Cinema Advanced | Filmmaking Tips

It’s your first film, you’re under the gun and have to get things done. Money is disappearing by the second. The actors are getting antsy (or possibly drunk). You look up into the sky and scream…”Where the hell is everybody?”. Sound familiar? You need to learn how to find a good crew.

Finding a good crew isn’t impossible, in fact its probably not nearly as hard as you might believe. Paying for crew members certainly helps, but it doesn’t solve the problem completely. And some of you can’t afford to pay the crew so you’ll have to just live with what you got, right? Well, maybe but probably not. There are, in fact, ways to find great crew members, who are often willing to work for free. And the most beautiful thing is, once you’ve found a good crew your troubles are practically over since you can stick with them over and over.

Where to find film crew members
Well…first things first…where not to find crew: your non film making friends . If you’re friends are filmmakers like you, its fine, but absolutely do not beg friends who are not filmmakers unless they are you’re absolute best friend who would take a bullet for you (in some cases they might have to). If your shoot is less than 10 hours, you may get lucky and have a successful shoot…but more than one day is impossible. Film shoots can ruin friendships. In addition to the generally high stress factor, there is a great amount of knowledge, skill, and perseverance needed to complete a film. Your non-filmmaker friends will have none of those.

Don’t get me wrong, your friends will want to help…at first. They’ll show up ready, eager, and willing. Then they’ll quickly realize they don’t know what the hell is going on…and so will you. So your friends end up holding the clapper, or getting you a coke, and generally feel useless. By the second day, they feel more useless. By the third day they don’t show up. By the end of the third day, you suddenly realize you need six more crew members than you have for one particular shot…but everyone’s already left. Take my advice…use only people genuinely interested in making films on your crew.

So where do we start our search? Craigslist and myspace are a great place to start. Regions where film productions are popular often have meet up groups, trade organizations, or other community oriented events where filmmakers can go to network. One of our local groups in Louisiana is H.U.R.D Meetup Group.

The absolute best way to find crew
The absolute best way to find crew, is to volunteer for someone else’s production. It’s alot of hard work, and your doing it for free. But wait…isn’t that exactly what you want other people to do for you? Maybe its a good idea to get a feel for just what you are asking out of people, before you go on thinking that your brilliant film is so great that everyone is dying to join you. Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll have a good idea of the kind of directors you like to work with, and the kind who you absolutely despise. So now when it comes time for you to direct, you what your crew will expect out of you.

But, most importantly, joining another production helps you to meet people and see how they work, before you are actually dependent upon them. You can see who disappears, who is always late, and sometimes you might even catch someone stealing (they are less afraid to steal in front of a PA than you might think). More importantly, you’ll see the AD that does everything in her power to keep 100 extras under control…you’ll see the production assistant who runs to the aid of the grips, regardless of whether or not its his job or not. You’ll see the people you want to work for you.

Third, those people will see that you work. If you work, it means you’re serious. There are alot of wannabes in this field, and working for a week only to have a production fall apart is every crew member’s worst nightmare. I may not be getting paid…but I at least want to see the movie I worked on. People who show up and work their ass off for someone else, will only work that much harder when its for themselves.

So now that we’ve found a crew, my next article will cover how to keep them working hard for you.