Andrew Dean
April 9th, 2011, 09:14 AM
I wrote a lot of this epic diatribe buried in a hearty discussion in the "helping hands" forum. After several people suggested my post would make a good first time filmmaker "sticky", I thought I'd expand on it, make it even longer (ha!) and put it into its own topic. Apologies if this is the wrong place or if my post offends.
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I'm the guy you dream of attracting to your "indy" project. I own a truck full of grip, lighting, sound and camera support gear. I am a 20 year veteran in the industry but the "hobby" and "passion" side of me really enjoys a good scrappy no-budget indy project now and then. As a rule I'm paid nicely for my time and equipment, but I am open to doing the exact same job for free if something about a project intrigues me. When I sign up for freebies, it is without any delusions I'll ever get paid. I also don't have any ego about it. I'll join your team, say "Lets do this thing" and do everything I can to do it right.
"Indy" or "Independent" used to simply mean "not a major studio project". Now it seems synonymous with "no money." When I refer to an "indy crew" I'm talking about "skilled and/or experienced people willing to work beneath their pay grade for love, passion or psychosis."
First things first, I'd like to suggest you think of your movie NOT as the collection of the work of a bunch of people on set, but as the thing you have created, honed and perfected in your head. I'm not showing up to help you make a movie. I'm there to FILM your movie. The difference is profound and has everything to do with vision and discipline on your part. If the movie is proceeding in front of me, I can put my energy into doing my job.
If you know exactly what you want - not basically, not mostly - but shot by shot exactly what you want the finished film to look like, so much so that if you could draw, you could create the graphic novel of what is in your head... then we can talk. If not, then I'm not helping you film your movie, I'm helping you figure out what your movie is. That process is SO slow, and SO inefficient and such a pointless waste of a film set that it takes all the wind out of my sails. The absolute best way to run off your crew is to have them waiting around while you "figure things out". The absolute best way to keep a crew is to have everything so organized that they spend their day doing what they agreed to be doing. Soundies are recording sound. Grips are gripping. Actors are acting. If a day goes efficiently, it goes quickly and without as much attitude. Everybody wins.
Obviously things change on set. I'm not saying you can't be flexible or even improvise when shooting. However, in order to flex efficiently without wasting time and burning out a crew, you need to have your "base vision" complete to start with. That way, there is a plan of action even when you get confused or distracted.
Thats a huge ask. Having all your crap together is a tremendous demand. But that is precisely the job you are signing up for. The reason the producer and director get their name up front is because their job is the biggest. If you just want to have some fun "playing filmmaker" then just be up front about that. Throw some zombies in the plot and you'll get people to show up for giggles. Thats a whole different thing than attracting a good indy crew.
Tips for assembling a skilled crew willing to work for less than they should:
1. Don't call me until your script is locked down, solid and awesome. Some evolution can occur on set, but if you start improvising scenes, characters and motivations, you are GUARANTEED to miss something. I'm not going to agree to do your film until I know what your movie is. So... get it on paper at the least.
2. Write a movie that doesn't suck. That seems obvious, but 99/100 scripts that are handed to me are incoherent dribble that shifts genres mid stream and at best is a lame knockoff of some other movie except with horrible dialog. If a movie is something I'd want to watch, its something I'd want to film. Sometimes I'll help somebody because a director is a really nice person, but even then, there has to be *some* hope the finished project is something I could at least show friends without a big "watch this ironically!" disclaimer.
Sareesh said it first. If you think your script is awesome, go workshop it. Show it around. Test it. It needs to flow as a story AND have believable, compelling dialog. If i'm to invest my time and energy sailing with you, make sure your treasure map is accurate. In so many cases the person pitching to me has simply grown weary of refining and revising their script and are anxious to "just start filming and sort it out then". If you don't have the energy to see the movie through as a concept, how can you possibly claim you can finish it as a film?
3. Write a movie that is reasonable and possible to shoot on our budget. Maybe you shouldn't write in that underwater battle between the robots and martian spiders? That might be obvious, but I was pitched a script that changed locations every few lines of dialog. A no-budget 15 page short that had 27 different locations, each at least 30 minutes travel from the last. To make it worse, the locations had nothing to do with the dialog. The writer decided the dialog was slow and tedious, so he wanted to fix it... by having the conversation randomly take place in lots of different places. Thats like a violation of both #2 and #3. yuck.
4. Put more time and money into attracting actors than attracting me. You can fluke a good movie with green crew. If the actors suck, the movie sucks. Period. Script first. Actors second. With those two nailed, the rest can be sorted out.
5. By the time you talk to me, you should have your acting leads fully vested and they should have done at least a dozen full length rehearsals (not readthroughs, but actual rehearsals) and the clumsy parts of the script should have been addressed and fixed and re-rehearsed.
