of the characters bursting into song when they’re overcome with emotion, they would burst into verse.” That nugget began to take shape when Jess Wu Calder discovered Casal performing his poetry on YouTube and contacted him to meet about their idea for a reimagined musical film.

The Calders drove up from Los Angeles to the Bay Area to meet Casal, and within hours had formed a bond. Shortly after, they invited Casal to perform at an event tied to their 2010 documentary Thunder Soul. Casal was unable to make it, so he suggested his friend step in. In walked a pre-Hamilton Daveed Diggs, who freestyled verses inspired by their documentary and “just blew us all away,” recalls Keith Calder.

From then, the Calders joined forces with Diggs and Casal to create and develop Blindspotting, using a poem by Casal titled “Monster” as a starting point. “It was a really beautiful piece about how (Casal) was so angry and fed up with so many of his friends dying early, and that really spoke to both Keith and I,” Jess Wu Calder says.

What emerged from the collaboration was Blindspotting, a tale that follows Collin (Diggs), a Black man trying to stay

out of trouble during the last days of his parole despite the antics of his reckless best friend Miles (Casal). The film struck a complex balance between comedy, drama, verse, and banter, telling the carefully constructed story of two Oakland best friends contending with white privilege, police shootings of unarmed Black Americans, rapid gentrification, and fractures in their own relationship.

EMERGING RESONANCE After its Sundance debut, Lionsgate quickly snapped it up and released it to theaters in July that year, hoping to find an audience in a year when films such as Sorry to Bother You, BlackKklansman and even Marvel’s Black Panther elevated the racial injustices that Black Americans experience. Still, released against blockbusters in the height of summer, Blindspotting performed lower than expected at the box office, capping out its theatrical taking at $5 million.

“I think the film addresses themes that certain aspects of the world weren’t ready to talk about yet and view yet,” says Keith Calder. That shifted in 2020, when, during the height of the pandemic, the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked a rousing resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. As more Americans leaned into educating

themselves on the realities of the Black American experience, Blindspotting found its audience on streaming and digital platforms. “Last year’s crucible of events led to the film resonating in a way that we felt should have been sooner, but the world was ready last year,” Keith Calder explains.

Casal says the film’s underwhelming theatrical performance ended up being a blessing in disguise. “What made it a lot easier for us to investigate it as a television show was that it wasn’t a massive hit … like, you don’t take Moonlight and flip it into a series—you’re not going to top it; it’s Oscar-winning,” he explains.

What the film did demonstrate was a cast of characters in a real-world setting that connected with the people who watched it and spread the word.

SHIFT IN FOCUS As the foursome reunited to discuss what could work for a potential Blindspotting series, Jess Wu Calder returned to an idea they explored for the film. It was one scene in the film, an explosive argument between Casal’s Miles and Jasmine Cephas Jones’ Ashley, that planted the seed for recentering the Blindspotting story to focus on the women. “Something we had always tried to do was to introduce more women of color into the story, and with each incarnation of the

Jess Wu Calder and Keith Calder pose while on set.

The duo have shepherded Blindspotting from concept to screen for the past 14 years.

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We had no idea how to produce television and we had no idea how to produce television in a pandemic. But I do think there was a little bit of a high—if we pull it off,

no one can tell us s---, because we’ve charged through something that is unprecedented.” faces insurmountable challenges as a single parent and as a woman in a city that encompasses the vast disparity of class and wealth. Verse and performance play a key role in the series as the story weaves short dance breaks and rap segments into Ashley’s journey toward regaining her footing.

“I was really happy because I knew that they were going to give me a platform to just go off,” says Jones. “I’m excited for people to see us break the fourth wall and go into verse, which Ashley does when she is her most honest and truthful self.

She gets angry and she gets sad, and she expresses herself in this creative way.”

Once Jones’ Ashley became the subject of the Blindspotting series and Casal took the reigns as showrunner, the four producers looked to actively hire more women and people of color into the process, both on screen and behind the scenes in the writers room and director’s chair. The supporting cast includes Black and Latinx regulars including Benjamin Earl Turner, Atticus Woodward and Candace Nicholas-Lippman, and producers include Chrisann Verges and Taja Perkins as associate producer. “Having a more representative group of people making the stories is something that the Hollywood machine is not very good at yet,” Diggs explains. “Everyone falls back on the things that you’re used to that work, and there are so many barriers to entry to all of these various different unions that keep them from being representative of the population.”

PHOTO COURTESY PATRICK WYMORE / 2020 STARZ ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

script, we kept trying to home in on that because we were aware it was a very male-dominated storyline,” she says.

Diggs and Casal also knew the story had to shift away from Collin and Miles, but they still wanted to capture the zeitgeist of the Bay Area and the world they had created in the film. “Immediately (we knew) that’s why Ashley has to be the center of the story,” Casal says. It has to be her friends and not just her surrounded by Collin and Miles and their friends, but that we see her in her own context.”

Two things came together quickly after that. “Jasmine Cephas Jones is incredible and we want to showcase her as much as possible,” Keith Calder says. “The second key piece was that we wanted to tell a story about the impact of incarceration on a community. We knew that that the way to do that through the lens of Ashley would be to have Miles go into that system.”

