9 Jobs In Filmmaking You May Not Have Understood

8. Executive Producer

So you have made it onto a film production over an elongated amount of time. You have done a few weeks on set and you feel like you have sussed who everyone is and what they do. But wait, who is this man who has turned up on this muddy and rainy day wearing a suit and walking around importantly. More often than not, this is the Executive Producer. Or in other words, he is the money or at least the representation for the money. An Executive Producer can be many things but it always has something to do with money. The most common EP you will see is the one representing the studio who are financing the film. They will liaise with the Line Producer and make sure that a director is saying what he said he would do for the budget they said they were doing it for. However, you may also sometimes see, for example, Steven Spielberg as an executive producer on the Transformer series. This is largely down to a show of support for the film on Spielberg's part, allowing the film to use Spielberg's name and he will give suggestions on the film but largely it is a fairly stand offish role. (Although, Spielberg is an executive at Dreamworks and that comes into it as well).