Anatomy of a Digital Media Producer
At Open Gardens w’eve talked about convergence looks like at 30,000 feet — the rise of OpenVerses, the Relevance of Film Schools or the DNA of creators who scale into studios. But I find it just as useful to drop down to the ground level.
To ask the practical, human question: what does a producer actually do in the creator economy?
That question matters, because the entertainment industry still tends to see digital as a pipeline for talent. In reality, it’s also a pipeline for producing.
And there’s no better way to see that than through the career of Scott Brown.
Scott has been at it for almost twenty years. He directed Larry King’s digital comeback. He helped Dwayne Johnson crack YouTube at his peak. He built stunts with MrBeast. He raised capital and launched his own digital studio.
If you want to know what it looks like not to be a creator but to be a producer in the digital age, Scott’s story is the perfect entry point.
I first met Scott at the end of 2024, when he reached out about a microdrama he had written and wanted to direct. He had heard about 3Pas and thought here might be synergies. I had just started getting interested in the format, so I took the meeting. We ended up producing his English-language, 90-minute series in Mexico doubling for the US. It was called "The Diamond Rose" which launched on the MyDrama app.
Producing that series with Scott was valuable — not just because of the collaboration, but because it forced us to solve the puzzle of microdramas: how to deliver them efficiently while keeping the bar high. That learning set 3Pas and our production services arm, Visceral, on a path to build our microdrama business.
But the real story was the friendship. Scott's experience in the creator economy, where verticals were just the latest piece, was interesting to me. He’d call me for business questions around his production companies and new opportunties; I’d call him for advice as we were standing up our digital slate.
Scott’s path is more than a career arc — it’s a map of the creator economy itself. He has lived through every iteration of what we now call the creator economy, long before it had a name.
Look at Scott, and you can see where the future of producing is headed, what skill legacy producers already have and which they will need to evolve.
Prior to and in the course of writing this stack, Scott and I had a series of chats about his career and the state of the industry. What follows weaves those conversations with my own perspective, mixing transcript moments with analysis.
Let’s start with…
The Wild West of Online Video: The Early Days
Scott didn’t enter digital media by design. He came out of film school in 2007, right into the writers’ strike. Hollywood was at a standstill. No jobs, no ladder to climb. He ended up at a startup called Modern Feed, where twenty people sat in a room cataloging the internet by hand.
That detour turned into his first real education. While tagging videos, he found Clark and Michael, a Michael Cera and Clark Duke web series. It wasn’t amateur work — it was a glimpse of something new.
He and his friends responded the only way you could in those days: they made one themselves. Blue Movies — a heartfelt comedy about the behind-the-scenes life of a porn studio. It hit a million views when that number mattered.
The problem was timing. In 2008, there was no real market for web series, just a handful of experiments without a business model to sustain them.
In two years he went from production assistant at the first Streamy Awards to being nominated for Best Director at the second. That’s how fast careers could swing in early digital.
From there he started bouncing around doing ancillary content — including work with Brian Robbins at Varsity Pictures, producing sketches and behind-the-scenes material for Blue Mountain State on Spike TV.
Ben: What does that mean you were doing content?
Scott: I was flown out to Montreal where they shot Blue Mountain State, and I would produce sketches and interviews… in the world of that show. I'd work with the actors like Alan Ritchson and Darin Brooks and… I did a quick thing with Denise Richards. We would make these little sketches that the showrunners were excited about.
Ben: Did you see that actually helping the show, or was it a little too ahead of its time to be effective?
Scott: I think it would have massively helped. It was ahead of its time in terms of distribution… but Spike didn’t support it like they should. We made 60 pieces of content in one summer… but instead of building out this site that allowed the content to be found, they just put it in a giant scroll… So there was no discoverability.
That distribution failure is a theme. The instincts were right. The systems weren’t there yet.
The Larry King Hustle
After Blue Mountain State, Scott was hustling — cutting reels for actors, picking up random jobs. He wasn’t making a living, but he kept going on belief. In 2010 and 2011, the feeling in digital was that those making good work would inevitably end up directing television and movies.
Scott figured if he kept creating, something would hit.
Ben: Did you at the time say “this is my career”? Or were you saying, “I’m going to pay the bills this way until I can do the next thing”?
Scott: It's always been this instinctive thing with me, that as long as I'm making work that I'm proud of… it will work itself out. When I made my first web series, there was an absolute belief that in 2010 and 2011, those of us that were good were going to be directing television and movies, and we really believed it.
The break came sideways. A producer friend working with Larry King needed a director who could make things look good on a budget.
Scott stepped in, shot a commercial with Larry. Soon he was directing Larry King Now and Politicking with Larry King, logging over 750 episodes.
Ben: That’s a big leap. Suddenly you’re directing Larry King every day.
