RSS Amplifier

SUBTITLES · Nov 15, 2025

Notes from the PGA CREATE Producing Lab

Read inOriginalenesdefrptjaittr
0
Sign in to vote or save

Paola Mardo · SUBTITLES

I just spent the week at the Producers Guild of America’s Create Producing Lab. The program has a really official sounding mission statement but I’ll state it anyway. It is aimed at “elevating emerging and mid-career creative producers from underrepresented backgrounds” and includes a weeklong virtual lab with producer talks and pitch sessions. More about it here.

Our cohort consisted of 8 projects and 13 producers from various parts of the country. I applied with my producing partner Patrick Epino and our project VETERANO, though the program itself is about developing sustainable careers in producing not just working on your one project. I was interested in applying to this because of that. I want to be a producer for a very long time.

Talk topics covered various issues in the film and TV industry and some emerging mediums (hello, verticals). I won’t get into the specifics of the lab and who was there and why because of confidentiality, yada-yada.

What I do want to share is where I’m at right now as a producer, what I learned from this lab, and some updates on what’s been going on since my last post in the summer. Yeah. It’s been a looooong minute since I’ve written on this thing. Thanks for sticking around.

Notes.

Thing is, I haven’t had the time to jump on here to write for the very boring but real reason of being really, really busy. When you’re working nonstop, it’s hard to find time and, honestly, creative capacity to write. Here are just some of the things I’ve been up to:

I am now hosting, directing, and producing a weekly video podcast called IN PROXIMITY. In the summer, I started developing this seasonal audio show into a weekly video series. It has been a lot of piloting, pitching, editing, producing, directing, production designing, hair-and-makeuping (myself, by the way, we do not have a glam budget for this). I run a small but mighty production team, and yet I am still deeply involved in both the creative and logistics as the person in front of and behind the camera and microphone.

In addition to the show, I run a department and serve as an executive at the production company. I also lead and creative direct our social media which has grown extensively since I first launched our social accounts a couple years ago.

Outside of work, longtime readers know that over the summer I produced my first short film called VETERANO. It was a quick two-day shoot which had its own issues, challenges, and excitement to it. And, as a producer, the work began many months before and continued in the months after. My nights and weekends were basically spent in preparation, production, and post.

Festival submissions are now underway. To be a filmmaker on this side of the festival process is a completely new world to me. It’s nerve-wracking when I think about it. But I’ve been around the block of making things long enough, so I know anything can happen and I am prepared for the best and the worst outcomes. All I can do is build a strategy and listen to my instincts.

With all of this going on, it’s been hard to find time to do anything for myself lately. This year has been one of the most rewarding but also challenging in my personal and professional career. I actually had a bit of a health scare recently and, while I am not completely out of the woods, I am generally fine now. It was, however, a wake-up call and reminder to prioritize my health and myself.

I say all of this because this lab finally felt like a great time to do just that.

Reflect on and prioritize myself and my dreams, my ambitions, and my life. And not in a “work-work-work nonstop” kind of way. In a “hey, let’s-sit-and-think-and-dream-and-ask-dumb-questions-and-learn-and-hope” kind of way instead.

I went into this lab in work-work-work mode. I left more reflective and hopeful. Hope for my future. Hope for myself. Hope for the industry. Hope that everything will be okay. Hope that I can maybe actually be great?

There were some truly heavy-hitters in this thing, mind you. Veteran producers whose films and TV shows you have known, loved, and obsessed over. Giving us the game as raw and real as they could over zoom. Taking us into their producer brains and process. Sharing some of the special sauce to their many, many hits.

But what I really loved is when they talked about failure. Because, damn, did some of these folks fail hard. Like, we’re talking, millions of dollars worth of bombs and fails. The don’t-get-out-of-bed and maybe even get-out-of-town kind of fails. And yet, they stayed, dug their heels in, and kept going. Look at them now.

…is that I am a producer. PERIOD.

