Film Crew Size

[gustavius smith]

I have produced a 16mm short and had a crew and cast of about 25 people. In New York I get the opportunity to see crews on the street and to be frank I see a lot of guys with bulging stomachs standing around. It's not a pretty sight. I really want to produce my feature with a small cast. Yes I won't have loads of money for a crew but at the same time I despise waste and large crews I don't think it's good for creativity. I would prefer to keep a small crew in return for an extended shooting schedule of three or even four weeks for a 90 page script. Especaially since we will be shooting out of the country. I would appreciate if any of you can share your small crew experiences on independent productions. Here is what I had in mind for mine, a drama, nothing special going.

 

DP/Camera Operator

AC

2nd AC

 

Director/Producer

Asst Director

Scipt Supervisor

 

Sound Mixer

Boom Operator

PA/Cable Puller

 

Gaffer

Grip

PA (Best Boy)

 

Art Director

Costume

Makeup

Property Master

PA (Art Department)

PA (art Department)

 

Production Manaager

Production Asst

 

 

That's already 20 not including the cast. Which won't be more than five people on most of the days. I think this can work. Think drama like, In the Bedroom, Leaving LAs Vegas, Vera Drake, small movies. What do you think. Can it even be smaller?

 

Gustavius Smith

NY NY

Edited October 27, 2006 by gustavius smith

[Chance Shirley]

> Can it even be smaller?

 

Sure it can be smaller. For 16mm stuff, I like a crew of 8 or so.

 

1. DP/Operator/Gaffer/Electrician

2. AC/Gaffer/Electrician

 

3. Sound Mixer

4. Boom Operator/Cable Puller

 

5. Art Director/Costume/Prop Master

 

6. Director

7. Producer/Script Supervisor

 

I don't worry about Makeup unless it's effects makeup. If that's the case...

 

8. Effects Makeup

 

Keep in mind, these 8 people have to be willing to work really hard. And everybody who isn't busy becomes a PA for everybody who is.

[gustavius smith]

> Can it even be smaller?

 

Sure it can be smaller. For 16mm stuff, I like a crew of 8 or so.

 

1. DP/Operator/Gaffer/Electrician

2. AC/Gaffer/Electrician

 

3. Sound Mixer

4. Boom Operator/Cable Puller

 

5. Art Director/Costume/Prop Master

 

6. Director

7. Producer/Script Supervisor

 

I don't worry about Makeup unless it's effects makeup. If that's the case...

 

8. Effects Makeup

 

Keep in mind, these 8 people have to be willing to work really hard. And everybody who isn't busy becomes a PA for everybody who is.

 

Thanks for your reply. I felt like not having a production manager was a real set back. I found myself worrying that the AC didn't eat meat, and losing sleep because I had to get coffee. Every question just came to me.

[Chance Shirley]

> I felt like not having a production manager was a real set back.

 

That's the kind of stuff I usually let the producer take care of. The trick is to figure out everything that needs to get done, then figure out who on the crew can/wants to do it. Also, while the 8-man thing usually works for me, sometimes I'll add a man or two, and sometimes I'll work with even less. It all depends on what needs to get done on a particular day.

[Guest]

Holy smokes a crew of 25!!

 

I just wrapped a 35mm shoot with a crew of 8.

 

Me: Director/DP/Operator

 

1st AD.

 

1st AC

 

Gaffer

 

Best Boy

 

Audio Mixer

 

Boom Op

 

FX Make Up.

 

That's it, go!

 

I got top people and paid them all full day rates, same as they'd get on a "big" shoot. I'd much rather have a crew of a few real pros than a bunch of greenies.

 

On selected days I brought in some extra specialist people i.e. steady cam op, creature FX supervisor, wolf handlers, etc.

 

R,

[Kevin Zanit]

A lot depends on what you are shooting. If it is just talking heads in an apartment for the entire shoot then you can get away with a smaller crew.

 

Personally, I like to have the right sized crew for the job. That way things happen fast and no one is getting killed because there are not enough skilled hands to do the work.