Jones, best known for playing Peggy Schuyler and Marina Reynolds in the original cast of Broadway’s Hamilton— she also won an Emmy for her role in #FreeRayShawn—came on board as lead star and executive producer for the series, building on her long-time friendship with Casal and her Hamilton co-star Diggs to create a strong arc for Ashley.

“It’s nice when you get to draw on your own real life and authentic relationships with other women, because I do think the authenticity of female relationships is very much lacking in TV,” Jones explains. “Quite often, they’re heightened or exaggerated.”

The series begins with Miles being arrested and imprisoned on drug possession charges, and Ashley must figure out new living arrangements for herself and their young son Sean. They are forced to move in with Miles’ mother Rainey, played by Helen Hunt, and his wayward sister Trish (Jaylen Barron), and Ashley has to adapt to life without her long-term partner by her side.

Over the course of the series, Ashley— who is often the calm in a cast of eccentric and larger-than-life characters— will start to crack and combust. She

PANDEMIC CHALLENGES While the Calders have ushered more than a dozen independent films to screens —they’ve earned the Producers Mark for 2016’s Blair Witch, 2018’s Blindspotting, 2019’s Little Monsters and 2020’s One Night in Miami—the Blindspotting series marked the first time all four producers had ever made a television show. Every day presented new challenges, and then just as production plans for the series were getting off the ground, Hollywood came to a grinding halt when the pandemic swept the world last March.

As the producers contemplated the future of the series, the network gave them a 10-week window in November 2020 to film. “We had no idea how

DREAMS WITH FRIENDS

L-R: Diggs, Jones and Casal, who starred in the Blindspotting film, reunite for the series, this time all three producing. Here, they’re on set for the show’s pilot episode.

to produce television and we had no idea how to produce television in a pandemic,” says Casal. “But I do think there was a little bit of a high—if we pull it off, no one can tell us s---, because we’ve charged through something that is unprecedented.” It also presented an opportunity for the team to provide much-needed jobs for cast and crew.

The first step was to adjust the filming locations, given COVID safety protocols.

While the film was able to rove through Oakland given Miles and Collins’ jobs as movers, the eight-episode Blindspotting series had more static locations. The team decided to shoot only essential exterior shots in Oakland over the course of two weeks, and build the rest of the

sets on sound stages in Santa Clarita.

And then there were the additional stringent measures to keep everyone safe, with strict testing and distancing and movements on set.

“At the beginning, we wanted to be sponges, learning about how television is made. At a certain point, a big realization was that that we’ve come up through the process of making independent films and we figured out our own approach to things,” Keith Calder says. “I think people do their best work when they’re comfortable.”

With a tight schedule on set and scripts evolving during filming, everyone made themselves available to adapt as quickly as needed. “Sometimes I had to learn a verse

in a very short matter of time, but the great thing about it is that everyone is so damn talented so we’d all get together and create something on the spot,” Jones says.

For Diggs and Casal, the logistics of running a show presented many lessons. “The scripts, it turns out, are really important,” Diggs quips. “I don’t think we’ll ever go into production on something while we’re still writing scripts again,” Casal adds. “We learned that the biggest part of our jobs, the multiple jobs that we’re running on set, is to be hyper present and ready to engage with everyone in their department.”

But there were also huge perks to being producers; Diggs relished being able to come and go without the

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Top: Showrunner Casal chats with Jones while filming in Oakland.

Bottom: Woodward, Barron, NicholasLippman and Helen Hunt, who plays Miles’ mother Rainey, on set in Santa Clarita.

responsibilities of an actor, while Casal just appreciated having someone to bring him monitors. “Rafa always needed a bigger monitor. He doesn’t see well and he refuses to wear glasses,” Diggs says.

Diggs and Casal have come far as artists and storytellers since they first wrote Blindspotting in their early 20s. On social media, they often use the hashtag #DreamsWithFriends when promoting their projects because that’s what they do—create their dream projects with their talented friends. It’s a sentiment that Jones valued greatly as she stepped into her first lead role, working on a show driven by two close friends and where even her real-life partner, Anthony Ramos (also from the original Broadway cast of Hamilton), pops up on screen in a supporting role.

“I trust these people more than anything, because I know that they have my back and I have theirs,” Jones says. “It’s really important to have your tribe and constantly have those people surrounding you that you believe in, they believe in you, and that can call you out and can help you grow as an artist.”

If Blindspotting doesn’t get a second season, its creative team has made sure the eight episodes present a complete and cohesive arc for the show’s characters.

“The four of us crafted this season in a way that if we, for whatever reason, don’t get a future, we don’t have any regrets,” Jess Wu Calder says.

But if it gets the coveted renewal, the team have big plans for the Blindspotting series.

“If we get to season two, we can introduce new characters to live with, because as much as we love these five or six voices, they’re still a small fraction of the kinds of people that shaped our lives,” Casal says. “We’re excited to introduce those folks and dig a little bit deeper into each of their trajectories. I think we’re always like, two seasons would be great and three seasons would be amazing.”

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PHOTOS COURTESY EDDY CHEN / 2020 STARZ ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

TRIBAL COLLABORATION

FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

JAMES CAMERON

AND RENOWNED EXPLORER

BRIAN SKERRY

“DAZZLES

WITH ITS EXTRAORDINARY FOOTAGE” –THE BOSTON GLOBE

“INCREDIBLE.

