Hiring Crew
I’ve worked on lots of different projects over the years, and there are two things I’ve learned without a doubt to this point:
Your friends will always want to be a part of your projects because what you do IS cool.
Finding truly talented crew takes time.
Since getting our budget though, I’ve learned a third thing:
When you actually have a budget, EVERYBODY wants to get paid, and at their full day rates!
When I originally conceived “The Unknown”, my thoughts were that I could use a lot of people I’ve worked with in the past for crew, and that because I’ve done so much work for them for free over the years, it would be reciprocated to me now. I knew I would have to give a gracious budget to my sound team (as I’ve previously discussed), as well as hiring some good on-camera talent, and I knew I would have to feed everyone. My hope was that I could sink the rest of the budget into the production value, so that I could make this movie look like it was shot for ten times what is will be. Man was I wrong. Before I got my budget, people talked in generalities, but seemed mostly supportive of this vision. I explained the way we can pull this off is if everyone works for food and points on the back-end, and people seemed to get this. However once the money came, so did everyone’s expectations that they would get paid huge.
At first, I was totally thrown by what I interpreted as everyone’s greed. I mean, at that point even I wasn’t getting paid a dime from the budget. Then a dear friend and colleague of mine said simply, “This is the biggest budget local project most of these people have ever seen, so of course they want to be paid. But you also have to make your film, so they’re going to have to come back down to earth if they want to be a part of this project.” He was right, of course. “The Unknown” is one of the largest budgeted indie films in many years here in Minnesota, and possibly the biggest since 2009’s “Into Temptation”, so we’re getting quite a few people interested in being a part of the film.
The wonderful amount of people who have been asking to be a part of the film is quite humbling to me, and while the creative part of me wishes I could hire them all, the business part of me knows that’s not what’s best for the film. Everyone I meet in this industry has people that they tell me I just “have to use” for some reason or another. As a both the executive producer and the head of the production company for the film I have no choice but to be smart about this. I knew whom I wanted for sound, because I’ve worked with Seamlessound before and I know the quality they provide me with. I knew whom I wanted as my producing team, again because I have worked with them before and know what they’re capable of. But there were some positions I needed filled that I didn’t necessarily want to use someone I’ve worked with before, for a variety of reasons. Maybe I tried them before and they aren’t quite up to what I need for this project. Maybe there was a definite personality clash with them. In some cases it was as simple as they lived out west and I couldn’t afford to pay for either multiple flights back and forth or for them to stay here for five months.
Whatever the reasons, I knew I wanted someone to handle the marketing department of the film. I also needed a second DoP, a production designer, a script/continuity supervisor and a hair/make-up artist.
I began looking into the marketing person first, simply because I had been invited to a premier of another film and was witness to an amazing feat of marketing by the head of the production company involved. Seriously, the guy had TV news crews there, various magazine and newspaper writers, radio DJ’s etc., and you couldn’t go anywhere in town without hearing or seeing something about this film. Speaking with a mutual friend I learned that the marketing budget for that film was only $12k! I was blown away. The film opened to a near sell-out crowd of almost 700, and I knew I had my marketing head. I arranged a meeting with him a few weeks later, and he had already been told about the script through our mutual friend, and was happy to come on board. I asked him what he would do with a $45k budget, and he explained (very enthusiastically I might add) right away some ideas he had, from website plans to press ads to stickers, even into the DVD/CD soundtrack distribution. I offered him the position and he happily accepted. In my mind the most important position I needed to fill just got filled. After all, if you can’t sell your film to an audience, odds are you won’t be making any more!
I had met with a few people who are part of a pretty tight crew here in MN, although to be fair most of the indie scene here is like one big family. Anyways, these people kept insisting that their crew was basically what I should use (including sound), and were really pushing for me to hire on what would essentially be an additional 20 people onto my crew. I knew right away that financially I couldn’t afford that, not to mention as a director I wanted as few crew standing around as possible for the emotional scenes in the film. I also had not ever personally worked with any of these people, and this project is simply too important for me to just hire anybody without really checking them out, so that’s what I did.
I talked with several people whom I had worked with and who’s opinions I greatly valued, asking them about the various people who were trying to push themselves or their friends into being part of the project. Out of the roughly 20 people who wanted on, only 3 came recommended. It’s not that the rest weren’t nice people or hard working, it was just that they had far less experience and both myself and the people I spoke with felt they were simply not quite “there” yet in terms of being able to be a true asset to the production. Of those few people that did come recommended, one of them I knew I wouldn’t need as he was an editor and I will be editing the film myself, but the other two I did meet with and hired them on.
