SBIFF Producer’s Panel 2012

Reviewed by Angel Martinez. Viewed at the Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara Film Festival.

This year’s panel had producers from some of the best movies that came out this year including Letty Aronson (Midnight in Paris), Jim Burke (The Descendants), Bill Pohlad (Tree of Life), Mike De Luca (Moneyball), and Graham King (Hugo) with Patrick Goldstein the film critic and columnist for the Los Angeles Times moderating the discussion.

The discussion began with Letty Aronson, sister and producer of Woody Allen, who told of how Allen’s latest film, Midnight in Paris, got made. She revealed that this film was supposed to be made years ago, and almost didn’t get made all together this time because their budget would not allow them to shoot in France as it would just be too expensive, but a special tax refund that France put forth made it possible for the film to make it on to the screen. She acknowledged that Allen’s films don’t work the way that American studios do, as Allen has complete control without having to show anybody the script, and because of this, most of their funding comes from places outside the United States, mainly in Europe as his films tend to be better received there. While Allen’s films are actually inexpensive movies on a budget (17 million), if Allen does not have enough money in the budget to make a film the way that he wants it to be made, then it will either get shelved, not get made, or Allen will put up some of his own money to help the film, and she pointed out that Allen doesn’t officially start writing until the money is completely in place. While this way of working seemed completely foreign to everyone else up on the panel, she concluded by saying that it’s the only way Woody knows how to work.

While not everybody knows Allen’s model of working, many producers described the hardships that they went through in getting the films they were involved in made. Pohlad talked about Terrence Malick’s latest film The Tree of Life and how it did not fit the typical studio model.  When Malick first pitched the film to him, several years ago, Pohlad thought he was “crazy”. While De Luca talked about how it took 9 years to make Moneyball, and that he was so persistent because he recognized the story and it really spoke to him. Burke who produced The Descendants had Fox Searchlight backing the film, but talked about how there was an economic challenge shooting in Hawaii because everything is slightly more expensive. In order to stay on budget and get the film made, they worked with: many local people, a crew that lived there, they shot for the most amount of days that they could, and revealed that George Clooney even compensated part of his salary for the film.

The most expensive film of the bunch was Martin Scorsese’s Hugo produced by Graham King. King had worked with Scorsese before on The Departed and other films, and talked about the importance of the relationship between producer and director. For this film, King looked for a studio partner starting with Warner, then Sony and eventually ending up with Paramount. He expressed that this film was a long, difficult and tedious shoot, which was largely due to figuring out how to best utilize the 3D technology at hand. While other factors such as working with kids as the main characters, and the fact that they can only legally work for four hours a day, temporarily hindered the film.