Chance Spann Interactive Producer Suggestion: “Rewinding to Producer Revolution”

I wanted to rewind for a moment. In a blog or two ago I mentioned the Topic " Producer : Evolution/Revolution". I went in to the evolution part of the producer angle but really did not give my "opinion" (based on award-winning experiential facts over a decade) on the current revolution. I noticed lately due to being in the job market (hint hint), potential employers, talking to recruiters, reading blogs, social networking, basically interactively branding the name Chance Spann, a few old methods, few weird methods and some just flat-out methods or logic towards a Producer function description or expectation that are just the wrong perspective to take.

It's a natural feeling for me to go into immediately to what an Interactive Producer is not, but I'm going to go against my first thought and speak towards what one needs to expect from an Interactive Producer in 2010 inside the agency world as there is no true Int. Producer on the client side unless they have multiple websites/campaigns and in this case they need experts with versatility to which they are not acquiring thus you get a stale site (s)... taking a breath.... Another client side term I hear of Director of Project Management? On the client side? This cant exist, can it? Weird. The kind of interactive initiatives Int. Producers are involved in require many professionals that form an "interactive team" strictly pro's at the interactive space. This is very important. I've been a Director of over 30 interactive professionals at a national agency on fortune 500 clients over roles from project/ production managers to IA/QA/Creative/Copy/Video/.NET/PHP/HTML/Flash design/developers, but even in the role of Director I was only a glorified Sr. Producer. I still took on medial task at times, and always had my own sites I personally was working on within the agency or doing the IA or doing Analytics or...whatever it takes. Lets get to the point, an Interactive Producer, better be well-rounded and well compensated, as they are a key position in the team of the project, especially being joined at the hip with the lead creative, which is a vital relationship. If you are hiring someone who wants less than 80K then he/she is a Jr., with not enough experience and possibly needs to get more before you hire them. I don't even think one should even be allowed to be an Int. Exec, or Sr. Producer until they are PMI certified have a couple of years of project management under their belt, some creative time as a true (video or online) creative and have worked on the client side with an agency. This equates to experience and most importantly understanding. You get what you pay for, please don't find this out the hard way, it's just not worth it.

Ive heard those compare interactive producers to Broadcast producers. Not the same. One example... An interactive Producer may have to work closely with a Broadcast Producer to gain some video content BUT... once delivered in broadcast quality they then have to jump through 5 more hoops to get it up on the internet. This is not true in the reverse. Actually does not happen in the reverse. Or can it... (Grin)

Ive been a broadcast producer/video editor/ motion graphics artist for many years in my career and it was a joy and its great to have that knowledge now as the video on the internet is only going to EXPLODE ever more! Just another feather under my hat, one you should seriously look to get into as an Int. Producer, especially encoding. i.e. Squeeze, or look into Itunes encoding techniques they are amazing, have the ability to move around Final Cut, and a cherry on top would be After Effects etc...

Learn also to project manage the project manager.... carefully... don't cross boundaries! Realize these guys and gals, God Bless them, may have blinders on to focus completely on the time and money... and please do, but you need that knowledge as well to avoid pitfalls. The producer should be more well rounded and have much more experience from a birds eye view than the PM. One thing you can't always and should not even really expect is a relationship to any degree besides time and money between a PM and a GCD or CD. What more do they have to talk about? In my experience at different agencies, PM's have either been asked to do too much and know what they are doing but to the projects demise due to medial task that are pulling them away from the focus of the time line and the budget, or... they do not have the experience to do anything other than be a PM that focuses on the time and money and that is perfect for me as a Producer, I work with them as a part of team and my experience fills the gaps to which they are lacking.

As a Int. Producer you are surrounded by many moving parts that funnel to a common goal i.e. a website. You must know something or a good part of every one of these roles, its your responsibility, and trust me if something goes wrong the finger points at you. I'm going to end this with a Quote I've read in another blog. The gentleman's name is "Chris Higgins" ... " It’s interesting that even though the title Interactive Producer has been around for a while, most managers would have a fairly limited understanding of the full breadth of tasks that can fall under this domain." Hear Hear!!!

Just my two cents...