"To write a movie takes one person, but to make a movie takes an army."
I know that crew is very important when making a film, the more people the easier it can be to achieve a good outcome. However, in previous projects I have asked friends and others on the TVP course to be my crew. Starting this project, I realised that our crew must be experienced and can't be just anyone. I did some research into crewing on a film.
Organised chaos
Everyone knows their job on a film set, where to be and how not to get in the way of others. The best thing to do is to trust your crew. The more experienced the crew, the slower they may seem to work. However, by having an experienced crew, they are usually three jumps ahead of the current shot. Having a crew frenetically running around isn't the same as having a productive crew.
Professional Vs your cousin
Whenever possible, hire a professional. If you can't afford a professional, then find someone who likes the position they are filling or has some desire to fill the role you need. The last thing you want is to fill a valuable crew position with someone who is doing you a favour and helping you out. Working on a set is a demanding commitment. All positions are valuable otherwise they wouldn't exist, therefore, all crewing roles should be filled by people interested in the roles.
An army travels on its stomach and needs a lot of sleep
Whether the crew are getting paid or not, you need to take care of food. This may mean brining in catered food, or providing time and meal money, or making another arrangement. A well-fed crew is a happy crew. A happy crew is more likely to go the extra mile when you need it. If you don't supply good food or leave your crew to fend for themselves, you will probably find morale dropping, which will mean a slower pace. Similarly to this, there is only so much a human body can take, you and the crew will need to get as much sleep as possible between shooting days. As a result of this plan shorter and more practical shoot days, in order to give the crew enough rest time.
What a filmmaker needs to be
The crew will work hard to pull off a successful film, but if you aren't sure about what you want, then it isn't going to happen. Going down the wrong path, changing your mind one time and then starting over, is far preferable to even just a few minutes of standing around not knowing what to do. It's fine to take your time with the actors, and it's fine to take your time setting up the shots. Just be bold and your crew will follow you up the side of a mountain if necessary to get the film shot.
Reflection:
- Having an experience crew is essential for this project. We will be able to trust them if they know how to do the role well. As we only have a low budget, we will not be able to pay for a professional but because of this, I will be searching for people interested in camera, sound and makeup to join us. If the person is interested in the role then they are more likely to do a better job than someone who we brought in just to help. I have experienced this in previous projects, where I had to help out the camera and sound assistants because they weren't sure on what they were doing. If I am able to get in people interested then they will also do the better job.
- I've looked into how important the food is for the cast, but it is just important for the crew to eat well too. I have already planned hot meals for the cast, while I did this I had the crew in mind as well, so I catered for them in the budget to eat with the cast.
- We need to know what we are doing in order to guide the camera and sound assistant. This is where the test shoots came in handy. We know that the owl punch will go well as we have practiced this. We also know how the owls are flying and when they are around people so we should be ready to go when it comes to the filming period.
Sound assistant
Sound is just as important as any other job role. In order to do this well, we need someone who knows what they are doing. To find someone interested in sound, I emailed around the first years on our University course.
I had one person get back to me - Alix Mottershead, who expressed her love for sound design. As she is a first year, she hasn't had a lot of experience with our University on the sound department but she still had some work to send over to me. Her first job within sound was during her A-Level Media course. She worked with ADR, automated dialogue replacement. Alix sent me the link to this and I think the ADR attempt was very good. We shouldn't need any ADR in our sitcom, however, it was good to see her range of knowledge about sound design, as some of us in the third year haven't even used this technique before.
Alix's next sound role was being a sound technician on her project a few weeks ago. She used clip mic's and performed the voice over for the short film. This project was shot on location so she also had to face the challenges of working outside. She sent me the link for this project as well. As they filming an a very open area, I imagine there would have been a lot of wind around as there were no buildings or trees to block it. Wind against the microphone can cause a lot of unwanted noise, and this can be difficult to get rid of in post-production. Working against the wind can also minimise the sound that you actually want to record. Dialogue may be harder to hear if the wind is interfering with the recording. While I was watching the film, I noticed that they did have to work against the wind. However, I was able to hear all the small sounds clearly, such as the character walking on the ground and the door of the telephone box hitting back when the character opened it. I think she did a very good job in minimising the unwanted sound while on location.