AMAZING. AWESOME.” –CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

“SPECTACULAR” –THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ALL THINGS

MAJESTIC F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY OR NONFICTION SERIES

natgeotv.com/FYC

Book Book to to Screen Screen

The road from novel or memoir to successful production begins with savvy surveying of the literary scene.

Written By Isaac Feldberg

H

ollywood’s streaming era has created a boom for content, as networks, studios and digital platforms hustle to find new stories to bolster their online libraries. Quite often, the answer sits on bookshelves of actual libraries, and requires the muscle of producers who can envision the potential of the written words.

The market for books to be adapted into films, series, or prestige miniseries is thriving, but rarely is there a straightforward path from the bookshelf to the box office or the on-demand hub. Produced By takes a closer look, presenting three case studies in adaptation that speak to the unique and ever-evolving roles a producer can play in bringing a book to the screen.

Each of these stories­—a heartwarming teen Christmas tale; an unsettling exploration of artistry and marriage by one of the greatest living authors; and a life-affirming memoir—took a different route, but all of them relied on the effort and ingenuity of their producers to overcome obstacles along the way.

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BOOK TO SCREEN

EX-MAS (AMAZON) AT ALLOY, BOOKS LIKE EX-MAS ARE BLOCKBUSTERS IN WAITING. When it comes to adapting youngadult fiction for film and television, Leslie Morgenstein has become an expert. The president and founder of Alloy Entertainment has transformed the teen-savvy book publisher into an ultraprofitable, industrially efficient book-to-screen pipeline.

Between feature adaptations like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and TV franchises including Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, Alloy has defined a generation of teen entertainment over the past three decades. When it comes to the company’s biggest successes, they usually start with a book Morgenstein and his team believe has crossover appeal.

Many story concepts are hatched during internal brainstorming sessions, then paired with novelists who write the books as Alloy sets the wheels in motion for films or TV series. Others originate with authors. Alloy then assumes the editorial responsibilities of a traditional publisher, but also stays on to produce the on-screen adaptation. “Originally, the business was very much book-focused: How do we take books and adapt them into TV and film,” explains Morgenstein.

“Now, it’s much more hand-in-glove, where we’re developing properties that will have a life on multiple platforms.” Morgenstein has received PGA’s Producers Mark for the feature adaptations of Everything, Everything, The Sun Is Also a Star and Work It. Consider Ex-mas, Kate Brian’s 2009 novel about two 8-year-old boys who embark on a mission to save Santa from climate change—forcing their older siblings, who used to date, to set aside their differences and give chase. Hearts

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are warmed and sparks most certainly fly.

Brian teamed up with Alloy on its New York Times best-selling Private books, about teenagers at a prestigious academy. Alloy created a web series from those novels and once planned a feature film, which stalled in development. So when Ex-mas landed on Morgenstein’s desk, he added the title to a running list of internally well-regarded properties to be paired with screenwriters. A slim paperback nestled into holiday and YA romance genres, Ex-mas had a self-limiting audience in book form, but Morgenstein saw bigger potential in a film adaptation.

“Christmas movies not only have marketability in that window when they often release, but if you do them right, there’s a timelessness to them where it could become a classic, something people watch every year,” he explains.

Morgenstein also thinks audiences will be swept up in the will-they-won’tthey dynamic of Ex-mas. “You’re with someone you both love and hate, and you cannot get away from them,” he explains. “I love that tension.” He sees When Harry Met Sally as one north star for the project and will focus on casting leads with simmering chemistry.

With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Alloy’s day-to-day marks it as a hybrid of the film and book publishing industries. “We’re a little unusual in that, in most cases, we’re on the ground floor of development,” says Morgenstein. Alloy regularly seeks out in-demand creatives to pair with its properties. “We’re producers,

not cowriters,” he adds. A division of Warner Bros. Television Group since 2012, Alloy frequently partners with the mega conglomerate’s branches to adapt properties, but it does business all around town—including with streamers, which can often move fastest to capture the attention of younger, perennially online audiences.

Mogenstein and his team first met with writing-directing duo Chris Hazzard and Michael Fontana after reading their script for comedy feature Drunk Bus and presented them with a few potential projects. Selecting Ex-mas, the pair came back to the table and developed a pitch with Alloy. Though WarnerMedia partners ended up passing, Amazon Studios snapped up the feature.

Alloy doesn’t exclusively operate in the YA space—one successful adult thriller is Caroline Kepnes’ You, adapted into the popular Netflix series of the same name— but the company has shepherded nearly a hundred YA best sellers to market.

“There’s a universality to coming-of-age stories,” says Morgenstein. “Even grownups relate to stories about defining who you are as a person. That’s a lot of what these books are about.”

Ensuring projects find the right home is a priority for Morgenstein, no matter how long it takes. “We’ve had projects that have gone from selling to being in production within a year, and then we’ve had projects that take 10 years,” he says. Being able to roll with the punches is an essential part of his business. “Sometimes you have your strategy, the market speaks back to you, and it’s not always the answer you want,” adds Morgenstein.

Case in point: You was developed at Showtime and purchased by Lifetime, which aired its first season to limited success before a Netflix streaming debut finally turned the series into a global sensation. “It’s not always consistent, and sometimes it’s a crooked path,” he says.

WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN.

