Producing Decades of Hollywood Blockbusters

In this episode, host Candice Bloch interviews William Fay, a seasoned producer and motion picture executive, discussing his extensive career in the film industry. Bill, known for producing and executive producing many notable projects through the years such as Independence Day, The Patriot, 300, The Hangover, The Town, and more, elaborates on the multifaceted role of a producer, his journey into filmmaking, key milestones, and the founding of Legendary Entertainment. He shares insights on balancing creativity with business, the importance of audience engagement, and the evolution of the producer's role over the decades. The discussion also touches on the fun aspects of producing and working with directors, the increased diversity in production teams, and the advancements in visual effects technology. Bill also shares insights on transitioning to new ventures, including his current work in the wine and spirits industry and a theater adaptation of 'Happy, Texas.' 

You can see a list of Bill’s credits here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269621/
Learn more about his spirits company here: https://steric.com/

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Transcript

VO 
00:09 - 00:21
Welcome to Media Makers Spotlight from Women in Film and Video in Washington, D.C. We bring you conversations with industry professionals for behind the screens, insight and inspiration. 

Candice Bloch
00:26 - 01:12
Thanks for joining us. I'm your host, Candice Block, and today I'm thrilled to be joined by William Faye, a successful producer and motion picture executive for over 30 years. William is co-founder and president of production of Legendary Entertainment, where he was executive producer on a number of films, including box office hits Superman Returns, the Spartan epic 300, Ben Affleck's The Town, and the smash comedy The Hangover. Legendary also joined with Warner Brothers to co-produce and co-finance The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception, which were nominated for eight Academy Awards each, winning six between them. Prior to Legendary, Mr. Fay was executive producer on many successful films, including The Patriot and the blockbuster Independence Day. William is currently CEO of a technology company focused on the wine and spirits business, while also producing a stage musical based on the movie Happy Texas. Welcome to the show, Bill. 

William Fay
01:13 - 01:14
Thank you, Candice. Great to be here. So 

Candice Bloch
01:14 - 01:29
just to jump right into it, because producing can cover so many aspects, some people might not actually fully understand what exactly a producer does. So how would you describe the role and responsibilities of a producer like more broadly in just a few sentences? 

William Fay
01:29 - 02:45
Nobody's ever asked me that question before. I'm kidding. So the way that I would describe it is producer has three major jobs, right? The first is the financial part of it, right? Putting together the money. So you are raising the money to finance the movie, or you're making a deal with the studio to finance the picture. You're finding the money to make it. The second job is a creative job, and that's working closely, possibly hiring the director, hiring the actors, making decisions with the director about who you're casting, working with the screenwriters. Often you're working with the screenwriters before there's even a director aboard. So working with the screenwriters, the directors, everything else to be part of that key creative team to make the movie. And the third job is what's kind of called line producing, which is being on the set with the director every day, making everything happen, supervising post-production, making sure that the film gets executed in the way, in the vision, the collective vision that everybody has. All three jobs can be done by one person, can be done by three people, it can be eight people. It's depending on how big the movie is 

Candice Bloch
02:45 - 03:13
and what other things are going on. But those are sort of the essential producing functions. Excellent. So just to dive in a little bit more on that, since there are those multiple credits and multiple roles, is there, and obviously some, depending on the scope and how many people there are and everything, you can kind of overlap some of them. But generally speaking, is there a breakdown between those credits of who's more responsible for what in terms of how you would break down like a line producer versus an associate producer versus an executive producer? 

William Fay
03:13 - 03:30
Sometimes a line producer will get a specific credit that says line producer, but typically between executive producers and producers, it's kind of split up. Those three categories are split up and it can be different depending on the film, depending on the relative experience of the people that are doing the jobs. And it really just depends. 

Candice Bloch
03:31 - 03:31
Yeah. So, 

William Fay
03:32 - 03:41
yeah, I mean, typically there's the The producer, if it's a key creative producer, they'll typically be a producer on the picture, but not necessarily. 

Candice Bloch
03:42 - 03:54
Okay. And because I've heard that like executive producers are typically more with like getting and finding the money. But I know it's kind of be spread around all of that. Yeah. No, I would say 

William Fay
03:54 - 04:02
it tends to be, that would tend to be the thing. But the people that find the money can also get producer credit. And the line producer can get producer credit. 

Candice Bloch
04:03 - 04:03
So it 

William Fay
04:03 - 04:07
just depends on the dynamics of the movie. Gotcha. 

Candice Bloch
04:07 - 04:23
So yeah, no easy answer, which is the way a lot of it works. But you've done a few of those roles, but mostly executive producing. To get into your story, what first drew you to filmmaking in general and then producing more specifically? So how did you break into the industry? 

