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Real talk from production accountants about what it takes to keep a project on track. From budgeting to tax incentives, this series shares how the money side of production really works.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (00:00):
I think in an accounting, you get a much better idea of people's personalities and characters and how they work than production does.
Bishop Porter (00:22):
I'm Bishop Porter with Cast & Crew Presents and this is Beyond the Budget. Today I'm joined by Ann-Marie Fitzgerald, a production controller with over 30 years of credits, including Saving Private Ryan, The Sandman, and my personal favorite Ted Lasso. We're talking about what it really takes to manage the numbers on world-class productions. Hi Ann-Marie.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (00:45):
Hi, Bishop.
Bishop Porter (00:46):
So I always like to start out with asking how did you get your foot in the door?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (00:51):
So mine was a very weird journey. I finished university and I was taking on as a trainee accountant with Kerry Foods who make dairy gold and all the spreads. And I met my husband there and the two of us were training accountants, but he was actually, he qualified. He didn't go to university, so he went straight into an accountant. He left, went home into a private practice, ended up working for Morgan O'Sullivan on Braveheart and kept in the industry. I stayed where I was. We were getting married, let him one day in Ardmore Studios after finishing my exams. Production accountant was looking for an assistant. He was really stuck. My now husband said to him, she has no job. He said, "I'll interview you. " And he did and I got the job and it was on kidnapped and it was when Christopher Reeves fell off his horse.
(01:55):
So I ended up with my very first job with an insurance claim.
Bishop Porter (01:58):
Well, that will force you to learn fast and furious, right?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (02:02):
Exactly. Fast and furious. Yeah. And that was it. I just fell into it.
Bishop Porter (02:07):
I think all the people I've talked to, that is the through line. It's right place, right time, either a comedy of errors or just a magic serendipitous moment. And you say yes. And you were in Dublin at first and then you moved over to England or how did that work out?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (02:26):
So we were in Dublin until 2008. My husband was a financial controller and Warner Brothers kind of headhunted him to go corporate and he moved to London in 2006 to try it out. But I was reluctant to leave because I was doing PSI Love You and I had a lot of other shows on the go and it's really hard to cut off when you're kind of prepping, shooting, wrapping and they all overlap. So I agreed to go in 2008 with the two girls for a year test out and then we never came back.
Bishop Porter (03:02):
How have you founded keeping up a 30-year career of freelance of project to project? I know particularly in the UK the last four, five years maybe have been very busy. There seems to be so much work, but I can't imagine it's been that way consistently the whole of your career. It always seems like there are ups and downs in this business. One in the US, at least one state is the hot place to go for the incentive and then they kind of die on the vine a little and another one comes up. And of course we've had many elements, the strikes and COVID and all the things that have happened the last few years. But how have you kept this solid career over 30 years in this freelance environment?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (03:44):
Bishop, I have been so lucky. I am never out of work. I just go from one job to the other and I used to try to take summers off with the kids like the six weeks, but it never really works. You're still working remotely even back in 2012 to 17. When I was at home with them, I'd go home. I'd still be on my laptop or I'd still be approving. And I've never, and since 2019 when I started Ted Lasso, between Ted Lasso and Sandman, I am completely just going parallel with the two of them. I've never not worked.
Bishop Porter (04:18):
That's wonderful. Well, that's a testament to your skill and quality and reputation. Well, you brought up Ted Lasso. I have to say, I think Ted Lasso got me through COVID. It was the most heartwarming, uplifting, poignant, loving, comedic show I had seen in so long. Tell us how that came to be and how that production went.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (04:40):
I got the job because I actually have a good friend who was freelance who went into Warner's TV and she approached me to do the budget and all that goes with it. And then they offered me the job. And then I don't know if you know kind of the difference, but a production controller role is very different to a financial controller's role. A production controller actually does have a lot of authority and makes things work. And it really happened on Ted Lasso and I was really, really very proud of it. And then it just morphed into season two and season three and you know yourself, you do prep, you do shoot, then you go into wrap and next thing you're prepping another project and you just stay on it. It never ends.
