The Producer’s Apprentice

Thank U, Shukran, Gracias, Dank U, Spasibo to all those that helped the LG become a producer

GRATITUDE. Looking back over 200 videos produced & 300 entrepreneurs filmed, I have come to realize that I owe many people in this world massive gratitude in helping me become a producer. Many don’t even know how much I appreciate what they did & how much I owe them in my development. This blog, the first in a regular series that covers my fabo life as a producer, is about extending some thanks to an individual that helped me long before I even knew what he had done. I’m definitely not a writer, but I ‘ve been thinking about starting a blog for a while and I saw a note by my new craftsman friend from Buffalo & BestBuy, Keith Burtis. Kevin tweeted a few weeks ago that in 2008 Gary Vaynerchuk had anointed April 3 as Good People Day so I used that as motivation to get mine going and though a bit late, what better way than to kick-start a blog of thanks on Easter Sunday. Kudo’s Keith for the tipping point spark. Here it goes.

The Dwight

DALLAS, DIRECTORS & HIPPIES. A number of years ago at a start-up I helped founded, we were looking at ways to figure out how to create a TV show for one of my partners. I didn’t have any entertainment or production experience, education or training nor did I ever think I’d get into it by any means – I was an an entrepreneur that had an idea that I thought could go big. As fate would have it, that year I met a long-haired semi-hippie type though the Leadership Austin program by the name of Dwight Adair. Dwight had gotten his production chops both through formal education as well as working on all kinds of sets and production and even owned his own production company. The Dwight directed and produced a number of TV shows including DALLAS (yes J.R. Ewing and all & he’s got pics with JR – that was pretty cool), DYNASTY (yup, Joan Collins, Linda Evans, etc.) and HGTV’s Dream House Series as well as other various documentaries and names that only IMDB can produce.

GETTING YOUR FEET WET. We ended up getting our first paying production gig for the University of Texas in the amount of $15,000 to create a tribute video to Dr. George Kozmetsky, founder of Teledyne and IC2 Institute. We went on to film a number of entrepreneurs for the video including

Red, Mindy, iV & Dwight at Red's Office

Michael Dell, Admiral Bobby Inman (first investor in Dell former NSA Director), Dr. John Butler and Red McCombs (founder of Clear Channel) for the project. After we finished I got to follow Dwight along as he was making a cool little documentary called Go for it about women athletes working for a living, but still after incredible athletic pursuits. It’s amazing what I learned from Dwight even though I didn’t really know it when we were doing it. Looking back a few of his teachings and actions really stick out and that I embrace on every shoot I go on:

ROCKSTARS. Treat the people you put on camera like rockstars and every person you come in contact with on set just as important. Why? Truthfully because I think Dwight is simply a good person at heart, but he also knew that making people feel special is one of the most important aspects of what we do in production. Many times the people we film are rockstars, but you never know when the receptionist is the gate keeper to the founder or that you might need to get someone to turn off the building air conditioning and it was the person you just ran into at the water fountain. I’ve always enjoyed and get a kick out of making people smile, but I’ve learned in production, you need to try help them shine on the outside and bring out the glow on the inside. When it works, YOU feel like a rockstar – funny how that happens and I recommend it to all.

Admiral Inman, Ted, Dwight & iV on set

EATING MACHINES. Consumers have a beastly appetite and man has this ever come true. He’d tell me how they’d work for hours on the Dallas set to get a certain shot and how they rotated in different Directors for the Dallas for each Episode finishing the production over a course of months to make the 13 episodes for one season. Think about it 4-6 months to make 13 hours of television. For the American Made show we did for CNBC, I worked 10-15 hrs/day for 4 months to make the first 6 hour long episodes (and so did 30 other peeps).

THE DP. Find a Good DP (Director of Photography). No idea what that was at the time, but man do I know the value now. Dwight’s guy was Ted Miears. Ted had five kids, drove a mini-van w/ a self-made ramp and push cart he stored in the van with the seats pushed down and always had an even keel. When the van wasn’t full of lighting and gaffing equipment, Ted would lug around 5 kids in it.

LAUGH. Lastly & most importantly, Have fun. Enjoy the ride. Laugh at the stuff that goes wrong because one thing you can count on in Production is Murphy is always in the house to throw down his law. I loved that about Dwight, he was always smiling and making sure we always kept it light because the very nature of production invites the high probability of things not according to plan. And trust me, when it comes to filming hi-profile entrepreneurs in dynamic environments

Dwight & team still smiling after a 14 hour day

THANKS Dwight for taking this greenhorn for a few laps around the production track and planting some seeds along the way. I appreciate you or taking the time to groom and guide me and for imparting some wisdom on your producer’s apprentice.

The LG