William Fay
04:24 - 06:12
Well, I mean, I didn't grow up wanting to get in the movie business at all. I grew up outside of Seattle, Washington. Went to Stanford, planning on going to law school or business school. While I was there, took a couple of film courses, kind of got hooked, wrote a couple of screenplays, ended up submitting them to UCLA Film School, got into UCLA Film School. So I ended up, rather than going to business school or law school, I ended up going to UCLA Film School, grad school, and had a great time and just got out from there. Started at the absolute bottom of the business, you know, being a PA and everything while writing scripts. I had a writing partner, so we worked together. Sold a couple of scripts. Pretty early on, realized that I didn't want to be a screenwriter because I wanted more agency over whatever it was that was getting me. So moved into producing. I produced a couple of pictures, but also was a line producer on a number of pictures. And so, you know, had a good background of, and I also did every other job in the business. I mean, I worked as a grip. I worked as, you know, editor, assistant editor, assistant cameraman. So, you know, I had a pretty good grounding in the physical production of a film and then kind of branched into other stuff. I spent most of five years in Africa making movies. Oh, wow. That was sort of my first producing gigs. I mean, on a decent-sized movie were Africa. and then was getting one film after another there and then realized if I could be a Hollywood man in Africa or I could come back to Los Angeles. So I came back, got a job producing a film with Chris Rock and from there kind of got in the studio business. Did you want me to tell him, like, go through everything right now? No, that's okay. I mean, that's 

Candice Bloch
06:12 - 06:43
a good foundation. I mean, it sounds like, you know, that's sort of speaking to the importance of just general education and in college when it's kind of like, you'll find what you want to do, hopefully. That's great. And it's nice to know you can always pivot and change. And yeah, so that's a really great launching point. Can you talk a little bit about Centropolis, some of your early things? And do you have any particular milestones that made you feel like this is for sure where you're going to stay? You're solidly grounded as a producer and you'll 

William Fay
06:43 - 06:45
make it in this business? I made it. 

Candice Bloch
06:46 - 06:46
Yeah, exactly. 

William Fay
06:47 - 07:17
I mean, one milestone was definitely doing the Chris Rock movie. It's called CD4. I love it. It's crazy. Little comedy. We had a great time on it. And it was my first studio picture. So that was a big, that was a big opportunity for me. And then I did a couple other film studio movies. But certainly the beginning of my career at Centropolis was a huge thing for me. I had known Roland and Dean Devlin, who writes and produces with Roland, for quite some time. We 

Candice Bloch
07:17 - 07:22
talked about working together. And that's the director, Roland Emmerich. No, Roland Emmerich, sorry. The director of 

William Fay
07:22 - 07:42
all those movies. We got together early on and started talking about doing a film together. And so I went out to dinner with Roland and Dean. And they said, you know, we want you to come in and join the company and let us pitch you our first movie. that we're going to start, we're going to go off to right. And they pitched me Independence Day. 

Candice Bloch
07:43 - 07:47
Wow. It's quite a start. Yeah. 

William Fay
07:47 - 08:36
I got pretty excited. And that truly, there's no question Independence Day was the film that really made my career. I mean, it was just one of my favorite film experiences. We were all young. It was our first really big kind of movie. Roland had done, Roland Dean had done Stargate, but this was the first really big movie. It was one of those magical projects where everything seemed to go right. You know, the actors turned out to be perfect for the roles, the effects that we did. I mean, a lot of those things, we didn't know how we were going to do them when we started the movie. We just, Roland had the image in his mind. And so we had to figure out technologically how we were going to create those things. Like you think about the fire rolling down the streets and all that kind of stuff, which is simple to do today. Right. 

Candice Bloch
08:37 - 08:37
Right. But 

William Fay
08:37 - 08:39
then there was no clue. 

Speaker 5
08:40 - 08:40
Yeah. 

William Fay
08:40 - 08:49
On how to do it. But all those decisions seem to go right. And then really just exploded. We did the first commercial that was ever put on to the Super Bowl for a movie. 

Candice Bloch
08:50 - 08:50
Oh, wow. 

William Fay
08:50 - 09:36
And I've always found audiences seem to be able to tell if they're going to like something or it's a stinker. Yeah. And you think you put all this money in the advertising and if they smell that it's not good, then they're not going to show up. And this one, people just went nuts for us. It was just an incredible experience. The six months between that Super Bowl commercial and the film getting released are just nuts. Because we were still working 24-7. We finished the movie like five minutes before the studio needed to send out all the thousand prints. But it was just an amazing experience. And we were just like a family. I loved making that movie. I loved being president of Centropolis. It was just an incredible experience. And then we did a few more movies after that. 

Candice Bloch
09:36 - 09:41
Right. I can't believe that was the first Super Bowl ad for a movie. 

William Fay
09:41 - 09:43
Yeah, it seems kind of obvious now, doesn't it? 

Candice Bloch
09:44 - 10:05
Well, it sounds like a lot of things were being pioneered and you just build off of that. And a lot of that technology, as you said, it's easier now and all those constraints just breed creativity. It's wonderful. So after Centropolis, you are one of the co-founders of Legendary Entertainment. Can you get into a little bit of how that kind of came to be? 

William Fay
10:05 - 11:06
When we did Independence Day and Godzilla, we had formed a digital effects company called Centropolis Effects, and I was the CEO of that company. And the cousin of one of the people that worked for us was Thomas Tull. He was in private equity, and he came out and came to the set, and we talked, and we just got to be friends and we both play guitar. So we started jamming and everything. And he was just fascinated by the movie business. And, you know, I just recognized that he was a cool and very smart guy. And so we, um, we kind of stayed in touch. And then he came to me at one point early, like 2001 or something like that. And we started talking about maybe we should put together a film company, actually a production company and do our own financing. So we started working on that. We put together this whole plan to buy Orion Pictures, which is, you know, Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Bulls, Throw Mama from the Train, one of my favorite movies. 