 

My problem with the mentality you have of not wanting a big crew is that when we do have a small crew, and your in a jam with time because of some performance issues, and then I need time to light the scene properly, I get comments from the director or producers like "Is there anything I can do to help speed things up? I?ll move poop, etc." as if grip/ electric work is some unskilled thing that any idiot can do. My typical answer is "Yeah, pay for the number of guys I originally asked for".

 

After going through that over the years, I finally just lay it out right off the bat that this is the size crew we need (after talking to my department heads), and if you cut me down from this, then I can not guarantee that we will move as fast as you want. Most experienced production people understand this.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Hal Smith]

I got top people and paid them all full day rates, same as they'd get on a "big" shoot. I'd much rather have a crew of a few real pros than a bunch of greenies.

Seems to me that you too have learned the great truth that the difference between a Jack and a Master of a Trade/Profession is that the Master will create solutions quickly, economically, and with style. The Master's improvised gags and kludges work, the Jack just uses a bigger hammer.

[gustavius smith]

Holy smokes a crew of 25!!

 

I just wrapped a 35mm shoot with a crew of 8.

 

Me: Director/DP/Operator

 

1st AD.

 

1st AC

 

Gaffer

 

Best Boy

 

Audio Mixer

 

Boom Op

 

FX Make Up.

 

That's it, go!

 

I got top people and paid them all full day rates, same as they'd get on a "big" shoot. I'd much rather have a crew of a few real pros than a bunch of greenies.

 

On selected days I brought in some extra specialist people i.e. steady cam op, creature FX supervisor, wolf handlers, etc.

 

R,

 

Was this a feature?

[Michael Collier]

I have produced a 16mm short and had a crew and cast of about 25 people. In New York I get the opportunity to see crews on the street and to be frank I see a lot of guys with bulging stomachs standing around. It's not a pretty sight. I really want to produce my feature with a small cast. Yes I won't have loads of money for a crew but at the same time I despise waste and large crews I don't think it's good for creativity. I would prefer to keep a small crew in return for an extended shooting schedule of three or even four weeks for a 90 page script. Especaially since we will be shooting out of the country. I would appreciate if any of you can share your small crew experiences on independent productions. Here is what I had in mind for mine, a drama, nothing special going.

 

DP/Camera Operator

AC

2nd AC

 

Director/Producer

Asst Director

Scipt Supervisor

 

Sound Mixer

Boom Operator

PA/Cable Puller

 

Gaffer

Grip

PA (Best Boy)

 

Art Director

Costume

Makeup

Property Master

PA (Art Department)

PA (art Department)

 

Production Manaager

Production Asst

That's already 20 not including the cast. Which won't be more than five people on most of the days. I think this can work. Think drama like, In the Bedroom, Leaving LAs Vegas, Vera Drake, small movies. What do you think. Can it even be smaller?

 

Gustavius Smith

NY NY

 

If you are looking to minimize crew even further, I would push sound into one person (especially with todays modern mini-disk or flash card recorders that are really one button, after you set the levels.) they can keep the recorder around their neck in an audio pack, which means there will be no cable runs to bother with (saving time).

 

You could have a 1st AC with no second. Its tricky but it works. DP can op, 1st handles camera reports and loading, along with focus pulling. 2d would be nice, but if your looking to minimize crew, thats a good place to look to.

 

For something this small you could combine grip into the gaffers job (this may slow things down a bit though) if there are no complicated rigging requirements.

 

If you find the right person, makeup and wardrobe can combine. I have always outlined the 'day' in the shooting script, then with the actress find costume for each day. Then on set its easy to call 'day 4' or 'day 5' and compare her dress to a poloriod.

 

Just some ideas. Theres always room to cut, but each cut will have a price, so its really how you want to weigh those desicions. I would definatley cut two jobs from sound though (sound is easiest to fix if theres an on-set problem. No quick ADR fix for the wrong costume or light). Let me know when your accepting applications for DP, I would love to apply again.

