Making a record is an intimate experience. A good producer can get things out of you that you can’t get out of yourself.
People think that by living on some mountainside in a tent and being frozen to death by freezing rain, they’re somehow discovering reality, but of course that’s just another fiction dreamed up by a TV producer.
We had some marvelous outtakes, but the producer had destroyed them all.
My job as a DJ and a producer is just to have a big encyclopedia in my head.
People in the record business would say, Well, Pras, you know, you haven’t been out in a while, maybe you should get today’s hottest producer or rapper to do something.
In film producing, there is an inherent tension between the director, the money and the producer, and that’s what keeps it flowing and honest and accountable.
I didn’t understand that I couldn’t just leave and become sort of a semi-regular. I had to be sat down by the line producer, Carol Himes, in my dressing room and told, ‘I hear you’re thinking about going to college.’
I did a series called Ned and Stacey for two years for Fox back in the 90s. I was writer on it as well as a producer, and it was very important to me that there were no contemporary references.
I think as a producer, you’re always sort of questioning if what you’re contributing is something that an artist loves and elevates a song.
It was very unusual, because normally the producer requests the test to determine whether they want to hire someone or not. Olivia was concerned about playing a seventeen year old.
I like working with other people but I’m not a songwriter, I’m a producer.
My father Kamran Khan was a successful producer, director and actor in B-grade films.
Some nightlife places, people aren’t there for the music, and it’s depressing. I’m not just a club DJ; I am a producer, and I’ll only DJ when the crowd is there to enjoy the music.
I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries – on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn’t think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them.
I consider myself more of a producer and a musician than a DJ.
Mustard believes in me so much. It’s good to have a mentor that’s been through it. Even though he’s a producer, he’s been a new artist.
I want to be a director, producer, and a writer. And an actor. So, like, all the things in acting, basically.
I like writing dialog but don’t think I’d be much good at a screenplay. I once had to write a treatment for a novel of mine – a condition of its being optioned by a movie producer – and I turned out something pretty lackluster. So my inclination would be to stay out of the way of an experienced screenwriter.
I was the youngest producer to have a No. 1 record when Kris Kross first came out, and that was a record I held for I don’t know how long.
I play a lot of instruments. I write all my own music. I spend hours and hours a day in the studio. I’m a producer. I’m a writer.
Part of my growth as a producer was not just about making beats but also helping in the process of inspiring the song and making the song the center.
I believe how you measure a good movie is how many times you can see it. With comedies, I like to be a producer, because comedies can get corny and go off track real fast. I’m always the ‘less is more’ guy when it comes to a scene. So I’ma be the one who will keep it grounded.
I personally see myself as a musician in the first place. You know, I don’t want to say I will be a producer and DJ for the rest of my life. I can totally see myself being in another band in five years, if that’s what my heart and soul wants to do, if that’s what will make me happy. I’m totally happy to just not DJ anymore.
Rick Rubin was able to do things that Dave Fortman could never do. I’m not trying to take anything away from Dave Fortman as a producer. He’s extremely talented. He wasn’t able to get nine people together on the same page and, to me, that’s the most important thing in making a Slipknot record.
I almost never pitch myself. Me being an independent producer, never having a manager and never being signed, I pretty much just did my own thing: go out and search for the new talent, and when the new talent blows up, it just kinda brings everyone else to me.
My definition of a producer is ‘the man with the dream.’
As a producer, when I’m trying to make something soft, I start with a slow tempo. Then after that, it would be straight to acoustic guitar and vocals, or I’m going to go strings and just piano.
As a director, my job is to spend money, and the producer’s is to save money. Masoom, Bandit Queen and the first Queen Elizabeth have been my most uncompromised films.
There’s definitely a couple of people I’ll play stuff to when it’s nearly finished just to see what they think; Mark, our producer, his wife is Australian and just listens to the radio – she’s awesome – and, I guess, is quite a casual music listener.
Oh, well, in Los Angeles everybody is an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or a director, or an agent, or… So everybody understands the hours.
I need a producer who will look for a good script. I need a director whose purpose to make a film is not for his survival but because he loves making films.
I’m just trying to tell a nice story. Whether you’re a writer or a producer, all you want to do is tell a good yarn.
I got to do Disney Sunday movies. I got to do a TV pilot there. And it really helped me to realise that I needed to not just be a writer, but a producer, to see my work up on the screen the way I wanted it to look and play.
So I became a producer because I knew one of the reasons was they didn’t do them the way I thought was right.
Every actor has their own process. For me, I really need to stay in the pocket. So, if I’m on set and I’m in character, I’m not thinking like a producer. If I’m on set and I’m not in character, wardrobe and make-up, and I’m just coming on set for the moments that I’m not shooting, then I’m able to be the producer.
I loved doing casting because I love actors, and I am very conscious of what actors do. But I always wanted to be a producer.
Thanks to the abundance of shellfish in Puget Sound, Washington State is the largest oyster producer in the country.
I sing, but I’m not a singer. I’m just a producer who sings on her own songs because I can’t find anybody else who sounds like me.
From a producer’s point of view, of course, ‘Law & Order’ presents an ideal – a show that is almost entirely actor-proof, that can keep going and going no matter what happens to the cast or how many actors demand raises.
I produce the records. I don’t hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will – for commercial purposes.
After all, at end of the day, when you’re breathing your last, it’s not your producer, director, or cast mates by your bedside; it’s your children. Keep that in mind.
There is always a producer within an actor. You just wait for the right time to start functioning as one.
It is not entirely true that a TV producer or reporter has complete control over the contents of programs. The interests and inclinations of the audience have as much to do with the what is on television as do the ideas of the producer and reporter.
My responsibility is to the artist first. There’s something that artists intrinsically know about their music and their fanbase that neither the record company nor the producer really knows.
Everyone wants to be a writer, director, producer. I don’t have the imagination for that, but, hopefully, I can continue to act.
My producer, HH, makes sounds, so I’m writing to his beats.
A producer is someone who actually calls the shots. An executive producer is just a guy that eats more food at craft service.
Once I started ‘Nagaram Nidrapotunna Vela’ I had to finish it. I made a wrong decision. I knew the film would be a flop and told the producer so. Everyone failed – director, producer and all.
Every now and then, as a composer and producer, it’s important to write music for yourself.
There’s not a single doubt in my mind that the whole of Chrysler organization views itself as an American car producer.
The theater is a kind of international language, and I like it. But I have a practical bent of mind, too. In any other field, I could make only about a tenth as much as I do acting. That’s why I want to be a producer. It pays better, and you have more control.
Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I’ve been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.
My brother’s friend worked at a TV station, so we went in; the producer of a show asked if I wouldn’t mind taking some photos for his wife, who was a talent agent. Next thing I know, I’m enroute to the agency.
Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids, and his parents had a pasta factory, so as a kid, he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer, he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores – one in Los Angeles and one in New York.