MPTF provides a safety net of social and charitable services including temporary financial assistance, counseling to navigate difficult times and referrals to community resources.

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BOOK TO SCREEN

FATHERHOOD (NETFLIX) AT THE HEART OF FATHERHOOD IS A TRUE STORY OF TRAGEDY, PERSEVERANCE, AND HARDWON TRIUMPH. Based on Matthew Logelin’s best-selling 2011 memoir Two Kisses for Maddy, Fatherhood stars Kevin Hart as Logelin, a first-time father struggling to raise his daughter after the unexpected death of his wife one day after giving birth. The film debuts June 18 on Netflix, a decade after the book’s release, having survived its stop-and-start journey through Hollywood largely thanks to the tenacity of former Sony exec David Beaubaire, the producer who never gave up on it.

Beaubaire describes how “the tremendous humor and humanity” of Logelin’s story stood out to him as the memoir climbed the New York Times Best Seller list. From the personal (Beaubaire’s young daughter is named Maddie) to the professional (the book’s universally affecting themes), he knew Two Kisses for Maddy was a story he wanted to tell.

The producer reached out to secure the rights, landing on Logelin’s radar early on.

“David was the first name I heard that, at least in my agent’s estimation, was somebody to trust and who could perhaps get something done,” recalls Logelin.

In early conversations, Beaubaire conveyed his empathy for Logelin as another father and husband, one who’d weathered an unimaginable loss with grace. He also didn’t beat around the bush: In Hollywood, there’s no guarantee a project will get made, no matter who’s involved. Regardless, Beaubaire promised Logelin he’d honor the story each step of the way. “You’re playing with someone’s life,” says the producer. “You have to be able to respect the trust they’re putting in your hands.”

But Beaubaire wasn’t able to option Two Kisses for Maddy first. After Logelin’s

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wife passed, the author had to face the harsh reality of his household losing half its expected income. He agreed to meet with Hallmark and Lifetime, despite not being enamored with either company’s output. “In the back of my head, I was listening to whatever my late wife was telling me,” Logelin recalls. Most pressingly, she told him to seize any opportunities to secure their daughter’s future. When Lifetime made him an offer, he took it; they optioned the memoir twice, both times unsuccessfully.

As the project spent years languishing, Beaubaire strengthened his relationship with Sony’s Columbia Pictures and moved again to option the memoir and set it up there. “I was blown away by that,” recalls Logelin. “I’d given up completely by that point, so for somebody to come back again and tell me they were interested was an inspiration.”

Logelin said yes, gratefully.

“Knowing David had been so deeply involved—how he believed in it so much that wherever he went he was going to try to make it happen—gave me hope,” recalls the author. “I felt like, if this was going to get done, he was the one who was going to do it.”

Beaubaire enlisted Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, the power producers behind Dear John, The Fault in Our Stars and the Twilight franchise. They were close friends, and Godfrey’s wife, an ob-gyn, had even delivered Beaubaire’s

daughter. Channing Tatum, who’d starred in Dear John, was then approached to produce through his Free Association production company, as well as to potentially play Logelin in the adaptation. Dana Stevens (City of Angels, Safe Haven) penned the script. “It’s very sensitive to take someone’s personal tragedy and take creative license with it,” says Beaubaire, looking back on the project’s early stages. “We walked a line in a graceful way I’m really proud of.”

Many of Hollywood’s leading men circled the project over the years, but it

BOOK TO SCREEN

wasn’t until Kevin Hart and his HartBeat Productions came aboard that Fatherhood moved forward. Better known as a comedian, Hart had been seeking more dramatic work. Beaubaire was won over by both his sincerity and the surprise factor of seeing Hart in a movie like Fatherhood.

“It is unexpected to see Kevin in a more dramatic role,” he says. “And at first blush, Matthew and Kevin don’t quite look alike, but that’s what made the movie fresh.”

Beaubaire also sensed that Hart could build on the wide-reaching appeal of Logelin’s story. “This crosses all races, all

nationalities,” he adds. “It’s a universal story about being a parent and losing a loved one.”

Sony’s decision to license Fatherhood to Netflix was not made easily. Beaubaire says the studio held out through nearly a full year of COVID-related turmoil in hopes of releasing it theatrically. But that was sweetened considerably by Higher Ground, the production company of former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, coming aboard as official presenters of the film.

Even before Fatherhood earned such a

prestigious endorsement, Logelin felt the production had steered true by not losing sight of the people at its center. “David didn’t just care about the story itself,” he says. “He’s surrounded himself with people who all had one goal: to make me, my daughter, my wife—all of us—proud.

That was really special.”

For Beaubaire, there was no other path to producing Fatherhood. “Matt didn’t do it by himself; he had the support of family, and a world out there that wanted to help him—and so it is with making a movie,” he says. “It takes a village.”

LISEY’S STORY (APPLE TV+)

Kevin Hart stars in Netflix’s Fatherhood, adapted from Matthew Logelin’s memoir Two Kisses for Maddy, out June 18.

ONE OF STEPHEN KING’S MOST PERSONAL STORIES RECEIVES FITTINGLY SENSITIVE TREATMENT. From The Stand to The Shining, Stephen King’s best-selling novels combine the drama of everyday life with the allure of the supernatural, navigating an otherworldly membrane between the two. At once thrillingly cinematic and uniquely calibrated, his stories have long presented an intense yet irresistible challenge for producers and filmmakers.

