Archived listing. The details below describe a past opening.
About BRAINS BRAINS is an independent creative agency and proud B-Corp. We're a group of no-a**hole, roll-up-our-sleeves creatives, united by a mission to spark market and cultural impact and connect people around shared values and passions. We partner with mission-driven brands looking to rethink and rewrite industry norms.
Overview
As a Contract Agency Producer at BRAINS, you’ll own the planning and execution of commercial, campaign, and branded photo/video productions from brief through final delivery. This is a senior, hands-on role for an experienced producer who can confidently run productions independently while representing BRAINS with clients, creative partners, vendors, and crew. You’ll translate creative concepts into executable production plans, build and manage budgets and schedules, assemble the right teams, anticipate risks, and keep every moving piece aligned from pre-production through shoot and wrap. You’ll be trusted to operate as an extension of BRAINS in every interaction, bringing sound judgment, clear communication, resourcefulness, and a high standard of production to each project. You know how to protect the creative vision while balancing budget, timeline, client expectations, and the realities of production.
Key Responsibilities
End-to-End Production Ownership
- Lead commercial, campaign, and branded photo/video productions from initial brief and scoping through pre-production, shoot execution, wrap, and final delivery.
- Translate creative concepts and client requirements into clear production approaches, schedules, budgets, and workflows.
- Independently manage multiple productions and workstreams, establishing priorities and keeping projects moving without requiring day-to-day oversight.
- Own production timelines, milestones, deliverables, and dependencies, proactively identifying risks and resolving issues before they affect the work.
- Lead pre-production meetings and ensure clients, creative teams, crew, vendors, and other stakeholders are aligned before production.
- Maintain organized, accurate production documentation throughout the lifecycle of each project.
Budgeting, Bidding & Financial Management
- Build detailed production budgets and estimates that accurately reflect creative requirements, resources, timelines, and contingencies.
- Source, negotiate with, and manage production partners, vendors, locations, crew, talent, equipment, and other resources.
- Own budget tracking throughout production, monitoring actuals, managing changes, and flagging potential overages early.
- Manage purchase orders, invoices, expenses, vendor payments, and production reconciliations in coordination with BRAINS’ internal team.
- Identify opportunities to maximize production value while protecting both the creative vision and project economics.
Production & On-Set Leadership
- Own production logistics including crew, talent, locations, equipment, permits, travel, transportation, catering, insurance, and other shoot requirements.
- Assemble and manage freelance crews and production partners appropriate to the scope and creative needs of each project.
- Serve as the primary production lead on set, keeping the day running efficiently, safely, and on schedule.
- Troubleshoot production challenges calmly and decisively, making informed decisions without losing sight of the creative, budget, or client experience.
- Ensure production practices, documentation, releases, usage agreements, and other requirements are appropriately managed.
- Oversee wrap and reconciliation, ensuring outstanding deliverables, documentation, invoices, and production details are closed out properly.
Client & Partner Management
- Represent BRAINS professionally and confidently with clients, agencies, creative partners, vendors, and crew.
- Serve as a trusted production point of contact, communicating clearly about scope, timing, budgets, decisions, risks, and next steps.
- Operate seamlessly under the BRAINS banner, creating a consistent experience regardless of whether collaborators are internal team members or external production partners.
- Build strong relationships with production partners while holding vendors and crew accountable to BRAINS’ expectations for quality, professionalism, and execution.
- Navigate challenging conversations and changing requirements with diplomacy, transparency, and solutions-oriented thinking.
Production Operations & Growth
- Maintain and grow BRAINS’ network of trusted production companies, vendors, crew, locations, and specialist partners.
- Help establish scalable production processes, templates, tools, and best practices that improve efficiency and consistency across projects.
- Identify opportunities to improve workflows, production planning, budgeting, and communication.
- Share production expertise with the broader team and provide guidance and support to more junior production team members when needed.
- Stay current on production practices, emerging tools, technologies, vendors, and approaches that can strengthen BRAINS’ production capabilities.
Who You Are
- A Production Owner: You’re comfortable taking a project from brief to wrap and know what needs to happen without waiting to be told.
- Calm Under Pressure: Production changes quickly. You stay composed, make smart decisions, and keep everyone moving forward when plans shift.
- Commercially Minded: You understand that great production requires both creative ambition and financial discipline. You know where to invest, where to negotiate, and where to protect the budget.
- Client-Ready: You communicate with confidence, clarity, and good judgment and can represent BRAINS directly with clients and senior stakeholders.
- Resourceful: You know how to find the right crew, vendor, location, solution, or workaround - and you’ve built the relationships to make things happen.
- Detail-Oriented Without Losing the Big Picture: You can track the smallest production detail while staying focused on the creative objective, client experience, timeline, and budget.
- Proactive: You anticipate what’s coming next, surface risks early, and arrive with solutions rather than problems.
- Collaborative: You know production is a team sport. You build trust quickly and work effectively with creatives, account teams, clients, crew, talent, and external partners.
- Adaptable: You’re equally comfortable navigating a tightly planned campaign production and a fast-moving project that requires figuring things out in real time.
Qualifications & Experience
- 7+ years of experience producing commercial, advertising, branded content, campaign, or agency photo/video productions.
- Demonstrated experience independently leading productions from initial scoping and budgeting through shoot, wrap, and reconciliation.
- Strong working knowledge of production budgets, bids, estimates, vendor negotiations, cost tracking, invoicing, and reconciliation.
- Established experience sourcing and managing freelance crew, vendors, production partners, locations, talent, and other production resources.
- Significant on-set experience with the confidence and judgment to lead productions independently.
- Experience working directly with clients and senior stakeholders in an agency, production company, or similarly fast-paced environment.
- Strong understanding of production documentation, including contracts, releases, usage, insurance, permits, and related requirements.
- Exceptional organizational and communication skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, budgets, and deadlines simultaneously.
- Proficiency with Google Workspace, Asana, and other production/project management tools.
- A strong network of production contacts and an ability to quickly source trusted resources across different production needs and markets.
- Willingness to travel and work outside standard hours when production schedules require it.
- A proactive, independent working style with the judgment to know when to make the call and when to bring others into the conversation.