Because of Winn-Dixie — Q&A with Trevor Albert, Because of Winn-Dixie Producer

What do you do as a producer?
Trevor Albert: Well, as a producer I wear lots of different hats.

Part of my job is very creative. I am in a never-ending search for great stories. These can come in the form of books or magazine articles or sometimes as completed scripts. I tend to look for ideas that are original, humanistic and uplifting.

Once I find that gem of a story I need to put on another hat-the hat of a salesman. I need to convince a studio or private financier that I have found a great idea for a movie and it is worthy of both their time and their money.

Once I have successfully secured that money I need to go about taking this book or script and turning it into a film. This requires the ability to bring together various talented people who all share a similar vision of the movie. This includes director, writer, actors, cameraman, and all the other people one needs to make a movie. From this point on my closest relationship is generally with the director. In the case of Winn-Dixie that was Wayne Wang. So I then try to do everything I can to help Wayne realize his vision of the movie.

At this point the hat of a businessman is added to my wardrobe. I need to help balance creative demands of the movie with the economic limitations. Rarely have I worked on a movie where we had more than enough time or money to get all the work done. Keeping calm in the face of chaos is another essential quality that I am called upon to exercise. With more than a hundred people often sent to some distant location to make a movie the numbers of unexpected problems that arise are sometimes endless. Some of the problems are creative and within my power to help solve. Some are economic which require negotiation and compromise and others may involve forces beyond anyone's control. Imagine torrential rain on a day we are supposed to shoot in bright sun. Imagine your lead actor wakes up with a terrible cold. Imagine the dog on a given day refuses to run when you need him to. It's all part of the fabric of making movies.

Once the shooting is completed I consult with the director during the editing process and watch the movie begin to take shape in the editing room. Again, creative input is involved as well as economic oversight and general problem-solving and nail-biting. The actual movie is soon to emerge and that is a thrilling and also a nerve-wracking experience.

I then work with the studio that is going to release the movie and try to give input into advertising and publicity. By the time the movie appears in the theaters my journey has often lasted several years. I have lived and breathed the project and at this point it's time to sit back and hope the audience enjoys the movie.

How did you become a producer?
Trevor Albert: I became a producer the old fashion way. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I got a wonderful Liberal Arts education at a University California in San Diego. After College I moved to Los Angeles and got a job working as a "gopher" for Barbara Streisand and a producer named Jon Peters. My job included Xeroxing, serving coffee, taking various pets to the groomers, and the occasional visit to the set of whatever shoot was going on. That job led me to other positions in the film world and along the way I tried to absorb as much information as I could at each subsequent job, all along reading as much as I could in search of inspiration and good stories. Eventually I had absorbed enough, read enough and worked hard enough to be able to consider myself a producer.

How did you come across the novel Because of Winn-Dixie?
Trevor Albert: I was sent the novel by an executive named Debbie Liebling at 20th Century Fox. She had bought both the rights to the novel and acquired the wonderful screenplay that Joan Singleton had written. She wanted to know if I was interested in the material and if I would consider producing it.

Why did you want to make this film?
Trevor Albert: It's all about finding a story that you love. I read the book with my two daughters, Avery, age 8, and Quinn, age 5. We all found ourselves laughing and crying during the course of our reading. The fact that we were all so moved by the book suggested to me that it was special and had a universal appeal. I also felt that because the characters were so colorful, soulful and truthful they would really be wonderful in a film.

How did you find the actor to play the part of Opal for this film?
Trevor Albert: Wayne Wang, the casting director and myself along with the studio went through an exhausting process of looking all over the country for the ideal Opal. We finally saw a young girl named Anna Sophia Robb from Denver, Colorado. She had never been in a movie before so she was truly a discovery. When she came in for an audition and started reading the lines we all realized we had found our Opal.

What was most rewarding for you in working on this film?
Trevor Albert: I loved the challenge of taking such a wonderful piece of literature and trying to translate it to film. Wayne, Joan and I all had such admiration for Kate's work that we were daunted by the task of making it into a movie. We wanted people who loved the book to experience the movie and feel somehow like the experience was a continued journey into the story, not an entirely new experience.

My sense is that we were pretty successful in keeping the spirit and feel of the book. I think the characters do feel like they stepped off the pages of the book, and now the audience gets to experience them on the big screen.

What was the most difficult aspect of working on this film?
Trevor Albert: I must say the Director of a movie often sets the tone and our director Wayne Wang is such a sensitive and graceful spirit that I found the experience mostly a pleasure. Yes, it's hard sometimes to get a dog to do exactly what you want him to do but even the animals on the movie seemed to rise to the occasion. Oh yes, there was the one scene where Otis stops playing the guitar and the entire Pet shop goes crazy. That was a pretty difficult day trying to get a bird, a monkey, a baby pig, a goat, and Winn Dixie to all listen to Wayne's directions.

What were some of your favorite books growing up?
Trevor Albert: I think James and the Giant Peach might have been my favorite book as a young reader. I also loved all of C. S Lewis' books for kids. Both he and Roald Dahl took me into such magical worlds that books became a constant companion. I discovered Call of the Wild by Jack London when I was a bit older and was transported through his works into a much more real world but no less amazing. I read kid's books constantly with my daughters and most recently enjoyed a book called Al Capone Does My Shirts by Jennifer Choldenko.

How has reading helped you as a producer?
Trevor Albert: I have vivid memories of disappearing into good books for hours at a time. Learning about people and places and new ideas I never seemed to grow tired of reading. When I got into college and was considering what sort of career I might pursue I wanted something that would keep me around books and good stories, something that would continue to enrich me and entertain me. And so I discovered that one could tell stories and explore new words through making movies. And behind every good movie was a good writer who had written a story.

Who is your favorite author?
Trevor Albert: I'd be hard pressed to pick one author as my favorite. I have great respect for anyone who has the imagination and discipline to write. Needless to say Kate DiCamillo is high on my list of contemporary children's writers. She is truly gifted.

What other book would you like to produce as a film?
Trevor Albert: I just read a book this week written by a first time writer that I loved and I would love to see it become a movie. It's not yet published so I can't give you any more details. The point is one doesn't have to be a celebrated writer to produce a piece of literature worthy of making into a movie. I think Elmore Leonard's new children's book A Coyote's in the House, which my 8-year-old daughter gave to me, would make an interesting movie. It's original and very funny.

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