Candice Bloch
11:06 - 11:10
I remember seeing Orion on so many starts of films I've seen over years. Right. 

William Fay
11:11 - 12:30
So we put together a whole package. MGM owned the rights and we were going to buy those rights and literally we were driving to sign the contracts when they said well we sold our entire library to Sony so we so we kind of went now what do we do let's start looking for another library and eventually Thomas just said let's just raise the money ourselves let's just start a movie company and he it was incredible on his part that he was able to pull all those investors together And it was kind of the first real private equity financed production company. And so we just did incredibly deep research on all the genres, what was working. We had all the historical data that we could work with from all the studios because we were working with this company in L.A. that does that. And so we did a huge deep analysis, like I think the deepest anybody's ever done prior to starting a company. And so we were able to go to these private equity investors and say, if we concentrate on these genres and we concentrate on good directors and we're not going to be cast driven, we're going to make these movies that we can make a certain return. And they bought into that. And then we put it together and actually worked out better than any of our wildest projections that turned out. 

Candice Bloch
12:31 - 12:56
Yeah, sounds like it was a good gamble. But yeah, so that's a lot of, I mean, as people are understanding and listening, there's like, that's a lot of the business side of it. In producing, how have you found that you kind of maintain that broader vision, like creative vision of a project while balancing that sort of operational side of things? Like, how do you do the creative and the logistical? Do you have like a thing that you like to keep in mind to guide you to balance those? 

William Fay
12:57 - 14:02
I mean, the first thing is I don't come from the business. I grew up in middle America. I try to keep a perspective of always looking at what I think the audience wants to see. Right. And thinking about creating entertainment that people are really going to enjoy. and coming from that perspective as opposed to getting into too much of the insular Hollywood where it's possible to kind of lose the perspective of your audience. And you can tell by the movies I've been involved in, they tend to be movies that do that. So it's just kind of keeping that, I think, keeping that perspective always in mind. The amazing thing about it is every film is so totally different. You know, you go from making a movie like Independence Day where you're doing all this research and crazy stuff about what you can pull off technologically. And then we're making The Patriot. And now I'm learning more about the American Revolution that I ever knew in my I never ever thought I would learn in my entire life. And so that's, you know, just keeping that part of it fresh, I think, is a big part of it, too. 

Candice Bloch
14:02 - 14:15
Yeah, I guess the sort of project based nature of it. it's like, you know, you don't have any time to get sort of complacent or stuck in any routines or anything because you're always doing all new challenges. Yeah. Yeah. 

William Fay
14:15 - 14:18
I mean, from a business perspective, it's you're creating a startup 

Candice Bloch
14:18 - 14:20
with every movie and 

William Fay
14:20 - 14:53
you're always working with different people because, for example, a cinematographer can make three pictures a year easily. And an editor is going to make one picture every two years if you're talking about big movies. So you don't get to just put your team together and go, okay, let's just make a bunch of movies together. Right. You have to find different people every time. And each project is a totally different. You're going to be shooting in a different country or you're going to be inventing something new, you know, a different way of shooting something. It's a challenging business. 

Candice Bloch
14:54 - 15:07
Yeah, but it sounds fascinating and just like endlessly interesting. And it's great that you keep in mind that, you know, you're an audience member, too. So, you know, to kind of keep that perspective of it, I think is great because clearly you've had success. 

William Fay
15:07 - 15:15
Yeah. And certainly what drives me nuts is when you see them. I mean, to me, it's I'm always keyed into that we lose them. Right. 

Candice Bloch
15:15 - 15:16
Yeah. Are 

William Fay
15:16 - 15:40
we doing something where they're not going to be able to follow it? Like even if I think about big battle scenes that we shoot, I want the audience to know, oh, here's how that piece of it's coming together logistically. So they know, oh, the good guys are starting to win. Oh, now the bad guys are starting to win. And it's like the geography of it and all that kind of stuff, I kind of get down into that. I mean, I feel like that kind of minutiae is important. 

Candice Bloch
15:40 - 15:42
Yeah, no, it is. Story points, 

William Fay
15:42 - 15:47
you know, like somebody at the end of the movie goes, I had no idea what that guy was supposed to be doing. You 

Candice Bloch
15:47 - 15:47
know, what 

William Fay
15:47 - 15:48
would we need to fix that? 

Candice Bloch
15:49 - 15:54
Yeah. No, I mean, that's why you're still in this business for as 

Speaker 4
15:54 - 15:54
long as you are 

Candice Bloch
15:54 - 16:11
and everything. So you had said that, you know, when Legendary is kind of beginning, you were mentioning specific types of genres and everything. Do you have a personal favorite genre or types of movies that you're more drawn to? And like, do you know why? 

William Fay
16:12 - 16:24
In terms of movies I like, no. I mean, I love great artistic movies. Obviously, I love effects movies. I love science fiction. I should say not just effects movies generally. 

Speaker 4
16:24 - 16:25
So I'm drawn to 

William Fay
16:25 - 16:32
science fiction. I'm drawn to historical epics, like sports movies, comedies. I mean, a great comedy. 

Candice Bloch
16:32 - 16:33
I'm very picky about 

William Fay
16:33 - 16:34
my comedies, though. 

