The Universal Language of Producers with Stefanie Schaldenbrand

Stefanie Schaldenbrand is the executive producer at Apache, where she leads project strategy, client relations, and team management while overseeing the studio’s post-production pipeline.

Since joining the company in 2015, she has risen from producer to head of production and now to executive producer, recognised for her collaborative leadership and unwavering commitment to quality.

Stefanie has guided acclaimed work for brands like Microsoft, Taco Bell, and Airbnb, as well as notable long-form projects including Netflix’s ‘The Menendez Brothers’, Hulu’s ‘McCartney 3,2,1’, Disney+’s ‘Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman’, and Amazon’s TIFF50 opening-night film ‘John Candy: I Like Me’.

Stefanie sat down with LBB to discuss the importance of good hospitality on a daily basis in production, her route into the industry, and her most valuable resources

LBB> What first attracted you to production - and has it been an industry you’ve always worked on or did you come to it from another area?

Stefanie> What initially attracted me to production was realising the importance of hospitality daily. It was the way a smile at the door could diffuse a creative who just battled an hour’s worth of traffic, how a beautiful studio aesthetic could make a high-strung producer roam the space mindlessly for a while, or the way freshly baked cookies could lift the spirit of an entire colour suite at 4pm.

From the month I turned 16 until my first ‘real’ job, I worked in hospitality and while the hours were long and the work often underappreciated, I loved it. Along the way, I learned about people, what actions caused them to react or relax and much of what drove their behaviours and decision-making.

At the tail end of my graduate programme, I fell into a marketing career and found that I was using more of what I’d learned in my hospitality jobs than in school. I stumbled into production shortly after and it felt like everything had finally come full circle.

LBB> What was your first role in the production world and how did this experience influence how you think about production and how you grew your career?

Stefanie> My first role was in client services. I met just the right people and made the tough decision to trade a career of spreadsheets and stakeholders for a taste of the production world and a slice of humble pie. This role was a reminder that business thrives when hospitality is at the forefront and I’ve carried it with me through not only every client interaction, thank-you gift, wrap dinner, but also what could be considered a routine email or phone call.

LBB> How did you learn to be a producer?

Stefanie> The only way you truly can – osmosis. Surrounded by seasoned producers and incredible artists, I absorbed every scenario, email thread, meeting and call I was privy to, carefully noting cause and effect, both in success and failure.

LBB> A good producer should be able to produce for any medium, from film to events to digital experience. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Stefanie> A good producer can speak our universal language of budgets, schedules and team leadership, but a great producer knows they’ll never be as good as someone who has spent years learning said medium. Would you trust a lifelong editorial producer to line-produce a three-day auto shoot? A career line producer to seamlessly deliver on an Avatar-level VFX pipeline? Or, the VFX producer to agency-produce a five-day celebrity-driven soda brand campaign?

This is not to say there aren’t savants with decades of experience spanning all mediums who have the chops, but what makes a great producer is years of expertise in their medium’s technical and legal rules, regulations and nuances, which are changing rapidly now more than ever.

LBB> What do you think is the key to being an effective producer - and is it something that’s innate or something that can be learned?

Stefanie> There are many keys, but the ability to read a room is crucial. That emotional intelligence influences the way we choose to communicate across different personalities and circumstances throughout the life of a project. Those moments compound over time and can add up to be the difference between crossing a project’s finish line in celebration or defeat.

LBB> Which production project from across your career are you most proud of and why?

Stefanie> Every first project that resulted in a repeat client. It means the quality of the work, budget and timeline, combined with the way the team made them feel, was a win. You don’t give someone repeat business if the art was poor, the budget was busted and / or the energy was bad, so anytime a client comes back, it is a proud moment.

LBB> What are your personal ambitions or aspirations as a producer?

Stefanie> At this juncture in my career, my ambition is to be a true resource for others – both within my team and across the wider post-production community. I want to be the person people feel comfortable coming to when they have questions, whether they’re a fellow producer, an agency partner, or a post supervisor. There’s often an unnecessary fear around asking for help or admitting what we don’t know, and I want to break that down by being open, transparent, and approachable.

I’ve learned so much from the people who took the time to teach me, and I want to pay that forward – mentoring younger producers, sharing insights, and fostering an environment where knowledge is shared freely.

LBB> As a producer your brain must have a neverending ‘to do’ list. How do you switch off? What do you do to relax?

Stefanie> My happiest place is in the kitchen, where I swap my producer hat for a creative one. I’m also a huge sports fan; few things inspire me to be and do more than watching the greatest athletes in the world push themselves.

LBB> Producers are problem solvers. What personally fuels your curiosity and drive?

Stefanie> People. Listening to their experiences on various productions helps curate my process by shedding light on industry developments and or stopgaps. Using this information to foresee opportunities for improvement will always drive me.

LBB> What advice would you give to people who are interested in becoming a producer?

Stefanie> Meet and learn from as many people as you can from a film or commercial’s creative conception through final delivery because understanding the life of a project and the people who touch it is the key to knowing where to place the details you learn along the way.

LBB> What’s the key to a successful production-client relationship?

Stefanie> Asking each other the right questions from the first interaction, being clear with the answers and finding the common ground that will make both parties work toward the goal while maintaining respect for each other.