Giving a copy of your feature to all the actors

[Mickey Munday]

sad max you have me cracking up over here, lol.

i like the feedback and the difference of opinions from you guys, it's interesting to see different people's take on things.

 

[Sad Max]

I'm limited by my own experience: for me a film crew is a team: there are no superfluous people (well, below the line, anyway) because money's too tight to keep dead weight on a crew. Whenever PAs ***** to me about not being given important work, I point out to them that merely failing to deliver a message or move an envelope can potentially derail a schedule, wreck a setup or cost the company time and $$$ that we can't afford to lose. And if you have the ability to louse up the project, you should damn well be regarded as an important part of the team.

Sure, the actors' performances are what people will come to see. Good luck getting that audience's asses in the seats, without the crew that gets the actors' images up on screen, to be viewed in the first place, or without writers having provided the actors with something to do and say, in the process.

 

[Casalen]

For the actor in this thread; that's sort of an unfair comparison. That grip person may well have invested a lot more in equipment and education, and have put more work into the project. We don't know.

But there is a more important consideration. If I get angry and leave the set two weeks in someone else can shoot it. If one of the lead actors leaves... the show's over. So we have to be nice to the actors.

 

[Ted Spencer]

Well, I won't dispute that they might feel entitled to a bit more...

...that first/last time on set / no professional training person just might be the one to prevent a 1K from falling on someone else's professionally-trained, long-distance-traveling, hundreds of dollars-spending head...

Well, in my case, all of the falling light stands I can ever recall being caught on a set were caught...by me : )

...not to mention frequently working longer on-set hours at a generally more physically demanding...

No grip an any set has ever done anything as physically demanding as I have seen many actors do. Like falling down or off of high places over and over again, staging fights that leave almost as many cuts and bruises as real ones do, slapping and choking each other, and on and on, while remembering their lines and characterizations, all too often at the end of a 14 hour shoot. And then there's the stunt actors. They have a tendency to die with alarming frequency.

...lower-paid job, too.

Lower than $0?

 

[Sad Max]

For the actor in this thread; that's sort of an unfair comparison. That grip person may well have invested a lot more in equipment and education, and have put more work into the project. We don't know.

But there is a more important consideration. If I get angry and leave the set two weeks in someone else can shoot it. If one of the lead actors leaves... the show's over. So we have to be nice to the actors.

Yes and no. Years ago Sid Schienberg was being given a tour through Amblin Imaging, and after having been shown all the digital work his only question was How soon can we do this with actors?

And the answer, of course, was not long. Someday soon walking off a set will not mean that the actors won't be in the rest of your movie...of course it's already been done with actors who did not live to finish the project. But there's no technical reason it couldn't be done with actors who simply chose to walk.

 

[FilmBoy77]

i agree with sad max. i don't think the actors should be disrespected, but i don't think they should expect to be held as the most important person on set at all times like some type of pope or something, lol. it's a collaborative effort. i've never worked with any actors on this level especially that couldn't wait a few months after post for a copy of the film and wouldn't settle for just their scenes given to them in HD or on DVD in the meantime....and i hope i don't have to.

 

[Sad Max]

Well, in my case, all of the falling light stands I can ever recall being caught on a set were caught...by me : )

I get the feeling this tells me more about the specific sets you've been working on, than anything else.

No grip an any set has ever done anything as physically demanding as I have seen many actors do.

What sets have you been working on...? The labor completed by the rigging, SFX and construction grips with whom I work is frequently astonishing. Until I see actors hauling 2Ks into the perms, raising wild walls by hand, rigging a 2500 square foot set in under two days, or re-rigging a set that is literally under water - in diving gear - I'll have great difficulty taking your suggestion seriously.

Never done anything as physically demanding?

Come on.

Like falling down or off of high places over and over again,

Guess who rigs that stunt? That's right, grips. The actor's life is in their hands, on top of the physical labor involved. Not to mention the training and safety certification, which is measured by enforced standards (unlike an actor's training).