Scott: I ended up directing about 750 episodes between Larry King Now… and Politicking with Larry King. I met the Dalai Lama twice… Robert De Niro… Martin Scorsese… all my heroes. What I learned was the more you approach talent like a normal person, they responded really well to that.
He even picked up an Emmy nomination with the team. By this point he was making a steady salary — around $80K a year — but the bigger value was the education. He was learning how to carry legacy DNA into digital environments.
And then one day, driving through Los Angeles, he checked his personal email. The subject line was just: “The Rock.”
Scott: I get this email from the manager of the Fine Brothers… He's like, "You want to do scripted, right? Well, how about doing something with an actor?” I’m like You’re referring to Dwayne Johnson?
This was Peak Dwayne. 2016.
The Rock, Baywatch and a Billions Views
Scott Brown on the right of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Studio 71 (started as a MCN in JV between Red Arrow and ProSieben1) had a deal with The Rock — significant money already spent — but they hadn’t made a single piece of content he cared about. Two months left on the contract, nothing shot. If they couldn’t deliver, Dwayne would keep the money and walk.
Scott was brought in. Everyone else pitched vlogs. He pitched cinematic sketches, parody formats — content that made sense on YouTube, not repurposed from Hollywood.
The launch worked. The first video, a fake trailer for a movie called Ascendance, ended with an anti-joke where The Rock looks into camera and says, “I should start a YouTube channel… The Rock.” It premiered at VidCon, with Lilly Singh introducing it.
The crowd went nuts.
The follow-up, The YouTube Factory, pulled in top creators of the era — Markiplier, Roman Atwood, Gigi Gorgeous. They never actually filmed with Dwayne, but Scott staged it so it felt like they did. The channel went from 110K subscribers to one million in eleven days.
Scott: I have a video of him where he goes, “I f***ing love YouTube. This is one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
They built series — The Rock Reacts, parodies, crossovers with Logan Paul and Alexandra Daddario, even David Hasselhoff to tie into Baywatch. They generated billions of views in a year.
Ben: Was the YouTube channel making money?
Scott: No, it was not making money because back then, the economics of AdSense were a lot different. The sales team at Studio 71 could not get brand deals. It was a tough thing, because he was so carved out.
It was another timing issue. The audience was there, the content was strong, but the economics weren’t ready. If Shorts or TikTok had existed, or if brand deals had been more fluid, the channel might have become a financial engine instead of just a creative milestone.
Liquid Light — Producing Meets Finance
After The Rock, Scott tried to fix the business problem directly. With a partner, he raised $2.5M from Film Finances Inc. and launched a company called Liquid Light. The idea: bankroll celebrity YouTube channels with real budgets, co-own the IP, and build the next wave of digital studios.
Ben: So you would finance the content, and then you guys would split the upside?
Scott: No, it was on the first dollar.
Ben: And were these channels making money?
Scott: The channels were not. We would make margins on the shows but they weren’t… there was a missing piece of enthusiasm.
They offered stars $500K–$1M each to launch channels, but the structure required constant posting. No celebrity could sustain that pace. They landed former NFL QB Cam Newton and pro boxer Ryan Garcia, but not the A-list talent they needed.
Debt financing made things worse. And without a true hit, the model collapsed.
MrBeast and the Train
From there, Scott joined MrBeast in North Carolina to produce segments. One of his biggest projects was the infamous train crash video.
Ben: Tell me about the train.
Scott: We dug a 30,000 cubic yard hole, hauled in a 170-ton locomotive, and staged a massive crash. The whole thing cost over $2M and got more than 200M views.
The logistics were insane — and most of the team pulling it off were under thirty. They had to scout land with porous rock that wouldn’t collapse when they dug a massive hole in it, blast a crater with explosives, and then haul in a 170-ton locomotive to stage the crash. These were Mission Impossible-sized set pieces, engineered by kids who in another era might have been PAs or production coordinators.
It was spectacle under pressure, the same job producers had always done. The only difference was distribution: the payoff wasn’t a primetime broadcast, it was a YouTube upload.
Second Rodeo and the Microdrama Era
After MrBeast, Scott co-founded Second Rodeo. The shop mixed story, strategy, and execution for both brands and talent. They ran a Super Bowl activation with a talking Cybertruck. They dove into microdramas, which Scott discovered in 2024 as a whole new lane for short-form scripted content.
At one point they managed Perplexity’s social campaigns, building a seven-person team covering logistics, budgets, thumbnail design, editing. Everyone was fluent in creator culture and platforms.
Ben: What was that team like?
Scott: They were part think tank, part Avengers. They helped Perplexity with significant growth before Perplexity decided to bring this in-house.
