I’ve been trying to think back on some of my experiences as a producer that I could share now that I am writing a blog. Digging through my memories of some of the productions I’ve been involved in, I realized a lot of times as a producer your asked to do things you don’t really know how to do. Though in some ways that is really what a producer does…figure out a way to get something done when there isn’t a clear picture of how to accomplish that. A roll your sleeves up and tackle things one by one, whether that means phone calls to experts until you are fully aware of what it takes to provide enough electricity for a travelling kitchen, or finding out what cultural distinctions a certain area of the world has in relation to another area.

I was thinking back on one of my first large productions when I was working for an arts non-profit, and we were putting on a weekend music festival. When working for a non-profit there are so many times where you have to wear a lot of hats, as there just isn’t the money to hire the right people to do those things for you. I remember being put in charge of building a 40 x 40 foot stage on the beach. I had convinced a local lumberyard to donate 40 sheets of plywood, a local scaffolding company to donate a pile of unused scaffolding, and talked a few friends into showing up to help out.

The problem was, there was no guarantee that the scaffolding we had would actually work out to create enough support for the size of stage we were making. Sure enough the first two plans to put it together did nothing, but tire everyone out from walking around in sand for hours.

Three tries and a run to get flashlights finally yielded the correct results, and a friend and I nailed in the final piece of lumber about 15 hours after our start time. We had created perhaps the largest trampoline in town, as it definitely had a lot of play in the structure. The bands were going to enjoy this a great deal over the next three days, though I must admit, it made me very nervous that all the lighting would come falling down if the performers shook things too much.

Now, I wish that that was the hardest part of that week. But it really wasn’t…the toughest part would be saved for last. After putting in a week of 18 plus hour days, and even a couple of nights of having to sleep with the audio equipment so that it wasn’t stolen off the public beach, everything had to be dismantled, packed up, and delivered back to the kind folks who had donated it. In comes a 35 foot moving truck that was completely packed up with scaffolding, tents, lumber, signage, donation boxes borrowed from another larger festival, unsold cases of pop, and numerous odds and ends. Who gets to drive it to its destinations…you guessed it…me.

Driving through rush hour traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct with such limited sleep in a huge truck was nerve racking to say the least. I knew it would be a miracle if I could make the dozen or so stops without getting into a fender bender or worse yet a real wreck.

First stop…dropping the unsold soda off at a chain store for reimbursement. Arrive; spend a long arduous time backing up to the load in dock between two semis to the amusement of their respective drivers. We eventually get it backed in correctly, and find the man nice enough to sell the soda on spec for our festival, and tell him we have a pallet left. I open up the back door of the truck to see said pallet of pop everywhere…cans and cans of pop in every possible corner of the truck, mixed in with all the other donated materials. I turned to the manager of the chain store, and he says to me, ‘I guess I just didn’t see that.’ Turns around and walks back out onto the floor of the store. I quickly hop up and start restringing all the pop into the plastic six-pack collars, a skill I had learned from making cheap six packs back in the day for a liquor store in the Midwest. Who knew that skill would be put to the test again, but what would have been a hopeless task for most, was quickly taken care of, and besides a few dozen cans that had sprayed their contents out, I had assembled the pallet again, and made an agreement with the manager that if it came out of the truck without toppling, he would give us a full refund.

The next stops were less eventful than the soda pop stop, but as the day marched on, and we made errand after errand, the week of all work and no sleep started to catch up with me.

There was one last drop off…a couple of large plastic containers that when filled with water were the counter balance to hold the stage lighting up. The business that donated them was 20 miles southeast of town, and we set off. I had now started to gain some confidence driving such a large truck, but getting it out on the highway still proved to be very scary indeed. Especially when I was forced to pull over on the side of the road and run around the truck a few times to get my blood pumping so I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel. The last stretch of highway was so narrow and winding that even if I had wanted to doze off my heart was pounding so hard I wouldn’t been able to over the din. We arrived just moments before the gate was to be locked up, and a man with a fork lift helped us get the last of things out of the back of the truck. I asked him if we could park out in front of the gate for a bit, and he said he didn’t see why not.

With the last of the materials dropped off, and the truck not technically due back until just before midnight, my co-pilot and myself found the packing blankets in the back that weren’t soaking wet and sticky from pop, and wrapped ourselves up for a few hour nap. When we woke up to drive back into town, it really didn’t seem like too big of deal to be driving that huge truck through city traffic again. We had taken a crash course (without crashing) in truck driving, and had lived to tell the tale.

Now not every production has such daunting new skills to learn, but that experience definitely helped me understand the moxie it takes to be a producer, and how much effort it sometimes takes to get the job done. You never know what tasks lie ahead around the corner with the next job, and what it will take to get things done. But going through that over and over again with each new job, is what makes a producer worth his or her salt.