Buoyed by blockbuster adaptations like Pet Sematary, Castle Rock, and Andy Muschietti’s It franchise, Hollywood has reaffirmed its commitment to King in recent years. For the latest King adaptation, miniseries Lisey’s Story on Apple TV+, which debuts in June, the creators explain that the project was

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elevated by a special level of commitment from the author himself.

“Stephen was intimately involved,” recalls producer Mary Rae Thewlis, who marveled at the fact that King not only wrote all eight episodes of the series himself, but also executive-produced and regularly visited set to converse with series director and executive producer Pablo Larraín and to watch filming take place.

Thewlis saw none of the creative ego one might expect from a household name.

“I know he puts his pants on one leg at a time, but he’s such an icon,” she adds.

“We saw the guy who somehow made his way to set—and we were never quite sure how—and hung out for five to seven hours, then drifted off.”

The author’s personal favorite of his many novels, Lisey’s Story follows a woman (played by Julianne Moore in the series) confronting memories of her late husband, a famous novelist (Clive Owen), two years after his passing.

King was inspired to pen the book after returning home from a long hospital stay to discover his wife had reorganized his study, giving him a glimpse into what the space might look like after his death.

Bad Robot Productions, co-led by JJ Abrams and Katie McGrath, had previously teamed with King on Hulu miniseries 11.22.63 and horror anthology Castle Rock, both adapted from his novels. King executive-produced those projects, but before either had even premiered, was expressing interest in seeing Lisey’s Story adapted as prestige television. Moore was a galvanizing force in moving it forward at Bad Robot, and eventually at Apple, which acquired the rights to King’s novel and handed down a straight-to-series order.

The actress was also the first to approach Larraín, a Chilean auteur who’d just directed experimental biopics Jackie and Neruda, about helming all eight episodes. It was a daunting proposition, but he couldn’t refuse.

“The scope of the novel could never be put into a movie without minimizing what it is, and the impact it might have,” says

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Larraín. “But the story is not really episodic.

It’s a long movie, split into eighths.”

Larraín was particularly devoted to understanding the uncanny ambience of Lisey’s Story. “I needed to believe in it, to actually understand that there could be this other place that combines horror, pain and sorrow with the possibility of healing,” he explains. To better understand the material, Larraín flew to King’s home in Maine, staying there as a guest until they’d extensively discussed all eight episodes.

He was struck by the deeply personal nature of the story for King, sensing a vulnerability that the author offset with humor and an earnest desire to embrace Larraín’s vision. “More than anything, it was the connection we had through the process that was very powerful,” says Larraín. “It really changed me.”

One of Larraín’s most striking additions to Lisey’s Story was the visual language he fashioned around water, which emerges as a motif through the show. Moore’s Lisey is often seen floating or submerged in a series of striking compositions that complement the story’s liminal, between-worlds nature.

Early on, Thewlis had locked down a residence where the production could capture all-important scenes of Lisey’s house, but Larraín eventually came to her expressing his desire for that location to include a swimming pool. It didn’t. She improvised. “We made a decision to build the swimming pool,” recalls Thewlis, laughing. “I’m not a creative producer, but so much of what I had to manage were creative solutions.”

Larraín and King remained close throughout production. “On this project, we were dealing with two auteurs,” summarizes Caroline Baron, who took

over from Thewlis after she left midway through the series.

Familiarizing herself with both the material and the team bringing it to life, Baron was struck by the respect and mutual admiration King and Larraín displayed amid reconciling their creative visions. “When Pablo deviated from the scripts, he did so with Stephen’s blessing and understanding,” says Baron.

“They made sure the essence of their storytelling was in sync; my role was to make sure everybody was talking, and that the process stayed collaborative.”

But the friendship that had developed between King and Larraín made that part of Baron’s job easier. Though Larraín’s body of work—including Spencer, an upcoming Princess Diana biopic starring Kristen Stewart—marks him as a uniquely creative force, he says he felt his primary mission throughout Lisey’s Story was to get inside King’s head.

“It was me following the master, trying to understand how to put what he desires on the screen, but in doing so making those desires become mine,” explains Larraín. “It started as a personal story for him, and it became personal for me as well.”

WA R D S 2 A 0 A 2 G 1 P

How Branden Chapman and team pulled off a crisp virtual awards show that did justice to the Guild and nominees alike.

Written by Isaac Feldberg

E

ven in a normal year, the multitude of correct decisions needed to pull off a successful awards ceremony would be enough to send most producers running. But as COVID-19 loomed large over the Producers Guild’s biggest night of the year, Branden Chapman knew he had to make all the right calls.

As executive producer for the PGA Awards, Chapman has led the live event for more than a

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decade, but he had never faced a challenge like the March 24 ceremony, which had to be staged as a tightly paced virtual affair.

Live-event planning leaves little to chance. From arrivals on the red carpet and security to table settings and silverware, there is a laundry list of logistics behind the scenes of the PGA Awards. “From the onset of COVID, we knew something was going to be different,” says Chapman.

PGA AWARDS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Branden Chapman

PGA AWARDS EVENT CHAIRS

Julius Tennon

Chris Thomes

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A DAY WITH THE PGA AWARDS NOMINEES

Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television

Outstanding Children’s Program

PGA National Executive Director Susan Sprung

After getting the green light in November—months after he normally would have started planning—Chapman got straight to work to orchestrate the virtual awards ceremony as an “edited event.”

