Latest / Indie Film Podcast / Dumpster Diving for Dinner: Craft Services Stories from Indie Film Sets

Transcript

Dumpster Diving for Dinner: Craft Services Stories from Indie Film Sets · Indie Film Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. I'm Vic.
• 0:02
  And I am Chuck for the month of November.
• 0:04
  We are thankful for all the capable indie film makers out
• 0:06
  there. Chuck, what is the best way to
• 0:08
  show both gratitude and capability on an indie film set?
• 0:13
  Maybe a well thought out shot list.
• 0:15
  New. How about having all your
• 0:17
  locations scouted weeks ahead of the shoot?
• 0:19
  Oh no, said indie film said. OK, maybe a call sheet that has
• 0:24
  detailed weather report even though you're going to be
• 0:25
  filming inside of an office building without any Windows 0?
• 0:28
  So close, but still no. It is actually having a
• 0:32
  cornucopia of snacks available to compensate your underpaid but
• 0:36
  over talented cast and crew. Oh yes, crafty.
• 0:39
  We all think that money is our main motivator, but a lot of
• 0:42
  times I think it's just calories.
• 0:43
  I think we like to return back to that base animal instinct
• 0:46
  that we all have. We need food and that's a great
• 0:49
  way to compensate people. We.
• 0:50
  Do need food? And if you are doubting that
• 0:52
  craft services aren't the most important aspect of a film set,
• 0:56
  I have a quote here from Greg Kinnear.
• 0:58
  Have you heard of them? Maybe you've seen the movie As
• 1:01
  Good As It Gets. Or maybe you've seen the movie
• 1:03
  Little Miss Sunshine stuck on you.
• 1:05
  Sabrina, you've got mail. Dear God, stop me anytime.
• 1:11
  I was just gonna wait for you to get to my favorite role.
• 1:13
  And he appeared on an episode of Kimmy Schmidt.
• 1:15
  Oh yeah, he was on an episode of Kimmy.
• 1:16
  Schmidt and played himself on that episode and he was
• 1:19
  delightful. Yeah, it's not even acting if
• 1:21
  you're not pretending to be somebody else.
• 1:23
  I mean, I feel like it was a little fictional.
• 1:24
  I hope it was a little fictionalized, but.
• 1:27
  Oh, do I do remember that episode?
• 1:28
  Yeah. What is his quote?
• 1:29
  His, oh, his quote is when you first start working in this
• 1:33
  business, you start sucking up to the studio heads and then you
• 1:36
  work your way onto the directors, but then you realize
• 1:39
  all the power really lies in the catering.
• 1:43
  You know, I think that Colin Farrell actually backed that up
• 1:46
  pretty well in his Golden Globe speech this year when instead of
• 1:50
  thanking his parents, he thanked craft services.
• 1:53
  Nice. Actually, he may have thanked
• 1:55
  his parents too. I'm not sure.
• 1:56
  Oh, but yeah, he did thank. Craft.
• 1:57
  But he did thank Craft Services. Yeah, he had the shout out
• 2:00
  there. Which is pretty awesome.
• 2:01
  And that's something that you don't want to underestimate on
• 2:03
  an indie film set, really, because a lot of times if you're
• 2:06
  working for less money than you would be working on a commercial
• 2:10
  set, you want to be fed fairly decently.
• 2:13
  Or at least somewhat just so you're not starving and broke.
• 2:18
  Yes. So should we go over some red
• 2:20
  and green flags when it comes to craft services on indie film
• 2:23
  sets? I think so, absolutely.
• 2:25
  Let's start with the most popular one that I've seen,
• 2:29
  which is no craft services and maybe that's because it's a
• 2:34
  short shoot day. So how do you feel about there
• 2:37
  being no crafty on a set because it's a like a four hour shoot?
• 2:42
  I would say that comes down to the actual shooting schedule.
• 2:45
  Yeah, because if it's three days or less, they're all at
• 2:49
  different locations and they're like, you know, 2-3 hour shoots,
• 2:53
  OK, I'm going to say that's probably not a red flag.