Candice Bloch
16:34 - 16:35
It's 

William Fay
16:35 - 16:35
got to be good. 

Candice Bloch
16:36 - 16:39
Well, sense of humor is very nuanced. Yeah, it 

William Fay
16:39 - 17:28
is. So those are the kind of movies that I love making. And again, no matter what you do, there's a certain sort of, obviously, the pictures that I made tend to be big movies. Right. With lots of special effects and those kind of movies. That's just how it ended up. So it was interesting when we started doing that analysis for Legendary, what we discovered. And this is early on in this sort of trend. I mean, now it's a lot more obvious, but we really identified that we wanted to be in the franchise business, making things that, you know, we could make sequels to. We wanted to be in the genre business, broadly speaking, meaning sci-fi, thrillers, action movies, horror, comedies, where, again, if they were good enough, they were, 

Candice Bloch
17:28 - 17:32
you know, real comedies. If you deemed them funny enough, yeah. Yeah. And we 

William Fay
17:32 - 17:37
also learned that star-driven movies didn't particularly make that much of a difference, 

Speaker 5
17:37 - 17:39
right? I 

William Fay
17:39 - 18:11
mean, obviously they're important if you're making dramas, but analyzing it, we found that dramas really didn't fit that category that really were no dramas. We didn't really make family movies. We didn't make those kinds of pictures, star-driven movies for the most part. Although obviously we had a lot of big stars in some of these movies, but They were concept-driven movies, not star-driven, and focused on directors. That's the other thing that we found is great directors will tend to make great movies. So that's why we got in business with Christopher Nolan and 

Speaker 6
18:11 - 18:11
Zack 

William Fay
18:11 - 18:15
Snyder and Todd Phillips. We're really focused on that kind of a 

Candice Bloch
18:16 - 18:16
director 

William Fay
18:16 - 18:17
-driven company. 

Candice Bloch
18:18 - 18:36
Gotcha. So you mentioned earlier as well, a lot of things like even with the Patriot, all the research and all of a sudden, and like learning new techniques for getting some of the technical stuff and independence deck. What do you think is like for you personally, some of the most fun, like what's your most fun aspect of producing? 

William Fay
18:37 - 18:58
Certainly that part of it, the research, reading up on the subject. I mean, if it's something that's almost every film, there's a lot to learn, right? Whether it's a historical piece or not. And so doing all that research, all the outreach, I love being on the set. I really love that part of it. The actual, you know, shooting, 

Speaker 4
18:58 - 18:59
movie making part 

William Fay
18:59 - 19:06
of it. And I love post-production. I love being able to just find the core and the key of what's going to make the movie work. 

Candice Bloch
19:07 - 19:08
How often do you like to try to be on set? 

William Fay
19:09 - 19:14
It depends on the project. At Legendary, I would spend less time on the set just because we had so much going on. 

Speaker 4
19:14 - 19:15
You know, we'd 

William Fay
19:15 - 19:43
have four pictures shooting at the same time. So if it was a picture that I was more involved with as an executive producer, then I'd be spending more time on that movie. And then we'd have other stuff going on where I'd just maybe show up on the set for a couple of weeks. So I did kind of miss that part of it when we were doing that. Love talking and working with directors and helping them realize their vision. That's really the most exciting part of the job. 

Speaker 4
19:43 - 19:44
Because I 

William Fay
19:44 - 20:15
think for people outside the business, I think everybody has a basic grasp of it. But a director has so much to do with what comes out of it. Just in terms of two directors can take the same script and make a totally different movie. Because they're working from their imagination. They're working from their learned experience. Right? And lived experience. And that's just incredible to me. So a big part of it is always trying to find out what's or really help them find that. you know, find that vision, so to speak. 

Candice Bloch
20:15 - 20:20
Do you have a particular director that's like on your wish list to still, to one day work with? 

William Fay
20:20 - 20:25
Oh boy. First of all, I, I, the directors, I've been really lucky. 

Candice Bloch
20:25 - 20:28
I've worked with some great directors. Right, because you've worked with so many. Yeah, 

William Fay
20:28 - 20:46
and people that are, just great people. Steven Spielberg would be amazing to work with. That's, yeah, it's funny. I don't, I can't think of anybody offhand other than that. Of course, that would be an amazing experience. and I can think of lots of dead directors that I would love to 

Candice Bloch
20:46 - 20:53
work with. Are there a few? I mean, you could share some of those. I mean, you know, we're a media-minded listenership here. 

William Fay
20:54 - 21:02
Well, Stanley Kubrick, I think would have been amazing to work with, although I think as a producer, he probably would make you pull your hair out. 

Candice Bloch
21:03 - 21:06
Right. But in terms of the genres you like, yeah, that works. Yeah, 

William Fay
21:07 - 21:14
for sure. Or David Lean, Billy Wilder. I'm a huge fan of Billy Wilder movies. So 

Candice Bloch
21:14 - 21:16
if you want comedy, 

William Fay
21:16 - 21:16
he's the guy. 

Candice Bloch
21:17 - 21:21
Well, hopefully you still have a Steven Spielberg movie in your future. 

William Fay
21:21 - 21:22
There we go. I'll give him a call. 