“We faced a different learning curve,” says the producer. “More than anything else, the one risk-reducing factor for going into anything like this is to surround yourself with the best team.” He chose to bring back creatives he’d worked with in past years, including co-executive producer Carleen Cappelletti, director Jim Piccirillo, writer Bruce Vilanch and talent

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executive Emily Poenisch.

Despite going remote, everyone approached planning with the same mindset they adopt each year: “excellence, achievement and an appropriate level of honor,” Chapman says.

By Christmas, presenters were being booked and collaborating with Chapman’s team on scripts that would thread a very delicate needle. Opening the ceremony, Tracee Ellis Ross, star of ABC’s Black-ish, set Chapman’s preferred tone: professional but not impersonal, serious yet stoic, addressing the pandemic’s impact on productions

while reaffirming that the role of the producer is to solve problems and soldier on.

Pre-recording the evening’s segments— including speeches by board presidents and event chairs Julius Tennon and Chris Thomes, in addition to presentations of the PGA’s 10 annual awards—was relatively straightforward, though acceptance speeches were handled with particular sensitivity. Rather than brave the mutable (and muteable) complications of having winners Zoom in, Chapman asked all nominees to send in pre-recorded speeches, on

PGA AWARDS 2021—THE SHOW WENT ON

THE SHOW

Daniel Kaluuya

PGA Presidents Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher

Charles B. FitzSimons Award, Vance Van Petten

Tracee Ellis Ross

Regina King

the condition that only the winners’ addresses would become public.

Chapman advised nominees to speak to their creative teams as much as the PGA. “It can be awkward to do a speech when you don’t know if you’re going to win,” he explains. “This was their opportunity to congratulate and thank everybody on the nomination as much as the win.”

Hours before the ceremony, two individuals were briefed on the winners and carefully plugged their speeches into the final stream.

Creating a level of comfort for all in-

volved was essential. The evening’s dress code: your take on a stay-at-home awards ceremony. “We didn’t specifically say we wanted them to wear a tux, a gown, or pajamas,” explains Chapman. “We wanted people to make their own decisions.”

Early on, the Guild chose to skip honorary awards, allowing the ceremony to be streamlined without straining for a live event’s emotional grandeur. Three weeks ahead of showtime, Chapman’s team edited the ceremony together from elements they’d spent three months gathering. Chapman had questioned

Riz Ahmed

whether the PGA could capture the attention of Hollywood A-listers without an opulent gala, but as stars such as Ross, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mindy Kaling, Riz Ahmed, Sarah Jessica Parker, Gal Gadot, Nicole Kidman and Sacha Baron Cohen signed on, that anxiety evaporated.

Nomadland, Soul, Schitt’s Creek and The Crown were among this year’s winners, but Chapman expressed particular happiness that the live ceremony paid tribute to Vance Van Petten, the PGA’s outgoing national executive director, with the Charles B.

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PGA AWARDS 2021—THE SHOW WENT ON

PRODUCERS GUILD AWARDS 2021 WINNERS The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures: Nomadland

Producers: Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Chloé Zhao The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures: Soul

Producer: Dana Murray The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Drama:

The Crown Producers: Peter Morgan, Suzanne Mackie, Stephen Daldry, Andy Harries, Benjamin Caron, Matthew Byam Shaw, Robert Fox, Michael Casey, Andy Stebbing, Martin Harrison, Oona O’Beirn The Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television – Comedy: Schitt’s Creek

Producers: Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Andrew Barnsley, Fred Levy, David West Read, Ben Feigin, Michael Short, Kurt Smeaton, Kosta Orfanidis The David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited Series Television:

The Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment & Talk Television:

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Producers: John Oliver, Tim Carvell, Liz Stanton, Jeremy Tchaban, Christopher Werner, Laura L. Griffin, Kate Mullaney, Matt Passet, Marian Wang, Charles Wilson The Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television:

RuPaul’s Drag Race Producers: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Tom Campbell, Mandy Salangsang, RuPaul Charles, Steven Corfe, Michele Mills, Jacqueline Wilson, Thairin Smothers, Adam Bronstein, Lisa Steele, John Polly, Michelle Visage, Jen Passovoy, Alicia Gargaro-Magana The Award for Outstanding Short-Form Program: Carpool Karaoke: The Series (The PGA does not vet the individual producers of this award.)

The Award for Outstanding Sports Program:

The Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures:

(The PGA does not vet the individual producers of this award.)

Hamilton Producers: Thomas Kail, LinManuel Miranda, Jeffrey Seller

The Award for Outstanding Children’s Program: The Power of

The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Pictures:

(The PGA does not vet the individual producers of this award.)

FitzSimons Award. “He’s been at the helm for so long,” says Chapman. “He’s one of the main people we credit with moving this awards show forward to become an awards season juggernaut.”

