
Hollywood producers say they are misunderstood. Here's what they're doing about it
After years of hustle, film and TV producer Stephen Love found himself in a situation many of his peers would salivate over: He was in four bidding wars.
Studios clamored to snap up his projects. Hollywood trade news outlets gushed about their merits, bolstering Love's career and reputation. But all the while, Love was shooting commercials and music videos and trying to get consulting gigs to make ends meet. He even drove for ride-share companies.
The son of a preacher and a teacher, Love, 35, grew up on a farm in York, S.C., almost 40 miles south of Charlotte, N.C.
He's come a long way from when he caught the film bug in his youth, which led him to start a videography business while still in school to shoot weddings and other occasions.
But even after the bidding wars, Love, who produced the 2016 drama 'The Land' and 2023 sci-fi film 'They Cloned Tyrone,' has multiple jobs. He consults on the side while running a company that makes commercials and music videos and working on branded content and deals. He's far from the only one.
'You have to have these multiple things happening while you're also trying to focus on the thing you really love, which is getting in the weeds and making a movie,' said Love, who splits time between his home in Hollywood and Atlanta, where a lot of production work and opportunities for newer creatives are located. 'The idea that there's producers who have been in the game for 30 years-plus, having the same issues that I'm having just 10 to 12 years in the game, can be disheartening.'
The job of a producer is largely misunderstood.
Movie and television producers have long tried to shed the stereotype of the 'fat cat' — the cigar-chomping boss on set who rakes in big profits, has an extravagant vacation home or gives away cars as holiday gifts to buddies. That may have been the case for a few individuals decades ago, but today, many producers say their livelihoods and the future of producing as a career are at a crisis point.
The pandemic, dual writers' and actors' strikes of 2023, studio spending cutbacks and the recent Southern California wildfires all have contributed to a production slowdown that has squeezed producers' opportunities to get work.
In addition, there's the demise of so-called back-end profit participation deals — largely due to the changing business practices of the streamers — that once allowed producers to capitalize on a popular film or TV project and recoup their costs after production.
Overhanging all of this is the growing number of people who are getting producer credits, which has added to the confusion and the financial turmoil.
Producers often don't get paid for their years of project development — the work that happens before actual production — meaning they can make less than minimum wage when counting up all their hours of work, even when they create a hit.
'We're labor,' said Jonathan Wang, 40, working out of offices on L.A.'s Eastside. A producer on 2022's Oscar-winning 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' he says, 'We are providing labor for studios, for buyers, and we are providing a real job that needs protections for it to continue.'
There are multiple efforts underway to address these issues.
The Producers Guild of America, a trade group that represents more than 8,400 producers across various fields, has launched a campaign to define a producer's job. Meanwhile, a newer coalition called Producers United is pushing to get producers paid as they work. (Both groups advocate for including health insurance for producers and stopping the dilution of the producer credit.)
It's a bit of a running joke among producers that no one seems to know what they do.
'This is an age-old question,' quipped Stephanie Allain, a longtime film producer and co-president of the Producers Guild of America, in a Zoom interview. 'Like, 'What do you do?' How many times have you gotten that, Donald?'
Fellow producer and PGA co-president Donald De Line, who was also on the call, quickly answered, 'Oh, a million.'
That fuzzy understanding of the job — even among people on set — has contributed to the situation producers now find themselves in.
Though many people have an image of producers just passively writing checks, the role of an active producer is important for the making of a movie.
The role of a true producer can vary by the type and budget of a film and the skills of the individual. For Allain, it means identifying the material, finding the writers and director, helping with casting, securing funding, overseeing production, hiring heads of departments, spending time on set and in the editing room and being part of marketing efforts.
'Your arms are wide, and you're bringing everybody into the tent,' Allain said. 'And you're very judicious about who comes in that tent.'
Put another way, 'A producer is there at the beginning, the middle and the end,' De Line said.
But unlike others on the set, producers are not represented by a union. The Producers Guild of America is not a union but a trade organization that also administers the p.g.a. mark attached to the main producers' names in a film's credits. (That process can itself be controversial; there have been disputes in the past over who can claim producer credits for the best picture Oscar.)
The lack of definition of a producer has opened the door to lots of people getting producer credits whose main role is a different function. Actors, financiers and others who are not working on set as the main point person can negotiate a credit, which then cuts into the money allocated to a project's producers.