Bishop Porter (05:25):
In my mind, typically the controller is doing more budgeting, more like planning out different scenarios of how the producers want to take things. Of course, you're having maybe hot cost, cost reporting, that sort of stuff. And tell us a little bit about the different roles and how you've seen them.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (05:44):
I think different job levels as well, like different levels of bands have different requirements I think for production accountants. And then you go production accountant, financial controller and production controller. To me, the production accountant manages the staff, makes sure all the paperwork is in, everything is processed properly audit wise. The next level then is financial controller, puts it all together, reports it. And then you have the production controller who for me is actually probably spends most of their time in the production with the producer and the UPM. I think what they do is they can react faster to solving problems because we're there in the room when it happens. So if somebody said, "Oh, we have to do this, this and this, " I can say yes and no to that immediately.
(06:43):
Whereas if you're a financial controller, you're not privy to the same information, you're not in the same room. So they go, "Oh, we have to go back to the financial controller and work this out. " Whereas they don't need to do that with me. I can do it while I'm in the room. If something arises, I can solve with them.
Bishop Porter (07:01):
Yes, you're really a part. It's that higher level of you're in the room with the decision makers because you are one as well. You're giving them the information in real time so they can pivot. And we all know how fast production moves, how quickly things change. You always have to be working out one scenario while planning for the next.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (07:21):
Exactly. Yeah. And I think it's more for a film is kind of easier in that aspect because you have on budget number and that's it. Whereas when you're doing series or episodic and pattern, it's much more challenging because you're doing all these budgets one after the other and you need to kind of have an idea of what one episode costs you so that you can give the money over to another or you have to pull back on the next episode or you have to maybe take a beat and make it a smaller episode. And actually television is a lot harder work.
Bishop Porter (07:55):
Yes. Tell us why that is because I hear a lot differing opinions on that. I think for so long, the last couple of decades, legacy studios making big tintpole features, there was just a formula to that. And of course, when streaming started, these huge episodic with maybe 15 to $20 million pounds per episode, these tin series episodes became as big as a tint pole feature and yet the budgeting, the planning was all different. Tell us how you've seen that, the difference there and how you've seen that work.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (08:31):
With the TV, I think on this side of the world, we actually were not used to the US way. So took a lot of learning to actually understand the way it was done and actually very, very interesting. But it is like from an accounting side of it, you need to have accounts people who know what's going on every day. They can't just be processing an invoice or running the payroll. They need to know if Bishop was on episode one or episode four or episode five. They need to know if the dogs were in which episode they were in. So from an accounting side of it, you need very bright people who are interested in reading all the documents, knowing what progress reports, call sheets. And on the episodic, every Friday evening we would sit down in accounts or the payroll people would sit down and they would send out a list to the production managers and go, "This is the way we're coding everything for this week." And it's very, very time-consuming.
(09:36):
It's challenging, but it makes the job so much interesting.
Bishop Porter (09:39):
That brings the fun to it.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (09:40):
It does. And it actually shows you the people who are passionate about the industry and then those who are like, "Oh God, this is really complicated. I just want to do one payroll journal and just code it to one account." So television is much more challenging.
Bishop Porter (09:56):
I do think people have an idea sometimes of accountants, you're just sitting there processing, you're entering invoices, you're cutting checks, you're pressing this and this, especially in our industry, the behind the scenes, the way the decisions are made, the way everything's cut together. The scenes, like you said, if this actor is in these three episodes but not in those two, that goes into coding. There's a lot more to it. And I've had other controllers and accountants say there's more like puzzle solving to accounting and that if you like puzzles, which I love jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, any word puzzle, number puzzles, but that it's a lot of that to it. It's not just that surface level, yes, there's keying data entry and all of that, which you need to be precise and exact.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (10:43):
I think as well it also I find in a lot of departments, they don't even read the scripts. If you don't read the script, like I say to someone who's looking at a set deck invoice and they're going, "Oh, what is that keyboard for? " And I'm going, "Well, have you not read it? " That's my team. I make sure that they read all the scripts and they know exactly what everything is when they come into the job.
Bishop Porter (11:07):
Speaking of that, tell us what you look for when you're building your team, when you're interviewing candidates, when you are prepping for a project, what skills, what qualities do you really look for? The
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (11:19):
First thing I look for is when I sit down with someone, if I can actually have a conversation and click with them. Once you have a bond with somebody and you can hold a conversation, I think you can do anything with them irrespective of their abilities. Well, I feel I can change them, I can teach them, I can do anything with them, but I have to have this click with them. That's the first thing I would look for.
