Is my crew too epic?

Steve Laramie

Steve Laramie

Veteran
2 day shoot interior house. I have myself as DP and I have an AC, key grip, best boy grip, and a best boy electric. It isn't a studio so I am wondering if it will be to close quarters. Do you think this will improve efficiency or lower efficiency?
 
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You are the DP and AC? How are you going to pull your own focus? (Assuming you are operating as well).

If your crew doesn't know how to communicate or do their jobs, it will absolutely slow you down. But if they work together well, your speed should be greatly increased.

But I think you are forgetting a department head. You have a best boy electric without his (her) department head - the Gaffer. And you might want to have a 2nd AC to take the clapper/loader position and fill out the camera department reports. And you really want a 1st AC.

But your camera crew is small opposed to some of the crews I've personally worked on. And some of our Studio guys here will laugh when you call that epic. So you really shouldn't have issues. Unless you aren't good at communicating what you want/need as a departmental head.
 
If the quarters are really close, keep your key grip and have the bestboy grip off taking down the last location setup or setting up the next location. That can save time... but i'm going to guess you only have enough equipment for one shot at a time. :)
 
As for sound that is a seperate department. I am just talking about my department right now. We have a sound guy a scripty a director and an AD
 
That's roughly how our crew rolled for a 2-day shoot in a Hawthorne 1-bedroom apartment a couple weeks back.
 
Sounds great, if it's too cramped, some crew can hang outside preparing for other shots, keeping things organized, and helping to get things set up for wrap so you can get out fast.
 
Are some of these guys that you met at DIY Days?

thanks again, by the way. you all made for an amazing team.
 
I'm continuously amazed by how much the right people, even if they seem like just extra crew, can speed up a set by doing all the stuff no one thinks about but holds people up. And how much the wrong people can slow things down.
 
As a good example...

I shot two films in the same house. The films were dramatically different in style, but all the space constraints were the same.

On one film we had a 2 person camera team, not including myself, and a 3 person lighting team. We wrapped almost an hour early every day and never had to wait for equipment to be ready, aside from loading film... as the ACs always seem to have not brought enough cores.

On the second film we had the same camera team but a different lighting team. They were not as attentive and I always had to call for them when I needed something done. Even though for this film we had our lights on rolling stands to move faster, we ended up falling behind because the crew wasn't being responsive.

Who you pick makes a gigantic difference. The number of people around has never really gotten in my way. Both of those films came with a Director, AD, Production Designer, Art People, Special Effects/Makeup, Script Supervisor, PM, Producer, two Audio guys, and actors, and though it was cramped we were able to move freely once we had gotten a general plan for how things would move.

Not having enough people can really screw you over though, so I generally ask for more people than I think I will need... which always drives whoever is handling food nuts.
 
Update... Camera and lighting dept was setup about 30 minutes before makeup on every shot. So I would say it was a good choice.
 
lairhair said:
2 day shoot interior house. I have myself as DP and I have an AC, key grip, best boy grip, and a best boy electric. It isn't a studio so I am wondering if it will be to close quarters. Do you think this will improve efficiency or lower efficiency?
Click to expand...

Epic crew? what does that really mean!?!? What are you? Jim Rome!
 
Eh, call me when you have seperate trucks for grip and electric. Then we'll consider calling it epic.
 
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