Producers often are loath to push back against others who try to claim a credit because they're desperate to see their projects across the finish line after investing so much 'sweat equity,' said film producer Jennifer Todd, known for the 2000 thriller 'Memento' and 2007's Beatles-inspired musical 'Across the Universe.'
Todd and producers Love and Wang are all part of Producers United, which has about 200 people signed on.
This group of so-called career producers — those who are the lead producers and hold no other roles on the set — also is pushing for making development fee advances the norm. Though that can typically be about $25,000, some producers said they rarely see that amount. Many will toil on projects for years with minimal payout.
Wang, of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' said he made $35,000 a year over the seven years that he worked on the film, which made $140 million globally on a $14 million budget. (The film was also the first time he had seen back-end profits in his career, but it was not a massive amount, he said.)
Part of the reason Wang and others in Producers United feel so strongly about making the career more sustainable is they're concerned about the next generation of producers in the industry and the longevity and health of the film business.
'The extinction event is real,' said Wang. 'Even at the highest level, it's still not going to be something where you're fully set.'
Even if that development fee is granted, it is taken out of a producer's fee, meaning it's only an advance of sorts.
'If a real producer, who actually enables content to get made and be good, is something everyone wants to be, then we should protect the people who actually do that so that we can have the content,' said Cathy Schulman, a producer on the best picture winner 'Crash' and the Amazon Anne Hathaway drama 'The Idea of You,' who is part of the Producers United group. 'Imagine if the word 'fireman' meant that 15 people could say they're the one, and only one has the hose.'
Without these kinds of changes, producers say the ability to attract new people into the field and retain them is slim, especially those who are not independently wealthy.
Producer Love said he and his wife, a marriage and family therapist, hope to start a family soon, but he has to think about what that means when he still has to work multiple jobs.
'It's not super sustainable,' he said. 'It's really important to me to be able to support my family and start a family.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Judge Upholds Doxxing Claims Against TDE
The two women suing Top Dawg Entertainment for sexual harassment, assault, and negligence won an early round in court Wednesday when a judge ruled they can proceed with their doxxing claims against the prominent hip-hop label. The women first sued TDE in on Dec. 6, 2024, claiming the company and employees including high-ranking executives Anthony 'Moosa' Tiffith Jr. and Brandon Tiffith – the sons of TDE founder Anthony 'Top' Tiffith, Sr. – allowed a 'pervasive' culture of sexual harassment to run unchecked at the label for years, leading to the women's alleged abuse. More from Rolling Stone Rapper Silentó Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Cousin's Shooting Death Former Olympic Gymnast Mary Lou Retton Addresses DUI Arrest: 'I Make No Excuses' Macklemore's Seattle Home Robbed, Nanny Sprayed With Bear Mace The lawsuit, which referred to the women by the pseudonyms Jane Doe and Jane Roe, flew under the radar for nearly two months. The women's lawyers then issued a press release on Jan. 31, summarizing the claims. A day later, the law firm representing TDE responded with a statement identifying the women by name and calling the lawsuit a 'shakedown' for $48 million. Four days after that, the women filed an amended complaint that was triple the size of their original, filled with alleged text messages and other evidence to support their claims. They also added the doxxing claims. 'Plaintiffs cannot imagine a legitimate, non-harassing purpose behind TDE's release of their personally identifying information,' the amended lawsuit said. TDE, the label best known for guiding the careers of Grammy-winning artists Kendrick Lamar and SZA, quickly sought to block the doxxing claims. It said the women's Jan. 31 press release was so inflammatory, the company had a right to name them to 'correct false statements.' Before the judge ruled in the women's favor Wednesday, a lawyer for TDE repeatedly argued that the label's 'shakedown' statement naming the women was protected by the First Amendment. She said the women had not pursued, much less received, a court order sealing their identities when TDE named them on Feb. 1. 