Now, #4 might sound extreme and you can get all huffy about how i'm not a team player, but put it in the perspective of efficiency. If you and the 2-3 leads spend a solid week working out the kinks of their lines and performance, that is what, 4 people spending a week? If you go through that same process on set, that is what, 15 people plus a whole lot of gear spending a week doing the exact same thing? And on set, its not just a week. Its 2 weeks because every time we need to do another take because the actor didn't understand the script - that slows the day, loses inspiration and forces rescheduling and replanning around all the various schedules. That means more catering, more crap to sift through when editing... Rushing into the shooting stage is disrespectful of all the volunteer crew. Never dis a volunteer crew.
6. Put more energy into art direction and wardrobe than in me. Whether the movie sucks or not, the wardrobe and art direction can still be a portfolio piece for those departments. Get a good person for each of those roles and get them involved early enough and vested enough that they are able to do what they need. Those people will need thrift store budget, so you HAVE to spend money there. They can volunteer their time, but do not make them volunteer their money to buy clothes and props. A great art director can make magic out of a few hundred bucks, but they need that money to make magic.
7. Put in the time to nail down great locations. Not good, not "will do" but great. Its a huge effort, but locations that do not have major sound issues are vital. No flight path if your film is period. No french horn academy next door. No gymnasiums. Spend time on the location with the DP AND soundie and sort out what happens with lighting through the day and what sound issues arise . Schedule and plan accordingly.
I forget which movie it was, but I saw some footage of Robert Rodriguez (the master of under funded film) going through potential locations with the cast and a camcorder, doing a rough blocking and visualization of the whole film. That right there is such a fantastic idea. Figure out what you want with as little crew as possible, then bring them in once you are ready for them. If you can know exactly what you want, then you don't need to to have a huge crew spending time overshooting to give you "coverage." That could save days of shooting.
8. Do NOT lie to your crew. The moment you screw up, admit it. If you say you have permission to film somewhere, you need to have permission. If you say you've scouted the location, then by dammit, you should have stepped foot on the location before. I've lost track of how many times i've shown up to a location and the people there had no clue who we were and why we were there. I'm ready to film a movie and instead we are calling people to talk to other people to verify what somebody meant or where a key is hidden. No. no. no. no. no. no. Get all that sorted out before me and if something is iffy, let the crew know in advance. I'm willing to give up my time and energy, but not willing to get screwed. If it turns out you lied to me about something important? I'm gone. Being a team works both ways, and honestly, it needs to flow MORE from the "indy director" down than it needs to flow up. You need to respect the time and effort of the crew more than we need to respect your vision. You own the final product, so its only fair. You are asking the favor, not me. Do not lie.
9. Food. No indy film is ever "no budget". You gotta pay for food, and it needs to change in some fashion between meals. Not the same box of crackers and easy cheese sitting out all day. I'm more than happy for somebody's mom to make sammiches. I'm not asking for gourmet, just make sure we have some meals, have some meal breaks and there is drinking water and glasses aplenty. Write my name on a plastic cup and buy generic soda, thats fine. But make sure there is something.
For multiple days in a row, junk food kills momentum. At least have some of the meals "healthy". The fatty salty stuff is awesome, but makes you want a nap if the shoot goes long.
10. Money. There are decent crew out there that will work for free... but only if you spend money on 1-9. Part of why I want people to pay me is because if they are paying me by the hour or day, then they naturally start to prioritize 1-9. If you are paying me $2k/day for me and my gear, then YOU will come up with the bright idea to maybe rehearse your actors before they are on set with me and maybe double check locations and the upcoming weather. You might even decide NOT to shoot the outdoor scene in the rain because its pretty obvious it doesn't match with the rest of the footage and "we might as well shoot something since we are all ready to go" isn't a good enough reason to pay for a whole pointless day of shooting.
So probably the #1 most important lesson here is that even if you are not paying your crew, you need to structure your shoots as if you were.
Let me repeat that because it is so important: No matter what you are paying your crew, you need to structure your shoots with the same awareness and caution that you would if you were paying the $10,000/day that a proper indy film shoot might cost. Anything that might waste part of a day of full crew? Don't do that, unless its worth $2500 out of your own pocket.