[Kevin Zanit]

Another common issue I see with low-budget crews:

 

A gaffer is not an electric. There is ONE gaffer on a set who is in charge of a best boy and a crew of electrics. You would almost never have more than one gaffer on set (you can have a pre-rigging gaffer), thus referring to your electrics as gaffers is incorrect terminology (and a pet peeve of mine and many people I know who work in these departments).

 

A key grip is the head of a best boy grip and then a team of grips.

 

On a small shoot you can sometimes have the gaffer double as key grip, though this usually is a terrible idea. Most gaffers I know would never consider doing the job of a key grip because it is a completely different department, with a different skill set (it is like asking someone in sound department to also work in camera).

 

If you are in a bind as far as crew size goes, an okay solution is to have a key grip and gaffer who are in charge of a "swing" crew that handle grip and electric duties.

 

But once again, when you change the industry standard crew structure, you will find your mileage will vary. Sometimes it works out, but usually things move slower and the quality of work suffers.

 

Kevin Zanit

[Douglas Hunter]

I think Kevin really hit it on the head. The question of what does the scene, or shoot require is definately the starting point.

 

I LOVE working with a tiny crew (for the reasons you mention) but I can get away with it because of the kinds of projects I do and the skill of the people I work with.

 

People who are more resourcefull and have broad knowledge are most helpfull in these situations. Its a personal choice but I like knowing that if there is a problem both my sound guy and my producer can lend a hand gripping, and are more than willing to do so. At heart their identity is "film maker" not "producer" or "sound mixer". so they have a very honest "what ever it takes" approach to their work.

[Max Jacoby]

Personally, I like to have the right sized crew for the job.

I'm with Kevin on this. Cutting people will inevitably slow you down. Often people who try to save too much money up front only end up paying even more down the road.

[Thom Stitt]

I'm a huge fan of small crews. Coincidentally, I'm also not a fan of being around big-budget movie sets. When I see a hundred trailers circling four blocks of the city, two hundred people standing around with nothing to do, and a tiny little scene being shot involving a couple of people having chat, clearly being filmed in standard over the shoulder coverage... Oh man. It just makes my soul ache.

 

As far as quality goes, I'll point to Kubrick on this one - He loved working with extremely small crews of hugely talented people. This was mentioned - fewer pros versus more greenhorns - I think it's a great way to work.

 

I think this forum's going to make it clear that this really isn't for everybody. As long as you have a hands-on DP who's into this kind of shooting - who's got a really tight-knit, very small swing crew of people who can work together like clockwork, then I don't think the lighting will suffer at all. I've seen this go both ways - I've seen small crews fail. People working on a film they didn't care too much about, who were pretty green, and the movie definitely suffered, with setups being dropped because of time lost.

 

I've also seen the opposite - A tiny group of people (crew of ten to eleven plus cast) where everything just works. Those are my favorite shooting experiences. I'll take the intimate route any day of the week.

 

Let me point to Martin Scorsese now, who's planning to depart (no pun) from the studio system and make smaller-budget indie films from now on. I know this is because of creative freedom over crew size, but we all read the ASC article on The Departed, in which a tiny kitchen scene was being filmed with a skeleton crew on location - while outside the house, an army of crew people waited under tents with nothing to do.

[Bob Hayes]

I have produced a 16mm short and had a crew and cast of about 25 people. In New York I get the opportunity to see crews on the street and to be frank I see a lot of guys with bulging stomachs standing around. It's not a pretty sight. I really want to produce my feature with a small cast. Yes I won't have loads of money for a crew but at the same time I despise waste and large crews I don't think it's good for creativity. I would prefer to keep a small crew in return for an extended shooting schedule of three or even four weeks for a 90 page script. Especaially since we will be shooting out of the country. I would appreciate if any of you can share your small crew experiences on independent productions. Here is what I had in mind for mine, a drama, nothing special going.

Gustavius Smith

NY NY

 

Bob?s longest rant yet.