Candice Bloch
21:22 - 21:46
Yeah, yeah. And you're the type of person that could. Wow. So because you've got this lengthy career, have you noticed any particular differences or evolution in the role of a producer over the decades? I'd imagine at the very beginning you wouldn't have a bunch of VFX producers, and now you probably do. Maybe there's more women, things like that. What changes have you seen over those 30 plus years? 

William Fay
21:47 - 22:23
Well, certainly there's more diversity in the cast and crew, for sure. And there's an effort made to do that, which I think is amazing. And it's funny, just a little side note. Universal introduced me to Chris Rock for CB4, my first movie. And the goal really was to put together a completely diverse crew, which in this is the early 90s. Nobody was doing that. But we absolutely had the stated goal of putting together this incredibly diverse crew. And I think one of the reasons that Universal introduced me to Chris Rock is because I'd made a lot of movies in Africa with primarily an African crew. 

Speaker 6
22:24 - 22:24
And 

William Fay
22:24 - 22:38
they somehow thought, well, that made me the diversity guy. But it was great. I mean, so the first couple of movies I made were actually geared around diverse crews. Then I worked with Alan Rudolph, and it was the same thing. We really were 

Speaker 4
22:38 - 22:38
working to put 

William Fay
22:38 - 22:43
together a very, very diverse group. And so that made it a lot of fun. 

Candice Bloch
22:43 - 22:53
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it works to your benefit. I mean, we've done a lot of discussions on this show even about, you know, all of the added benefits of widening the scope of who you include in storytelling, you know, so. 

William Fay
22:54 - 23:09
Yeah. And the exciting thing was a couple of, I mean, but four years later, I was doing Independence Day and a couple of people that I worked with on CV4 got to work on Independence Day. So they got a huge career boost out of that. So 

Candice Bloch
23:09 - 23:10
I'm very 

William Fay
23:10 - 23:11
proud of that too. 

Candice Bloch
23:11 - 23:17
Yeah. Well, it's a lot of who you know in the industry and like proving yourself on one project to move to the next. Yeah. 

William Fay
23:18 - 23:31
So definitely that. There's obviously FX, it's a totally different business. You're right. I mean, now those people are key. When I was first starting out, it was rare that they would ever even get a credit along with costume designer and 

Speaker 4
23:31 - 23:32
editor and 

William Fay
23:32 - 23:35
those sorts of things. They were way back in the credits someplace. 

Speaker 4
23:35 - 23:36
So now that's 

William Fay
23:36 - 23:50
really come to the forefront. And that's an incredible development that I think really hit home for me finally about the time of Avatar, just the fact that there is no image that you can imagine that you can't create on film. 

Speaker 5
23:51 - 23:52
That's a 

William Fay
23:52 - 23:58
shocking development. Because so many things I would read, including at one point early on Game of Thrones, 

Speaker 5
23:59 - 24:00
right? 

William Fay
24:00 - 24:21
Where we were just like, how could we ever make this? It seems like it's impossible. You know, you'd read stuff or sci-fi stuff that seemed impossible. Now you can create that. There's nothing, no image you can't create. And that just opens up this entirely new world. In fact, you know, looking back through old sci-fi novels that were impossible to make just to see if there's something that you can 

Candice Bloch
24:21 - 24:22
put 

William Fay
24:22 - 24:24
together. So that's a huge, huge development. 

Candice Bloch
24:24 - 24:50
That is cool. Yeah. I mean, like imagination is limitless, but as you said, it's whoever brings that particular vision is to life. That's one version of it. You know, like when, when you're reading a book, like you said, like you have your own visual like play or story going on in your mind, which could look way different from somebody else's. So it's always interesting to see like how it comes together and how many people kind of agree on the way it turned out, you know? 

William Fay
24:51 - 24:52
Yeah. Because sometimes people 

Candice Bloch
24:52 - 24:54
are like, that's not how I was picturing that. But yeah. 

William Fay
24:55 - 25:08
No. And obviously we did a lot of those kind of movies too, where you've got this huge, like crazy, not crazy, rabbit. That's not the same thing, right? I mean, rabbit, like very committed fan base. 

Speaker 4
25:09 - 25:10
And you 

William Fay
25:10 - 25:51
got that push and pull between, and I talked about earlier, like I want the audience to know where the movie's going. So how do you create something that satisfies that fan base, but then can appeal to audiences that aren't part of that fan base? And that's a real challenge. That's the thing that movies like the Dark Knight trilogy or Iron Man or things like that, they managed to crack that where you satisfy the fanboys, fangirls, but you're still telling a story that's accessible. And it's tough. It's really tough sometimes because you'll do something and, you know, the hardcore fans will be like, well, he didn't wear that kind of button on his cape. And you're like, boy, that's 

Candice Bloch
25:51 - 25:53
rough. Yeah, at a certain point, you're like, we had to get 

William Fay
25:53 - 25:54
it made, 

Candice Bloch
25:54 - 25:55
you know, like 

William Fay
25:55 - 25:56
you 

Candice Bloch
25:56 - 26:00
can't do everything and you can't please everyone. Yeah, it's 

William Fay
26:00 - 26:30
really interesting like that. The other major change from a business perspective for producers is the advent of the streamers and everything. on the one hand it's amazing because there's so much more content being made a huge amount of content the problem is that you know in for most of my career you know if you're a producer you put together projects and you'd make some some work some didn't i mean the standard line is you know you make 10 movies six of them fail three do okay and one pays for everything 

Candice Bloch
26:30 - 26:31
right because 

William Fay
26:31 - 26:34
you made the hit, assuming that you make enough, right? 