Bishop Porter (11:48):
It's kind of the person. You're hiring the person. You can teach the skill if they have some basic ability.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (11:55):
Yeah, I think it's all down to personalities. And when I interview people as well, I think of the people I have as well to make sure that they click with them because most of the time when I interview them, I don't work with them really. So it's the other, the rest of the team that need to all bond and click together.
Bishop Porter (12:14):
Exactly. It's such a team sport.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (12:17):
It is a team. And you spend so many hours together, you just can't afford to have people not getting on with each other or not bonding. And it's not good for the production either. People need to see that accounts are together and everything they do.
Bishop Porter (12:32):
Well, I know a lot of your projects have been with Cast and Crew or Sergeant Disk since you're in the UK. You know PSL backwards and forwards and DPO I'm sure. Tell us how the DPO PSL integration has been working for you. I assume it's been a couple of years you've been using that.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (12:52):
I think it might've been one only last year where we used the integration into PSL, which I absolutely love. First of all, Bishop, can I tell you, when DPO came out first, I'm not using this. I like the hard copy in front of me. Then when I got it, oh my God, I have it on every app. I have it on my phone. I have it on my iPad and I could sit on television at night and I watch POs. I code them from my app. I do absolutely everything from it. Everything goes in. I just can't believe how my brain has completely turned from thinking that I needed a hard piece of paper for it to be retained in my brain. And then we went to integration last year, which some studios don't allow us to do, but I fought for it. I have to say, apart from the setup and the little niggly things and people setting up vendors wrong, I can do a cost report so fast once I have the integration into DPO.
(13:56):
I mean, it's just amazing. I have to say it really speeds up cost reporting. I wouldn't say we lose a person because we get people to ... When it integrates in, I have somebody check it every morning and they might change the lettering or they might break it down more. But for the numbers and for costing for producers and everything, it's, oh my God, it's just amazing.
Bishop Porter (14:20):
That's wonderful to hear. I totally agree and understand. When I started out, everything was printed. I mean, I remember when people were faxing in POs and they would attach their backup and the receipt would be taped on too and they would have scanned it through and I would push back and say, "No, I need that physical receipt. I need the original. I need it taped to a sheet of paper." And now cut to 15 years later, I'm like, "I don't care how you get me a receipt, just snap a photo and send it over."
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (14:48):
Yeah, exactly. And it's made my job so easy because everyone says to me, "How do you do a cost report so fast?" Because I'm constantly watching DPO and its integration, but I think a lot of it is confidence in your budget and knowing if something's gone in wrong. I mean, people who say to me, "Oh yeah, but it sends it to the wrong place." I said, "No, it doesn't send it to the wrong place. You should be well able to know where it's gone if you are comfortable budgeting and you know your budget." So I think a lot of it is to do with experience and confidence in your job and what you do.
Bishop Porter (15:21):
Well, I'm going to bring you in, Ann-Marie, for some training sessions. When you decide to retire or want to go into a consulting role, we're going to have you be the DPO PSL expert.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (15:31):
Yeah. Oh my God, I love teaching though. I qualified as a teacher. I just love teaching.
Bishop Porter (15:36):
Well, so much of that is part of the role, right? As you get new teams, you're bringing people on, they're learning from you. It's such a teaching environment when you have the time to do it.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (15:47):
It is a teaching environment. And I think it's really important that when you bring your team in and you get them to get, you can spot the people who you can teach, who will move up the ranks. And then it's never going to work if everyone wants to move up the ranks. So there are obviously people who are just going to stay where they are. They're so happy in their lot, but then there's those that are so hungry and passionate and they're the people that I like go, "Oh God, I have to teach you now. I have to train you. " And I'm not very much into micromanagement. I will let them go, but it gives them freedom and they're not just doing one isolated job. So my team at the moment now do everything. They do payroll, they do SAG payroll, they do IATSE, they do cache, they do everything.
(16:33):
And I think a lot of that, which I never thought I would do, went back to when we were in COVID because we had to work from home. So I decided that we would split accounts into departments. So if you did set deck and art department, you did their payroll, you did their AP and you did their cache. So everyone learned from that. So they did every element of the job and then they actually found out which for us they didn't light. Yeah. Some of them like, "Oh, I'm never doing that again." But it kind of threw out the people to the levels where they wanted, it threw out the people that were hungry to do everything. And then it threw out the people who said, "Never doing payroll again." But it was great and it was really handy because during COVID they just had to deal with one accounts person who did it all for them, each department.
