Location: ask or don't ask ?

Insurance? How does a person go about getting filming insurance for small short films? It seems like that would be something reserved for film production *companies*. Are there insurance companies that will do this for individuals making short films? I did initiate contact with my home/auto insurance agent to get an umbrella policy, sort of a no-brainer.
 
Oh no... insurance is for anyone who is professional. There are several companies out there, but I can't offer first hand recommendations. Try Google, film production insurance.
 
Capt Quirk said:
Oh no... insurance is for anyone who is professional. There are several companies out there, but I can't offer first hand recommendations. Try Google, film production insurance.
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It is things like this (Insurance, SAG contracts, etc) that again makes me want to retreat to the simplicity of just writing. Does anybody else feel this way, i.e. all those factors taking away the fun of trying filmmaking?
 
There are a lot of things that make me want to reconsider doing video these days. But there are reasons for all of it, and it has to do with quality control. The insurance helps to cover property owners as well as the crews, from unforseen events like fire (from one of your lights falling over), somebody tripping over one of your cords, all the way down to camera theft or even having to reshoot because the tape was damaged.
 
OK, not being of great experience here I have to chime in on this topic. The Short we just wrapped was shot in 7 different locations all of which look fantastic. Half of them were friends or family's homes but the other half were outdoor locations and one restaurant. The only "situation" we ran into was the owner of the restaurant coming back in the middle of filming. Maybe I didn't fully explain the extent of the shoot and he was caught a little off guard, ok he freaked out. After I spoke with him for 20 mins he understood what we were trying to do and that this was not me and 2 friends with a camcorder. It was kind of like walking in during a triple bypass .... of course it's ugly then but afterward things are much better :) He had since forgiven me and I hope to make him proud with the final result.
After that tense little moment we had a good deal of fun and ran all over town filming.

I did run into the Chairman of the Business District Improvement Committee who gave me his card and told me we could shoot anywhere in town without a permit, if anyone gave me a problem to call his cell. Very nice of him!! The funny thing was that Marley & Me had just shot in the same town a few weeks before and they didn't exactly get the same consideration we did. hahahaha, but then again I didn't dump 3 inches of fake snow in their major retail district.

We also shot in a cemetery and didn't quite ask permission but were very respectful and made sure everything was exactly as we found it. I'm one that says it's better to ask forgiveness than permission but only when I am confident that my crew will respect the location as if it were their own.

I belive if you have a budget or are able to pay for what you need, you do it. Fair is fair and if you are curtious and respectful they will want you to come back and shoot again. Insurance is always good!! Don't temp fate more than you absolutley have to.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
It is things like this (Insurance, SAG contracts, etc) that again makes me want to retreat to the simplicity of just writing. Does anybody else feel this way, i.e. all those factors taking away the fun of trying filmmaking?
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Of course, filmmaking is a pain in the butt. For me it's not just that, though, these are my biggest annoyances, the biggest obstacles between me and a finished project:

1) Locations. I realized early on that locations would kill me, because you always need them, and you always are short on money to pay full price for most locations, so you have to do a lot of legwork to find something that will work. Every time I shoot, it's all about the location. Is it a good location? Can I get it for a reasonable price? What's the power like there? If I need a generator, is that within the budget? How is parking at the location? Do I need to pay for additional parking because otherwise my crew will have nowhere to park? Is there a working bathroom? Any tables or chairs, or do I need to rent / bring those for craft services? All of that stuff takes away from my time being able to plan the DIRECTING I want to do, haha. Because I just don't have the budgets now to hire someone to deal with all of that.

2) Equipment transportation. This may not seem like a big deal, but I don't like to drive a U-Haul, so I have to figure out who is going to drive the truck, then I have to arrange to get them to the U-Haul place and drive to my storage, where all of my equipment is, and load and unload the storage, etc. I really wish I could BUY a truck and put my equipment in it, but that's not a possibility because there's nowhere to park the truck. We've looked around, there is no rented truck parking that's secure and 24 hours that we've found yet in Los Angeles. I'm sure for enough money I could figure out something, but at that point it's not really worthwhile.

