Planning documentary, need help/advice

B

Bibble

New member
Hey all,

I'm currently in the extremely early planning stage of a documentary. I want it to be in the style of a Michael Moore documentary, by which I mean having myself on screen while someone else films.

I was thinking about hiring a camera person, and I want to know how that would work. I'm assuming that they would provide their own equipment and I would handle the post production work on my own, but I was wondering what would be a fair wage for roughly a month of their time and 15 days of shooting.

In addition to paying their salary, I'm also curious as to what other things (food, travel expenses) I would be expected to provide in such a situation.
 
You didn't give any details concering how much travel etc. You will need at least a camera person and a sound person to do things right. In most cases you would be expected to provide travel and expenses. As far as how much to pay them it depends on what market you reside in. Most camera operators will have a day/weekly rate with equipment. It depends on what type of camera and production gear you need. There are a lot of variables and price ranges. You could also buy or rent whatever gear you needed and hire a crew.
 
I guess it really depends how much money you're willing to throw at this documentary.

Maybe what you really need to do is work out what bits you need extra people (camera/sound/lighting) for and plan how you can make the most of them in the given days.
 
What's the output for this? You expecting to make TV or the Big Screen? Or just a typical Youtube piece of work?

And yes, one way to price this out when you talk to a budding cameraman/sound engineer if you don't know much about docs could be:

Clarify the Budget
Clarify the Scope (do you have it all written down?)
Written script or storyline?
Having a vision of the kind of shots you need, so you can block out the story can be really useful. It may go awry, but will help understand where your need to work. There are templates available online to do this.
I would get a sound engineer also, it's very difficult to do both, but some, like me, do. It's hard though. Would rather hand it off to someone to pay attention to.
 
Yes a good question is what is your budget? When I shoot documentaries I do everything myself most of the time. i.e. sound, lighting, cameras. It helps put more budget other places. But I am not an on camera personality...
 
Hey again everyone. Thanks for the replies.

For the scope of the film, it is something that I would like to make into a feature length film. Basically, I want a crew to travel with me as I go to Japan and document the indie music scene.

I'm thinking around 30k as a budget for the filming process. Admittedly, a lot would have to go towards things like air travel and lodging for the crew.
 
So break it down into days. Your crew would have a day rate. For example, if they are serious semi-pros from an outlying area, you might find folks willing to do it for $500 to $1000 a day (given that they will be gone and unable to do anything but this project). If you have a sound engineer and a cameraman, your budget is likely going to go for that. How many days are you planning on being there to get a full length documentary? The cost of living in Japan alone is likely to be about the same or more as your crew costs...wouldn't it? Or do you have people willing to put you and your crew up there?

If I were doing that, I'd want to have a very tight schedule, with people setting me up in advance to meet with musicians in the day, and shoot their live performances in the evening. Given that you are paying a crew, you want to minimize downtime. So a tightly scripted timeline will be essential. Where will you be, and when? Who are the people you need to document when you get there? Can you coordinate with their schedules?

Your notion of a 'feature length' film (2 hours?) probably won't jive with that budget. Could you really shoot a storyline of the Japanese indie scene, 2 hours worth of finished product? Do you have a clue as to how many hours that takes to edit? It's going to be a lot of editing time. There is a real cost to someone, even yourself, to do that. Have you ever done this kind of project before? If not, the learning curve is likely to make you crazy...it's a very ambitious project..

Best of luck!
 
Off the top of my head, I would say that we would be there for a month with about fifteen shooting days, but as you said, it would really come down to the artists that I'm able to contact and their availability.

I'm not incredibly worried about post-production at the moment as raising the funds for the initial filming will be quite a hurdle, but ideally I could get a rough cut (or even a trailer) to shop around for additional funding.

Living in Japan would be expensive, but I think it could be managed if we get fairly inexpensive lodging and avoid higher end restaurants.

As for the daily rate, would I only be required to pay for the days that we actually shoot or would I have to pay for the full month due to the fact that I'm dragging them across the world?
 
Bibble said:
Living in Japan would be expensive, but I think it could be managed if we get fairly inexpensive lodging and avoid higher end restaurants.

As for the daily rate, would I only be required to pay for the days that we actually shoot or would I have to pay for the full month due to the fact that I'm dragging them across the world?
Click to expand...

Have you actually priced out lodging? And yes, I think that the expectations are that if you hired a cameraman to be in Japan for 14 days, yet he/she only shot 7, you would pay for 14. You might want to consider hiring an English speaking crew for you while you are over there. I bet they have great shooters. That would eliminate paying airfare and expenses. But if you do that, you have to be really organized.

Good luck
 
Yeah, it seems foolish to me to hire a crew and buy them plane tickets when there are plenty of qualified people already living in Japan. Many of them speak English and Japanese, and may also know something about the scene you're looking at. It would be foolish to ignore a potential resource like that and pay extra for people who aren't from Japan....
 
It also depends on the level of experience of the crew. Although, you can get lucky.... I know one sound engineer that will work for $50 an hour.
 
Have your plans changed in light of recent events? It's amazing how quickly our best laid plans are foiled. I am going through the same thing with my current doc (it's not about Japan, but circumstances have almost derailed the entire film).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top