I also did some asking around about a hair/make-up artist and while there were a few names thrown out there, one came up a few times. She was fairly new to the business, but she had a great eye and was tremendously talented. She had worked on a surprising number of features already, and was nothing but professional when I met with her.
We still have basically 2 P.A. positions left at this point, and one of those is only for a few days when we’re going to need some help with crowd management in two key scenes. We hired one intern on for the whole of production as well, which is a first for my company, and should be very interesting!
Interviews are something that I think everyone dreads. When I used to do my various other jobs before film I loathed going to interviews. Not because I was nervous, but rather because I have tattoos and when it comes to corporate America, they tend to be frowned upon lol. When I do an interview, I try to keep it low-key and fun, just like on my sets. Filmmaking is hard enough without having a tense set and crew. I always ask to see either a demo reel or portfolio before we meet, so I have some sense of what they can do. I also ask for a “crap reel” or “garbage portfolio” from them. By that I mean I want to see their good AND their bad work. I don’t just want to see a handful of shots that they may have just gotten lucky with, I want to see the shots that got messed up but because of time or budget still had to be in the finished project. To me these aren’t things to be ashamed or embarrassed about, but rather to learn from. We all make mistakes, but do we try to cover them up or do we learn from them and wear them with pride? That’s what I want to know, because that will tell me more about a person than I could ever learn by watching a highlight demo reel. Now sure, some people are a bit put off by this at first, but I’ve not yet been refused this request. Right off the bat, if someone’s willing to show me their worst, I know I could possibly work with them. It also usually leads to some very interesting stories and helps to put the person I’m interviewing at ease, because I am certainly not above discussing my on-set screw-ups. Like I said, everybody makes mistakes, and I am FAR from perfect!
Aside from reels or portfolios, I ask what they love about their job, what they dislike, what their favorite project to date has been, and of course there’s lots of discussion about the project I’m looking to hire them on for. If I’m feeling good about them, we discuss their availability and I usually make them an offer that I’ve thought about well in advance. I always go in knowing how much I can offer them, both in pay and in points on the back end. If I’m not digging on them, then I simply let them know I’ll be in touch and thank them for their time. If you’ve done casting sessions you know you get really good at saying that.
When it comes to hiring crew, do your homework. Ask around, find out about the person or people you may be hiring. You never know, they may have interviewed great but then you find out that the person is notoriously difficult to work with, or shows up late constantly or whatever. Above all else, trust your instincts. Especially when it comes to hiring your friends. Always remember, this is a business decision, and you have to learn to separate business from friendships. For some people this can be tough, and your friends will ALWAYS want to be a part of what you do because making movies is flat-out the coolest job ever, next to being a spy of course. Hiring friends can also be tricky because often times you’ve told them things that other people might not know, particularly financial issues with the film, so maybe they already know that you have $15k sitting in contingency and you could hire them on for 10k and still be alright. But the reality is that your friend has never done what they’re saying they can do, and you have massive doubts. Here is where trusting your instincts becomes essential. If you know deep down it’s not going to work, then just say “no.” If the person is you’re friend, they’ll understand.
Now back to a point I mentioned earlier: everybody wants to get paid his or her full day rates! If I actually paid everyone involved in this project their full rates, I would OWE money at the end of the day. Seriously. This is a massive part of why Hollywood movies cost so much. Here’s a prime example:
There was a person who wanted to be a part of the project very badly, but they also wanted their full day rate, points on the back end and three assistants that I would also have to pay for. Now their day rate is $400, which would mean that I would end up paying this person roughly $22k (along with 2 points on the back end) plus an additional $16k for their assistants, for a total of $35k! This was more than the entire available budget of $25k for that persons department! There was simply no way it was going to happen. When I had originally discussed the film with them, BEFORE we had our budget, they were asking for $6300 and 2 points, which was potentially doable. But once the budget became a reality, they seemed to see nothing but dollar signs. We went back and forth for weeks, and they were willing to take $8k, 2 points and one assistant (another $5500 I would have to pay). If you do the math, this only leaves $11.5k for the whole department, which is still not enough. Ultimately it was mutually decided to not hire them. I flat-out couldn’t pay them what they wanted, and they felt it wouldn’t be worth it for them to work for the amount I could pay them. In the end, we found three people who were not only great at what they did, but are willing to work for a COMBINED total of $5k plus points, which is great! They see the potential in the project and believe in it enough to come on and give their all for the ability to be a part of it. That’s what you want, ideally. People who aren’t just about the money, but have enough faith in you and the project to work for less up front, so you have the ability to put as much into production value as possible! Obviously if you have a multimillion dollar budget this doesn’t necessarily apply, but for us indie filmmakers it absolutely does! Just know that there are ALWAYS people willing to work hard for what they believe in, even if the pay isn’t top dollar.
