Roger Bobb, the supervising producer at Tyler Perry Studios, expects the continuation of the company’s February/Black History Month dominance with the opening of Madea Goes to Jail on Feb. 20. As an award-winning director himself, Bobb took a moment to reflect on his rise to becoming an award-winning producer for the first-ever African American-owned major film and TV studio.
The London-born, Brooklyn-raised son of West Indian parents used to recite movie lines with his younger brother Gordon, now an entertainment attorney in Los Angeles. Like many urbanites, Roger Bobb thought Hollywood was the exclusive domain of Caucasians. “It wasn’t until Spike Lee came out with She’s Gotta Have It that he kind of demystified the whole filmmaking process,” says Bobb, a former music video director. “And so here I am, this young kid, and here’s another young black man [Spike Lee] who was very successful. That actually got me thinking ‘wow, maybe this is something that I can do, too’.”
Bobb’s job at a New York law firm moved him to L.A. for a year and there he became entranced with moviemaking. When it came time to move back to New York and enter film school, the firm asked Bobb to stay in L.A. another year. Brimming with excitement about filmmaking, Bobb tore into books about directing and devoured all information about the nuances of the business. Bobb wrote, produced and directed a short film that won a number of festival awards. That prompted Bobb to quit his paralegal job in L.A. and devote himself solely to films. He got an internship at the Director’s Guild of America in N.Y., and then went to film school in New York.
After becoming a popular music video director, Bobb found that the producer role fit his personality better. “In addition to directing, because the budget was so small, I would negotiate all the contracts. I would drive the talent. I would do the food/catering, and so what happened, people saw that I was doing everything. In addition to directing, I got a lot of calls to produce. I found that’s what I really liked doing.”
From there, Bobb let his faith, passion and hard work carve out a path that led to Tyler Perry Studios.
Bobb says a producer “puts the package together. He’s responsible for the budget; he’s responsible for the schedules; he’s responsible for the hiring – and sometimes for the firing,” says Bobb, who won his second consecutive NAACP Image Award for producing ‘House of Payne.’ “[A producer] works as a liaison between the actors and what’s going on the set and the studio that finances the film. And most importantly, he has relationships with different vendors, different agents, different actors, and different writers. He’s responsible for making sure the movie – from its inception to where you see it on the film – gets done.”
Bobb’s characteristics of a successful producer:
1. Be good with numbers: “It’s all about numbers. I can tell you how much each piece of equipment costs. I can tell you what each person’s salary is. I can actually tell you each second that we’re delayed, how much that’s costing in production.”
2. Have to be a people person: “You have to deal with a lot of different personalities. We all know that everyone in the entertainment industry is not a nice, sweet guy like myself.”
3. Must have thick skin: “A lot of times, things [that] happen in this industry aren’t necessarily a reflection on who you are or your skills as a person. You can be hired or not hired for a job because of a lot of other variables other than your skill set. It’s important that you understand that.”
4. Unquenchable thirst: “You have to have a passion for what you do in order to survive in this industry.”
– terry shropshire
Pictured: Roger Bobb alone and with actress Demetria McKinney of House of Payne sitcom. Bobb won the NAACP Image Award as a House of Payne producer
