Question: What is The Best Definition of a Producer?

Question: What is The Best Definition of a Producer?

Answer: someone who knows a writer

All right. I know this all makes me sound like a shill for The Writer’s Guild of America, and while I am a long time, dues paying member, believe me, union loyalty is not what inspired me to post one of my favorite Hollywood truisms this week. Besides, if I wanted to voice the party line, this post would be titled “It All Starts With The Word.”  No,  my reason to remind you guys of the value of the writer is much more practical than that — and, as you might expect, has mostly to do with showbizzle, the digital showcase and destination website I created with my daughter Lindsey.

One of the perks of being a member of our showbizzle community is that only members have the right to upload links to our new Community Channel where they have the chance to be paid $$ to perform original material on our Digital Showcase.  So far some of the submissions have been worth a second look (see Favorites on our Community Channel and see if you agree), but that is mostly because the personality and sense of humor of the performer, not because the words or concept are off the charts (Caroline’s Rothstein’s fiery poem to Bernie Madoff being a huge exception).

Either way, those of us here in the bizzle thought that we might be getting more submissions on a daily basis at this point — especially from the enthusiastic crew that has come over from our showbizzle on MySpace group.  Our irrepressible community manager, Miss Tina, wonders if part of the problem lies in the fact that the ordinary young actor/performer who might like to be involved with us might be just a little, well,  intimidated by the quality of the videos in the main show because they are actors, not writers.

So for anyone who is gung ho to become a character/or persona but lacks a little confidence in their ability to tell Janey a story about what they are doing to jumpstart their career ambitions, my suggestion is to…find a writer to work with. That way you can become your own producer — which is kinda what showbizzle (and this business) is all about, right?

And if there are any emerging writers out there, here’s a thought: one of the most fun things you can do without breaking the law is writing material for an actor friend,  literally putting words in their mouth.  This is the what good buds Gabe Uhr and David Love did this past spring — and they (along with Jon Ray) were paid to perform on our showcase by virtue of winning our first contest.   More about that next week.  Until then…keep on bizzlin’