Carla Hacken isn’t just a film producer. She’s also an entrepreneur. As I interviewed the production president of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, I learned that much of what she does launching a new movie crosses over to starting a business.
Some background about Hacken: She began her career as a talent agent for International Creative Management. After a decade, the allure of chasing actors and signing deals was wearing off. It had been fun and exciting when she was 26—especially when the bonuses included celebrity friends, flying first class, and stays at the best hotels—but she wanted a new challenge.
“It didn’t creatively stimulate me the way I wanted to,” Hacken says. “I was itching to get back into storytelling. I was signing writers and directors. I had a good client list. There were big stars and people I groomed from actors to stars, but I wasn’t really happy.”
Since joining Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Hacken has been working closely with producers and scriptwriters on a variety of projects. One of the latest movies her company has bought is a romantic comedy called Sleeping with Other People, starring Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as ex-lovers who try to stay friends when they meet at a love addicts meeting.
Producers Jessica Elbaum, Adam McKay, and Will Ferrell brought this romantic comedy to Hacken’s company, pitching it as a film that takes a contemporary approach to romance by talking about sex and relationships in an honest way. They said it unveiled intricate emotional and psychological issues that allow the audience to see characters in the raw.
The film will be screening for WeWork staff and members at the annual Summer Camp in the Adirondacks and opening in theaters on September 11.
Hacken has an entrepreneurial spirit and creative mind, two important qualities for survival in the startup world. She guided me through the link between launching a startup and producing a new movie, starting with her story about how she became a filmmaker in the first place.
When Hacken made the jump from talent agent to senior vice president of Fox 2000, marking the start of her journey into movie making, she felt a renewed sense of purpose in a profession that tapped into her creative mind and spirit. Like all entrepreneurs, she made a high-risk move. She said many talent agents who have gone before her couldn’t land jobs as studio execs, and they ended up coming back to their agencies. But her friend Laura Ziskin, then president of Fox 2000, afforded Hacken an opportunity of a lifetime as a filmmaker.
“Looking back, if I were in Laura’s position, I would’ve never hired myself,” Hacken says. “She hired someone in her mid-30s who has never been an executive or producer or developed a script in her life.”
Throughout her 15-year tenure at Fox 2000, she oversaw films like Walk the Line, The Devil Wears Prada, Unfaithful, and The Family Stone, along with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson franchises. She even started her own DreamWorks-based Paper Pictures label, bringing relevant experiences of filmmaking over to starting a business.
That brings us to talking about the beginning of creating a film. Just as a company founder tosses around and evaluates ideas, movie producers are thinking of new ideas every day. These ideas get thrown into a Word doc, splattered onto a canvas, or displayed on a storyboard. Every idea for a movie is a little like an idea for a startup company.
“I could have a good idea for a movie,” Hacken says. “It could come from a book I read, a book I loved, a true story I heard, or I have a relationship with a writer and that person gave me an idea, or it could be, I saw a French film and think it’ll make a good remake.”
Another way a movie idea could come about is through a passion born out of two people: a producer and filmmaker. In the startup world, the two would become co-founders. Once the two establish they want to work together, then the producer and filmmaker start to ask themselves questions like: “What kind of movie do you want to make? Let’s see if we can find out more about that type of genre.” Or, “What’s something both of us are passionate about pursuing? Let’s see if there are iterations of our ideas in the real world.”
Another important aspect about filmmaking and starting a business is making sure the product or service is unequivocally something the co-founders or a filmmaking team believes in. It’s hard to launch a company or a movie if it lacks conviction. For Hacken, she knows exactly what ideas work well for her and what she thinks is worth pursuing.
“I like to find things that are overtly commercial that I know with my input can become the best version of itself: a new version with something elevated about it,” Hacken says. “If it’s a big commercial idea, I want to bring a grounded, character-driven reality. Or do it the other way around: bring something completely new and fresh. Give it a voice, a story, or something that moves my spirit and figure out how to make it commercial.”
Even after sifting through the ideas, there’s the feasibility component of the project. Is it practical? How much does it cost? Where will I get the money? What are my resources?
For Hacken, she’s been on both sides of the table, giving and receiving money for ideas.
“If I’m a producer, I get someone who has money,” Hacken says. “My job is to convince people with money why this is a good movie to make both creatively and financially. If I’m a studio executive or financier, I have money to option a book or buy a script.”
Then comes the time to appoint a writer and director. In the startup world, the company is now ready to hire the equivalent of a chief content officer and chief operating officer.
“How you decide a writer is good is you ask them what they would do with the movie and how they would structure it, and based on a writer’s previous work, we choose,” Hacken says. “When looking for a director, we look at their previous body of work.”
Once you get investors to back up your big idea, then you have people who will be the engine to propel the project forward. In the movie making industry, there’s a team of people from all departments working with the line producer to get the film off the ground.
“You have your vice president and director of photography, the designer and art director, the costume department, not to mention the post-production supervisor, composer, sound editor, and mixer,” Hacken says. “Then when the movie is totally finished, edited, scored, mixed, color corrected, a whole new group of people have to market and publicize it.”
Likewise, a company is nothing without its marketing team. How else would anyone know that your company exists and that it’s offering any products and services?
“It takes a village to make a movie,” Hacken says. “Making a movie and starting a business is like putting on an artistic product. They call it show business, not show art. The hope is to make something that is satisfying, embraced, remembered, and successful.”