Feed your people!

By DTL
Posted November 26, 2010

When you’re shooting your micro-budget epic, don’t neglect the people who are gambling their time and talent on the project. Give them food and drink to fortify their mortal selves.

Andrew Dean put it well:

[T]his is the absolutely most essential and most often neglected part of shooting a no-budget feature. The people on set are worth far more than the gear. If you starve people they get grumpy and make poor decisions . . . and are less likely to come back. If you feed them well (not fancy, just well) then they are far more likely to take a bullet for you and say, “Let’s go for it.”

Drinks

Athletes know that the primary cause of exhaustion is dehydration, so keep your people well-watered to keep them alert and functioning well.

It’s a cliché that coffee is the most important thing you can provide. Dave Knox said (in Strike the Baby and Kill the Blonde; see Reading list):

the single most important element in maintaining crew morale (future producers take note) is having huge tanks of fresh coffee available all day long on the craft services table. [ . . . ] there is simply no such thing as coffee that is too strong for a movie crew. That’s what the milk is for, to cut it.

On a typical small micro-budget shoot, you can probably just bring your 12-cup breakfast coffee-maker from home. If you have many people on your set — a large cast and crew — it’s worth spending the money from your production war-chest to buy one of those large, silver, industrial coffee-makers. Check out kitchen-supply outlets in your area; you might get a higher quality than buying from Canadian Tire.

Of course, some people don’t drink coffee (weirdos), so you should provide beverages for them. For tea-drinkers, you can supply a variety pack of tea bags and an electric kettle.

And rather than carbonated sugar-water like Coke, or sugar-water with added caffeine like Red Bull, provide single-serving bottles of water and juice available so people can just grab one in passing. Better yet, provide dispensers and reusable cups or bottles.

Note: For some reason, people are really careless with their empty or half-empty water bottles, so survey the set before a shot to make sure there are no stray bottles screwing up the continuity.

I read an informal survey that revealed that, after money, alcohol is the thing cast and crew want most. If you can give everyone a beer or two at the end of a hard day, you’ll reap much gratitude. You might also have some wine or spirits for people who don’t like beer. Don’t break out the beer until the end of the day! If you’ve ever had your friends help you move house, you know that once the drinking starts, the work stops.

And beware of sending away anyone who is even slightly intoxicated! You don’t want to be a contributing factor to anyone’s death or disability. You might be legally liable if one of your team drives drunk and crashes into a bus of orphans on their way to see the Pope.

Food

Before you get on the floor for principal photography, you will have noted certain information about members of your team, eg. their names for the movie’s credits, their addresses to send those royalty cheques to, etc. While you’re getting that information, ask about any food allergies or dietary restrictions. You don’t want to offer a big plate of pork ribs and shellfish to your kosher crew. People will appreciate that you took the time to care about them.

And it should go without saying that it’s better to have more food than you need than to leave people hungry. Making a movie is creative work, but shooting is also hard, physical work. People need fuel.

Pizza is the traditional meal on micro-budget movie shoots. It’s easy (just place the order), it’s quick (delivered in 30 minutes or you can keep the driver’s watch), and it’s cheap (well, depending on where you order from). It doesn’t require much thought or effort; just make a phone call, and food is delivered right to the set. Sounds great.

But I recommend against it. Pizza is great when you’re smokin’ weed and watchin’ movies late at night with your friends. But when you’re asking people to concentrate and work hard, you don’t want to set them up for a carb crash 45 minutes after lunch. You need the cast and crew to be thinking about the job, not about where they might sneak a nap.

That’s not even to address the Pizza Holy Wars that inevitably erupt when you try to co-ordinate an order between more than three people. Do you order double cheese, or is that like eating rubber cement on warm bread? Some people like pineapple, and some people find that the juice permeates the crust and flavours the entire pie. There’s always a vegetarian who can’t have meat — and what’s a pizza without pepperoni? It can take more co-ordination to order pizza for ten people than it can to schedule your entire shoot.

If easy, quick, and cheap is what you need, consider hamburgers. You can despatch someone to drive through McDonald’s or A&W and pick up a dozen hamburgers for less than two bucks a burger. Everybody loves McDonald’s cheeseburgers or A&W’s Mama Burgers. Just remember that fast-food hamburgers have to be eaten within 20 minutes, or they congeal and devolve back to their original consituent materiel. I recommend against burgers, though, for the same reason I recommend against pizza.

A better fast-food option, if you have a bit more time and money, might be sandwiches from some place like Subway or Quizno’s. These places offer plenty of choice, but you don’t get the same fights you do when trying to put together a pizza order.

Sandwiches still offer plenty of carbs, but at least you get some real meat and veggies. Get a bunch of foot-long subs and cut them in half, so people can take one six-incher and come back for another if they’re still hungry.

The tastiest way to feed your team is to order takeout from a local restaurant. I fondly remember some shoots that fed us Indian food from a nearby joint. It was delicious: just spicy enough that your mouth didn’t burn as long as you kept eating, varied enough that everyone could find something we liked, and filling enough to be satisfying without making us loggy afterward.

Unfortunately, this is also the most expensive option. But it doesn’t have to be. Try offering the restaurant a credit in the movie as “Craft Services”, and they might give you a discount; heck, they might give you the food for free. At worst you’ll wind up paying the regular price, so it’s always worth asking.

The least expensive way to provide food is to cook it yourself. Unfortunately, this is also the most time-consuming. The old saying always holds true: “Good, cheap, fast — pick any two.” Think of the spread at a Boy Scouts jamboree or a church picnic or a Lion’s Club fest.

It’s easier to make a nice hearty stew or soup or something like that. It’s better to have a big pot of something from which people can serve themselves a helping depending on how hungry they are, rather than giving everyone a separate, uniform plate.

Another option is to provide a big cold plate. Chop up some fruits and veggies into bite-sized pieces and lay them out in bowls or on trays. There’s lots of delicious finger-food type stuff: baby carrots, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, broccoli florets, green pepper slices, celery stalks, grapes, apple slices, cantaloupe chunks, pineapple rings, strawberries, and more. You can offer a nice dip or hummus on the side. (Tip: Cut fruit like apples or pears won’t go brown if you dip them in lemon juice.)

Add a couple of plates of crackers (think Triscuits or Bretons rather than soda crackers), cheese slices (basic cheddar is fine), and a couple of bowls of potato chips for treats. Set out some small plates (be ecological if you can, and use washable plates rather than paper). Presto! You’ve got a buffet table people can serve themselves from.

Take care of your people, and they will work hard for you.