Chief Production Officer
McCann NY
1) My best advice to new directors is to keep directing. The barriers of entry are gone. You just need to direct something that people like. These days all you have to do to cast a shoot is to post a casting notice. Shooters are easy to come by. Work on your craft, If you have the talent you’ll be found.
2) If you want to be a good producer, you better develop your taste level. Go to museums, watch classic movies, read books about storytelling and learn narrative structure. The best producers know how to mix the right ingredients for the best possible execution of a story.
3) My efforts at McCann have been to build a production department that can make “anything.” I needed to learn what a modern production method could be — and to bring in producers that have different backgrounds and expertise, who can help make anything. We take on never-been-done-before projects, so we are always collaborating in different ways: both internally as a department and also in how we work with new types of vendors.
I’m constantly learning on the job, but that’s always been my experience in production: when a creative idea needs to be brought to life and it demands a deep investigation to figure out how to best execute it.
4) Releasing the Universal Love album for MGM after 2 1/2 years of development is a proud achievement. My wife and kids are proud that I worked on Universal Love. The campaign represents all that’s good in our industry. We’re lucky to have a client that had the patience to allow us to produce an album that has an impact.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More