Here is a related life-lesson: If you ever ask people to help you move, you need to box up all your crap BEFORE they show up. Moving all your stuff is enough of a favor. If they show up and all your stuff is out on the shelves and you don't have any boxes and haven't sorted out a moving van or even a trailer, then you have abused your friends and are a jerk. You also need to have a new apartment already rented and have a map to it. There are professional moving companies that you can pay to box it all up and bring trucks and store your stuff and unpack it. If you are asking your friends to do all that you need to spell out exactly what you are asking because "help me move my stuff" is usually a big enough favor on its own. And if you want your volunteers to stay happy? You need to measure your hideabed couch and make sure it fits in the third floor doorway before people carry it all the way up the stairs. (i wish that was an abstract lesson and not something i experienced firsthand. ugh)
The above paragraph was also an analogy, if that wasn't obvious. hehe
------------
I'm the guy you dream of attracting to your "indy" project. I own a truck full of grip, lighting, sound and camera support gear. I am a 20 year veteran in the industry but the "hobby" and "passion" side of me really enjoys a good scrappy no-budget indy project now and then. As a rule I'm paid nicely for my time and equipment, but I am open to doing the exact same job for free if something about a project intrigues me. When I sign up for freebies, it is without any delusions I'll ever get paid. I also don't have any ego about it. I'll join your team, say "Lets do this thing" and do everything I can to do it right.
"Indy" or "Independent" used to simply mean "not a major studio project". Now it seems synonymous with "no money." When I refer to an "indy crew" I'm talking about "skilled and/or experienced people willing to work beneath their pay grade for love, passion or psychosis."
First things first, I'd like to suggest you think of your movie NOT as the collection of the work of a bunch of people on set, but as the thing you have created, honed and perfected in your head. I'm not showing up to help you make a movie. I'm there to FILM your movie. The difference is profound and has everything to do with vision and discipline on your part. If the movie is proceeding in front of me, I can put my energy into doing my job.
If you know exactly what you want - not basically, not mostly - but shot by shot exactly what you want the finished film to look like, so much so that if you could draw, you could create the graphic novel of what is in your head... then we can talk. If not, then I'm not helping you film your movie, I'm helping you figure out what your movie is. That process is SO slow, and SO inefficient and such a pointless waste of a film set that it takes all the wind out of my sails. The absolute best way to run off your crew is to have them waiting around while you "figure things out". The absolute best way to keep a crew is to have everything so organized that they spend their day doing what they agreed to be doing. Soundies are recording sound. Grips are gripping. Actors are acting. If a day goes efficiently, it goes quickly and without as much attitude. Everybody wins.
Obviously things change on set. I'm not saying you can't be flexible or even improvise when shooting. However, in order to flex efficiently without wasting time and burning out a crew, you need to have your "base vision" complete to start with. That way, there is a plan of action even when you get confused or distracted.
Thats a huge ask. Having all your crap together is a tremendous demand. But that is precisely the job you are signing up for. The reason the producer and director get their name up front is because their job is the biggest. If you just want to have some fun "playing filmmaker" then just be up front about that. Throw some zombies in the plot and you'll get people to show up for giggles. Thats a whole different thing than attracting a good indy crew.
Tips for assembling a skilled crew willing to work for less than they should:
1. Don't call me until your script is locked down, solid and awesome. Some evolution can occur on set, but if you start improvising scenes, characters and motivations, you are GUARANTEED to miss something. I'm not going to agree to do your film until I know what your movie is. So... get it on paper at the least.
2. Write a movie that doesn't suck. That seems obvious, but 99/100 scripts that are handed to me are incoherent dribble that shifts genres mid stream and at best is a lame knockoff of some other movie except with horrible dialog. If a movie is something I'd want to watch, its something I'd want to film. Sometimes I'll help somebody because a director is a really nice person, but even then, there has to be *some* hope the finished project is something I could at least show friends without a big "watch this ironically!" disclaimer.
Sareesh said it first. If you think your script is awesome, go workshop it. Show it around. Test it. It needs to flow as a story AND have believable, compelling dialog. If i'm to invest my time and energy sailing with you, make sure your treasure map is accurate. In so many cases the person pitching to me has simply grown weary of refining and revising their script and are anxious to "just start filming and sort it out then". If you don't have the energy to see the movie through as a concept, how can you possibly claim you can finish it as a film?
3. Write a movie that is reasonable and possible to shoot on our budget. Maybe you shouldn't write in that underwater battle between the robots and martian spiders? That might be obvious, but I was pitched a script that changed locations every few lines of dialog. A no-budget 15 page short that had 27 different locations, each at least 30 minutes travel from the last. To make it worse, the locations had nothing to do with the dialog. The writer decided the dialog was slow and tedious, so he wanted to fix it... by having the conversation randomly take place in lots of different places. Thats like a violation of both #2 and #3. yuck.
4. Put more time and money into attracting actors than attracting me. You can fluke a good movie with green crew. If the actors suck, the movie sucks. Period. Script first. Actors second. With those two nailed, the rest can be sorted out.
5. By the time you talk to me, you should have your acting leads fully vested and they should have done at least a dozen full length rehearsals (not readthroughs, but actual rehearsals) and the clumsy parts of the script should have been addressed and fixed and re-rehearsed.
