By Chance Shirley
March 4, 2004
Part Three: Good Help is Hard to Find
Kinko's is not my favorite place to be at 11:30 on a Friday night. Or 11:30 on any night, for that matter. But Kinko's is where I am, and I'm waiting impatiently for the lone late night employee to print some color copies. I wonder if he's insane because he keeps talking to himself, but then I realize he has one of those hands-free cell phone things attached to his ear. I hate those things. Then I wonder if he's high. Whatever the case, I can tell he'd be happier if I hadn't shown up. Viva customer service!
This is about the time I realize I need a bigger crew. On a movie crew, what would you call the guy who makes last-minute runs to the copy store? "Emergency Printed Materials Courier?"
Getting Crewed
For HIDE AND CREEP, our first feature, Chuck Hartsell and I spent about as much time getting a crew together as we did on our previous projects. Which is to say, less time than it takes to organize a beer bash.
When I first got into filmmaking, I worried about equipment more than crew. I figured if I had a working camera, I could shoot a movie. This is true, but I started to realize I could do more worrying about the actors and the story if I had some other people to help out with the equipment.
Luckily, Robb Rugan was the first guy to volunteer for HIDE AND CREEP. Or the first guy I conned into helping us out, depending on how you want to look at it. Robb has written, directed, and edited shorts and features. He's a computer effects wizard, and he's also done a lot of commercial work. He took the director of photography job, meaning he's in charge of lighting the scenes and operating the camera. Since I'm a big slacker on the visual side of things, I'm glad we have Robb around to keep things looking good.
I next got Mike Benson on board as art director. Mike's great with tools. Anything that requires a paintbrush or a saw, he can take care of. He's been building signs and other location props for us, "aging" zombie wardrobe so the clothes look older, and keeping a general eye out to make sure our locations look as appropriate and interesting as possible.
Stacey Sessions is taking care of our legal and accounting issues. She gets releases signed by the actors and location owners and keeps up with receipts for movie-related expenses. She's also handling the tax return for the limited liability company that we formed for the purpose of making this movie. All my research says you need to take care of your paperwork if you want a shot at distribution, so it's great having someone else to worry about it. Stacey's also gotten pretty good with zombie makeup.
Kenn McCracken came on board originally to shoot some behind-the-scenes footage for inclusion on the (hopefully) eventual HIDE AND CREEP DVD. Kenn's also been helping out with location sound when Jeremy Burns, our other sound guy, isn't available.
We are also lucky to have Jimbo Roberson helping us out on occasion. Jimbo's one of those jack-of-all-trades types who can do anything you need done on a movie set. Operate the camera, operate sound equipment, set up lights, climb sheer surfaces, lift heavy objects... the list goes on. Jimbo also has some kind of sixth sense that allows him to get stuff done before you even ask him about it. Shooting always goes more smoothly when Jimbo's around.
Chuck and I round out the crew as the directors/producers, which just means we're ultimately responsible for making sure the rest of the crew knows what they're supposed to be doing and have the resources they need to get it done. If you split the jobs up, as most productions do, the producer takes care of getting the resources together (script, actors, equipment, locations), and the director tells the crew how to use them. It seems to me that Chuck tends to do more directing and I do more producing, but we're too casual on set to worry about tightly defining our roles.
One thing I should mention about putting a crew together -- if you've got a lot of money to pay people, it's easy to call a "crew in the box" production company. They'll send you directors, DPs, soundmen... whoever you want. However, if you're working on a tight budget, as we are, and can't promise money to people up front, it gets tricky. I'm lucky to know smart, talented, hard-working people like the ones I just mentioned, along with others who have given us an occasional hand (or two) on the shoot.
It's a two-way street, though. I met most of these guys while volunteering for different shoots around town, in particular last summer's ALICE IN WONDERLAND. I've found that if you put some effort into other people's flicks, they'll often return the favor when you're ready to do your own project.
Pre-production
You might have noticed most of the crew I mentioned above is production crew, meaning they do most of their work during the shooting day. When I really started getting involved in planning HIDE AND CREEP, I realized that I needed more help with pre-production. If I ever get to shoot another feature, I already have my pre-production crew wish list ready...
Location Scout. I don't know how many hours I've spent driving around looking for places to shoot. Then, after you find a place, you've got to find the owner, set up a meeting with him, negotiate prices, make sure all the paperwork is in order... done properly, location scout could almost be a fulltime job.
Casting Director. I'm very happy with the cast Chuck and I put together for HIDE AND CREEP. Still, it'd be nice to have a casting director, to help out with extras if nothing else. I figured when we told people we needed them to be zombies for the movie, they'd be happy to do it. I was wrong. Also, after production gets started, the casting director could act as liaison with all the actors and extras, which would cut down on the number of phone calls I have to make on the day before shooting.
Props/Costumes Person. If I had a props guy, I could have avoided that whole Kinko's scene. It also makes sense to have someone who is in charge of making sure all the props and costumes are where they need to be on a given day, as opposed to being less organized and possibly forgetting something. It hurts when you have to hold up shooting because nobody remembered some little prop.
Equipment Manager. I spend most of my driving-to-the-set time wondering if I loaded all the equipment, charged all the batteries, cleaned the camera lenses, and ordered enough filmstock. If I had someone in charge of the equipment, I could be thinking about how to best get all our shots done for the day.
As it is, my production crew is taking care of a lot of pre-production work. Having a small pre-production crew, even four people to do the jobs I just mentioned, would really make things go a lot more smoothly for the production guys. Robb and I were talking about this recently, and he made a good point. There's no glory in pre-production. It's hard work and not fun, exciting, or even interesting. So, unless we're in a position to pay people, we'll probably always be stuck doing the pre-production stuff ourselves.
Post-production
I've been so immersed in pre-production and actual shooting that I haven't had time to formulate a specific post-production plan. I can tell you what I've got figured out so far, though.
Lab. I don't know if they're technically part of the "crew," but CineFilm in Atlanta, GA, handles the first post-production step, the actual processing of the film and transfer to videotape. They also help out with color-correction, where the brightness, contrast, and color of various shots are adjusted to best suit the overall movie. I am consistently impressed with the guys at CineFilm, especially Ron Anderson, who supervises our transfers.
Editor. I'm planning on editing the movie myself, using whatever version of Apple's Final Cut Pro software I own when we get through shooting. I expect a few other people from the production crew will be involved, especially Chuck, Jimbo, and Robb.
Music. When I'm not making movies or working the day job, I play drums in a rock band with Eric McGinty, a great singer/songwriter. Eric has talents beyond cranking out three-minute pop nuggets, though. He wrote a lot of the music for RECIPROCITY, a short movie Chuck and I made a couple of years ago, and it was pretty brilliant stuff. He's already started working on musical ideas for HIDE AND CREEP, and I'm excited to see what he comes up with.
Post-Production Sound. After the movie is edited, the dialogue, music, and sound effects have to be mixed and processed. Good post sound work can make a good movie great, and bad post sound work can make an okay movie terrible. Patrick Sheehan and Wayne Reynolds at The Imagination Factory are probably the best video and film sound guys in Alabama. If their schedule allows, I hope to get them to work on HIDE AND CREEP.
Crewless?
I guess it's obvious that Chuck and I can't honestly call ourselves "Crewless Productions" these days. We do have a crew, a good one. But, by Hollywood standards, it's tiny. I bet many movies have more food caterers than we have crew members. Which reminds me, I'm going to try to put someone in charge of craft services (food and drink) the next time we shoot, so I don't have to keep sending our accountant out to pick up lunch at the last minute.
In two weeks: Part four: Location, location, location
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