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We’ve all done it. The final scene of our favourite film plays out and we keep watching trying to read each and every name. No?
If you’re a real film geek like we are, you’ll be watching all the credits.Or, if you’re a normal person and you’ve just waited for the blooper reel at the end, you’ll have seen an endless scroll of job titles, song lists and thank you notes whip down faster than the eye can see. Your average run of the mill Hollywood blockbuster will have up to 600 people involved from top to bottom with some bulging out to over 3000 credits. That’s a whole lot of crew.
Usually the comments that come up when the credits roll are - What does a best boy do? Key grip… that’s a funny name. Does a producer just find the money? These are all valid questions. When you’re prepping for your own shoot you’ll want to know how many crew you need and have a clear idea of what they actually do as well (FYI - the best boy works in the lighting department). Whether it’s a small studio shoot with skeleton crew or a big budget ‘on location’ production, you’ll need to put together the best team to deliver your brand vision.
Get your star players in place
Most projects will begin their lives in the hands of a few key creative team members, starting with the producer. But what does a producer actually do? It’s a good question. They get stuff made. This is easy to say and tough to do. They take a project from ground zero and build it up to completion. They do anything from creating a budget, attaching talent and key crew to securing creative rights and packaging the project. They need to be a sharp negotiator, a keen co-ordinator, a people person and a solver of problems. It’s an end to end role that spans the entire production and at the end of the day the buck stops with them. Ultimately, they need to make sure that the project runs on time, is under budget and is a creative success.
This is where the director comes in. Usually, a producer will draft in a director once he gets the green light from a financer or a client and wants to start the creative process. In the world of commercials, the director is brought in for a very specific reason. They are the creative force that will deliver the client’s vision. While the producer supplies all the tools for them to use they’ll need to know how to use them. They’ll create storyboards and shot lists, drag great performances from their actors, make sure each shot is as important as the last and pull together all the elements. They’ll work closely with a producer to guide the project forward and take charge of all departments to channel the brand’s vision onto the screen.
One member of the crew that is often included in the key creative team alongside the producer and director is the cinematographer (or director of photography). It is an artistic craft that defines how the picture will look and feel. It’s that magical moment on screen that can’t possibly be put into words, where the visual speaks its own cinematic language to keep the audience mesmerised. Think of E.T flying across the face of a full moon on the handlebars of a little boy’s bike or Andy Dufresne throwing his arms up into the rain when he finally breaks free from Shawshank. To create this magic, the DoP will need to balance the creative and the technical, working closely with the director as well as marshalling the camera and lighting teams.
We’ve got a department for that
The average TV commercial won’t need an entire army of people but there will still be times when the numbers can spiral up into the size of a platoon. The best way to organise who you need to get, is to work through the departments one by one. The production team is the first port of call for any project, where the main organisation and preparation happens. There can be any number of producers, managers, coordinators and assistants that will fulfil the day to day running of the job. They take care of the scheduling, accounting, rentals, transport and anything else that needs to be set up for the big day.
The production will also hire most of the general crew including the assistant director team, who will run the floor on shoot days. These are your generals who keep your production running like clockwork, with the 1st AD whipping everyone into shape along with his team to keep the day moving forward. It’s a role that needs discipline, organisation, communication and most importantly great paperwork. They also keep all the other departments linked up and up to date on the progress of the shoot. That will usually include the camera team, lighting, grips, sound dept, locations, art dept, hair and makeup, wardrobe and the stunt team.
Each team has a department head and a team of experts to carry out integral tasks to meet the demands of the production. The DoP will give his camera team as well as the lighting and grip departments instructions to set up each shot as the day progresses. These three teams need to work in tandem, taking responsibility for all the technical elements of setting up the camera, the lighting equipment and the technical rigging (mainly the grips specialty). Depending on the scale of the production you might need scores of experts in each team, from focus pullers who keep the shot in focus to a key grip (remember, that funny name from the credits), who sets up the equipment to help the camera move.
Filmmaking is a team game
With any production there will come a time when you need to draft in people who are trained in a special skill set. It might seem like a cliche but each of these team members will be vital to how the final film looks, sounds and feels. The locations scouts need to find the perfect building that will reflect exactly what is in the creative brief or script. The makeup artist has to get the model’s facial contours just right to look incredible under all those hot lights. The boom op (they capture sound from a (sometimes furry) microphone) has to make sure every word is clean and clear to slot into the final edit. This is just a flavour of all various roles that might crop up on your budget as we line up the specification for your shoot. .
Understanding how each and every job role is integral to a production will give you some perspective when you’re looking over the call sheet. We’re in a unique position where we have a wealth of skills and expertise right here in house, giving you the key creative and technical experts needed to pull off any scale of production. With a network of film and TV professionals filling up our black book, we can get the right person for the job at a moment's notice and help you bring your vision to reality.
In an effort to explain all the ins and outs of what it takes to make amazing motion content - we’ve put together this handy crew crib sheet, so you can check out all the different roles for your next commercial shoot. Drop us a line if you want to talk about your next big commercial.
