In a small production company, the producer is the person who makes sure the video gets made. They put together the budget and the calendar, book the crew and the location, keep the client informed, and see that the final file and the invoice both go out.
Hardly any of it is visible in the finished video. You notice it when it’s missing, like a shoot that starts an hour late, a round of notes that nobody pulled together, or an approval that came in on WhatsApp and got buried under forty other messages.
The work splits into before, during and after the shoot, and the job changes quite a bit from one stretch to the next.
In short
- In a small studio the producer owns the budget, the schedule, the crew and the client, from the brief to the invoice.
- Before the shoot that means the brief, the budget, the dates, the crew, the location and the release forms.
- On set the producer owns the plan and the clock, and in post turns the client’s notes into one list for the editor.
- The producer isn’t the director or the editor, and when several warning signs show up every month, someone needs to own the role.
Before the shoot: brief, budget, schedule, people
It starts with the brief. The producer sits down with the client and pins down what the video is for, where it will run, what it has to include and who approves it.
That last field prevents more trouble later than any other. Our video brief template fits that conversation on one page.
The brief becomes a budget and a schedule. The producer prices crew days, gear, location, talent and the post hours, including the revision rounds the quote covers (the budget template goes line by line). Then the dates: shoot, first cut, each client review window and delivery, counting the time the client takes to answer.
The rest of pre-production is people and paperwork: booking the crew around who’s actually free, scouting the location for power, parking, noise and permits, and collecting release forms from everyone on camera and from whoever owns the place.
The script also needs a written approval from a named person before anyone shows up. The pre-production checklist walks through each block. With a new client, add a kickoff call and an agreement on how review and delivery will work (client onboarding checklist).
On the shoot day
On set, the producer owns the plan and the clock. The shooting schedule says what gets recorded when, and the producer watches it slip and decides what gives: drop a setup, shorten lunch, move a video to another day.
On bigger sets the first assistant director runs the schedule on the floor, and the producer handles everything around it, such as call times, food, transport, paperwork and overtime.
The client is often there too. Someone has to keep them in the loop, take their comments without letting them direct the interviewee, and get the decisions that can’t wait (“do we need a take with the product in hand?”) before the crew wraps. On most shoots that falls to the producer, which leaves the director free to keep shooting.
Before everyone leaves, the producer checks that the footage is backed up, ticks off what was shot against the list and writes down what’s missing for a pickup.
After the shoot: versions, notes, approvals, delivery
In post the producer becomes the studio’s face to the client. Each cut goes out with two lines on what the round is for and a date for notes.
Notes come back, often from several people who don’t agree, and the producer turns them into one list the editor can work from, sorting fixes from new work along the way (scope creep covers how to tell them apart).
A cut that sits unwatched for a week moves the delivery date, so following up without nagging is part of the job (client taking too long to approve). When a date can’t be kept, the producer tells the client early, with a new date (how to tell a client a project is delayed).
The project closes with the final approval in writing, the delivery package and the invoice. Plenty of small studios deliver on time and invoice three weeks later, so a good producer sends the invoice the same day the client approves.
What a producer isn’t
The producer isn’t the director. The director decides how the video looks and sounds, frames the shots and works with the people on camera. The producer gives the director room to do that within the money and the days agreed, and settles it when the two collide (“we can have the crane or the second location, but not both”).
The producer isn’t the editor either. Some producers on small teams do cut, but in post their job is to protect the editor’s time, so notes arrive consolidated, the scope is clear and nobody in the edit spends an afternoon answering client emails.
Bigger companies split the work across several titles, roughly like this:
| Title | What they own |
|---|---|
| Executive producer | The money and the client relationship across projects: pricing, contracts, approving spend |
| Producer | One project from brief to delivery: budget, schedule, crew, client |
| Line producer | The budget and logistics of the shoot on larger productions |
| Production coordinator | Bookings, travel, call times and paperwork, reporting to the producer |
| Production assistant | Hands-on help on set and errands |
In a studio of five people, the owner is usually the executive producer and one person covers producer and coordinator.
A producer’s week, as a checklist
The recurring work looks something like this:
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Monday | Go through every open video: what’s due this week, what’s with the client, who’s overloaded |
| Monday | Confirm the week’s shoots: crew, location, releases, plan sent to everyone |
| Daily | Send the cuts that are ready, each with what the round is for and a date for notes |
| Daily | Consolidate incoming notes and hand them to the editors |
| Twice a week | Follow up on cuts the client hasn’t watched |
| When a date slips | Tell the client that day, with a new date |
| Friday | Invoice what was approved and walk the client through next week |
Signs your team needs a producer
- Editors answer client emails and calls, and the cutting happens in the gaps.
- Nobody can say on Monday what’s being delivered that week.
- Notes land on three people’s WhatsApp and one of them gets lost.
- Shoot days start late because the parking or a release form was nobody’s job.
- A project ran two rounds past what the budget covered and nobody told the client.
- The invoice went out a month after delivery, or never did.
Any one of these can happen in a bad week. When several of them happen every month, someone needs to own the role, even part time, and the team and the client should know who it is.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview the producer’s day starts on Home. Owners and admins see a Needs attention list with the videos that are overdue, blocked, unassigned or in review, plus the ones sitting with the client much longer than that client usually takes and the ones projected to miss the date you promised.
Next to it, an agenda shows upcoming shoot days and delivery dates. Other roles see their own tasks in that spot, so it makes sense to give your producer the Admin role.
Each video is a task with two dates, an internal deadline and the date promised to the client, and the client only ever sees the second one. A shoot day is a production plan with its blocks, crew, pace and location. The plan’s link opens without a login, and ticking off a block records the real time and pushes the rest of the day.
Sending a cut is a button on the review page. It emails the people you pick, marks the task as waiting on the client and shows the version in their portal.
By default owners, admins and editors can send to the client, and owners and admins can change that in the team settings.
When a client approves the final cut on a call or on WhatsApp, log it on the version and say how they told you. It counts as the client’s approval, and the version shows who logged it.
RecReview doesn’t invoice your clients. There’s more on the project management page.