Candice Bloch
26:35 - 26:35
And 

William Fay
26:35 - 26:55
so the difference now is that producers, certainly from when they're working for streamers and everything, you tend to have less of an equity position in the film, right? You tend to be a hired hand. That's a real change. And sometimes even you don't really get the metrics for how your film did. There used to be a very simple measurement, 

Speaker 4
26:55 - 26:56
right? Here's the box 

William Fay
26:56 - 26:59
office. Here's back in the DVD day. Here's how many DVDs 

Speaker 4
26:59 - 27:00
we sold. Great. 

William Fay
27:01 - 27:07
We made a hit movie. Now it's like, well, the audience seemed to like it, but, you know, they won't tell us like how many people watched it. 

Candice Bloch
27:07 - 27:30
Yeah, it's there's a I've seen a lot of the kind of debates going around about how they're kind of hiding some data and or not disclosing as much and how the streaming services really have kind of shaken everything up and for better or worse. But yeah, it's tricky because in terms of things like royalties and all that as well, it becomes difficult for different performers and things. And 

William Fay
27:30 - 27:31
it's 

Candice Bloch
27:31 - 27:33
an interesting, evolving process. 

William Fay
27:34 - 27:57
Yeah, it truly is. Yeah, I mean, from a content point of view, I think it's an amazing time. I mean, it's certainly, we are absolutely, I don't know how much longer it's going to last, but we're in the golden age of television. You can find a series that's a perfect shot for exactly your demographic. Right. And that's amazing. I mean, as opposed to like, you know, three networks and a couple of places. 

Candice Bloch
27:58 - 28:00
Right. It's almost too much choice at a certain point. I 

William Fay
28:00 - 28:01
mean, if there is such 

Candice Bloch
28:01 - 28:02
a thing. Yeah. But yeah. 

William Fay
28:03 - 28:03
Yeah. You 

Candice Bloch
28:03 - 28:07
mentioned, you know, television as well. Most of what you've produced has been films, correct? 

William Fay
28:08 - 28:15
Yeah, I did a couple. I did a couple of TV things. I did a TV series, did a TV movie, but almost all film. 

Candice Bloch
28:15 - 28:21
Do you just prefer film or would you consider doing more television or series, episodic? I would, but for 

William Fay
28:21 - 28:40
a lot of my career, film was where it was at creatively. I shouldn't say that. I don't think I had the credits and everything to do a lot of TV. And also, I found film, certainly up until recently, film was where you had the chance to really play with all the toys. 

Candice Bloch
28:41 - 28:54
Yeah, it sounds like it serves the genres that you like better. where you had those budgets to be able to do it. And now it's like it took a while for some of those streamers' services to get big enough to have the budgets to do, to like execute those visions of things like sci-fi. 

William Fay
28:54 - 28:56
Yeah, I mean, nobody was doing Game of Thrones 

Candice Bloch
28:56 - 28:57
20 

William Fay
28:57 - 29:05
years ago. You might do a big miniseries or something. But yeah, creating something like that that would go on for years didn't exist. 

Candice Bloch
29:06 - 29:07
Well, it does now, which is 

William Fay
29:07 - 29:08
exciting. Sure does. 

Candice Bloch
29:09 - 29:22
So just kind of in general, if someone wants to become a producer, What sort of skill sets or background do you think helps support that role? And what kind of advice might you give to somebody that wants to pursue producing? 

William Fay
29:23 - 30:02
I think having some business sense is a huge help. Whatever of those three categories I was talking about, I think having some business sense is an important part of it. In terms of kind of breaking into the business, you know, you want to be, hopefully get a job working as a producer's assistant or working in a writer's room or being an assistant to an agent, something like that, something where you get exposed to the business. I mean, a key part of it is networking, at least as much, I would think, more than any other business I can think of because it's so project oriented, right? So it's not like you find two or three people that you'd like to work with and that's that. You got to know 

Speaker 4
30:02 - 30:02
as 

William Fay
30:02 - 30:10
many people as possible. So I think the networking part of it, I mean, when I'm like on the Stanford sort of mentorship program 

Speaker 4
30:10 - 30:11
or advice program. 

William Fay
30:11 - 30:19
So a lot of students from there will call me up and I just tell them, get down here, meet people, even just other people like you that don't have jobs 

Candice Bloch
30:19 - 30:20
because somebody 

William Fay
30:20 - 30:21
is going to get one. 

Candice Bloch
30:21 - 30:22
And 

William Fay
30:22 - 30:30
being in those positions, as I said, if it's an agent's assistant or something like that, where you're out meeting people is a key part of it. 

Speaker 4
30:31 - 30:31
And 

William Fay
30:31 - 30:57
then for me, I mean, obviously working on a set, doing a couple of the basic jobs on a set was great education too because you get to see how it works. I mean, I always admired that about Ben Affleck who, you know, worked as an actor, but when he was on the set, he was really paying attention and learning. And when we did The Town together, I mean, he'd already done a couple of movies, but, you know, he knew his stuff. 