3) Permits. Sometimes, you need them, and they're a pain to get plus expensive for one-day shoots and for us little guys.

4) Insurance. At $8,000 per year for production insurance, that's not cheap. That's most of my company's overhead besides storage and some phone bills I'd have anyway even without my business.

5) Taxes, paperwork, and payroll. Crew deal memos, who is an employee, who is an independent contractor, adding up everything I buy that's tax deductible, keeping a wrap book for each project, setting up corporations (done that twice now), keeping up with all of the company filings, etc.

There is so much that goes into doing things the right way, and unfortunately it's hard to find people who will actually pay fairly for all of this work that goes into a business just existing and operating properly. They expect that you should just grab a camera and film what they want, and it should be cheap. Haha.
 
I found everything Jonathon just said to be dead on, when I went to do my feature film. Having no budget wasn't what put the final nail in the coffin though, it was paying for an executive suite for auditions for two days, trying to find the cast to fill forty some roles. 12 people showed up out of almost 200 people who were begging to audition. I decided that it wasn't meant to be, so I mothballed it.
 
Grr, I'm sorry :( That's really lame.

I've had horrible luck with auditions myself. Even with paying actors, I haven't really had very good success. One day, it was so embarrassing, it was a while back when I was still in film school, but we were paying, which is rare for film school students. Bad pay, but something! We had a schedule filled with I think 12 auditions for the afternoon, and 3 people showed up. Ouch...
 
I really appreciate the stories (in the factual sense) you all are sharing, it gives me realistic expectations of what to expect down the road. Trying not to think of that for now too much, going to try to just have fun making a few short shorts, see what happens. Writing is far far simpler, but far far more lonely; I am already enjoying the people contact for pre-production, actually meeting and interacting with an actor, making some props, scouting locations. At least doing the writing I can try to reverse engineer--- determine available locations, then work on a story built around that. Everything I read says for a first indie feature (down the road, if I make it there) have the story take place at basically one location-- or as it is often said, "Write a stage play and then film it", or "put a bunch of college students somewhere and kill em off one by one".


As for insurance, my insurance guy stopped in yesterday at Starbucks (actually Caribou, but only Minnesotans likely know about Caribou Coffee-- better than Starbucks)-- and he said for now I do not need production insurance, as long as I am not filming to make money. My homeowners policy covers me up to $xxx,xxx (figure withheld, should someone google this who is suing me) should something be my fault and I get sued, even if the incident happens far far from home; but I also gave him the green light to sign me up for an umbrella policy too.
 
Do not listen to the guy insuring your house, go to a company that knows about production. There are short term policies available, so that you don't have to get a full policy.
 
Well, I would be careful about the insurance angle. I mean I've filmed several projects now not for money, but had full insurance coverage to cover my butt. A large part of it is probably how much you have at risk too. If you're basically broke, and you're filming somewhere and you cause massive damage, it's bad, don't get me wrong, but what are they going to do kill you?! haha. For me to spend $8,000 per year for production insurance is nothing compared to what would happen if I was filming somewhere, the place burned down, and I got sued. I could lose everything I have. Same is true if a crew member got injured and sued my production company. But at least now I have coverage for any situations that could arise. In many areas I'm even double-covered, like for my post-production equipment I think my home owners insurance protects me from damage, but so does my production insurance. If I'm driving my car to a shoot or location scout, not only am I covered (heavily) through my standard car insurance but I also have additional auto insurance through the production insurance so that if anything happens to me, crew, anyone working on my shoot while driving as part of their duties for the shoot, they are covered. So if I send a crew person to go pick up some more ice for the cooler, they're covered by my insurance as well. It's at least some good peace of mind for me knowing that worst case scenario, I'm covered.

I had my office robbed earlier this year, $15,000 in stuff stolen, and the insurance covered it all. We had to pay the deductible but that wasn't a big deal compared to the total.