 

I must admit I was really offended by your initial posting. And there were several elements to it which showed a high level of arrogance and ignorance. When I hear someone say that they look at a film crew and see a bunch of people standing around it shows they don?t have a clue how films are made. It?s like watching a baseball game and seeing it as a bunch of people standing around doing nothing. They are waiting for when they are needed. And if they weren?t there when they were needed you would loose then game. On a picture, even ones with budgets as small as a quarter of a million dollars, you can?t afford to wait around for the key grip to run back to the truck to get an apple box.

 

You mentioned ?bulging stomachs? as if it was some sort of symbol of lazy do nothing folks. Those ?bulging stomachs? are more probably a result of thousands of hours of working on film sets eating pizza as a second meal. And those thousands of hours translates into a crew who is fast and experienced and will insure you get the film you want.

 

Anyway since I got that off my chest I?ll answer your question. Sure you can make some films with a small crew. If it is well thought out and is the type of project that fits contained film making. If it has a good cast dedicated to working in bohemian conditions with crews that aren?t performing at the highest level. Even if you have a great crew if they are understaffed they will often look clueless because it is easy to become overwhelmed. This results in a high level of stress on the set which isn?t conducive to good film making. Realize films like ?In the Bedroom? or ?Leaving Los Vegas? felt like small films they had a lot of resources available to them. ?In the Bedroom? had a 2 Million dollar budget and an 80 person crew. ?Leaving Los Vegas? had a 4 Million dollar budget and an 80 person crew and that was ten years ago. Even on small labors of love like these the cast is going to want trailers and motor homes which mean huge transportation costs.

 

First of all you mentioned you?d exchange a large crew for a longer schedule like three weeks. Hmmmm. If you shoot six day weeks that?s 18 days. That?s five pages a day. So you are looking at a pretty challenging page count. You will have to move very fast to get the director and actors time to do the scenes they way you want. I?m pretty fast and I can pull that off but I need a minimal crew to do it.

 

Your biggest weakness is in your grip electric crew. One Gaffer and one Key Grip are just enough guys in each department to tell the DP they can?t do it. That is enough crew to set up a couple of small lights and a couple of flags. If you don?t mind your film pretty much shot in available light and your actors looking like they are in a home movie this may work out for you. It is really difficult to do anything that looks like a professional film with out three grips and three electrics. Many of the tasks asked from G and E take three guys to perform. Cabling from a generator to set, flying a 12 x 12, and rigging lights, are very man power intensive. It is the rigging in and wrapping out where these guys earn their money. It usually takes from 1.5 to 2.5 hours for a three man crew to arrive at a set and get it ready for shooting. It usually takes 1 to 2 hours to wrap out a typical small movie set. Even if your guys bust their asses and get you going at the end of your 16 hour day two guys and a PA are going to be looking at a lot of long slow lonely wrap time.

 

You also seem really light in the PA department. The art department Pas and art director will probably be off set picking up set dressing or returning set dressing. That leaves you with no one to do the myriad of things PAs do. There will be no one to get the cast and bring them to the set when you are ready. No one to pick up Starbuck?s when the star needs it. No one to talk to the guy with the lawn mower down the street.

 

The tough thing about film making is that it takes a lot of extra money and a lot of extra people and equipment to make small gains in speed and quality. Like wise going in the other direction (cheaper) you have to cut a huge amount of quality to gain small savings.

[Guest]

Was this a feature?

 

Yes 96 page feature on 35mm.

 

Now my qualifiers, I shot the entire film in one big location. This meant there was no loading and unloading of gear on a daily basis, there was no moving of the crew. All dressing rooms, offices, washrooms, and dept rooms, all under one roof. We showed up each day and went straight to work, no fussing about. Also, we where never delayed by weather, wind, loss of day light, etc. 100% of the film was under our control.

 

The entire movie was mapped out scene-by-scene and each scene planned into a specific location at the facility which was coded and the code corresponded with the facility schematics. This meant that there where zero delays for lighting set ups, the gaffer was always two scenes ahead of us. We just pulled into the next spot and rolled camera, no delays.