(17:23):
And it was a real learning curve.
Bishop Porter (17:26):
Yeah. I've talked to other accountants who've said similarly, they like to either keep all departments with one person so they have that one go- to. I know back in the day sometimes they would break up AP teams alphabetically, but yeah, it worked for some people. It didn't work for others. That's the way you learn.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (17:44):
Yeah, they got through it. But that's the thing within the new AP thing, I don't think it's really necessary to split the AP now if that works seamlessly, I think you can have one or two people and it does work perfectly. And as I say, we don't really have a full person on POs anymore.
Bishop Porter (17:53):
I know everyone has a different style and a different method that works for them. I think that's what the last few years have definitely taught us as we've pushed into this digital space when we were for so many years a paper oriented business we're having to change and that's all right.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (18:10):
I think with the digital, they're expecting answers much quicker now. So you still need the crew and the staff. It's not going to cut down staff on you, but it does give you the tools to answer questions faster and to say, "Yes, we can do this and no, we can't do that. " And that's amazing.
Bishop Porter (19:26):
Okay. Well, we like to do, I don't think we've told you this, a little quiz. So I'm going to ask you a few questions that you can answer. Okay. You are the production controller on all three seasons of Ted Lasso, which we have a fourth season coming up. What sport does Ted Lasso coach?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (19:45):
Football.
Bishop Porter (19:45):
Yes, or soccer.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (19:47):
Yeah, it's kind of football here. I didn't get into that because we call it soccer in Ireland as well. So I had to stop calling it soccer when I came here. It's football.
Bishop Porter (19:56):
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Ella Enchanted was one of your Dublin credits, which star is in the title role.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (20:05):
Anne Hathaway
Bishop Porter (20:06):
Yes. Ding, ding, ding.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (20:08):
I love that. That was one of my actual favorite movies to work on.
Bishop Porter (20:12):
Really? How come?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (20:13):
Because we had all the choreography and the music and there was so much of everything on it.
Bishop Porter (20:19):
Those are ones you're proud to have on your resume, proud to look back and know that you were a part of, right?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (20:24):
Yeah, exactly.
Bishop Porter (20:26):
There's so many series and features now that I can't quite put a pin on what exactly the genre is. I was watching something the other night. It was like a little bit of a horror, a little bit of a supernatural, a little dark comedy. And I'm like, what bucket would I even put this in?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (20:41):
And when you read a script yourself and you start budgeting and you read it and you're going, "What audience are they looking for? " It's really hard to know now with Practical Magic too. I mean, obviously it's 28 years later and then you look at the Devil Wears Prada now and how well that has done with a 20-year gap. So I'm hoping practical magic is going to do the same.
Bishop Porter (21:06):
I'm glad you brought that up. Tell us, I know you just wrapped that, like you said, the sequel to the first 28 years later. Tell us how the show went. We know Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, who we all love. Where are the witches now?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (21:19):
Where are the witches now? They're practically exactly in the same place, only 28 years and they look amazing. They haven't aged. I
Bishop Porter (21:29):
Believe that.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (21:30):
Ed, but they haven't aged. The aunties were back, which was lovely. Really lovely ladies. And no, it really, really good.
Bishop Porter (21:37):
And when is it coming out this fall?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (21:39):
September the
Bishop Porter (21:40):
11th. I remember the first one. The soundtrack was all the rage. I feel like that was in my college dorm floor with all girls. That was our music of 1998 or something.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (21:51):
I think people were saying that it's in the years later that there's this cult for it rather than the year it came out.
Bishop Porter (21:59):
That's been interesting to see with streaming, bringing back these shows from 10, 15, 20 years ago that we all watched when they came on every Thursday night and now you can binge them all in a weekend.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (22:13):
Yeah. But I love the fact that my daughters watched Practical ... Well, The Younger Hunt did and now she was working on this one with me and a lot of them have a lot of bonds with people. It's amazing. You don't realize it. I mean, when we went to do this last February, I was like, "Really? We're going back to do practical magic too." And I hope it will be a great success for them.