Also not to plug my insurance company, but it's a great deal for me. They are not an insurance company, actually, they are a brokerage. It's Wells Fargo Insurance Services. So they have MY interests in mind, not the insurance companies offering the package of production insurance (it's actually through about 4 different companies, one offers worker's comp, another is automotive, another is general liability and property damage, etc.). So if I call them with a problem, they will be on my side taking care of it because I'm their client, their loyalty is to me, not to the insurance companies. That's the way, uh huh uh uh, I like it. ;)
 
I am going to look into a rider on my homeowners policy, beyond the umbrella, maybe some extra production insurance; should not be expensive for doing short short films for now. My insurance agent is looking into it. I will report back what he discovers. (Farmers Insurance, auto/home rates are far below competition; i find auto insurance rates can vary 400% for same coverage same driver, amazing)
 
Capt Quirk said:
Seriously dude, I wouldn't go through an agent that isn't doing this for film on a regular basis.
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But for short films, the operative word being short, are places like productioninsurance.com and such going to want to even bother with such a filmmaker? are their rates going to be way out of line? their online quote form is enough to get them into a scary top 10 fright fest. I think for a prodco of one, doing short short films, it seems to make more sense just to have added personal liability as a rider on a homeowners policy for making artist short films with very small numbers of crew and actors. Just posing thoughts, I have no experience in this matter.
 
What will it cost you to ask? What could it cost you if something happens, and the insurance your guy said was sufficient really isn't? Google film insurance, and talk to 3 people is all I'm saying.
 
Capt Quirk said:
What will it cost you to ask? What could it cost you if something happens, and the insurance your guy said was sufficient really isn't? Google film insurance, and talk to 3 people is all I'm saying.
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Yes I know that is what I should do, and likely will, it is that before I did google, and went to productioninsurance.com and then their quote page and my god it was overwhelming the info they want; I would rather just telephone them and get SOME sort of idea of a cost, without spending half a day on a form for a quote just to get a rough idea.
 
Oh yeah, it takes a LOT of effort to get production insurance, especially the first time.

The thing about all of this, filmmaking and the business side of filmmaking / setting up a corporation (for instance), is that once you go through it all once you feel so comfortable with the process it's not overwhelming anymore. Like setting up my second corporation, though I wish I hadn't have had to do that, it was very easy to find a company to take care of the basic paperwork, and I was aware of what extra paperwork needed to be filed (Form 2553 to make your company an S-Corporation), then I knew what to take to the bank to get my corporate account setup, etc. When I went to the insurance company I had an existing relationship with them, so it was easy for me to answer their questions with confidence and discuss my options for things I was less sure about.

I spent about 2 hours basically being interviewed about my insurance needs by Wells Fargo Insurance Services, but it's all just part of the process really. They ask how many productions you're going to do, what's the highest amount you expect any one to be, are you doing post work for other companies, what type of film work will you be doing, how many employees do you expect to have, what do you expect to pay your employees over the next year, etc. And since cast / crew are usually considered employees by the IRS, then you have to figure that kind of stuff out. There are a TON of questions they go through, but it's just so they can look out for your needs and completely cover you.
 
Hey Randall,

I think your on the right track working with your agent. Sounds like you are having the proper dialog. You don't need big production insurance till your doing commercial/big production work. There are production companies that take care of insurance, permits, payroll, taxes, casting, crew ect.

One big mistake people make these days..... Is they move around to much with vendors and services. I call these idiots "Team Best Deal" You know who you are.... Switching insurance companies every other year to save $20 here and there. Buying supplies at the cheapest place.
Never building long term business relationships.

Lemme learn you a few old school tricks.

- I shop 90% of my photo, camera, video needs from one local store. Do I get the best deal? Not on everything... But most things. Do I go "Team best deal" and buy cheaper else where? No!

Why...... They know I'm not "Team Best Deal" If there is anything in that store that I want to borrow, use or test out.... No problem.

- My Insurance agent.... Same agent... 20 years.... Do I get the best deal? Probably not..... But very fair.
Say I'm gonna shoot a Lamborgini from a private or commercial owner. Although I'm covered with a multi million dollar business policy. I call him up.... Tell him I'm gonna be in posession of a $250k car for two days. He will write a policy for me from this date to that date and I sign it and give him a check for $100. He puts the policy/check in his drawer. When I'm done and nothing happened to the car....... He rips up the policy and the check !!!!
You think you can get that service if your a "Team Best Deal" guy.

frisco
 
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