Producer Titles Can Be Bought, but Real Creative Producers Take Them for Themselves

As part of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking team presents “Behind Their Lens,” a series of panel discussions with some of the most exciting artisans, directors, and producers of 2026.

On the producers panel, “Tangles” producer Lauren Miller Rogen, “Ghosts” and “Harlots” producer Alison Owen, and “Devil Wears Prada” producer Carla Hacken spoke to students and guests about everything from how they approach giving good, productive notes on a story to how they’re looking at the current, rapidly consolidating media landscape for actually getting projects off the ground.

But the thing that unites all their work, across all phases of production, is a persistence to muscle it past whatever obstacles and challenges lie in its path. And that’s something that’s been true for them since they got into the actual work of the producing business. Owen spoke about how her “degree” in producing is something she earned with a bunch of university students, but not by actually attending university. It just started with a conversation with someone who was attending the UK’s National Film School at the time.

“This was the early ‘80s, when things were a lot looser, but they said, ‘There are no producers there. But if you want to learn about producing, go to Notting Hill, where the bus stops outside the Coronet in the morning and just stand there and get on the bus,” Owen said. “You would get out to the film school, and the students who were making their graduation films would want someone to come out and produce for them. And they didn’t care that you hadn’t done anything. I didn’t know what a call sheet was or what PAs were or anything. But they were happy to have a pair of hands.”

Being a willing pair of hands led Owen to a small village in the middle of Wales, working on a senior graduation project, and that on-the-ground, very-on-location work has stood her in good stead since. “Not only are you learning stuff, but you’re meeting your peers. So they were all people who wound up directing major studio movies, editors, cinematographers, people that I work with now, like John Mathieson, who — you know, we all slept on a mattress above a pub, and he now lights for Joe Wright,” Owen said. I always say to students, ‘Network with your peers. They’re the people of the future that you’re going to want to get jobs from or hire.”

Being tuned into what your peers are up to can also show you what’s possible. Miller Rogen had written the script for her first feature, “For A Good Time, Call…” years before, but it was seeing Lena Dunham’s work in “Tiny Furniture” that made her realize it was something she could make happen herself.

“I saw ‘Tiny Furniture,’ and I thought, ‘Well, I could do that.’ And so I took the movie from the big producer, and I emailed my team and my writing partner, and I said, ‘We’re gonna make this on our own, and I’m gonna star in it.’ And they were like, ‘Whoa.’ And I was like, ‘No, that’s what we’re doing,’” Miller Rogen said.

That conviction — and the key connections to some independent backers care of Miller Rogen’s brother who worked in finance — led to a $750,000 raise for the film’s budget. “We shot in 16 days. And then we went to Sundance, which is, of course, lucky to get into. But we got into Sundance and Focus Features bought it and released it, and it was in movie theaters, which would never happen now. But it was extraordinary, and I felt shock and pride and fear because it was gonna be big and out there,” Rogen Miller said. “But it was incredible, and I think these days, there are so many ways to get your project seen.”

“ I think you just said the most important thing for all of them is there’s so many ways for you guys to get your work out there now,” Hacken added. “The success of ‘Backrooms’ and all these YouTube horror shows should give you hope that, you know, write something good, produce something good, find a great story, and there are other ways to get it made than the way it used to be.”