Except in LA, where there are so many ads looking for free actors and crew that a Craigslist contributor actually provided a glossary, comparing actual film positions and descriptions to the way they’re used in these ads. For instance, did you know that ‘craft service’ means ‘we might have candy and cold soda on set’?
There’s nothing wrong with low- or no- budget projects. Even as an experienced pro, I’ll sometimes work on one… when I have the time, and think the film and filmmaker are interesting.
But those are filmmakers who at least have read a couple of books about the process, and made some shorter pieces. Creating a real movie takes more than an ad on Craigslist.
Art,
I agree people should have their act together. but being honest if everyone was to do things the LA way half the movies would never get made. THE LA way is bloated and expensive.
I hear it all the time about larger budget films. they do one scene a day and the pace is so damn slow the actors are half asleep by the time they get to their scenes. I like to run an efficient and lean set. I don’t cut corners that have bad outcomes creatively.
Recently I read about a PSA shot in LA. it had a 50 man crew. the idea of having a 50 man crew for a PSA with no art design , a single actor and one camera is obscene, single location. I heard about this recently and I was accosted on a forum seemingly because I’m more interested in being efficient and seeing every penny on the screen rather than looking like a big shot with a big crew.
Posted by on 08/29 at 10:07 AM
Bloated, possibly (compared to other ways of making films). Expensive? Actually not. The “LA way” - pretty much the entire feature film workflow - developed during the glory days of the studio system. A studio had to crank out dozens of films a year; the only way they could do this efficiently was by breaking it into tiny tasks that could be handled by interchangeable specialists.
Just take my specialty, audio. It makes sense to make dialog editing a different operation from mixing, because dialog edits take a long time and you don’t want to tie up a dub stage for them. When you get to the dub stage, it makes sense to have the lead mixer concentrate on dialog because it’s most critical; those who are still building their skillsets can mix the sfx. It makes sense to have one person who specializes in ADR recording and another one for voice-overs, because the studio requirements and techniques are different. And so on.
There are armies of names in the end credits of a Hollywood blockbuster, but a lot of those people are only on the film for a day - sometimes for only a few hours - and contribute just their tiny specialty.
I come from a TV background, where things are done differently. That is: with fewer people, fewer resources, and somewhat lower expectations for the final product. We still do all the functions that are on a big film, but we have to do them faster (and sometimes more sloppily) because the deadlines are tighter. So just a few folks handle all the tasks.
But there are parts of the Hollywood workflow that I’ve adopted on projects where time allows, because they result in a better product. Often these are low-budget indies… I spend more time with them because I’m given more time, because the finished product will be projected in a large theater where you can hear the flaws, and sometimes because the budget -is- low: I’m working partly pro-bono, so nobody kicks if I spend some extra hours on a dialog premix…
I agree, the set should be efficient. If the actors are half asleep before their scenes are shot, somebody didn’t do their job right. But that’s not a question of too much budget; it’s bad producing with any budget. I’ve seen a lot of time wasted on low-budget films as well.
---
Advertising (and some PSAs) are a different case. The ethos is different, the agency goals are different from those of a film or tv studio, the clients have a different point of view. In the case of commercial spots, remember that production budgets are miniscule compared to media budgets… and the production is the only chance the agency has to impress the client with how hard they’re working. Also, any decently run agency keeps a good percentage of production fees as well as of media budgets: a bigger crew means more profit.
PSAs come out of the same environment, but shoots can get large also because a lot of people want to be associated with the project (either for the good cause, or for the good creative), and often a lot of the crafts are contributed.
---
(There’s a lot about the differences between film and video workflows, and how the digital revolution has been merging them, in my next book. It goes to the printer this week, and should be in stores by mid-October. It’s about the audio side, of course, but the lessons can be extended to video post as well.)
Posted by Jay Rose on 08/31 at 08:35 AM