 

Since we where shooting in a 160 year old building there was no need for an art director since the facility was already art directed and could not be changed any way, due to heritage site regulations. And obviously no need for things like a location manager.

 

So I got away with a small group of pros, because on this particular shoot we designed the film around the set, and it worked.

 

Obviously with multiple locations and exterior shots that require lighting, you would need a bigger crew.

 

I decided to put the money into 35mm, rather than a big crew, and have to settle for HD.

 

R,

[Dan Salzmann]

Bob made some interesting points about having enough manpower for the job at hand. Personally I like crews that are on the smaller side but realistic.

Watching inexperienced PA's struggling with a 12x12 is a drag.

It is annoying when there are too few people working on set decoration and art direction thus slowing down the lighting process.

Also when there are "the producers nephews, nieces, neighbor's kids etc"doing their first PA job and unnecessarily squawking away on walkie talkies because this gives them some kind of ego stroke and the 1st AD is nervous about telling those people to zip it because it is the producer that cuts the cheques.

Streamlined, experienced crews that are just the right size are the order of the day along with PREPERATION.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Much as I agree that lots and lots of people are the ideal, I don't quite take the exception to the idea that Mr. Hayes does. If you break this down far enough, it always comes down to "do you want to shoot it or not", and some productions are perfectly happy to give up the Hollywood gloss in order to... you know... get shot.

 

And yes, at the absolute top end of production, you want people waiting until they're needed, but it does genuinely get quite wasteful.

 

I agree in an ideal world, but it's important to make it clear that not every production wants or needs a thousand people standing around.

 

Phil

[timHealy]

Let me point to Martin Scorsese now, who's planning to depart (no pun) from the studio system and make smaller-budget indie films from now on. I know this is because of creative freedom over crew size, but we all read the ASC article on The Departed, in which a tiny kitchen scene was being filmed with a skeleton crew on location - while outside the house, an army of crew people waited under tents with nothing to do.

 

Ah so thats why Scorcese is shooting a behind the scenes Rollong Stones concert with 17 cameras in New York at the Beacon Theatre during the past week in conjunction with a performance for Bill Clintons 60th birthday party. There must be 200 people on the crew. They must have 50 camera assistants alone.

 

Best

 

Tim

[Andy_Alderslade]

In New York I get the opportunity to see crews on the street and to be frank I see a lot of guys with bulging stomachs standing around. It's not a pretty sight. I really want to produce my feature with a small cast. Yes I won't have loads of money for a crew but at the same time I despise waste and large crews I don't think it's good for creativity.

 

Of course if you looked at this from the opposite point of view:

 

Those crew members 'standing around' may often be waiting for an unprepaired director to make a decision or perhaps a director or producer are insisting on shooting an unecessary amount of coverage.

 

Those 'bulging stomaches' may be the results of eating unhealthy food caused by inexperenced producers or a lack of funds to pay for balanced meals. Those bulging stomaches may also be caused by eating those unhealthy foods in the middle of the night/early morning as so many scripts require extensive night shoots. Plus those bulging stomaches may also be the result of the fact that even a complete 'fitness freak' will not have the will to go down the gym for an hour after a 14/15 hour day of shooting.

 

 

So I guess your point about using a small crew may be fine for your case; if you want to keep things low profile, let acting take priority, not worry to much about attaining a perfect sense of visual/audio quality (in the classical term).

 

However if you want everything you will accept the way things are, and that they are like that for a reason.

 

But it comes to a matter of choice, at one end you have the perfectionists David Lean or Kubrick and at the other you have your Francois Truffauts or Michael Winterbottoms who are more interested in shooting a more raw humanity.

 

Its your choice where on the scale you want to be, but how you work will affect what you achieve.

[timHealy]

I basically agree with kevin and bob wholeheartedly.

 

You need the right amount of people for the job you are doing. If you don't have the right amount of people, you won't finish your work and/or what work you do get done, may be comprimised because you where more worried about simply getting the shots done rather than paying attention to the performances and your coverage. Or perhaps you won't have time to take care of a sound problem, then in post you'll have to spend tons of money to do ADR.

