Re: What crew members should be filled in a first short film?

Nery:

If you are headed in the direction of professional production, then you have to consider purchase of production insurance which will protect you and your cast/crew/locations from fire, theft, damage and general liability for things that CAN and DO happen on set.

I am finding that many students and graduates of film schools are not being taught about the reality of shooting on location and taking care of the health and wellbeing of those on the cast and crew. Anytime you are going to be shooting on location, you will most likely need to pull a permit from the locality in which you are shooting and they are not going to permit your production without production liability insurance. Period! You can expect to pay something like $800/year for a policy with 1M/2M in coverage. M stands for Million here.

When budgeting for food and liquids for your cast and especially your crew you want to figure on 1 meal every 6 hours on set and that includes breakfast, since the crew gets to location earlier than everyone else, so the meal clock starts when the first person shows up for crew call.

Figure on at least 1,500-2,000 calories per person and if shooting in temps above 80 degree Farenheit, each person needs one quart of water per hour...to keep up with sweat loss. You don't want to end up with crew members passing out on a hot day. You can usually get a free consult with a nutritionist to help you meal plan. A hungry/thirsty crew is an unhappy crew... Feed them and they will work for you.

On a SAG production, you can be hit with a meal penalty if you don't feed your SAG actors every six hours... and that can stop your production in its tracks or cause unnecessary delays.

Plan as well for craft service to provide small snacks like chips/pretzels, cookies/Brownies, and other salty snacks.

It is also best practice to ask every person on set during preproduction if they have any medical or allergy issues. For instance, I am diabetic, so I can't eat pizza all day.... others might have salt restrictions, or perhaps a peanut allergy.

Many job boards are littered with folks trying to mount a production with low/no/deferred payment arrangements. What they don't remember is that they are responsible for the health and well being of their cast and crew. If something goes sideways... and it does happen pretty often, the production can be shut down or cost those producing the project large amounts of money... Think about it.

Just some things to think about during pre-production...

Good luck in your planning.

Jon