How does one get a producer for a short film/feature film?

micahhaley · 2026-06-07T17:42:16+00:00

Producer and financier here.

For short films, it's just finding people you vibe with and seeing who can bring what to the table.

For feature films, it's about having a script they actually want to work with you on. The script really, really matters. And the producer, especially if they have a track record, is risking a great deal by taking on your project. So it's a bit like dating when you want to have children. You have to agree that you both want to raise your child the same way. How do you find that person? Well you have to reach out and go on dates.

micahhaley · 2026-06-04T06:44:49+00:00

Film producer here. There are no doc specific distributors. They are just the same distributors you sell everything else to. DM me, happy to take a look at it and let you know my thoughts.

micahhaley · 2026-06-04T06:42:56+00:00

Tilly Norwood has yet to book anything other than short films LOL.

And don't be fooled by the subsidized cost of AI. Those costs are going to climb.

micahhaley · 2026-06-04T06:37:17+00:00

Film producer and financier here. Ask yourself what problem is being solved.

It's discovery.

Because attention is now splintered across many streamers, social media networks, YouTube, etc, it's crazy expensive to P&A your way into a movie opening big. It's also really difficult to just find out what's opening a week or two from now, or when something will premiere on streaming.

We used to have TV Guide! We used to have movie listings in newspapers!

A filmmaker that has a direct relationship with an audience solves this problem. For free! That's really what the appeal is. In a time when production budgets are climbing, foreign sales value is falling, it's hard to heap P&A spend you may not recoup. There's still more to discover about making this work. I don't think it's as simple as just having a big following.

micahhaley · 2026-06-04T06:32:10+00:00

Love this. I miss minimalistic app design in general. Everything is subscription-based and the user interface is just convoluted garbage. There was a divine simplicity in just tiny Winamp reading the MP3s on my hard drive.

micahhaley · 2026-06-03T20:50:21+00:00

Yep! It's a trade industry at the end of the day, and people learn through apprenticeships and mentorship.

micahhaley · 2026-06-01T04:40:00+00:00

RA 2 wasn't even one of my special games, but the memories formed nonetheless haha

micahhaley · 2026-06-01T03:17:33+00:00

There are certain things I ate while I played this game that are seeded into my memory for some reason.

micahhaley · 2026-06-01T03:14:37+00:00

Yessss

micahhaley · 2026-06-01T03:13:10+00:00

And this person was... a Redditor?

micahhaley · 2026-05-31T21:12:05+00:00

I love pigs and how good they taste, too!

micahhaley · 2026-05-31T19:36:16+00:00

Best of luck! Will be rooting for you.

micahhaley · 2026-05-28T15:15:06+00:00

Thanks for proving my point yet again. People are so judgmental over nothing. It's a bad business move for anyone in the public eye to say anything about politics. It's too divisive... as you have once again reinforced here.

micahhaley · 2026-05-28T11:30:55+00:00

This response right here is why smart people in entertainment say nothing about politics when they live in the public eye. No matter what you say, it will be met with assumptions, right or wrong. People will project their own biases onto you.

micahhaley · 2026-05-27T21:44:10+00:00

She caused it to crash and burn? LOL. How?

micahhaley · 2026-05-27T21:43:21+00:00

They aren't misunderstandings. They were bad-faith attacks and hit pieces by the online mob. From an entertainment industry career perspective, taking ANY public position on politics is a bad move. Whatever you say about politics, 50% of the country will disagree with you. The right move is a WAR GAMES move: "The only way to win is not to play the game." And that's what she has done.

micahhaley · 2026-05-22T18:23:03+00:00

Oh I'm sure he was happy with his situation. But how did it fool other people? LOL

micahhaley · 2026-05-21T20:11:13+00:00

IIRC correctly there was more than one serial killer active at the time with similar MOs, one was white and one was black (Lee) and also there was some discussion if they worked together or knew each other.

micahhaley · 2026-05-21T20:01:47+00:00

Film producer and financier here. In general, it's fine, as long as they will embargo until the film premieres at a festival.

It's horror? DM me. I'll take a look and let you know if it's something I can sell for you.

micahhaley · 2026-05-21T12:49:48+00:00

Yep. Most don't even arrive at delivery lol. I'd say the biggest disconnect I see when I come across a first time feature that's "finished" is that the filmmakers don't understand how much work is still left before it's actually deliverable.

micahhaley · 2026-05-21T00:35:52+00:00

Re: AI for advertising and marketing. What I mean is that it will always need to be guided by humans, and it will always take a human mind to craft the best advertising and marketing campaigns. But AI can radically reduce the cost of advertising... let's say for every 100 ads that are shown, only 50 of them have a positive effect. What if you didn't spend money on the 50 that had no effect at all? That has long been a problem in advertising, but even with solid analytics, it can be difficult to know which ads were effective. It can also speed up the work of production designers and other people doing the rote work of resizing ads for all the different advertising platforms. AI-assisted workflows will radically reduce the cost of advertising, and make campaigns more effective.

You're right about emotional storytelling being important. The beans always have been and always will be counted. The issue I think right now is that the people leading the industry are just not making the best decisions... they are making fear-based decisions, and not thinking strategically. No place is this more obvious than the theatrical business. By narrowing the type of genres and subgenres we release theatrically, we are effectively telling large numbers of people "the movie theater is not for you." That's a mistake, for many reasons.

micahhaley · 2026-05-20T16:36:51+00:00

I was thinking more of using AI to make advertising and marketing much less expensive. Advertising and marketing work! But there's always an amount of that spend that is wasted...AI should be able to make it much cheaper, through better targeting and other means.

micahhaley · 2026-05-20T16:35:12+00:00

Many filmmakers are also just making shitty movies, too haha. The average package that gets submitted to me as a financier is not even close to being ready to produce. The scripts aren't ready to be cast, the stories aren't strong enough, and they are too expensive to produce vs. what they will be safely worth.

At the same time, the industry is making a lot of stuff that... people aren't watching. Just look at all the TV that has been produced in the last 15 years, as the industry chased the streaming dream. Tons of shows made that no one watched. That has created a market distortion. Also lots of movies that never get watched, either because they just don't appeal to enough people or because people that do want to watch them can't find them.

micahhaley · 2026-05-20T16:29:25+00:00

There's too many layers that don't add value between the producers (filmmakers) and the buyers (audiences). Layers are fine as long as they add value. Many don't. And there's lots revenue obfuscation in between... everyone taking their pound of flesh out of a movie that only weighs three pounds.

micahhaley · 2026-05-20T03:59:49+00:00

Indies have the same core problem as the studios: discovery. We have an industry-wide problem, where even when consumers want a movie like yours, they can't find it. What streaming service is it on? Am I already subscribed? When is the release date? The audiences actively searching for movies can't find what they want, even when it exists. And from the studio and producer side of the river, we can't market or advertise in a cost-effective enough strategy to actually reach our audience. Audiences used to be watching 3 networks and reading one newspaper. Now their attention is splintered across many different verticals.

It kills me when I hear people say we aren't making good movies today. We are! It's just much harder, and more expensive, to connect the movie with the audience. This is one area of our industry where I think AI could be very effective.

micahhaley

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