Shared Studio Space?

homestar_kevin

homestar_kevin

Well-known member
So I have been doing film stuff for a while now and have a group of friends who are all working in the industry along with me.

We don't work on every project together, but on a lot of them together and we pretty much do everyones passion/personal projects together.

None of us have a studio space as we are mostly day players or in salaried corporate positions.

I've been thinking of this idea for awhile and wanted to get opinions/reactions and try and figure out whether it'd be worthwhile.

I'm thinking of getting several of us together to rent a studio space to share.

This would be a good place to store some gear, set up a green/white screen, a space to bring clients and generally facilitate things we aren't capable of doing without a centralized studio space.

What would be the holes in this idea I'm not thinking of?

In the talks with landlords I've had, the most glaring thing is that pretty much none will want more than two people on the lease, so the burden of responsibility would fall to them.

The spaces I'm looking at are cheap, but not something I could handle alone.

To have everyone together to pull resources and help split up the cost would be neccesary to make it an affordable reality.

I trust these people as they are all more than coworkers and I've known them for 6+ years and have been borrowing/sharing gear anyway with no mishaps.

What am I not seeing?

potential theft, scheduling conflicts, stress effecting our relationships, broken gear....

what else am I missing?

Has anyone done anything like this before?
 
Definitely a huge concern.

I was thinking of a locker system or something, a traditional cage type deal.

Again, haven't done anything yet, just gauging opinions.
 
I think it really depends on the people and if there is someone heading up the project. I have friends who did something similar successfully:


Its not with out issues, but if people are cool and genuinely good guys to be around/work with. I think it can work out well.
 
I went into business in 2004 with a group of like minded individuals - all really nice people, all with a common interest, although in slightly different areas. I was interested in TV and radio, another book publishing, one music events, another with religion (he was a vicar). He saw an outlet for his market through our media streams. Belief was not an issue - but he had access to funding from religious organisations. We had a nice suite of offices in a surplus building next to a well known UK broadcaster. For six months all went well. I made educational programmes, a colleague produced books, the music guy ran pop concerts - all with a religious flavour and it was going well, until we discovered the income (which was quite a lot) had been mismanaged. Nothing fraudulent or illegal, just misunderstood. I'd do a job and give him the invoicing info 3 people at £240 per person, per day for a week (in terms of cost for what they would invoice) - but I didn't exactly say that - I said £240 pppd for a week so he invoiced £240 in total! He didn't understand at all, and it seems he just got out of his depth with special reductions on the lease and rent etc. Before long it just wasn't viable and the funding gone, and we all ducked out. He had given some guarantees too, we think, and he ended up divorced and homeless. Everyone started off as great friends, and it just went wrong. I really enjoyed the projects we all worked on, but for anyone considering sharing a space, it's essential that even if you have similar aspirations and direction, the building blocks are solid.

One suggestion was that everything in your project is given a notional value. So that when you use say, the green screen for a day's shooting - a value is clocked up. Everything shared has a value, and then you can see who are the users in the project and who is supplying. You could decide to actually charge for real, and then supply between you interactively, settling up at the end of each month/quarter? Anybody who didn't contribute would soon stand out. One person with lots of kit would not produce much but earn from those that do. Those that produce don't have expensive external hires. With careful planning it could work and benefit everyone, but you'd really need legal advice to produce some kind of association or constitution document that could be enforced, that would cover getting rid of an 'associate', or taking on a new one, or changing the system. Plenty of professions use this kind of system, where everyone is a sort of partner - you just need the framework.
 
That Gorilla Pictures short is awesome. What an inspiring story, now I just need to find someone to give me two reds! hahaha

That's a very awesome story and is certainly in line with what I'm sure everyone wants to do, myself included. It's nice to hear that it can happen.

I know it's certainly a long way away from that, but I do think I'm at least going to keep looking for something small with this crew.

We definitely all have the same vision and work well together, but I agree it needs to be defined, written down, and adhered to if we get to that point.
 
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