Episode 9 Daniel Smith Executive Producer/CEO at Daneil Smith Productions Show Reel

People are Dan Smith’s business—specifically, entertainment
people. As creator and producer of Fox Backstage Pass, his goal
isn’t just to get the biggest celebrities onto his weekly
entertainment program: it’s to get those stars to look at what he
can offer and definitively say, “Yeah, let’s do that.”


It was Smith who leveraged his experience as a former U.S. Air
Force public relations superintendent to get Will Smith (no
relation) on a Blackhawk helicopter ride from Nishi Azabu to
Yokota Air Base and back to promote I Am Legend in 2007. At the
time Smith was producing entertainment segments for Japanese
networks with his independent Access Television LLC, and the
stunt caught the attention of Fox.


Smith subsequently got the principal cast of 2012’s Battleship
onto an actual U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, and when Tom Cruise
came to promote Edge of Tomorrow, the Japanese distributor
naturally approached him to find out what he could do to help
promote the film.


The feather in his cap was when the promoter for Michael Jackson
himself sought Smith out to cover what would have been the King
of Pop’s final Japanese tour. “That’s when I started thinking,
oh, maybe I’m kind of successful at this,” Smith says.


It’s that variety that keeps Smith going. “I get up every day
excited that I am never going to have the same day—never,” he
says. “It’s never going to repeat itself. That in itself just
gets me charged up to go out there and kick some ass. I love that
aspect about my job, and I love that aspect about my programs.”


Tune in to hear Dan's prospective on business and what keeps him
motivated on his day to day.