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Have you ever thought about how many hats Producers wear on audio fiction productions? I have. I have a lot. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of just about every distinguishable role/responsibility that an audio fiction production might have. (THREAD)
- Producer: Responsible for leading the production. Acts as the decision maker for budget and production decisions, and coordinates with the Showrunner on cast and crew decisions.
- Showrunner: Responsible for leading the creative side of production. Acts as the decision maker for cast, crew and creative decisions, and for approving creative workflow.
- Investor: Stakeholder (often external) responsible for funding the production. Will usually have some influence on decision-making through the Producer.
- Production Assistant: Responsible for admin and organisation. Typically also responsible for paperwork, booking and submission processes. If production is local (or local-like), also responsible for cast/crew check in and orientation.
- Accountant: Responsible for keeping track of income, expenditure and taxation, accounts receivable and payable, and managing the production's financial infrastructure
- Writer: Responsible for script-writing. May also be responsible for Episode descriptions and other creative copy.
- Lead Writer: If there's a writing team, responsible for coordinating the efforts of all the Writers, and generally acts as the decision maker for Script decisions.
- Casting Director: Responsible for supporting the Showrunner in making casting decisions.
- Actor: Responsible for performing the script.
- Director: Responsible for providing direction to actors during recording and rehearsal, and providing oversight during take selection.
- Production Advocate: Responsible for providing cast and crew with a way to anonymously escalate conflicts or concerns to the Producer, or to resolve intra-production personal conflicts.
- Recording Engineer: Responsible for the technical act of recording audio. Typically responsible for production A/V support in general.
- Dialogue Editor: Responsible for take selection, and creating the first dialogue edit.
- Sound Designer: Responsible for non-dialogue creative sound, such as environmental sound, room atmosphere, adding music accompaniment and vocal FX.
- Composer: Responsible for creating musical score and other musical accompaniment
- Visual Designer: Responsible for the visual identity of the podcast. Responsible for things like cover art, visual marketing creative, and in some cases even social media creative.
- Transcriber: Responsible for converting the recording script into accurate transcripts
- Marketer: Responsible for promotion of the production, including media management.
- Social Media Manager: Responsible for the production's presence on social media.
Of course, most productions do not have dedicated people for each of these roles. In general, we may hire people for a few of these roles, then any role we haven't hired for will default to the Producer. But this, by the by, is nineteen separate roles!
If you've been struggling on your own under the weight of your production, this is probably why - you're trying to do the work of up to nineteen separate jobs. Keep that in mind, especially when you're coming up with budgets for your shows. All these jobs need doing by *someone*.
So, be aware of how much work you're putting on yourself, and don't be too hard on yourself when things take a bit longer, or take more effort, than you'd previously believed.
I have become aware of a role that I missed:
Lawyer: Responsible for writing up contracts, overseeing licensing, and providing legal advice for the production.
Lawyer: Responsible for writing up contracts, overseeing licensing, and providing legal advice for the production.
