Executive producer

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Executive producer is a role in the entertainment industry that is rather ambiguous and often difficult to define clearly. Executive producers vary in involvement, responsibility and power. Some executive producers have hands-on control over every aspect of production, some supervise the producers of a project, while others are involved in name only.

1 Music
2 Movies
3 Television
4 Video games
5 External links

[edit] Music

In the music industry the executive producer of a music album is usually in control of the overall decision making in how the album turns out: how many songs are placed in the final cut, which songs are used out of the tracks produced in the process of making the album, and the order in which the songs are placed. In this instance, the executive producer is usually someone who has had input in producing some of the tracks on the album. A particular executive producer's name attached to an album is sometimes used as a selling point to distributors.

In some instances an executive producer may just be someone who "discovered" a particular act, or someone who represents an act, either as an agent or a lawyer. Other times it may just be someone who financed the production of the album.

[edit] Movies

An executive producer of a motion picture is typically a producer who is not necessarily involved in any creative or technical aspects of production. They generally handle business issues, and may even be a financier of the film. Some executive producers act as representatives of the studio (which releases and/or makes) or production company (which makes) a film, occasionally being credited as executive in charge of production.

Many times someone will receive Executive Producer credit because of their prior involvement with a property that has since been optioned into a film, even if they had no direct input into the production of the film itself. Some instances of this include authors of optioned literary works; people who had previously owned or currently own a property's movie rights; or, someone who had produced, or been involved in the production of, a previous version of the film.

[edit] Television

In the production of a television show there may be many executive producers listed. Sometimes it may be a situation not dissimilar to the one described above for motion pictures: someone with previous involvement with a particular work, a project's financier, or someone in control of the business aspect of production. Sometimes, this title is conferred upon a celebrity or notable creator who has lent their name to a project to boost its prestige or credibility, as a recognition of newly-acquired industry status, or as a perk to the show's main star or creative force. In these cases, the reality is that such a person has no input into the production.

In television an executive producer might have more power than any other credited crew member — this is the case with the show runner. Generally, a show runner (still credited as an executive producer) is the creator of a series, or an influential staff writer on the show. His or her role is to guide the overall creative progress of the show's story over the course of a season — basically, the de facto creative director of the show — and all creative decisions (from casting to script approval) go through them. Usually, while there may be many credited "producers" and "executive producers" (with varying responsibilities) on a television series, there are just one or two in the position of show runner.

[edit] Video games

In the area of video games, executive producers tend to be a president (or other corporate executive) of the company that is publishing the game, and they handle business matters (for example, Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata, is usually an executive producer). Other executive producers can be influential to the series of games that they themselves created (for example, Final Fantasy and its creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi) and also supervise its direction and writing. Sometimes it is an executive with the company that developed the game if different from the publisher. A game can also have an executive producer for each region in which it is sold, as well as that in which it is developed..