 

Having done my share of no budget, low budget, and high budget films I can tell you one thing. Those lazy people with buldging stomachs doing nothing would love to be doing something else. (I don't have a bulging stomach but if I would rather be at home working on my own projects) Films take time and not everyone is working at the same time. Things have to be done in an orderly manner so one person may not be able to do their job because some one is in the makeup trailer or the electricians can't rig lights until the grips put in a truss, etc etc. Two of the biggest time wasters on a set are actors director rehearsals (where they need quiet so many people can't work) and lighting. So while it may appear to you that not nothing is being done. You could be more wrong.

 

And actually perhaps when people are hanging around outside of a set perhaps most of the work is done and they are shooting inside.

 

Most of my day working as an electrician is watching and waiting for the upper echelon to figure out what their shots are and how the work is going to procede. When you try to second guess them you get ahead of yourself and you wind up doing double work and putting equipment in your shots. Once a shot is decided you can launch into your work and if you have the right crew size and they all know what they are doing, then it gets done very quickly.

 

Just one more rant: Before you criticize what kind of shape people are in, consider that people who work in film say 50 weeks a year, don't exactly have time to go to the gym or work out regularly because of the length of the days they are required to work by producers. I am working on a job now where I have to be at work at 5 am every morning and I get home about 8 pm. I simple cannot get up any earlier than the 3:30 or 4 am I am already waking up and go lift weights. By the time I get home I collapse and have to be in bed by 10 pm or I can't function the next day. My girlfriend tries to get me in bed at 9 pm and cannot believe hoe little sleep I get and still seem to function. And with that consider that the teamsters on my job have to pick up their trucks about the time I am getting up. And they are returning their vehicles about the time I get home. If I am getting 5 hours of sleep a night they are lucky to be getting 2 or 3 in their owns beds at home.

 

Best

 

Tim

Edited October 28, 2006 by timHealy

[Bob Hayes]

I am the kind of guy who really is excited by doing as much as I can with as little as I can. I am constantly trying to get my packages down to the minimum truck size. Trying to change my lighting and camera style so fewer guys can achieve what we need by working smart and fast. This year I shot two mini DV television pilots. I shot with two cameras, me and one or two operators, one soundman, one gaffer, one key grip, and one swing. We shot 14 pages in one sound stage location on multiple sets in 14 hours. I also shot a couple of one day short films. So I?m not saying it can?t be done. And the closer you can get by with available light and gritty realism the better. However, I would not have attempted this in 16mm, 35mm, or even HD.

 

A lot of big film makers are really excited over the idea of the minimal crew and just shooting on the fly. But I must say when you work with these ?Big Fish? in a ?Small Pond? environment they bring their ?Big Pond? style and expectations. They want the long dolly movies and they expect to shoot up against bright windows and not see a silhouette. They want the actors to look great and they want the scenes to look moody. Maybe the new generation of film makers who are growing up looking at ?U Tube? instead of ?Lawrence of Arabia? will have a different standard of what excites them.

[David Mullen ASC]

The size of the crew just depends on the expectations of the type of work that the director wants to accomplish in the time allotted. Yes, it would be wonderful if there was a magic trick that increased the size of the crew suddenly every time a really complex and time-consuming set-up occurred, and then had them dissappear when they weren't needed, but it doesn't work that way.

 

Few of us even working on bigger shows feel that the crew has gotten too big for the work because generally the line producer / UPM is always trying to keep things tight -- "do you really need a second camera and crew for Tuesday?" "Do you really need two more people for that night exterior on Wednesday?" etc.

 

Now on a smaller budget project, it is easier to tell a director "look, we don't have the manpower to light several blocks of this location for your planned Steadicam shot... and there's not enough light to not light it... we have to find another solution..." Or "I warned you that once we lost the light on this location, we didn't have the resources to recreate sunlight on a large scale... we have to shoot tighter now that we've lost the light."