Candice Bloch
30:57 - 30:58
Yeah. He 

William Fay
30:58 - 30:59
really knew his stuff. 

Candice Bloch
30:59 - 31:24
It's a great foundation because one of the things that we like about the show that we're doing here is kind of educating on different aspects of production because the more you know about, the more that goes into it. I feel like it makes you kind of better at whatever specific role you're doing as well because having a better understanding about lighting or set design helps you as a cinematographer, director. They all tie together. 

William Fay
31:24 - 31:25
So I 

Candice Bloch
31:25 - 31:31
think it's wonderful to hear. I mean, it sounds like part of your success comes from that foundation. Well, I'll 

William Fay
31:31 - 31:56
tell you one little anecdote. One of my first jobs getting out was working for... very famous low-budget producer named Roger Corman, who made all sorts of B movies, like just cranked them out. And we were making a sci-fi movie. I was like, I'd just gotten out of UCLA, I think, UCLA grad school. I was working as a PA. We were falling behind and everything was getting messed up. And they go, we have to put a second unit director, a second unit together so we can get these shots done. So 

Speaker 4
31:56 - 31:56
they put together the 

William Fay
31:56 - 32:04
second unit team and they go, okay, we need to find an assistant cameraman. I'm like, well, I do that job. I'd never done it before, 

Unknown Speaker
32:05 - 32:06
but I'd gone to 

Speaker 4
32:06 - 32:11
UCLA where I learned how to run a camera, change film, 

William Fay
32:11 - 32:12
pull focus, 

Speaker 4
32:12 - 32:12
do all 

William Fay
32:12 - 32:33
that stuff. So they actually said, okay, well, you'll be the second assistant cameraman on second unit. And so the second unit ended up shooting like, I think, a quarter of the movie at least. Not only all the effects stuff, but all sorts of stuff that pushed in. And they had taken the production designer to be the second unit director. And the production designer was Jim Cameron. 

Candice Bloch
32:34 - 32:38
Oh, look at that. Wow. That's really cool. 

William Fay
32:38 - 32:46
That was a pretty great education for me was watching him at work. And I think he hadn't even done, he was, after that, he went and directed his first movie. 

Candice Bloch
32:47 - 33:25
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I find that when you hear the, the backgrounds and stories of so many of these like successful higher up, like constantly producing creatives that it's, they have a kind of a breadth of knowledge as well as a depth, you know, like it's, they, they touch on a lot of subjects. So just to make sure we don't go too long on time, I know in the intro I mentioned that you are currently not producing in Hollywood necessarily, but you're working in the wine and spirits sort of technology stuff. Can you explain a little bit more about what you're doing now, but then also how like your background in producing and sort of as an entertainment executive, it helps you do what you're doing in a completely different avenue now? 

William Fay
33:25 - 34:07
Yeah, so I was about to start a movie at the beginning of COVID. Obviously, COVID shut everything down. So this is like four years ago. And right at that time, a friend of mine, strangely enough, from UCLA Film School, who's like an inventor and engineer, brought me this thing he'd been working on. And they had developed this electromagnetic field process for wine and spirits. And when you run a wine or spirit through this electromagnetic field, you can actually manipulate it on a molecular level and make it taste better. And so I was fascinated by the technology. I put in some money and we developed a prototype and then I raised some money. And by the time I got that far, I was so excited about 

Speaker 6
34:07 - 34:08
it that I jumped 

William Fay
34:08 - 34:20
in to run the company because I get to work with these brilliant inventors and physicists and distillation chemists. And it was just a really great sort of 90 degree turn for me 

Speaker 5
34:20 - 34:21
to do 

William Fay
34:21 - 34:44
something totally different. And I'm having a great time with it and the company is doing amazing. So I've been working on that. But yeah, in terms of the, I mean, obviously anything I learned from the business side of the film business has been helpful for this. I mean, and as I said, every film is a startup. So I'm used to kind of starting from scratch on something. And by the way, it does not hurt at all to say that the producer of The Hangover is now 

Speaker 5
34:44 - 34:45
in the spirits business. So 

William Fay
34:45 - 34:46
that comes in kind of handy 

Speaker 5
34:46 - 34:47
too. 

William Fay
34:47 - 34:52
So yeah, just having a great time with it. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun just doing something different. 

Candice Bloch
34:52 - 34:53
And I'll 

William Fay
34:53 - 34:56
go back and make some more movies. But for right now, this is just fantastic. 

Candice Bloch
34:57 - 35:14
I mean, it's just so cool that in a lot of aspects, even actors, you know, they get to learn a whole new thing for each project. And I just think, I think filmmaking in general and this storytelling, this whole like world and the industry is just such a great place for fostering education. I don't know. It's like you 

Speaker 4
35:14 - 35:15
get to learn so 

Candice Bloch
35:15 - 35:23
many interesting and cool things. And it sounds like you've done so much research on this for your new business that maybe there's a movie somewhere to come out of it where you 

Speaker 4
35:23 - 35:25
already know all that stuff. Yeah. 

Candice Bloch
35:26 - 35:32
But you did also say that you're producing something for theater as well, based on Happy Texas. 

William Fay
35:32 - 35:32
Right. Can 

Candice Bloch
35:32 - 35:35
you explain a little bit more about what we can expect to see from that? 