Bishop Porter (22:36):
Me too. We want everyone going to the theater, right? I've got a couple more questions. I know we've talked about technology, the new tools, things that help you work easier, faster, more efficiently, but we all know there's a lot that goes on that makes the production ... I mean, typically they're all pretty chaotic. Is there some through line that you've seen where something goes from being just very chaotic to a little bit smoother? What would you say are the tools either from the accounting perspective or maybe from production, something that keeps things from getting too far off the rails or once it's gone, it's gone, you can't pull it back.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (23:17):
If there's a problem, it should be addressed immediately. And I think it is down to the producer or the UPM. If he sees it happening and he pulls them in, we can sort it out. So I think anything could be managed once people sit down and speak to each other. Other than that, I mean, the money is the money. There's not much you can do about that. You just have to fit it in.
Bishop Porter (23:39):
The numbers don't lie. That's the beauty of accounting. No,
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (23:42):
The numbers don't lie.
Bishop Porter (23:43):
No. Yeah, I know. I always felt, I said accounting is where we corral the chaos.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (22:58):
I think in an accounting as well, you get a much better idea of people's personalities and characters and how they work and manipulate than production does. So I'd always be watching them and going, "All right, I think we have a problem here now because I know the way they're acting accounting wise." So I would kind of go to the producer and say, "I think you need to start that person out. " When it comes to money, you see through people's characters and you know how they will react anyway. So I think it's the window to everything.
Bishop Porter (24:45):
Spoken like a true accountant. All right, well we're going to let you go. But before a few more questions about Ann-Marie. These are just instinct, off the cuff, first reaction, okay? What is your go- to crafty snack?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (24:59):
Seaweed.
Bishop Porter (25:00):
Seaweed and the packs?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (25:03):
I love them.
Bishop Porter (25:04):
Yeah. Okay. We'll agree to disagree on that. All right. What's your favorite department to work with besides accounting?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (25:09):
Set deck and art department.
Bishop Porter (25:11):
Really? How come?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (25:13):
I think it's kind of the department that you see everything happening. I love to see the model making. I love to see the graphics, the concepts, set deck, putting it all together, going down, all that. I do love that.
Bishop Porter (25:27):
All right. Have you ever been totally starstruck on set or is there some celebrity, actor, actress that you met and you just thought, "This is the epitome of why I'm in this business."
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (25:38):
So I did a little thing called King Lear with Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Hopkins came to London and somebody needed to meet him at the Dorchester. So they asked me to meet him at the Dorchester. So I went to view his apartment to see that everything was ready for him and I met him. Oh my God. I was sweating and he gave me a hug and absolutely amazing. Absolutely loved him. We had birthday cake with Tom Hanks for his 40th on Saving Private Ryan, which was memorable. He was so humbled. He joined the queue for catering and then we brought out a cake for his birthday and he gave the most beautiful speech and that was wonderful as well. And then the other one I had lunch in Ardmore Studios. We were sitting on this kind of ... It's a hill outside at the base of Ardmore Studios, a lovely little hill and it was a really sunny day for a change in Ireland.
(26:36):
And we had lunch with Pierce Brosnan.
Bishop Porter (26:39):
007. Those are three good ones Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hanks, and Pierce Brosnan. Okay. And which childhood movie made you want to be in this business? If you look back, is there one that stuck out?
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (26:53):
No, actually, because I didn't realize I wanted to be in this business.
Bishop Porter (26:57):
Yeah, just kind of happened.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (26:58):
I never did, but my favorite movie is Dirty Dancing. I mean, if I could have been with Patrick Swayze on Dirty Dancing, that would've been the height of everything.
Bishop Porter (27:07):
Nobody puts Ann-Marie in the corner.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (27:09):
No, no. Oh, God. Yeah, he's gorgeous.
Bishop Porter (27:13):
Well, we really appreciate your time. Appreciate you being willing to come on here and share your story. Since we started this series, everyone's loving it. I'm getting great feedback. People love hearing everyone's individual stories, how they got in the business, what makes them successful, what they look for in their team. And it's great to hear it from someone like you who's so accomplished and has had a 30-year career. So thanks again for joining us.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (27:39):
Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was great speaking with you.
Bishop Porter (27:42):
And I hope next time it's in person. I'll come across the pond.
Ann-Marie Fitzgerald (27:46):
Thank you.
Bishop Porter (27:47):
Thanks, Ann-Marie. All right. And if you've got a question for us, you can reach out to us, send it our way. You might hear it on a future episode, or if there's someone you'd like to hear from, would love to hear that as well. You can hear more conversations like this by subscribing to Cast & Crew Presents wherever you get your podcast.