We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danny Taff. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danny below.
Hi Danny, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
As a Producer, my work ethic came from a fantastic and long line of mentors when I was younger and just getting into the production game. Every opportunity I was given, I made sure to work hard and more importantly, learn a lot. In my industry, you need to know every department inside and out and paying close attention for every production over the past 20 years has been vital to my growth as a Producer as well as a human. There will always be challenges and mistakes along the way; it’s important that you learn from every moment. The good ones and the bad ones.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
TV and Content Production are my specialty. Producing is a metaphor for building something. A Producer oversees the building of a project and manages all the parts and pieces along the way. It’s organizing chaos to a degree. Then keeping everything in mind and on track for a successful project.
It begins bidding on a specific project with very specific parameters. For instance, it could be a pharmaceutical product and you need to cast actors to act in it. You need to find locations for it. You may need animals or kids to take part in it. It all starts with a bid and a Director’s treatment. The usual protocol in this day and age of advertising is for three companies and three Directors to bid on a project with one being awarded the project, so your shot is usually 33.3% of getting the job in the first place.
If awarded, an Ad Agency or Client will provide you with more of their creative (they give you the initial specs once you’re bidding), which is a launching pad for the project. From there through collaboration and problem solving, you begin the pre-production phase, which includes casting, location scouting and holding production crew and equipment.
Lots of Zooms and meetings later and once you’ve secured the aforementioned, you get into the production phase, which means you’ve chosen a shoot date(s) and have most things locked in. Creative can evolve over the course of pre-production so you’re constantly addressing those changes while keeping the most important thing in mind. . . the budget. If you’ve done a good job during pre-production the actual shoot day(s) go smoothly.
Once on set (say a stage) or location (say a house), you become a conduit between the Client, Agency and Production Crew. The plans have been laid out and now the job becomes successfully getting through the shoot day(s) in an allotted amount of time and putting out any fires (again, metaphors) that might occur during the day. A typical shoot day for budgeting purposes can be 10 – 12 hours, however, it’s rarely just that amount of time and overtime hours are typically budgeted for Production Crew in most budgets. I’ve been on shoot days that wrap early and ones that go 18 hours. It’s a highly concentrated and can be a highly stressful day, depending on many variables.
If you’re shooting outside, you may have weather and you need to wait it out (albeit 10 day forecasts and watching weather are all part of the pre-production). You may have a piece of lighting equipment fail or a camera issue. Every minute counts on the shoot day and you can’t always foresee real time problems. I live by patience and that’s one thing every good Producer has.
Finally, once the project is shot, post-production/editing begins. This might be for TV, social media, a website. There are specific needs for each project and product. In my position I may be a part of this, however, it is more common for the footage to be handed off to a Post Production company, who then oversees the edit with reviews from the Ad Agency or Client along the way. Then your work is finally delivered and it’s on to the next one!
In the past couple of years I’ve successfully run three production entities – two production companies and a casting company. The latest, Drunk Llama, is a collective of creative friends and family who I’ve been honored to work with in the past. It’s a landing site where creatives on the Client and Agency side can connect with Creatives on the productions side; Directors, Directors of Photography and Photographers, The idea is for more exposure for all and hopefully the option to bid on some projects with Drunk Llama as the production entity. In this business, new entities pop up all the time, so it’s important to stay proactive, positive and relevant.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three important qualities for anyone in the Film/TV/Content industries are patience, self awareness and communication.
Patience is vital as you navigate all the personalities that are part of the project. Being an independent contractor and working with other independent contractors, you have to keep in mind that everyone is not available all the time. We work on one project and may be finishing up the last. A Director may be on a shoot elsewhere as you begin pre-production on the current project. Ad Agencies or Clients may have their hands full on other projects as we all dive in. Having patience allows you to go with the flow and take action when and where you can. You can’t control other people or their previous schedules.
Self Awareness is important as you have to keep yourself in check no matter how stressed or overwhelmed a project might make you. You also have to set boundaries, as this job isn’t a normal 9-5, 40 hours a week job. You’ll spend nights working on being awarded the project and long days as you prep and the shoot grows closer. All those meetings. . . they’re set on other people’s schedules and you may even find yourself with Ag Agency/Client folks in another country. A meeting might need to happen at 3 PM Tokyo or London time. So you get up early or in the middle of the night to make it happen. You still need time for you, your family, your exercise, your meals. Whatever you need is most important while keeping in mind who’s paying you.
And finally, communication. My job is to swivel between the Ad Agency and the Production team. There’s a ton of information that goes into every project and being able to organize and streamline for communication always goes far and keeps everyone involved happy. Emails, phone calls, Zooms, documents, specifications, details. It all matters and it’s my job to transfer all of that data to every individual who needs it. Communication skills are crucial.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am always looking for collaborations in the future. Another massive key to this industry is networking, building trust and hopefully long lasting friendships and business relationships. Take a look at any of my production entities and reach out to say hey! You never know who you’ll meet or where it might help. This business is one giant collaboration.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danielltaff.com / www.drunkllama / www.danielltaff.com
- Instagram:www.danielltaff.com / www.drunkllama.com / www.prettypiranhas.com