If I am being honest, I have always felt like a second-class producer being in podcasting or having started in publicity and marketing. Like producing film and TV is this gigantic, unattainable job that just takes so much more skill and experience. That requires time on an agency desk or in film school or whatever. But hearing from the many speakers who’ve had such varied paths, and from the other fellows who are balancing so many projects and telling stories in different ways, and reflecting on my own journey, I have come to understand that I am a producer. No caveats or asterisks or excuses.

In fact, to stand out in today’s shifting entertainment landscape and contracting marketplace, having an understanding of and experience with various platforms and mediums is a must. Knowing how to define your brand and audience is an asset. Having worked in other mediums and industries gives you more perspective and more ways to stand out and be creative.

I took so many notes that I filled an entire floppy moleskin and could have written a whole lot more. Some things that have stuck with me:

  • Only do this if you are afflicted with passion to tell stories.

  • This is SO HARD. But you can do it.

  • It’s all about relationships, relationships, RELATIONSHIPS.

  • Be authentic.

  • Talent wins.

  • Passion over fear.

  • Follow your guts.

  • Look at the landscape and where you fit in.

  • Know your brand and audience.

  • Character and story, always.

  • It’s okay to say fuck a lot.

  • It’s okay to still be figuring out how to balance your time. (They all are still doing this!!!!)

I have had impostor syndrome for as long as I can remember. But these days, that fear of not knowing enough or being good enough or fitting in has been eclipsed by not having enough time to do all the things I want to do. Like I’ve passed my peak or something. I did just turn a year older last week. I am in my goddamn late thirties.

But the lab reminded and taught me that I am not running out of anything. I am where I am supposed to be. I am more than enough, as the fancy quote card says.

The lab also taught me — no, forced me — to really know and OWN MY STORY, and to be proud of saying it out loud.

They made us do 30-second elevator pitches about who we all were for almost every speaker and session. I was deathly scared and nervous the first couple times. Like heart-pounding, palm-sweating, stomach-turning, I-don’t-belong-here kind of nerves. I felt like everyone had more and better accolades, more film experience, just everything MORE than little old me.

But, no matter how begrudgingly, I told my story, my 30-ish second pitch. And each and every time, I told it as authentically as I could and owned it as best as I could.

I started with how I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and the San Francisco Bay Area. I talked about some key jobs and projects like working in international publicity at Sony Pictures on a little film called THE SOCIAL NETWORK to hosting and producing my own podcast LONG DISTANCE about stories in the Filipino diaspora. And how podcasting is where I found my voice as a storyteller and that it led me to my job at Proximity and to the projects I am working on now. Basically, my pitch walked through the pieces that make up the pie of who I am as a producer, creative, and storyteller… in about 30 seconds.

Each and every time I told my story, I felt better and more confident. I’m still tweaking it as I go, but I am proud of myself for being able to put it together and say it with pride and authenticity. It has taken me a looooooong time to figure my story out and be proud of my experiences. One of my earliest (and most popular) posts on here is literally called: Am I even good at this?

This lab experience basically drilled into me: “Yes, bish, you ARE!”

I work a lot and I don’t have the luxury to sit and reflect. So I am thankful to have had that experience this week. I am excited about what’s next but, mostly, I want to continue to sit in this and remember what it feels like to be in this moment. To be confident and reflective and proud. And I hope I’ll always be able to remember what this feels like and who I really am. Not just good at this but great. A producer for as long as I can do this work. Afflicted with passion to tell as many stories as I can.

New headshot/photo thing.

I really hope to continue writing here but I don’t think a weekly cadence is going work with my schedule right now. I’m going to switch to either biweekly or monthly. Give me a beat to figure it out.

I definitely plan to share learnings and updates on all of my projects here. And with that, I will be putting up a paywall. This is to pay for my time writing these posts and the creative work I am doing. I know I have been talking about this happening for awhile and I just want you to be ready. I also just need the time to figure it out and then execute. I’ll try and do a free post a month or something if I can. Thanks for your understanding and support. (And if you’ve come here from LONG DISTANCE, huge thank you for believing in me before all the shiny things of late. More to come, you know. 🇵🇭✨)

Include some of my projects and some things I’m liking and starting:

No posts

Read the original on paolamardo.substack.com ↗

Comments

Nothing yet. Say the first thing.

    Sign in to join the conversation.