Video production involves a huge array of different moving parts and its success is dependent on how well all these parts function alongside each other, like the components in a machine. And if video production is a machine, then producers are the mechanics that put it together and keep it running until it reaches its destination. Depending on the scale of a production, it can be as simple as a unicycle and or as complex as Howl’s Moving Castle.
Hollywood scale productions contain as many moving parts (or more) than Howl’s Moving Castle. Still from Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).
When a production is “unicycle-sized”, crew members can easily coordinate their own shoots. But as the scale and complexity of a production increases, it becomes more and more difficult for crew members to take care of the logistical details and do their jobs well, so a producer is needed to manage the mounting number of logistics. Large scale productions will even have a team of producers keeping everything moving along.
In our most recent episode of Hold for Sound, Mantha sat down with our in-house producer, Audra Henderson, to chat with her about what exactly producers do and how she found her way into this role. Audra reflects about her time on the research team at David Letterman and producing for Discovery, and shares some insight into the skills that have helped her most in her capacity as a producer.
Audra and Courtney Dean (one of our talented cinematographer/editor/colorists) behind the scenes of an interview in the field.
Who is Audra?
Audra Henderson is our Video Production Manager and Producer. Her organizational skills and attention to detail keep us all sane when productions get crazy. The pre-production work she’s done since joining the team a little over a year and a half ago has elevated our work to new heights. Audra is passionate about health and wellness, and enjoys the outdoors, traveling, teaching dance, and attending live music.
From very early on, Audra knew she wanted to do something in entertainment; like many of us, movies and television were a huge part of her childhood. At first, the dream was to be an actor, but when she actually got up on stage, she found she really didn’t enjoy being in front of an audience.
“I joined a band and loved jamming, but come showtime, I was like ‘Well, I’m getting paid, so that’s great. But everything about this experience is not for me. And so it was an inner struggle.” She recalls thinking, “I love this, but can I do it in a way that still is preserving this part of me that really doesn’t want to be on camera?”
In the end, she went to school for communications, unsure how she could work in television without having to be on camera. But during her senior year of college, she got an email that the Late Show with David Letterman was looking for interns, and the spark of possibility ignited again. After a rigorous application process, Audra was offered the internship position on the research team.
The Late Show with David Letterman’s 9 Emmys and 76 nominations are a testament to the hard work he and his team put into each show. Photo credit John Paul Filo/CBS.
Interning at David Letterman
During the months Audra spent interning at David Letterman, she was able to witness the process the show went through from the moment someone would say “You know, it’s been a while since we’ve had Jennifer Lopez on. Let’s invite her back!” to the moment at the end of the night when the actress got back in her cab after recording the show.
The amount of preparation and talented people involved in creating each show was impressive. “You have so many people who are best at what they do in one building together,” Audra says, “and it made a show that lasted. One of the most, if not the most successful talk shows of all time.”
This team of producers would choose a guest and research them extensively, adding everything they could find – from the latest projects the guest had worked on to where they’d been on vacation recently – to a big file, from which the script would be created. The script and the whole packet of research would then go to David Letterman, who would spend hours studying it.
“Dave is one of the hardest working people that I’ve ever met,” Audra recalls. The hours of work that he and his team spend on each show really does come across on screen. Prepared not just with the script created for the show, but all the information from the file, Letterman is able to create organic conversation should the guest go off script. “I think he really values getting to know someone,” Audra says, “and creating a warm experience for people that are on the air because he really goes through the file to understand who this person is.”
While she learned a lot about how the production of a show works, Audra also learned a lot about how she works. “One of the things I learned is I don’t actually love being in a studio,” she says. They were long days, and the culture and pace of life in New York wasn’t her favorite. She often jokes that had she interned at Leno in L.A., she probably would have stayed there. As cool as the internship experience had been, Audra simply couldn’t see herself there long-term, so when she was offered a full-time job at the end of the internship, she surprised herself by turning it down.
