Last week, we wrote here about CreativeFuture’s participation in the “Beyond the Red Carpet: Movie & TV Magic Day” event in Washington. A host of companies, organizations, and individual creatives came to Capitol Hill for a creativity show-and-tell. The purpose: give members of Congress a little insight into what they do for a living and all that goes into creating films and television shows.
Independent producer Jeffrey Sharp penned an op-ed in Roll Call that offered a personal account of his nearly 20-year career. Sharp is an award-winning producer and publishing entrepreneur and the President and CEO of Story Mining & Supply Co. He is known for Boys Don’t Cry, You Can Count on Me, and the new television show, Outlander.
Sharp writes about what many people outside the creative community never get to see – and why it’s so important to tell that story:
I started my career as an independent film producer. I know that it takes years to develop a movie, months to film it, and another many months to finish it. I know that films shoot out of sequence and that behind a mere three minutes of screen time can be a grueling 16-hour day — for literally hundreds of people.
Our challenge: The craft of filmed entertainment looks simple and easy to do. This presents misconceptions about the value of our work to audiences. Every day, consumers make economic choices about paying for movie tickets, subscribing to cable television, using over-the-top streaming services — or choosing not to pay at all and patronizing pirate sites. These decisions greatly impact our ability to receive the fair and appropriate reward for the time, money, and work that our cast, crews, filmmakers, and financiers have invested into our productions.
Read the full op-ed here.
At the event, Sharp joined a panel hosted by CreativeFuture Executive Director Ruth Vitale, along with Hawk Koch, veteran movie producer, former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America; Kathy Morgan, President of Kathy Morgan International; Dawn Prestwich, a television writer and producer known for The Killing, Carnivale, Chicago Hope, and Picket Fences; and Tom Prince, Executive Vice President of Physical Production at the Weinstein Company.