Booking Crew
Once you get details about what crew members you are able to hire and their rates, you can start reaching out to crew. The key thing is that you are not really the one doing the hiring, you are just putting these people on hold for the producer to then book for you.
Booking Crew
The basic process is that you will put department heads on hold, then pass all contact info onto the producer, they will reach out and confirm rates and dates with the crew member and book them. Basically you are not hiring anyone, it's the producer who is hiring people. You are just recommending people to hire.
To start, you'll reach out to crew member you want, give them rates, all shooting and prep dates, and let them know any additional crew members they are able to hire. Also let them know if it is a union or non-union project. If there are any additional people to hire, you should let your department head hire for you, as it gives them some autonomy over their department and keeps them happy. It's also less work for you. You'll also want to tell the people you have hired if they don't hear from production soon, that they can reach out to the production themselves and give them the producers email. It can be very frustrating as producers will wait until the last possible moment to hire the crew, the crew will then take this to think the shoot is not happening and they will take other work. By giving them the producers contact info, if things fall apart it puts in a safeguard to make sure the crew member doesn't take other work.
You can use Crew List to text people and create a crew list to send to the producer. Contact Ryan to get this setup if you'd like it.
Once you have everyone, make a document with their names, phone numbers, emails, and their rates and send this the producer. It can be helpful to include rates as it gives you a document where the producer has basically agreed to what they may have told you over the phone or in another email, more documentation will never hurt.
Crew Availability
You must be pretty accommodating when someone gets a better job than yours. If you're not paying full rate, expect that they will leave when offered a better job. However, they should always provide a replacement for themselves.
Take it on a case by case basis, but often times it's not worth doing a patchwork of crew for a job. If someone tells you they are not available for part of your shoot, just try and find someone who can be there every day rather than someone who needs a cover for multiple days. It will just add stress to find covers.
Union Organizing
Once the crew is hired, you also should encourage them to try and organize the show. The only way you'll move up into shooting union projects is by making the projects you shoot union. While it can be scary, organizing efforts are often times successful and have a greater chance of succeeding the more crew members you have onboard.
To organize your show, use the form on the IATSE Local 600 website.
- Type in applicable Info
- Upload Call Sheet
- Click publish in ICG magazine.
Getting Crew up to Speed
Give them access to your project prep pro app or your scriptation project to get them up to speed. You can also do this with the operators and it's nice to give them a video reference so they can understand what kind of shots you are after.