That is indeed an interesting question, is it not? For the longest time, I thought I already knew who a film producer is. A film producer is someone who brings in the money, right? The money bag.

Growing up, that explanation made perfect sense to me. Films cost money. Someone had to finance them. Naturally, I assumed the producer was that person.

That wasn’t entirely wrong. Just incomplete.

What I didn’t realise then was that my understanding of who a film producer is would change over time, as I made a film or met someone who produced one.

The Question

During the time I was still working in IT, before I had decided to pursue filmmaking, I was visiting a friend’s family. His cousin mentioned that she was a producer for a television show.

My immediate assumption, like any normal person, was that she must be rich. Why else would she be the producer? She smiled and corrected me.

A producer wasn’t simply the person who brought the money. A producer was the person who handled the production.

What was the difference? I didn’t really understand what she meant. But it sparked in me the idea that perhaps there was a difference.

The First Doubt

I only began finding pieces of the answer later, when I started making no-budget and micro-budget short films for myself.

Like many people starting out, I wore every hat I needed to wear that day to get the short film made. Writer. Director. Producer. Cinematographer. Whatever else was needed.

Gradually, I handed over the various hats to other people and reduced my work to the ones I enjoyed the most. Writing, directing and making the whole thing happen.

Even then, the role of a producer wasn’t obvious to me. Whatever was needed to make the film happen, I simply did it. Be it arranging money, bringing together a team, handling marketing or solving some unexpected problem. It was all just part of getting the film made.

In micro-budget filmmaking, producing isn’t always that neatly separated from the other roles.

At the time, though, those distinctions didn’t seem very important. On a ten-minute short film, they all blurred together.

Making Munnariv

Making my debut feature film, Munnariv, changed the scale of everything. There were more moving parts. More people. More food, location, responsibilities.

All the while also holding the creative vision for the film, the shots, the dialogues, costumes, and so on.

I did it because I simply assumed this was what independent filmmaking demanded. I thought I had found the answer to who a film producer is.

Looking Beyond My Own Experience

After I made Munnarivu, I took it to the 2019 NFDC Film Bazaar in Goa. I went there hoping to find a way to sell the film. Instead, I found myself attending the five-day intensive Producers’ Workshop. That experience reshaped my understanding yet again.

I listened to eminent speakers and producers from around the world. Many of the producers from the West weren’t even talking about investing money into films.

They were instead talking about writing applications that helped projects access film funds from different countries. They spoke about bringing projects together. Connecting filmmakers, financiers, distributors, film festivals, collaborators and whatnot.

They weren’t the people with the money. But the people who knew how to bring together the people who did.

All of this showed me that my experience as an independent filmmaker cum producer making Munnariv was only one part of a much larger picture.

Putting the Pieces Together

I don’t think any single experience answered the question.

My friend’s cousin challenged my first assumption. Making short films showed me what it meant to do whatever was necessary to keep a project moving. Making Munnariv showed me how much larger that responsibility became as the scale increased. Film Bazaar showed me that producers could make films possible without ever being the people investing their own money. Taking a three-month course to study film production at Neo Film School in Ernakulam taught me the nitty-gritty of who a film producer is in the Malayalam film industry.

I no longer think that a film producer is primarily the person who comes with the money. I think of a producer as the person who makes films possible.

Yes, the director is the one whose face people see. Whose creative vision people experience. But without someone bringing together the people, resources and opportunities needed to realise that vision, the film never gets made.

Sometimes that means finding funding. Sometimes building the right team. Sometimes solving practical problems, navigating production, marketing or distribution. None of those responsibilities alone define a producer.

So, Who is a Film Producer?

If you had asked me before I got into filmmaking, I would probably have said the person with the money. I think the answer to the question of who a film producer is is that they are the ones who make a film possible. That is where my understanding currently stands.