What he meant by Avengers was that each person brought a different superpower — one ran operations, another was a data specialist, several were editors, and one of those editors could also handle VFX in After Effects. But the common thread was fluency in internet culture. They weren’t just technicians; they were creative, platform-native problem-solvers.
But even with a team like that — and real results — Perplexity eventually decided to do it themselves. That’s the catch: build a good system, and sooner or later the client absorbs it. That tension — creating value only to be replaced by it — is part of the freelance producer’s reality in digital.
What Producing Means in the Right Now
When Scott talks about producing today, the main point is that the job has no fixed definition. A producer for a million-subscriber channel doesn’t do the same work as one for MrBeast. Titles are elastic. What matters is problem-solving.
Ben: In legacy producing, there were slightly clearer paths — work your way up through development or through physical production. What’s the path now for someone leaving school who wants to be a producer but not a creator?
Scott: Even if you don’t want to be a creator, start creating. Work in the role you want — producing, directing, whatever. In digital, you can become a producer quickly. Get reputations in. Hollywood-trained producers know budgets; digital-trained ones know hacks. They develop unevenly — like a video game character with maxed-out skills in one area and gaps in others.
At MrBeast, some of the best producers were 18-year-olds who hadn’t finished college. They weren’t polished, but they could solve problems. That’s what mattered.
Scott came out of film school thinking he’d direct movies and television. Instead, he found himself pulled into digital. That detour became his career. And just like Scott, who eventually circled back to directing his first microdrama series, the industry as a whole is circling toward the same convergence.
As Open Gardens has observed, so has Scott: the lines between legacy and digital are starting to blur.
Ben: If I’m a legacy producer with 20 years in film/TV, how do I plug into this world?
Scott: Start with YouTube Jobs and Roster. I hired an EP from Ellen through Roster. More creators are open to traditional hires now. But you need a beginner’s mind. Learn their systems before imposing yours. What works for Warner Bros. may not work for a YouTuber from North Carolina.
Scott mentions Netflix’s new deal with Mark Rober. YouTube rolling out its episodic structure. SAG is drafting contracts for YouTube scripted content.
Scott: The walls between digital and traditional are disappearing. It's what you write about in your substack. Anyone from legacy should start getting digital reps in now. It’s all going to become one ecosystem.
The Great Convergence, as I like to call it… Neo becomes the One.
The DNA of Producing in a Digital Age
At its core, producing hasn’t changed. Scott’s path shows the same fundamentals as legacy producing:
Storytelling: Whether it’s a comedy web series or a Pokémon parody with Dwayne Johnson, the craft is still about finding the emotional hook.
Talent management: He directed 750+ episodes with Larry King and learned what every producer learns — treat big names like human beings and they’ll give you more.
Execution under pressure: Moving a 170-ton locomotive across Texas for a MrBeast stunt is just another version of what line producers have been doing forever: turning impossible logistics into spectacle.
The overlap is real. A digital media producer still needs taste, organizational muscle, and the ability to get talent to trust them.
But the job requires skills legacy media never trained for:
Platform fluency: Scott knew how to cut YouTube to fit the culture. Launching The Rock’s channel wasn’t about repurposing Hollywood polish — it was about elevating YouTube on YouTube’s terms.
Audience literacy: He learned early that success comes from listening to where audiences actually are, not where you think they should be. That instinct — follow the audience, then lead them — is core to producing in the open garden.
Creative + business duality: With Liquid Light, Scott tried to finance celebrity YouTube channels. The deals didn’t always work, but he was ahead of the curve in understanding that producers now have to be entrepreneurs, dealmakers, and marketers — not just creatives.
Speed & adaptability: A million views on a web series in 2010 was life-changing. Today it’s table stakes. The ability to pivot with formats — from long-form to shorts to microdramas — is the difference between relevance and irrelevance.
The entertainment industry still misreads the creator economy as a talent pipeline. What Scott’s career proves is that it’s a producing pipeline. The job is no longer about just delivering a finished product. It’s about:
Designing formats that scale across platforms.
Creating content ecosystems instead of one-off projects.
Bridging celebrity, creator, and brand cultures.
In other words, the digital media producer is the connective tissue of the new entertainment system.
And timing runs through all of this. Too early with web series. Too early with celebrity YouTube. But now the timing is different. The platforms, the audiences, and the economics have finally caught up with what he’s been building all along.
Scott Brown isn’t an anomaly. He’s the prototype. And that’s a good thing. It means there’s now a visible path — a creative roadmap — for how producing evolves in this new environment.
Legacy producers don’t need to abandon their slates. But most of those slates have already been reduced.
The smarter move is balance: keep the legacy projects alive while taking on creator-driven gigs. Because it’s all going to converge anyway.
Peruse Scott’s company webpage at: www.oursecondrodeo.com