FEATURE

A Producer To Think By

by Lorcan White

Robin Alper is a Harvard MBA who has produced or co-produced four feature films and orchestrated the financing for five more. She also knows that a great film starts with the story. She has read thousands of scripts to find her films.

Robin Alper has the charm of a hometown girl. Maybe it's her curly red hair, dazzling smile and casual manner. But Alper, 35, is a Harvard MBA who has produced or co-produced four feature films and orchestrated the financing for five more. She also knows where a great film starts.

"I worship great writers," she said during a recent visit to Boston.

Her latest project, THINGS BEHIND THE SUN, enjoyed a world premier at Sundance Film Festival last January, where the audience gave it a standing ovation. The film produced by the company Alper co-founded, Echo Lake Productions, starred Kim Dickens (THE GIFT, HOLLOWMAN) and Gabriel Mann (HIGH ART). Don Cheadle, Roseanna Arquette, Eric Stoltz and Elizabeth Pena are also featured in the film written and directed by Allison Anders. Anders, the acclaimed director of GAS FOOD LODGING, MI VIDA LOCA, GRACE OF MY HEART and other films, directed the somewhat autobiographical film.

"She's a very prestigious director in the independent film world. We were very fortunate to work with her. But it's a very tough story because it's about a woman who was raped when she was twelve. In her mid-twenties she meets the brother of the rapist, and it's how their lives come full circle to a healing," Alper said.

It's a tough story that was also tough to find. Alper read 3,000 scripts in the last four years to find the projects she wanted to produce. She found just four.

"I am a mad networker. I speak to anyone who knows anyone who has a script. I talk with practically anybody because you never know where the next great script is coming from. This whole business is networking. Parties, meetings, dinners, I'm out all the time," Alper said.

The daughter of a Lexington orthodontist, Alper found her first big break by networking at Harvard, in the Arts & Media Club. Alper reached the Ivy League in 1992 after five years working as a merchandiser for J. Crew and as a brand manager for Pringles Potato Chips. Living in Manhattan, at the age of 27 she hit an impasse.

Alper chuckles when she tells the story. "After working for two companies where I learned a tremendous amount about managing a business I started questioning why I wasn't pursuing my passion. I always loved films and my lease was up, so I moved to Italy."

The move to Florence, where Alper strolled the picturesque plaza featured in HANNIBAL, sounds impulsive but reflects her drive to fulfill her lifetime goals of living in a foreign country and learning a second language. She also took film courses, decided she wanted to produce them, moved back to the Bay State and started commuting to the School of Business.

She describes the business of producing films in basic terms. "Every time you produce a movie it's like a start-up company. You have to find a product, raise financing, produce the product and distribute it. Obviously, it's also very creative because the product you create is based on your own taste," said Alper.

In 1994, a freshly minted MBA in hand, Alper found her first product right in Cambridge, through her network at the Arts & Media Club.

"I met a woman at the Sloan School of Management, at MIT. When I graduated I was planning to move out to L.A., but she said, 'Let's make a movie.' She'd written a script, so we took the money she received for a signing bonus when she took a job, used it as seed money, raised more money and made a film. We made a film for $40,000. That's one of my greatest achievements."

Alper laughed. "We didn't know what we were doing, and that was part of the reason it was magical. I remember opening the Yellow Pages, calling a camera supply house and asking if they'd rent us a camera. What kind of camera do you want? I don't know, you tell me."

The film taught Alper valuable lessons. Though they achieved high productions values and screened it at several festivals the film didn't sell. "It had no 'name' actors. But it allowed me, when I went out to L.A., to say I had produced a film. Lots of producers walking around out there can't say that," Alper said.

The networking skills that helped Alper hook into her first production came in handy on the west coast. She met another graduate of the Arts & Media Club and they both knew what they needed. Money.

"I realized that to make films I needed money. So we went out to raise funds, and we raised a fund that allowed us to make films of up to $5 million. We were in an enviable position. That's when I really started soliciting material," Alper said.

Echo Lake's third project, THE CITY, released in 1999, won Best Film honors at Santa Barbara, Taos and South by Southwest film festivals. A series of vignettes about Latin American immigrants in the New York area, Roger Ebert called it, "A film to treasure."

Alper and her partner also opened a business for indie film financing. They underwrote BRUNO, Shirley MacLaine's debut as a director, as well as 13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING, a film that showcased the talents of actors Matthew McConaughey, Alan Arkin and John Turturro.

The market has changed since Alper arrived in Hollywood. Negative pick-ups, studios buying completed films, has cooled off. But her search for a great script continues.

"My day is comprised of hearing pitches, reading scripts, meeting with writers who we've optioned, and then when we go into production my whole life is consumed by it," she said.

How does Alper know a good script?

"I work with artists, people who are dedicated to telling their stories. Consequently, the films I make are not mass market, lowest common denominator films. They speak to an audience that appreciates very thoughtful stories." She concluded, "They make you think."

Lorcan White PhD, is a screenwriter and script critic.