How you buy often indicates how you make

Apizza Scholls –– truly magnificent
pizza in Portland, Oregon

The other day I was talking with a producer buddy of mine about pizza. He buys the cheapest pizza he can find. And he prides himself on using coupons to save even more. 

Another producer I know insists on going to the most expensive pizza place in town. It's good. But I'm not convinced it tastes the best.

As for me, I like pizza. A lot. I lived in New York and developed a taste for wood-oven pizza like what you get at John's. The pizza I like to get is in a place with formica tables, in a part of town surrounded by bars and tattoo parlors. I don't find the area particularly scary, but some people do.

What does this have to do with filmmaking? Well, it's interesting.

The cheap producer makes things the way he buys them. He's always looking for a way to save a buck, and doesn't see the point in spending money on a better camera, the really good dolly grip, or the brand-name cookies for the craft services table.

The profligate producer is what we call a "star fucker." He hires the most famous people he can find and if nobody's more famous than anybody else, he'll go for the person with the highest rate. If there's an expensive piece of equipment out there, he'll not only find it, but figure out why he has to use it.

And then there's me. I'm looking for the unique. The expressive. The solution that helps me to evoke the feeling I want to create. If it's expensive, I'm happy to spend the money. But if it's cheap, I'm even happier.

The interesting thing is that by and large, none of us has enough money –– ever –– to do a job "right." So you would think that the cheap producer would be at a distinct advantage. And sometimes he is.

But the star fucker producer isn't exactly starving. Because he speaks with such conviction about the stuff he thinks has value, he's often hired to pull off a job where a mediocre piece needs something to make it work better.

As for me, I feel fortunate in that my taste is distinctive, but not necessarily expensive. Sure, I need certain equipment to achieve the look I want, but I know enough about every job on the set that I don't need to rely on somebody with some mystery talent I don't understand to deliver it.

Who's going to do the best, ultimately? Who knows?

You might think it's the cheap producer because he's always the least expensive option. But the quality of the stuff he creates tends to be minimal.

You might think it's the guy like me because I'm generally somewhere in the middle, yet the pieces I deliver are consistently distinctive and extremely high quality.

Frankly, I think it's the star fucker. Because most people –– in any profession –– are insecure. They prefer to hire and trust the person with the aura of authority.

I should probably rethink my approach.

Stay out of the middle.

There are two extremes when it comes to producing. At one end, you have the no-budget projects. The ones you do with friends and favors, guerilla-style, not paying location fees or getting permits and just hoping you'll be done before somebody kicks you out.

On the other extreme are the multi-million dollar extravaganzas. On these, everything is done by the book and everybody is on the clock.

At both extremes, life is difficult. On the no-budget end, if you need your actor to wear a blue shirt, you either break out the credit card to buy one or you borrow one from someone who happens to be the right size. On the huge-budget end, you're working with stars earning more than $10 million just to be there. Those stars have people –– people who often have people of their own –– who do nothing but make sure the stars are 'taken care of'. Someone recently told me that on the film 'Falling Down' (a film about a middle class guy having a really bad day) Michael Douglas wore one of eight identical shirts the wardrobe stylist was required to buy, full retail, from Barney's.

You know that Kiswahili saying, "When the elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers?" On a big show, your production is the grass. Your only hope of protecting the grass is to be an elephant yourself, which you're not, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog. But even if you were, you'd have to be a pretty huge elephant not to get drawn into stupid fights over who doesn't show up on set until everybody else is there and ready to shoot or what color out-of-season flowers have to be in whose trailer.

But as hard as it is to do no-budget productions –– and as hard as it is to do huge-budget productions –– it's hardest of all to do the middle-budget productions. The ones where you have enough money to rent a stage, but not enough to build a decent set. Where you get the cast you want, but you only have one 14-hour day to shoot three-days' worth of footage. Where everybody gets paid, but not enough to make their rate.

On these jobs, you can't ask for favors. And there isn't any extra money to throw around.

You want my advice? Of course you do. Don't aim for the middle. Make everything you can for nothing until something hits so big that Hollywood comes knocking.

And pay attention. I guarantee you, your first time at bat, Hollywood isn't going to back up the truck and unload stacks of money. So unless you know not only why it takes four gaffers two hours to light a bathroom, but how much those gaffers, the lights, and the bathroom cost, the first time you find yourself on a job with a real budget your ass is going to be, well, grass.