“It was a very confusing time to have this experience. I liked parts of it, but I didn’t want to go back to that. And when you say no to David Letterman, what are you going to do next?” At that time, reality television produced in the field wasn’t nearly as common as it is today, so there were very few producing opportunities not in a studio. Audra remembers thinking, “I think I need to get out of this as a whole.”
Producing in Alaska
She turned away from entertainment entirely and pursued a Masters of Public Health. Surprisingly, this was what brought her back to production.
Her senior year, she had to write a thesis with a practical application, and she chose to write a pilot episode of a television show exploring health and happiness in her hometown. As part of her thesis, she spent her 40 volunteer hours working at a small production company based in Anchorage.
The time she spent there showed her that the New York studio experience she got as an intern wasn’t the only type of behind-the-camera job in entertainment out there. “We had this amazing balance of work and life and teamwork. And it was also a really great balance of field producing and studio producing,” she recalls. Again, possibilities revealed themselves and the spark of interest in a long-term future in entertainment reignited.
After graduating from her masters program, Audra resolved to take whatever production jobs came her way. “I just started building my portfolio with random gigs and not always a fancy title,” she says. “My mom has a saying: Do what you love and the money will follow. And so I took PA gigs. Not the most glamorous work, but it was fun to show up and see how it all ran.” Eventually, was able to graduate to being the assistant to the casting director, and on to fixing, producing, and directing.
Connecting with Frostline
She was still freelancing but in search of something a little more stable, when she connected with us. We were in need of a producer for a logistically challenging shoot in Sitka, and she came highly recommended from industry friends of ours. “We just vibed immediately,” Audra says. “Of all the shoots that I had been on, when I went on that shoot, it felt like home. I met Hannah and Derek and our good friend Dan, and I was like, ‘These are my people! This is my job! How do I make this work beyond now?’”
The feeling was mutual. The peace of mind having a producer on the team provided was a game-changer. It wasn’t long before we’d added her as a permanent team member.
What is a producer?
There are lots of different kinds of producers – field producers, segment producers, supervising producers, executive producers, line producers, etc. – but essentially, their job is to oversee. “A movie or TV producer is responsible for finding and launching the project, for arranging financing, hiring screenwriters, directors, key members of the creative team,” Audra explains. “Really just overseeing all of these elements of production, right up until its release.”
Producing in Pre-production
Producers are involved throughout the process, but are absolutely instrumental during pre-production. “I really, really love pre-production,” Audra says. “Pre-production is everything that happens before cameras are rolling and audio is speeding. Everything that happens. And it can be talent, locations, props, contracts, releases; creative things like storyline, preliminary interviews. Sometimes it’s just sitting down and brainstorming what we want to do.”
At Frostline, Audra’s job as a producer is to prepare both the client and the crew with all the information they need in order to make the most of the shoot. She works closely with clients to flesh out the creative elements of the video’s concept (What kinds of shots do you want to get? What’s the main idea you want to get across? How might we tell that story?) and the logistical details (When and where is this taking place? Who’s the talent? Who’s the crew? Who are our contacts on the ground?).
“And then as we start to flesh it out, we figure out what other things need to happen,” Audra explains. On the creative side of things, she hires and coordinates talent, holds creative planning meetings with key players, and spends time envisioning what the product will look like on the big screen (or whatever medium the client desires) and otherwise strategizes how to bring the vision to life. And on the logistical side, if we need to film at a specific location, she makes sure we have everything we need in order to get there, and then she ensures we’ll have everything we need in order to do our jobs while we’re there – she finds safety equipment, if applicable, makes a plan for food (AKA: “crafty”), gathers the contact information for everyone involved, and makes sure we have any necessary paperwork in place (like film permits or location releases).
Audra finds these legal details interesting, because they help to make sure everyone involved is protected and safe, not just physically, but financially and legally as well. “It’s good to know we’re inside the lines,” she explains. “That’s what the forms do. Like, we’re allowed to be on this property and we’re compensating people for their time, so it feels like an equal value exchange.” These details can sometimes get overlooked if a producer’s not on the crew, but they’re instrumental in making sure the production goes off without a hitch.
