Who here works with a filmmaking partner?

MichaelPaul

MichaelPaul

Curious, how many folks on the board are lone wolf's pulling together a rag tag team of friends, actors and crew on their own to make a movie and how many have a partner or small team that they regularly work with? Whether it be a Producer/Director relationship, Co-Writer, Co-Director etc.

Personally I make films with my wife. Prior to her I did my best to pull together friends to help me put something together but they were always very small projects. I wasn't able to do a feature till I had her and her organizational skills, plus it helps spread the stress. When one of us is exhausted, the other one picks up the slack.

Curious how other people balance team and partnership relationships.
 
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I usually get an idea for the movie, write it, then call two of my good friends, for acting and sound.

From there I go out to find more actors if needed, and more friends to help out around the set.

Fortunately, I feed my help with delicious aftershoot food, so the word spreads out quicker than zombie epidemic in a china town, so their friends like to help out as well..



But never worked with an actual real team with dedicated grip, focus pulers, DoP, DA, PA, SA, CIA and others
 
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I generally work with other filmmakers. They're not specialists, just filmmaker generalists I supposes. Some of them are DPs and sound guys, but I don't think they're really experts. They're all learning just like I am. But they're filmmakers.

Two of these guys regularly work with me on my projects if they're free. None of them have ever been paid.

It's my goal to create a team. But it's difficult to do so with people, many of whom have egos that allow them to feel they're better than Spielberg, having created nothing significant of their own, if you don't pay them. But that's the way it is. Filmmakers have big egos. If you can control those egos, you'll be able to form a team. It's a near impossible task :)
 
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We've got a great team and it's growing. It started out with me (director) and Matt (DP) and we'd bring friends out and what not, and it's grown to include writers, camera ops, sound ops, composers and even actors plus a lot people who are willing to help out anywhere.

It started with guys that Matt and I actually worked with and trained 10+ years ago when we were still teens volunteering in a kid's ministry. After we made the first couple of shorts more people wanted to get involved and we let em.

Now it's not just about me being a director and Matt a DP. We want to make a place for the others that have similar dreams on our team to get stuff done. We talked to all the guys that have helped a while and found out who has it in them to do what and work with it. The last short we shot was our former full-time gaffer directing and camera op DP'd, Matt and I produced and helped out with other stuff on set.

It's a killer group of people. Nobody's ego is too big to handle and everyone is willing to help eachother do what we love, make movies. We bring new people in every shoot and the ones who fit usually stick around. The team aspect is great too because while we only have a few shorts so far, we're starting to shoot once a month and regardless of who wrote or who directed what, we all share an audience.

Several heads are better than one. Group dynamics are hard sometimes but I couldn't imagine trying to do this myself. It's a blessing getting to work with such great people.
 
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My partner is my sound guy. He contributes a little money, not as much as me, and a LOT of labor. He does all the production sound, post production sound, and original music. He's also a skilled carpenter and does a lot of the set construction. He has done this on all my films.
I have worked with the same DP on all three films. He is hired, but is also a friend.
My producer is my fiance'. I write the screenplays, direct, and am the primary executive producer.
 
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I'm blessed to be able to depend on a group of actors who really provide quality work, are super-dependable, and have a lot of fun.

Crew-wise, and production-wise, I'm pretty much lone-wolf. I've got a small group of filmmaker friends whom I can call on for favors, and they can do the same with me. But I wouldn't call any of them a partner. I'd love to have a tighter relationship, in this respect, it just hasn't happened yet.

Looks like that's about to change, real soon though -- Deathworld, what whaaaaaaat!!!
 
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Cracker Funk said:
:lol:

Astute observation. Very true.

One of my most cherished partners, of late, has been a musician. He did the score for my last film, but it turns out that he is also THE perfect guy for me to brainstorm ideas with; our brainwaves just kinda mesh.
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It's always good to team up with someone with the same diagnosis. :P

I would love to team up with someone for motivation alone.
 
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I have attempted to form partnerships for this endeavor to no avail. My wife has no interest in films other than watching them. I have no friends with like minds. I placed an add on craigslist and got two responses. Neither one panned out. I guess I'll just have to hire/blackmail mercenaries to do the things that I can't/don't want to. I'm not an expert in any area of film making, but I don't have to be. I just have to recognize talent when I see it and draw those with talent to me (usually with money).

I have no desire to make artist movies that get critical acclaim, I want to make financially viable film properties that people will pay to see. The exceptions to that are the two shorts that I have planned, both are for personal satisfaction.
 
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Lucky Hardwood said:
I have attempted to form partnerships for this endeavor to no avail. My wife has no interest in films other than watching them. I have no friends with like minds. I placed an add on craigslist and got two responses. Neither one panned out. I guess I'll just have to hire/blackmail mercenaries to do the things that I can't/don't want to. I'm not an expert in any area of film making, but I don't have to be. I just have to recognize talent when I see it and draw those with talent to me (usually with money).

I have no desire to make artist movies that get critical acclaim, I want to make financially viable film properties that people will pay to see. The exceptions to that are the two shorts that I have planned, both are for personal satisfaction.
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I hear you. My last short was a fart movie. :blush:
 
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MichaelPaul said:
Personally I make films with my wife.
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Same here, Michael. I'm generally a loner, because I'm very particular. I still dream of hooking up with a 1st class makeup effects artist, so we can work like John Landis and Rick Baker did.

My wife, Sheila, was an executive chef and didn't have any movie goals. However, she really enjoys getting into our projects. For a non-actor, I think she is fantastic; good at improv and has a photographic memory. She also likes writing, making props, set dressing, etc. She is one of the most intense people I've seen:

Sure, she looks friendly here, but wait till she gets into character!

Sheilaonstep.jpg



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308038_10150819069675494_603930493_20925366_785290517_n.jpg
 
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I'm mostly a loner, but luckily I have my husband to partner up with. He knows tons of stuff about sound and editing, and he's a great person to brainstorm with, and he can actually do handheld work that's passable with my GH1 (I, on the other hand, appear to be having a seizure behind the camera if I don't have some kind of rig connected to it, and even then sometimes it's unusable).

I'd love to find a local team I could work with regularly, but I'm not the most social person, so I have yet to find one. There are a lot of filmmakers in my area, but a lot of them are very, very pretentious, so I'm not particularly interested in working with them.

I thought I'd lucked out when I found a filmmaking group only about an hour away, but then I realized they'd put up one (poorly done) fan film on YouTube three years ago and from what I could tell, hadn't done anything since. :(
 
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"I just have to recognize talent when I see it and draw those with talent to me (usually with money). "

That worked for me. On my first film almost everyone was paid. It's how I could get people to work with someone who had no track record and only halfway knew what he was doing. The core of that group are still with me, and still get paid (just less in most cases), but now I have much more ability (with 3 decent films under my belt) to convince people to work for free.
 
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