Most recently, she has participated as a sound assistant on her classmates project, where she had to operate two clip mic's with a tascam. She is sending me the final film once it has been edited. We will be using a boom with a tascam so it's helpful to have someone on board who has worked with one before.
After looking over the work Alix has sent me, I am more than happy to have her as a part of our project. I believe that she will be a hardworking crew member and will be very helpful when it comes to the sound design of our film.
Camera assistant / runner
Katie will be the lead camera as she is the director of photography, however, we will need someone on a second camera for a couple of extra shots for coverage. I spoke with Katie and she said that this role will not be needed during the entirety of the shoot days. As a result of this, to keep the camera assistant interested during the day, I have combined this role with a runner. This will also help the budget in terms of travel and food expenses. I felt it was appropriate to have a runner on location because we need someone to help me make tea and coffee and make sure the food is ready for the scheduled breaks.
Again, I emailed out to the first and second years but had no response. Katie said she could directly contact someone in the first year as she knows her outside University - Katthaliya Cahalane. Before she contacted her, I looked at her blog to get an idea of how she is with the camera because even though in our film this isn't a demanding role, it's still important. I noticed that she volunteered to be the director of photography in her group for a recent camera workshop. They went on location to Vinters Park and had to improvise a short film. While the director and two students standing in as actors thought of the ideas, Katthaliya thought of the shots they could in relation to the ideas. She talks a lot about how the location looks and her thought process on why they should film in a certain place within the location. This made me think that she has a good eye for aesthetics.
We got in contact with Katthaliya and she said she would be very interested in joining our team as a camera assistant and runner. I was more than happy to have her on board because from her blog she seems interested in camera work, and she had good ideas for different shots. These ideas may come in handy if we get stuck, or she may bring fresh ideas into the production of the film.
Make-up artist
A make-up artist is a small member of the crew, but a very important one. As we are creating a dark sitcom, I felt that we needed a makeup artist in order to make the gory parts more realistic. In scene 3 when Tim tries to save the dog, his hand slips while using the tools and he butchers the dog. When this happens, blood splatters into his face. We used a blood splatter in our previous project, but this didn't turn out very well. Someone trained in make-up may have a better way of doing this. Or if not, at least making the blood look like it had shot up and hit Tim's face. Additionally, in the final scenes Tim gets punched in the face by Mark. Again, we'll need blood on his face, but this time around his nose, as he has just been punched, rather than splattered with the blood. To accompany this, we want him to have black eye. Any of us could really put some fake blood on his face and darken the area around his eye, but a trained make-up artist will be able to make it look professional, which is the standard we want for our film.
I know someone who studied theatre make-up at University, so I got in contact with her. Unfortunately, she said she is unable to make our shoot dates in February, but she passed on a number of her friend who she studied with - Bethany Ashby
I got in contact with Beth and she seemed really keen to be a part of our project. She has studied make-up for 2 years at Broadstairs College and since she has finished she has promoted herself as a qualified working make-up artist. Alongside this she works at her local Superdrug down the cosmetics aisle help customers with make-up products and she colour matches skin tones. As a make-up artist she prefers to work on the creative side, for example, she enjoys creating looks that include paints, fake blood and prosthetics. She has competed in in two competitions where she placed second and first. The first was in airbrushing and the second was in body art. Beth has worked with several theatre companies, such as The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. Here she worked with the main actress. The other companies were smaller and based in Margate. She sent me over some of her work, which is pictured below:
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| Beth's make-up pieces |
After looking at all of Beth's work I am very impressed and I believe she will be a great asset to our group. I think she will make our blood splatter look believable, and she will be able to create a realistic looking black eye and bloody nose.
References:
- Gladstone, S. (2016). Why a Well-Run Crew Keeps Your Film Production Together. Available: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/tips-and-solutions/why-well-run-crew-keeps-your-film-production-together. Last accessed 20th Nov 2018.
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