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Producers: Mike Tollin, Curtis Polk, Estee Portnoy, Andrew Thompson, Gregg Winik, John Dahl, Libby Geist, Connor Schell, Peter Guber, Jason Hehir, Nina Krstic, Matt Maxson, Jacob Rogal, Alyson Sadofsky, Jon Weinbach

The Queen’s Gambit Producers: William Horberg, Allan Scott, Scott Frank, Marcus Loges, Mick Aniceto

My Octopus Teacher Producer: Craig Foster

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The Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television: The Last Dance

Defying Gravity: The Untold Story of Women’s Gymnastics

We: A Sesame Street Special

The PGA Innovation Award: BRCvr (This award honors the program as a whole, rather than the individual producers.)

The show went off without a hitch.

“Every year, these nominees deserve the respect we’re able to deliver,” he says. “And when you look at the presenters we were able to book, it does show the importance

of this awards ceremony, regardless of whether it’s live or streamed. We proved it’s less about how the ceremony is pulled off, and more about how important these awards are to our industry.”

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 April and May, 2021.

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Lori Abrams Mick Aniceto Rolake Bamgbose Andrew Barnsley Stephanie Bell 1 Jessica Berri Brian Bird Ramona Boone 2 Whitney Brown Jenna Cedicci Yamato Cibulka Michael Ciminera 3* Ron Cohen Robin Conly Casey Conroy Tobias Deml

“What I love most about being a producer: explaining to my family and friends what a producer does.”

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“The engineer in me loves the neverending problem solving and the seller side of me loves a good deal cracked.”

Jeffrey Eagle Katrina Elder Sean Fennessey Scott Frank BK Fulton 4 Ankur Garg Richard Gnolfo 3* Thomas Hardart Sam Haskell Brian Herskowitz 5 Lovell Holder Aimee Hyatt Tom Jennings Conroy Kanter 6 Constantina Konugres 7 Nina Krstic Kelly Li 8

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Noah Malale Diane Masciale 9 Okema Moore 10 Emily Moore 11 Anthony Mormile Blake Morrison Katherine Paige 12 Frederick Paik Dolly Parton 13 Jacob Perlin David Rath

“Achieving a collective goal through leadership, strategy, solutions and teamwork. Collaboration leads to efficiency and success. And nothing beats seeing your projects come to life on the big screen!”

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“What I love about producing is ensuring that the project has all the support it deserves—from hiring the best director, crew and cast, to getting enough money to allow the show to stay on schedule and budget, to getting the studio to properly market it, and finally making sure we have enough technocrane days—all while never lying.”

Gennie Rim 14 Angelica Robinson Sally Roy Ayana Saunders Akilah Shedrick 15 Natalie Shmuel Jonathan Silberberg 16 Barry Sonnenfeld 17 Eric Tomosunas 18 Christopher Tongue Summer Torrez Clayton Turnage Doug Wald Ian Weiss

“I love being part of bringing a creative vision to life.

Assembling a bespoke team and cultivating the right environment for a creative vision to come to fruition.”

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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.,

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the Producers Mark

ON YOUR MARK

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, documentary 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

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.

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 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 produc-

ing 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.

that bias is affecting their judgment.

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 General Counsel.

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 Producers 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

WHY CAN’T THE PGA BE MORE TRANSPARENT ABOUT THE PROCESS? 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.

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MARKING TIME The Producers Guild proudly salutes the following whose credits have been certified with the Producers Mark.

What if we’re living in a simulation? That’s the question director Rodney Ascher dives deep into in this documentary, using a noted speech by sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick to go down the rabbit hole of science, philosophy and conspiracy theories. If life as we know it is really a game being played by an unkown entity, then what does that make our human reality?

Magnolia Pictures, available now on digital platforms.

Certification via the Producers Mark indicates that a producer performed a major portion of the producing functions on the motion picture.

A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX Ross M. Dinerstein, p.g.a.

ALL FOR HER Rick Benattar, p.g.a. & Nigel Thomas, p.g.a.

BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS Jeff Hermann, p.g.a.

CINDERELLA James Corden, p.g.a.

Leo Pearlman, p.g.a.

Jonathan Kadin, p.g.a.

Shannon McIntosh, p.g.a.

Clint Eastwood brings the tale of a washedup horse breeder and former rodeo star to the big screen in this adaptation of N. Richard Nash’s novel.

Eastwood directs and stars as Miko, who is hired to rescue a man’s son from an alcoholic mother and bring him home. On their journey, Miko finds redemption through teaching his young ward.

Warner Bros, in theaters and streaming on HBO Max Oct. 22.

CRY MACHO Clint Eastwood, p.g.a.

Albert S. Ruddy, p.g.a.

Tim Moore, p.g.a.

Jessica Meier, p.g.a.

DEAR EVAN HANSEN Marc Platt, p.g.a.

Adam Siegel, p.g.a.

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Broadway’s Tony-winning musical teen drama gets the big-screen treatment, with Ben Platt reprising his on-stage role as Evan Hansen, a high school student with social anxiety disorder who becomes entangled in the suicide of a fellow classmate.

Directed by Stephen Chbosky, the film also stars Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg and Nik Dodani.

Universal Pictures, in theaters Sept. 24

INTRODUCING, SELMA BLAIR Mickey Liddell, p.g.a. & Pete Shilaimon, p.g.a.

Troy Nankin, p.g.a.

LUCA

The stunning Italian Riviera comes alive in Disney-Pixar’s latest animation, directed by Enrico Casarose.The coming-of-age story follows Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), enjoying an unforgettable summer. As the boys fill their days with gelato, pasta and scooter rides, their fun is threatened by the sea monsters lurking just below the water’s surface.

