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Meet the Bad Guy
Sandy Lieberson on training producers Sandy Lieberson is a good example for anyone interested in making his way to the top of the mainstream film industry. He built a name as a producer for the likes of Terry Gilliam and Jacques Demy, whilst also working with Sergio Leone and Peter Sellers. The 1980’s found him as a president of 20th Century Fox and then of MGM; he is now a lecturer in London and San Antonio de los Baños. In conversation, this relaxed, witty Californian explains how he skewed big business and is now conspiring for an independent filmmaking revolution.
“You learn to live with being the bad guy, he says on being a top executive. But after giving up the big league (together with its stressing responsabilities) to start a new family, he did not have it much easier either. “When I arrive in Cuba every year, I have to spend the first day explaining to the students what a producer does: producers are what makes films happen. The lack of trained producers in Latin America, Lieberson says, is one of the factors holding regional cinema back. He wants his students at the International School of Film and Television to understand production as a creative process, to be aware of the conditions and potential of the Latin American market, and to abandon their traditional aversion against producers.
Alas, this mistrust is not confined to Latin America. When he arrived at the National Film School in London, Lieberson found out that England was not training producers either. He founded the production degree, and he says now the results are visible: there are more British films being made, and his former students are working as producers or executives in several companies, or in the UK Film Council. “They are making a difference, Lieberson says, “and I’m pleased by that.
As chairman of Film London, a new organisation that aims to support filmmaking and film culture in the UK, his dream is to start a movement, arguing that “Europe does not have a film movement. Film London is planting the seeds, and now they are starting to sprout. He is keener on the American “exciting independent scene, because “people are not waiting for others to give them permission to do things. This is part of the revolution brought about by digital media, which, according to Lieberson, has democratised filmmaking and allowed small groups of people to make movies without consulting the big industry.
Latin American filmmakers, however, have yet to adopt this mentality: shooting in 35mm is still a mystified dream of professionalism for most of them. Although Lieberson believes that the audiences do not care wether the movie was shot on 35mm or digital, he does not think digital will be completely replacing film in the short term. Maybe, he says, people will be going back to celluloid as a reaction against digital hegemony in a few years. And even if it is just a matter of romance, Lieberson concludes, “I appreciate it, because I think there should be romance in filmmaking.
Maria Antonia Vélez-Serna