The call sheet
During pre-production, producers attempt to anticipate and answer any and every question that may come up prior to, and during, a production. The most important information related to a shoot gets packaged into a call sheet, which serves as a quick reference document for the crew as they’re out filming. It contains the answers to the most common questions folks might have (such as the location’s address and the contact info for folks on the ground that the crew might be meeting). Big and bold at the top of the call sheet is the “call time,” the sheet’s namesake and the answer to the first question people tend to ask: “What time do I need to show up?”
Once the call sheet goes out, Audra gets to drop the mic. “I can say: My work here is done! Have a nice trip! Your accommodations are set, your people are waiting for you: roll out the red carpet!”
Field producing
“And then when I get to go on shoots, it’s exciting!” she continues. “They’re long days, oftentimes. There’s a lot of moving parts. It’s like a circus, and it’s really fun to join the circus.”
Once the shoot begins, the production becomes the domain of the field producer (which may or may not be a different person from the producer in pre-production). The field producer is generally the one asking the talent questions during an interview, making adjustments to and sending out the daily call sheets, or making sure we’re getting everything on the shot list. Essentially, they’re out with the crew, ensuring everything goes according to plan and dealing with any logistical issues that come up.
It’s tough work. The days are long and you’re often away from home, and on top of all that, you’re the person everyone turns to for answers when something goes wrong. “However, when you join the circus and you all support each other, there is this magic that happens.” Audra says. “And then the shoot’s over, and it feels like such an accomplishment.” Though it can be exhausting, “it’s an adventure,” she says, “and that’s the addicting part.”
Producers are “artists who paint with money”
If all went according to plan during the shoot – and sometimes despite the fact it didn’t – the post-production team will have all the footage they need to put together a really incredible video. If not, the crew will have to go back out for another shoot, which requires us to do all of that work again. And that costs money.
“We are artists who paint with money,” a producer Audra worked with once told her. “All other artists paint with brushes, or guitars. We paint with money.” When you’re on vacation and it’s just your money you’re spending, there’s no need to have every hour planned out, Audra explains. “But when we’re on a shoot and it’s money just standing on that ground, you have to have a plan.”
Overall, a good producer is a jack-of-all-trades
Throughout her life, Audra has worked a lot of jobs in a lot of different fields. “In producing, you put it all together,” she says. Since producers oversee and coordinate all parts of the process, they have to have a wide array of skills – chiefly, good organizational and communication skills – but beyond that, they need to understand all the individual pieces that come together to build a production (but without losing the forest for the trees).
Audra’s advice for the aspiring producer
“Take advantage of opportunities,” Audra says. “Know when to say no.” The path that led Audra to producing was a long and winding one, and was only possible because she allowed herself to take the opportunities that felt right for her in the moment, even if it meant turning down a full-time job at David Letterman. From essentially taking a semester off school to work 12 hours a day at the Letterman internship, to fetching coffees on set as a PA, Audra worked a lot of un-glamourous positions before she became a producer. But each of those positions – and even the time she spent working outside entertainment – helped prepare her for the job she does today. “No job is a bad job when you’re learning things,” she says.
The intro and outro song for this episode of Hold For Sound is the track “Truth is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)” by Josh Ritter. Recorded and mixed here at Frostline Studios. Available on Bandcamp.
The track is from an EP of the same name that Josh Ritter recorded with us while visiting Alaska in the summer of 2022. In the EP’s description on Bandcamp, Ritter writes: “I had these weird uncovered-feeling songs, but I didn’t realize their cohesion together until a few weeks ago, at 10:12 pm, in Anchorage, Alaska. I was looking out the window of the little house where I was staying. Though it was late at night, the sun was still high, and the sky was sub-Arctic and powder blue… The imperative I was feeling was to record these songs immediately, and to release them as quickly as possible. At 10:13 pm at night, with the sun shining through the kitchen window, I was booking three hours with a local studio for the next afternoon.”