Now, #4 might sound extreme and you can get all huffy about how i'm not a team player, but put it in the perspective of efficiency. If you and the 2-3 leads spend a solid week working out the kinks of their lines and performance, that is what, 4 people spending a week? If you go through that same process on set, that is what, 15 people plus a whole lot of gear spending a week doing the exact same thing? And on set, its not just a week. Its 2 weeks because every time we need to do another take because the actor didn't understand the script - that slows the day, loses inspiration and forces rescheduling and replanning around all the various schedules. That means more catering, more crap to sift through when editing... Rushing into the shooting stage is disrespectful of all the volunteer crew. Never dis a volunteer crew.
6. Put more energy into art direction and wardrobe than in me. Whether the movie sucks or not, the wardrobe and art direction can still be a portfolio piece for those departments. Get a good person for each of those roles and get them involved early enough and vested enough that they are able to do what they need. Those people will need thrift store budget, so you HAVE to spend money there. They can volunteer their time, but do not make them volunteer their money to buy clothes and props. A great art director can make magic out of a few hundred bucks, but they need that money to make magic.
7. Put in the time to nail down great locations. Not good, not "will do" but great. Its a huge effort, but locations that do not have major sound issues are vital. No flight path if your film is period. No french horn academy next door. No gymnasiums. Spend time on the location with the DP AND soundie and sort out what happens with lighting through the day and what sound issues arise . Schedule and plan accordingly.
I forget which movie it was, but I saw some footage of Robert Rodriguez (the master of under funded film) going through potential locations with the cast and a camcorder, doing a rough blocking and visualization of the whole film. That right there is such a fantastic idea. Figure out what you want with as little crew as possible, then bring them in once you are ready for them. If you can know exactly what you want, then you don't need to to have a huge crew spending time overshooting to give you "coverage." That could save days of shooting.
8. Do NOT lie to your crew. The moment you screw up, admit it. If you say you have permission to film somewhere, you need to have permission. If you say you've scouted the location, then by dammit, you should have stepped foot on the location before. I've lost track of how many times i've shown up to a location and the people there had no clue who we were and why we were there. I'm ready to film a movie and instead we are calling people to talk to other people to verify what somebody meant or where a key is hidden. No. no. no. no. no. no. Get all that sorted out before me and if something is iffy, let the crew know in advance. I'm willing to give up my time and energy, but not willing to get screwed. If it turns out you lied to me about something important? I'm gone. Being a team works both ways, and honestly, it needs to flow MORE from the "indy director" down than it needs to flow up. You need to respect the time and effort of the crew more than we need to respect your vision. You own the final product, so its only fair. You are asking the favor, not me. Do not lie.
9. Food. No indy film is ever "no budget". You gotta pay for food, and it needs to change in some fashion between meals. Not the same box of crackers and easy cheese sitting out all day. I'm more than happy for somebody's mom to make sammiches. I'm not asking for gourmet, just make sure we have some meals, have some meal breaks and there is drinking water and glasses aplenty. Write my name on a plastic cup and buy generic soda, thats fine. But make sure there is something.
For multiple days in a row, junk food kills momentum. At least have some of the meals "healthy". The fatty salty stuff is awesome, but makes you want a nap if the shoot goes long.
10. Money. There are decent crew out there that will work for free... but only if you spend money on 1-9. Part of why I want people to pay me is because if they are paying me by the hour or day, then they naturally start to prioritize 1-9. If you are paying me $2k/day for me and my gear, then YOU will come up with the bright idea to maybe rehearse your actors before they are on set with me and maybe double check locations and the upcoming weather. You might even decide NOT to shoot the outdoor scene in the rain because its pretty obvious it doesn't match with the rest of the footage and "we might as well shoot something since we are all ready to go" isn't a good enough reason to pay for a whole pointless day of shooting.
So probably the #1 most important lesson here is that even if you are not paying your crew, you need to structure your shoots as if you were.
Let me repeat that because it is so important: No matter what you are paying your crew, you need to structure your shoots with the same awareness and caution that you would if you were paying the $10,000/day that a proper indy film shoot might cost. Anything that might waste part of a day of full crew? Don't do that, unless its worth $2500 out of your own pocket.
Here is a related life-lesson: If you ever ask people to help you move, you need to box up all your crap BEFORE they show up. Moving all your stuff is enough of a favor. If they show up and all your stuff is out on the shelves and you don't have any boxes and haven't sorted out a moving van or even a trailer, then you have abused your friends and are a jerk. You also need to have a new apartment already rented and have a map to it. There are professional moving companies that you can pay to box it all up and bring trucks and store your stuff and unpack it. If you are asking your friends to do all that you need to spell out exactly what you are asking because "help me move my stuff" is usually a big enough favor on its own. And if you want your volunteers to stay happy? You need to measure your hideabed couch and make sure it fits in the third floor doorway before people carry it all the way up the stairs. (i wish that was an abstract lesson and not something i experienced firsthand. ugh)
The above paragraph was also an analogy, if that wasn't obvious. hehe