In an industry that thrives on the dynamic interplay of creativity and logistics, the role of a producer is the art of invisible orchestration. Meet François-Charles Le Goff, a producer working mostly for Prodigious, as he shares his intricate dance of preparation, psychology, and problem-solving that defines a producer’s day-to-day life.
Agnieszka Celej: From my perspective, the role of a producer often entails a skillful navigation through constant challenges and crises. How do you cope with that on a daily basis?
François-Charles Le Goff: We had a lot of discussions with colleagues about that and we came to the statement that good production is when you don’t see the production, when you don’t talk about the production. The production is like something that has to be hidden to be good. If you have to talk about the production on a set, most of the time it means it’s not good.
A: Sounds like pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
F: Yes, that’s it. And you have to prepare. Without you, it just wouldn’t happen. All the complicated questions and things have to be resolved before the shooting. And if there’s some problem on the shoot itself, it means that you didn’t have the time or things were not clear enough between client, agency and production. Most of the time, everything is set up before the shoot. That gives a space for creation on set.
A: How would you describe your job in your own words?
F: I would say a lot of psychology. The biggest part is to understand well what the aim of the client and agency is. To be honest, you have to deal with all the egos of the people because there’s really a lot of people involved in what you’re doing.
But I think psychology is the key aspect of our job, because you have to read between the lines and you have to understand what the goal is. At some point when you already have some experience, you know how to make films. You know how to produce films. But the thing that is changing all the time is the people you work with. In the pre-pandemic past, we had physical meetings, and you had the time to meet the people. Now we have virtual meetings and then you meet the people on set. So the goal is to have everybody creating a strong team that goes in the same direction. And sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes people have opposite interests or sometimes they have ego problems. I said psychology, because you have to read between the lines, how they slept the night before, how they feel.
I would say it’s a general rule in life. It’s when you consider the people you’re with, they will be more open up to being generous and kind.
A: Not a solo player game if you’re a producer.
F: No, you’re the papa of the company or the mama.
A: Or the godfather.
F: No, not the godfather, but the good father. The godfather is the client.
