It's very hard to make a living as a producer these days. The reality of the business is the studios have cut way back on overall deals for producers and cut way back on development. The fee for developing a project has not changed for 20 years, and a producer can't live on it.

You always have to remember in this business that the public doesn't care about us. It's very important to keep that in mind. If there is a public perception at all, they see the producer as a big old guy who smokes a cigar and has lots of money and lots of power. That's not what a producer is and, if it ever was what a producer was, it certainly hasn't been for a long time.

The pilot system in television is utterly broken. It's a huge waste of money.

Our business,The Producers Guild, has a good record in some areas, and a bad record in others. There are many well-intentioned people trying to change things. The Producers Guild has been committed to this for years now, and I think personally does more than any other guild to give opportunities to people who come from outside of, I guess you'd call it, the expected avenues for advancement.

Producers are now employees, not creators.

The vast majority of our film producers are independent producers who live hand to mouth trying to get projects made that they love. They are not owners, they're not money people, and in fact, those who just have the money don't always get a producer credit.

One of the reasons the producers' credit has been so weakened in recent years, and given to people who didn't deserve it, was that people didn't understand what producers did.