 

These sorts of discussions happen on every shoot, but happen more often when working on a low budget with an ambitious director who is trying to make the movie look big-budget.

 

I did one feature in HD with one AC and two people doing grip & electric, and another with three PA's, one doing focus, one holding the boom, and one to help me move the three lights I had. And I've done 35mm features with pretty tiny crews. But when you set-out to work that way, you just have to know your limitations. If you are going to work with a generator, for example, and several large lights, you know that two guys are not going to be adequate, if you are going to be rigging to a process trailer or putting a light on a condor crane or building a large camera crane, again, you don't want to be understaffed unless you feel like losing three hours waiting for a set-up. And you don't want to be unsafe either trying to raise a 20'x20' silk in the wind without enough people to safety it.

 

You also have to consider that someone like Kubrick could work with a small crew because he spent many months rigging his sets to allow that, and he spent many months shooting his movies, and he had a lighting style that relied a lot on pre-set, pre-rigged practical lighting. That doesn't work for every type of movie nor is a long shoot possible, especially if the schedule is based on actor or location (or time of year) considerations and is not luxurious.

 

All of this comes down to the script, what it requires, and how the director wants to shoot it. You write a scene with two hundred school children all dressed in school uniforms, and they have dramatic scenes to act in, not just are background, then you know you'll need enough people in the right departments to handle that on the shooting day. I remember this call sheet from "Lawrence of Arabia" that listed one morning as needing 1000 extras with 1000 horses, 1000 swords and rifles, etc.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I think that deciding who you want to hire or not hire on a day by day basis is pretty unfair to crew as well.

 

"Oh," they say, "We want you Monday, Wednesday and Friday," and of course you get three days pay, but what're you supposed to do, find two one-dayers or a magic client who's willing to hire you on Tuesday and Thursday? Retaining crew in these circumstances is... only reasonable, to some extent. Or be willing to have them depping for one another a lot.

 

Phil

[timHealy]

Hi,

 

I think that deciding who you want to hire or not hire on a day by day basis is pretty unfair to crew as well.

 

"Oh," they say, "We want you Monday, Wednesday and Friday," and of course you get three days pay, but what're you supposed to do, find two one-dayers or a magic client who's willing to hire you on Tuesday and Thursday? Retaining crew in these circumstances is... only reasonable, to some extent. Or be willing to have them depping for one another a lot.

 

Phil

 

with that kind of question ("We want you Monday, Wednesday and Friday") one could reply

 

"i'm sorry, i'm already booked for those days"

 

best

 

tim

[David Mullen ASC]

"Day players" as they are called here, is nothing unusual or unfair even. You can't possibly hire the maximum number of people needed for every type of set-up for the entire shoot. Let's say that 90% of the script takes place in a small room with two people, but then there is a couple of night exterior scenes that need a lot of lighting. Well, you aren't going to hire five extra grips & electricians, whatever, for the whole show just for those couple of days when they are needed.

 

It may be different if you are shooting in a remote location as opposed to in a major production city. When going far away, you normally take more equipment and crew for those days when they are needed because they can't be found locally.

 

For example, on some TV shows, there is an "overlap" of one day between the previous episode and the next one which requires extra crew people to handle two shoots going on simultaneously. But it still works out to be cheaper than adding a day to each episode because these are generally lightly scheduled days (pick-ups and small scenes) and certain departments can be the same (one caterer, for example.)

 

It is standard operating procedure to breakdown the script & budget into a certain number of "extra man days" to handle unusually large-scale scenes, often night exteriors, but also situations where you need a wrap or prep crew in order to stay on schedule. For example, halfway in your schedule may be a move to a soundstage that realistically needs three days of rigging of lights to be ready to shoot, so obviously you don't shut down production for three days just to be able to let your grip & electric crew light the sets, you hire a rigging crew to come in.

 

Here in Los Angeles, there are a lot of people who do commercials, for example, and are available for a day or two of extra work between jobs.

 

The only unfair thing really is to book people for a job and then drop it or push the dates, because they may have turned down work thinking they had a job for that day.