And, I can't help but note that falling - basically obeying the Law of Gravitation - is not strictly speaking a difficult thing to do, although it admittedly requires a certain degree of caution.

staging fights that leave almost as many cuts and bruises as real ones do,

If you're getting almost as badly hurt in a staged fight as a real one, you need a new fight coordinator. True, some scenes call for a degree of real contact that can be harmful, but that's far more an exception, than a rule.

slapping and choking each other, and on and on, while remembering their lines and characterizations, all too often at the end of a 14 hour shoot.

You think that's a long day? What about the people who arrive well before the actors to pre-light, pre-rig, etc and don't leave the set until long after the actors have gone home? No matter when you set foot on set, odds are the production office staff has been in and working for an hour or two already, too.

And then there's the stunt actors. They have a tendency to die with alarming frequency.

I'd like to see the figures that underpin your definition of alarming frequency.

Lower than $0?

On a set where people are being paid, the principal actors will be making more than the grips. Where people are working for free, well, they've chosen to work for free.

More than anything this is beginning to look like the root cause of people's perception that actors are all self-centered types who are blithely unaware of what anyone else does, on the set where they perform.

None of this is intended to denigrate actors or their profession, or to suggest that they aren't a central element in producing a program. But this prima-donna we deserve more respect and consideration than anyone else because we work so much harder is bullshi*, and I'm calling you on it. You're the centers of attention already, which is fine and proper. Why push it?

 

[Zak Forsman]

I think actors, by nature of their work and the potentially painful places they go, need protection from the distractions of an active set. this is often misinterpreted as "special treatment" and all too often they're made to feel like a guest on the crew's set instead of a member of the team. In my experience on studio sets, I don't see much of actors undermining the crew, but i do see a lot of crew members getting inside the heads of actors. and because everything we're doing is supposed to be in service of those brief moments between "action" and "cut", I've had to ultimately let one person go from my own set (a last minute "back-up" hire) because he was undermining the project in this way.

so i'd say that while actors do not deserve more consideration, they definitely require different considerations that crews often misinterpret as special treatment and entitlement. and unfortunately some see fit to cast aspersions like "diva" and "prima donna". we've been very successful at Sabi to weed these people out during the interview process.

 

[Sad Max]

^ Yes. There's no question that actors' needs are different than the needs of anyone else working on a set, and the crew is responsible for making the environment conducive to the actor doing his best work. But there's a big difference between we have different needs and we work so much harder than everyone else. The former statement is a fact of life; the latter is nonsense.

 

[Ted Spencer]

Sad Max - I almost removed my previous post shortly after I wrote it. I felt a reaction of the kind you wrote might be forthcoming, and it was. No need for amped-up arguments here on this subject. I have the utmost respect for the technical crew.

In case you might not have picked it up on other posts of mine here, I make my living as a music recording engineer and mixer - music CDs and film scores mainly, and have done so for many, many years. So I'm one of those guys you cite that shows up early, works my butt off, and goes home long after the talent (musicians in this case) do. I understand what you're talking about...

But actors, like the professional musicians I work with, deserve some serious respect. As a recording engineer I consider myself below them (the musicians) on the food chain. They have invested time and money in their training, and in some cases several hundred thousand dollars in instruments, that most of my kind will never begin to approach. They deserve my deference and they get it.

Regarding our previous dispute, I see it in somewhat similar terms.

And I do not wish to participate in any further arguments on the subject.

Peace unto you, brother.

 

[Sad Max]

Okay.

 

[uglysexy]

In all the SAG low budget contracts it is required to at least give the actor clips of their performance by six months after the end of principle photography...that doesn't require the whole film....but with the typical indie taking 1 to 3 years to go beyond the festival circuit you can see how an actor might get impatient to have reel clips that do not show them how they looked 3 years ago.... This contractual requirement is a reasonable term to get to use the SAG actor at below studio scale at whatever tier you're at

 

[Michele Seidman]

Not a director here but an actor....

There is one problem with not giving us a copy...you hinder us from building a reel. If you all don't want to give us a copy the least you can do is give us a little footage for our reel.

I have been asking several indie film people...who's projects paid me very little or nothing at all to give me footage. In some cases they have never bothered and in a few I had to wait for them to be released on DVD and buy my own copy of projects I did for free.

Seriously...is that fair? I know it is not nice...

Protect your work by all means but if the actor is working for nothing or next to nothing...at least give them a little scene or something to add to their reels so they can use it to get paying work!