'There's no statute, no law, no order that was violated by the any of the contents of the defendants' statement,' TDE lawyer Allison Hart told Los Angeles County Judge Michael E. Whitaker in a courtroom in Beverly Hills. Hart said the music industry is a 'relatively small world,' and TDE identified the women by name to counter the credibility of their 'very salacious and false press release.' '[The lawsuit] implies that they had some inside, direct knowledge that there is a pervasive atmosphere of sexual harassment present within our client's organization. It was necessary to identify the plaintiffs in order to refute that statement,' Hart argued. She said the women were aware of the process for obtaining a court order sealing their names. She suggested they didn't pursue it in a timely fashion. Judge Whitaker said it didn't matter that the women hadn't yet received the court's blessing. They still had time. 'Your clients took the next step of identifying them by their names, their true identities,' the judge scolded Hart. 'The argument about whether or not they could have proceeded [with pseudonyms] was for another day. If [TDE's] press release simply said, 'We've been sued by Jane Doe and Jane Roe, and we deny all the allegations,' that would have been fine. But at that time, according to the public record, they were Jane Doe and Jane Roe.' In his written ruling, the judge said, 'publicly revealing [plaintiffs'] true identities was not a necessary part of correcting the narrative.' Parties in California civil actions are allowed to proceed to trial with pseudonyms if they can demonstrate that disclosing their real names could result in a specific harm, such as retaliatory physical or mental harm. The potential harm must be such that it creates an 'overriding interest' that outweighs possible prejudice to the opposing party or the public's interest in knowing a party's identity. After the women were named in the statement issued by TDE's law firm, they filed their amended complaint with their real names, Linda Luna and Ayah Altayri. Luna said the alleged doxxing led to a deluge of harassing messages. She said two of her clients terminated their professional relationships with her amid the firestorm. In the lawsuit, Luna alleges that while working for TDE starting in 2019, Brandon Tiffith, the company's chief marketing officer, subjected her to unwanted sexual advances. She alleges that on one occasion, he attempted to force her into oral sex, stating, 'You know this was bound to happen.' Luna further claims TDE President Anthony Tiffith, Jr. sexually harassed her repeatedly, including over text, and that TDE failed to pay her. Altayri alleges she endured multiple instances of sexual harassment and assault by other men purportedly associated with TDE while on TDE property. During one alleged incident, she was coerced into consuming alcohol while underage for the purpose of sexual exploitation, the lawsuit claims. 'We have the utmost respect for the court, but believe that today's decision that our clients were not allowed to disclose the plaintiffs' names was in error, and we intend to immediately appeal and continue vigorously defending against plaintiffs' bogus claims,' Hart says in a statement sent to Rolling Stone. Shounak Dharap, the lawyer who appeared in court on behalf of the women, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A trial in the case has been set for May 17, 2027. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked


Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Brian Wilson was more than a genius. His sound epitomized the lore of SoCal
Brian Wilson didn't create the sun or the ocean or the sea-sprayed landmass we call Southern California. He didn't invent the car or the surfboard. He wasn't the first person to experience the cold pang of isolation or to fall in love with somebody so deeply that the only thing to do is regret it. Listen to a song by the Beach Boys, though — to one of the tortured and euphoric classics that made them the most important American pop group of the 1960s — and I bet you'd be willing to believe otherwise. I bet you'd insist on it. Wilson, who died Wednesday at 82, was one of music's true visionaries, if that's the right word for a guy who dealt in the endless possibility of sound. As a composer of melodies, a constructor of textures, an arranger of vocal harmonies — as someone who knew how to pull complicated elements together into songs that somehow felt inevitable — he was up there with Phil Spector, George Martin and the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland. The Beach Boys' hits are so embedded into American culture at this point that you don't really need me to provide examples. But let's do that for second — let's savor the beginning of 'Wouldn't It Be Nice,' where an eerily out-of-tune electric guitar conjures a dreamlike atmosphere until the hard thwack of a snare drum breaks the spell. Let's think about the terrifying theremin line that snakes through 'Good Vibrations' like it's tugging a flying saucer down onto Dockweiler Beach. What we should really do is go over to YouTube and pull up the isolated vocals from 'God Only Knows,' which allow you to luxuriate in Wilson's obsession with the human voice. The song is a cathedral of sound that you could walk into 500 times without fully grasping how he built it. For all his architectural craft, Wilson's essential genius was his control of emotion — his ability to articulate the feeling of being overwhelmed by affection or fear or disappointment. 'Pet Sounds,' the Beach Boys' 1966 masterpiece, represents the apotheosis of Wilson's expressive powers: the trembling anticipation he layers into 'Wouldn't It Be Nice,' the sting of betrayal in his singing in 'Caroline, No,' the certainty beneath those celestial harmonies in 'God Only Knows' that anything precious is destined to die. To my ears, even the group's earlier stuff about surfing and cars is laced with the melancholy of an outsider looking in. I tried out that idea last year on Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love, who wasn't buying it: 'If you're talking about 'Fun, Fun, Fun' or 'I Get Around' or 'Surfin' U.S.A.,'' he told me in an interview, 'there ain't no melancholy in them.' That Love identified no sadness in the songs only makes it easier to understand why Wilson the lonely young pop star was writing tunes as openly forlorn as 'In My Room.' Wilson formed the Beach Boys in Hawthorne in 1961 with Love, his brothers Dennis and Carl and the Wilsons' neighbor Al Jardine; the band rode quickly to success as avatars of a kind of postwar suburban prosperity. In 1964, after suffering a panic attack on an airplane, Wilson decided to quit touring and focus his efforts in the recording studio, where he made so many advances that soon he was holding his own in a creative rivalry with the Beatles. (As the story goes, the Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' inspired Wilson to make 'Pet Sounds,' which in turn drove the Beatles toward 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.') Yet Wilson's panic attack can also be seen as the start of a lifelong struggle with mental illness that threatened to derail his career in the wake of 'Pet Sounds.' Indeed, not unlike that of Sly Stone, who also died this week, the Beach Boys' peak hit-making era looks relatively brief in retrospect: After 'Good Vibrations' in 1966, the band didn't score another No. 1 single until 1988 with 'Kokomo,' which Wilson wasn't involved in. Even so, the late '60s and the 1970s remained a fertile period for Wilson — not just with 'Smile,' the infamously ambitious LP he'd finally complete and release in 2004, but with quirky and soulful albums like 'Friends' and 'Sunflower'; 'Surf's Up,' from 1971, features one of Wilson's most stirring songs in the wistful title track, whose extravagantly wordy lyric by Wilson's pal Van Dyke Parks is almost impossible to parse in anything but a pure-emotion sense. The '80s were darker — you can watch the 2014 movie 'Love & Mercy' for a look at Wilson's experiences with the therapist Eugene Landy, whom the record exec Seymour Stein once described to me as 'the most evil person that I ever met' — and yet no Wilson fan ever wanted to stop believing that Brian would come back, a hope he kept alive through decades of intermittently brilliant work on his own, with Parks and even sometimes with the Beach Boys. (Dig out Wilson and Parks' 1995 'Orange Crate Art,' if you haven't in a while, for a powerful dose of bittersweet California whimsy.) I interviewed Wilson once, at his home in Beverly Hills in 2010. He was preparing to release a gorgeous album of Gershwin interpretations that was twice as good as it needed to be — and probably three times better than most anybody expected. Years of life and everything else had taken much of his conversational ease from him, at least when he was talking to journalists. But I can still see him lighting up as he explained how he learned to play 'Rhapsody in Blue,' which he said he'd loved since his mother played it for him when he was 2. 'It took us about two weeks,' he said of himself and a friend who helped him learn the song. 'I'd play a little bit from the Leonard Bernstein recording, then I'd go to my piano, then back to Bernstein, then back to my piano, until I got the whole thing down.' A technical wizard with his arms open wide to a cruel and beautiful world, Brian Wilson always got the whole thing down.

USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Bottega bags, Van Cleef jewelry, $10K rent: Diddy's ex Jane reveals gifts amid alleged abuse
Bottega bags, Van Cleef jewelry, $10K rent: Diddy's ex Jane reveals gifts amid alleged abuse Show Caption Hide Caption Former Diddy partner says he controlled her with his wealth A former partner of Sean 'Diddy' Combs testified he used his wealth to control her, including forcing her to have sex with escorts against her will. Designer handbags, high-end jewelry and a 5,300 square-foot home. Sean "Diddy" Combs' former girlfriend "Jane" was whisked off into a romance of luxury — but what was the true cost? The woman, who is testifying under a pseudonym amid Combs' federal sex-crimes trial, has gotten candid on the rapper's financial support and the role it played in their allegedly fraught dynamic. Although Jane is speaking in court as a witness for the prosecution, following a subpoena to testify in September 2024, Combs is paying for her legal representation in the high-profile proceeding. She previously said she doesn't plan to sue him. Jane estimates her multimillionaire ex-boyfriend wired her more than $150,000 throughout their relationship, setting up a web of financial codependency. The woman, who worked as an online influencer, claims she was forced to scale back her professional pursuits while dating Combs. As further revealed in Jane's testimony, Combs' lavish gifts underlaid a complex relationship pattern for the on-and-off couple, who dated from 2021-2024. Despite his material affections, Jane has described several instances of alleged physical abuse and sexual exploitation by the Grammy-winning rapper, including being punched, choked, kicked and dragged by the hair. Bottega bags During cross-examination on June 10, Jane's testimony turned sharp when she shared that she felt Combs gave other women more gifts and quality time during their relationships. "You didn't get the Chanel bag this other girl got?," Combs' defense attorney Teny Geragos asked, to which Jane responded, "No, I only got trauma." Jane has alleged Combs coerced her on multiple occasions to take part in "hotel nights," a demanding series of sexual performances in which Combs pushed her to have sex with several men consecutively, lasting as long as three and a half days. Geragos asked Jane how much a bag from the brand Bottega Veneta costs, an apparent reference to the thousands of dollars Combs reportedly gave Jane during their relationship (handbags from the Italian luxury fashion house range from $1,100 to $61,000). Jane shot back: "How much does my body cost?" Diddy's ex Jane testifies: OnlyFans, Bottega bags and a 'cuckolder' Jane gifted Van Cleef jewelry before birthday 'freak off' On June 11, Jane recalled an unsatisfactory birthday in February 2023, during which she alleged Combs arranged a "freak off" — a type of drug-fueled sexual performance federal prosecutors have accused Combs of orchestrating — for the couple to take part in. Jane testified that Combs made a dinner reservation at Nobu that was "conveniently" located in the same hotel they were staying in. "I asked if he can please romance me outside of hotel rooms," Jane said. Geragos pointed out to Jane that Combs arranged a photoshoot for her birthday, as well as gifted her a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet and necklace right before the alleged "freak-off.""I'm receiving my gift, I've taken a pill and I'm waiting for the entertainer," Jane said. "Any type of affection at this point in my life that I get from Sean, I welcome with open arms." Jane says Diddy's rent payments were a 'control tactic' Toward the end of her testimony on June 6, Jane was asked by prosecutors where she currently lived. In a revelation that drew gasps from the courtroom, Combs' ex said she lives in the same home from when Combs was sending her $10,000 each month as part of their "love contract" and that the music mogul still pays for her rent. Moreover, the woman confirmed on June 10 that when she moved into a rental home in April 2023, Combs paid approximately $40,000 to cover the security deposit and rent for her first and last month. When Geragos asked Jane if she believed Combs would stop paying her rent, she alleged he used the payments as a control tactic. "There were some times that I definitely felt that he would do that," Jane said. "And he used it kind of as a little tool. The rent was always just like a little reminder." Diddy trial recap: Ex-girlfriend 'Jane' reveals Diddy still pays her $10K rent Jane's romantic vacation becomes backdrop for 'night of debauchery' After the fallout from Jane and Combs' alleged birthday freak-off in February 2023, as well as Jane's jealousy over Combs' Turks and Caicos trip with then-girlfriend Yung Miami, Jane said in her June 6 testimony that the rapper offered a make-up trip for her birthday to the islands. However, the woman said when she met Combs in Miami, she was dismayed to see his text asking her to "plan a night of debauchery and fun, then straight to the airport." Though she was under the impression there would be no other men for the trip, Combs allegedly turned to her while they were watching porn and asked if she wanted to invite one of the sex workers they'd hired before. Jane said she agreed only because "I became accustomed to the rhythm of things and wanted to make him happy." Diddy invests $20K in Jane's fashion line but discourages influencer career While on the stand June 10, Jane testified that Combs invested about $20,000 in a fashion line she started, which centered on dresses and swimwear. But when it came to her online influencer career, Jane said the rapper was unsupportive. Although Jane at one point had a successful OnlyFans account, the woman said Combs didn't want her to share content on the subscription-based platform, popular in the sex work industry, because he didn't want her to be part of something some view as taboo (Jane said she still joined in 2024). Reflecting on the career impact from dating Combs, Jane estimated that she only met about 10% of her potential earnings through influencing as a result of her devotion to their relationship. Contributing: USA TODAY staff