William Fay
35:36 - 35:59
Yes, I'm very excited about it. Very excited about it. This was something, again, that came out of COVID. Some friends, one is a composer, has done a lot of musicals and operas and stuff, and a book writer. And they had gotten together and started working on this project. and they got a few months in before, and they kind of went, you know, we don't have the rights to this. We better call Bill Fay and see if he 

Candice Bloch
35:59 - 36:03
can, you know. Work his magic. Get the rights. Yeah, right, 

William Fay
36:03 - 36:36
find the rights. They called me up and they named the film, it was Happy Texas, which one of my close friends had produced. So I knew all about it. So I jumped in to basically get them the rights. At the beginning was just about finding the rights. So I talked with the director, I talked with Miramax, We kind of worked everything out. And at that point, the owner of the rights said, well, I'll give the rights if you will produce it. And I was like, yeah. I started getting really excited about it. I watched the movie a bunch of times 

Speaker 6
36:36 - 36:37
and it's 

William Fay
36:37 - 37:00
like the perfect movie for a stage musical. And so we started developing it. And about two or three months ago, we went out to Broadway directors. And the first person that we really seriously talked to was Darko Treznak, who had won a Tony for Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. And he also had produced on Broadway. And he'd also directed Anastasia, the 

Speaker 4
37:00 - 37:01
Disney thing. 

William Fay
37:01 - 37:03
So he was very experienced with musical theater and 

Speaker 4
37:03 - 37:04
everything, and he 

William Fay
37:04 - 37:33
fell in love with it and jumped into it, brought this amazing cast of Tony-nominated actors and people that were starring in like the star of Water for Elephants on Broadway right now joined this team. And so we put this together and we did a industry presentation of it the week before last in New York for potential investors and all the regional theaters and all the theaters like that. And it went incredibly well. And now we've got a lot of momentum going. And 

Speaker 5
37:33 - 37:34
another 

William Fay
37:34 - 37:46
thing that I've never done before, unfortunately, I've got a couple of friends that are Broadway producers. So I call them up every week or two and go, what do I do now? But I'm just having a great time with that. 

Candice Bloch
37:47 - 37:47
It's 

William Fay
37:47 - 37:49
so much fun and it's very different from the movie business. Yeah. 

Candice Bloch
37:50 - 38:00
And I mean, the theater and the movie business kind of they go back and forth with each other a bit already. I mean, there's a lot of plays that turn into films and films that turn into plays and all of that. So it's. 

William Fay
38:00 - 38:04
Yeah. And then there are films that turn into plays that then turn into films. Exactly. 

Candice Bloch
38:04 - 38:19
And they cycle through. Yep. But it's exciting that you get to, you know, dive into this new lane, but also with like knowledge of, you know, everything that you bring with it. And those connections to lean on, you know, for those questions you said, you know, it's great to have. Yeah, well, I'm excited 

William Fay
38:19 - 38:49
to be at the point in my career where I really can be, I can pick and choose the things that I really love to do. I think early in my career, my mindset was I can do anything, right? It doesn't matter how big of a pain in the butt that director is, I can handle it. Or how crazy that star is, I can handle it. Or how difficult the production is going to be shooting on top of the mountain. I can handle it. And now I'm like, no, I'm going to work with people that I like to work with 

Candice Bloch
38:49 - 38:49
on things that I 

William Fay
38:49 - 38:53
think are going to be successful and we can have a great time making them too. 

Candice Bloch
38:53 - 39:02
Yeah. Well, it's well earned and well deserved. Well, thanks. If anyone wants to learn about the projects you've produced, is there a place they can go online to learn more? 

William Fay
39:02 - 39:05
Other than IMDB, I think would probably be the obvious thing. 

Candice Bloch
39:05 - 39:06
Okay. It's a 

William Fay
39:06 - 39:09
great place to start. Yeah. Well, I recommend checking that 

Candice Bloch
39:09 - 39:15
out because there's quite a list there. It's exciting. And it might remind you of some things to rewatch because there's some great ones in there. 

William Fay
39:15 - 39:17
Yeah. Thank you for that little plug. 

Candice Bloch
39:17 - 39:18
Appreciate that. I'll make, 

William Fay
39:18 - 39:19
you know, two or three cents if 

Candice Bloch
39:19 - 39:20
you watch it 

William Fay
39:20 - 39:20
again. 

Candice Bloch
39:21 - 39:30
And it'll go towards these great projects. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for talking with us today and sharing all of your insights and experience and everything. And yeah, it's been a really fascinating conversation. So thank 

VO 
39:30 - 39:32
you. My pleasure, Canvas. 

William Fay
39:32 - 39:32
Thank you. 

VO 
39:34 - 40:10
Thanks for listening to Media Maker Spotlight from Women in Film and Video. To learn more about WIF, visit wif.frankv.org. This podcast is created by Sandra Abrams, Candice Block, Brandon Ferry, Tara Jabari, and Jerry Reinhardt. And edited by Michelle Kim and Inez Perez. With audio production and mix by Steve Lack Audio. Subscribe to continue learning from more amazing media makers. Please visit MediameakerSpotlight.com for more information. 

Unknown Speaker
40:12 - 40:12
That's a wrap!