Disney, streaming on Disney+ on June 18.

P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

Andrea Warren, p.g.a.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN Morgan Neville, p.g.a.

Caitrin Rogers, p.g.a.

SING 2 Chris Meledandri, p.g.a.

Janet Healy, p.g.a.

SPIRIT UNTAMED Karen Foster, p.g.a.

THE CARETAKER Rick Benattar, p.g.a. & Nigel Thomas, p.g.a.

THE LAST THING MARY SAW Isen Robbins, p.g.a.

Aimee Schoof, p.g.a.

Harrison Allen, p.g.a.

Madeleine Schumacher, p.g.a

VENGEANCE Adam Hendricks, p.g.a.

Greg Gilreath, p.g.a.

VIVO Lisa Stewart, p.g.a.

Michelle L.M. Wong, p.g.a.

Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville captures Anthony Bourdain’s larger-than-life personality in a film that explores the impact and legacy of the late cultural, culinary and intellectual force.

The film draws from Bourdain’s curiosity and passion for food and travel and his on-screen work, as well as home movies and interviews with those who knew him best.

Focus Features, in theaters July 16.

When Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced), moves to a sleepy town, the headstrong girl finds a kindred connection with a wild horse, Spirit. The animated film, directed

by Elaine Bogan, is the long-awaited next chapter to DreamWorks Animation’s 2002 adventure Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron, and also stars Julianne Moore, Jake Gyllenhaal and Walton Goggins.

Universal Pictures, in theaters June 4.

PRODUCED BY

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P G A AT YO U R SERVICE

MEMBER BENEFITS ■ Access to exclusive programs such as PGA Mentoring (including one-on-one, TV Basecamp and Film Basecamp) and webinars featuring the most experienced producers in the entertainment industry ■ Admission to special PGA pre-release screenings and Q&A events (in person, predominantly in LA and NY, and accessible to all when virtual) ■ Voting privileges in the prestigious Producers Guild Awards, and access to physical and digital screeners during awards season ■ Exclusive discounts on industry services and events

■ Grow your network and find creative collaborators with the PGA’s Member Directory, accessible only to PGA Members.

■ Full access to PGA website, including events, calendar, social networking tools, and extensive members-only video library ■ Automatic receipt of Job Bulletins that match your skill and background through Hire PGA, a concierge service for employers ■ Free access to many PGA events and discounts on programs, such as the Produced By conferences ■ Complimentary subscription to Produced By

SEE THE DIGITAL EDITION PRODUCERSGUILD.ORG PRODUCEDBY February | March 2021

PRODUCEDBY THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA // FEBRUARY | MARCH

ARE YOU AN INDIE PRODUCER NEEDING INSURANCE?

P AND THE p.g.a. MARK GOES TO A STREAMED TV MOVIE

P Courtney Kemp

THE POWER OF DIVERSITY EQUITY INCLUSION SUCCESS

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volume XVII number 1

“The responsibility of the executive producer in TV is the same as in film—we protect our crews, in all ways. So can you imagine trying to protect your crew from something that is invisible, that you can’t smell, that you can’t touch or taste?”

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PRODUCED BY

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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS

Barefoot in the Park Written By Piya Sinha-Roy

Veteran producer Hawk Koch takes Produced By down memory lane to one of his earliest films, and witnessing two rising stars make magic on screen.

I

t was the fall of 1966 and 20-year-old Koch, who had been hired as a dialogue coach on Gene Saks’ Barefoot in the Park, found himself sitting with the film’s two dynamic leads, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

“We were just waiting for a camera to get ready and I was telling them a story,” recalls Koch. “I can’t remember exactly what story but let’s say I was telling them a story of when I was a road manager for the Dave Clark Five a couple of years before, and they were listening. Here I was talking with two soonto-be huge stars, and I’ve kept my relationship with both of them for over 50 years.”

Barefoot in the Park (1967) marked the third time Redford and Fonda appeared together on screen, this time in a film (adapted from the Broadway play of the same name) centered on Paul and Corie Bratter, a passionate newlywed couple thrown into an emotional rollercoaster after moving into a cramped five-flight Manhattan walk-up. In this photo, Koch sits with Redford and Fonda on the living room step of the Bratters’ apartment, built out on Stage 5 on the Paramount lot.

Koch remembers watching the chemistry that Fonda and Redford exuded both on and off screen. “With Redford, he was so natural, you never knew he was acting. He was so good-looking, and his acting was never what you expected, which is what created his career, really,” he says. “Jane had this live spirit; she was so strong, and I think that’s why she’s so good as Corie Bratter.”

Read more of Koch’s stories from his prolific career in his book, Magic Time: My Life in Hollywood.

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FROM ACADEMY AWARD® WINNERS

BRIAN GRAZER AND RON HOWARD

AND CREATED BY PULITZER PRIZE WINNER

SUZAN-LORI PARKS

“A POWERHOUSE SHOWCASE FOR

A POWERHOUSE PERFORMANCE” –THE NEW YORKER

“CRACKLING” –NPR

“DAZZLING” –TIME

“SOARING” –SALON

“SPELLBINDING” –VOGUE

“PHENOMENAL” –PASTE

ALL THINGS

SOULFUL F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N

OUTSTANDING LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES

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