Okay, APE, put me in my place.
I'm not trying to put you in your place, I'm not trying to be confrontational at all! I'm just presenting information (which maybe only an opinion in some cases) learnt from my experience as a long time professional, which hopefully the OP and others may find useful. I'm frequently rather blunt and undiplomatic but that's one of the attractions for me in posting here, because in my daily working life I have to be extremely diplomatic all the time, even though being right at the end of the filmmaking process means that much of my work is dealing with all the mistakes/weaknesses made earlier in the filmmaking process. I've also personally found that there's usually a lot more to be learnt from an experienced professional who is not being diplomatic than from one who is, because being diplomatic essentially means fudging the facts, the truth and/or one's opinion.
With this in mind, I'll address some of your points, even though as an experienced filmmaker yourself, I suspect you already know what I'm going to say.
Even producers start somewhere.
Agreed. Our apparent disagreement appears to be where that "somewhere" is. I contend that Producer is not a starting position, it's an ending position. In my experience, there is no such thing as a "beginning producer" or rather there is but a beginning producer already has considerable knowledge/experience. In other words, a beginning producer is not a Producer, to start with they are maybe an intern, then maybe a professional film crafts-person (say a writer, editor, actor or director), eventually progressing to maybe Supervising Producer, UPM, PM, AP or Co-Producer or, if starting as an investor, they may progress to say Co-Executive Producer. Whichever of the various routes is taken, the starting position is not Producer and by the time they are ready to start being a Producer they not only know what the basic questions are in the first place, they also have a pretty good knowledge and understanding of the answers!
A one person operation is the producer and director and writer and often DP.
You won't call then "producer" but it doesn't mean they aren't the producer.
IMO, in the vast majority of cases I wouldn't call them "producer" AND they wouldn't be a producer. There are a number of different types of producer and a beginning or amateur filmmaker may have to fulfil some of the aspects of some of those types of producer but that doesn't make them the producer. Just as someone starting their own business (on their own or with a partner) may have to fulfil some aspects of the role of CEO but they are not a CEO.
In essence, the role of director is to make a film while the role of producer, as the root of the word implies, is to make a product, a viable one. Beginner filmmakers (and amateur filmmakers, virtually by definition) are primarily concerned with making a film, not making a viable product, which IMO is a very good place to start because just making a narrative film is plenty difficult enough! Therefore, very few parts of the producer's role are of any real concern. For example, one of the responsibilities of the producer is the hiring, contracting and management of all the filmmaking personnel, a major task with very serious consequences on a commercial feature but of no concern to the beginning filmmaker who, as you point out, often is pretty much all of the filmmaking personnel! Does avoiding the responsibilities of a producer still make our beginner a producer? Does a quick phone call to a couple of mates asking for half an hour's help suddenly make our beginner a producer?
What you can't do is answer the question asked.
Explaining why a question can't be answered, why it's an inappropriate question in the first place and giving suggestions for possible next steps is answering the question, or at least is answering the question as well as I believe it can be answered.
After my first unsatisfying movie, I realize how difficult it is to make good movies, even if they are short.
With all due respect, you probably don't. Your experience so far has taught you how easy it is to make a poor movie, how difficult it is to make anything other than a poor movie and has probably given you more respect for good movies but I don't think after just one short attempt you fully realise how difficult it is to make good movies.
The public generally has a superficial understanding of filmmaking, something along the lines of: Write a story, actors learn and then perform the story in bits, cameraman films these performances, some visual effects maybe created, editor stitches performances (and VFX) together, composer adds some music, finished film, job done. Then, the audience goes to the cinema, pays their money, watches the film and thinks meh, brilliant or somewhere in between and concludes that: A good film is good because these steps have been executed competently, a brilliant film is brilliant because these steps have been executed particularly well and a meh film is meh because these steps have been executed incompetently. It's a valid and logical conclusion based on the known facts, the problem is that those known facts are superficial facts, not the actual facts! The actual facts are countless times more complex, there are many times more steps and countless fine details. Far more fine details than any one person can ever learn and all it needs is for just one or two of those fine details to be slightly off and you've probably got a meh film. In practise, even making a meh commercial theatrical feature is expensive, extremely difficult and requires teams of experienced talented professionals. Many of the things we take for granted in our everyday lives are so complex that we just don't have time to understand most of it beyond an extremely superficial level. No one person can design a CPU for example, it takes teams of boffins and each team designs just one aspect of the CPU because even a genius only has the time/capacity to learn all the fine details of one or two aspects of CPU design and of course the CPU is itself only one of the many components in a computer. Computers are relatively cheap, almost ubiquitous and so we largely take them for granted. We expect them just to work well, usually without considering the fact that just to work at all is a hugely expensive and complex miracle of modern science/technology requiring millions of man hours and countless geniuses. Filmmaking is maybe not quite as complex but the same basic principle applies, the public takes for granted the availability of good films, never really being aware of the hundreds of thousands of man hours or levels of knowledge and skill required to produce even a meh commercial film. One often sees comments on IMDB such as "how is it possible to make such a bad film?" or "the worst film I've ever seen!" when discussing well budgeted films, made by competent experienced professionals.
Becoming a filmmaker requires delving into those rabbit holes of complexity which exist beyond that superficial public understanding and many of those rabbit holes are virtually endless. I'm not trying to put you off filmmaking, quite the contrary, I'm trying to give you realistic expectations of what is achievable, without which you are very likely to become despondent and give up, even though in reality you might have the potential to be a good filmmaker. It's not realistic to expect to turn out a great film on your second attempt at making a short, even with decent funding which is itself unrealistic! Depending on what you consider "great" to be, it might be unrealistic to ever expect to turn out a great film. That doesn't mean you can't learn a lot and enjoy yourself along the way! Your survival does not depend on you making a great film, so study and practise, be hard on yourself but be realistic, don't expect too much, too soon (based on a superficial understanding of filmmaking) and ... have fun!
G