• 2:55
  If it's a seven day shoot, a four hour shoots each day in the
• 3:00
  same location, I'm going to say that's a big red flag.
• 3:04
  At that point we could have shot this in two days, maybe 2 1/2
• 3:08
  and you're cheap and didn't want to feed people.
• 3:10
  I think the union rules is 6 hours.
• 3:13
  They need to have a meal for most of the crew I believe.
• 3:16
  I believe that's the rule. But at the same time, even if
• 3:18
  you have a short shoot, you know, most people's day rates
• 3:23
  aren't like half my my half day rate is half my full day rate.
• 3:27
  But at the same time, like it's good to have some food and some
• 3:30
  snacks available for people. You even on your two day evening
• 3:34
  shoot for your short film dive, you had a nice spread out for
• 3:38
  everybody. Yeah, that was actually where
• 3:39
  most of the budget went. Yeah, it was to be able to make
• 3:42
  sure that people had like snacks, chips, you know, some
• 3:45
  like diced up wraps. Yeah, just little things that
• 3:49
  like, well, especially if you're doing an evening shoot, like
• 3:51
  it's so easy for your energy to dip and you get a little bit
• 3:54
  tired and just having a little, a little snack can help.
• 3:58
  I always get a little bit happier when I eat.
• 4:01
  Apparently that's not unique to me.
• 4:04
  Yeah, I think most people enjoy having some food on set.
• 4:08
  It like cuts down on anxiety. I think so.
• 4:10
  But I, I would say that like you don't always have to have crafty
• 4:14
  if you're efficient enough to be able to get something done in
• 4:17
  half a day and that's all you really need.
• 4:20
  You know, I'm flexible on that. It's always better to to pay for
• 4:23
  some of that stuff. But if you're just starting out,
• 4:25
  like if you're a student and you're shooting student films
• 4:28
  and you don't have a lot of dough, then you don't
• 4:31
  necessarily need to spend it there.
• 4:32
  Especially if you know the people, you understand that this
• 4:35
  is going to be like shot like after dinner, before dinner,
• 4:38
  after lunch, whatever, whatever the case may be, you know,
• 4:41
  whatever, be flexible. But like you said, if you're if
• 4:44
  you're intentionally scheduling things in half day segments so
• 4:46
  that you don't have to feed people and giving them two hours
• 4:49
  between to go get their own lunch, that's a little cheap.
• 4:51
  It's a little cheap. Yeah, that's a little bit rough.
• 4:53
  Though. I will say, if you're a student
• 4:55
  filmmaker, they just have like, fruit baskets or whatever at the
• 5:00
  student Union building. If you can just like, dump a
• 5:02
  couple of those into your backpack on the way out, then
• 5:04
  hey, part of your craft he's already shopped for.
• 5:07
  Yeah, just go to go to a buffet, Yeah, and see if you can sneak
• 5:10
  some of those. Places you can sneak out and
• 5:12
  bring some zip lock bags. Go nice, yeah, Which I guess
• 5:16
  might also be a red flag yeah, if all your food looks like it's
• 5:20
  from a buffet and it's just in Ziploc bag just.
• 5:22
  Take the cork container and put it underneath the underneath the
• 5:25
  frozen yogurt dispenser. There it is.
• 5:27
  But then your craft services has dessert.
• 5:30
  Oh yes, exactly. Which is nice so.
• 5:32
  Don't don't forget to sneak those cork containers in with
• 5:34
  you to the buffet. So here's another situation I
• 5:38
  have for you. Hypothetical.
• 5:40
  So is this a red flag or a green flag when it comes to crafty?
• 5:44
  A producer says that the pizza delivery person got a flat tire
• 5:47
  on their way to drop off food and that food won't be coming.
• 5:50
  And they make sure to use a photo of a flat tire that they
• 5:54
  took a few years ago that they that they use continuously to
• 5:58
  say that they're late for work. And that's the reason.
• 6:00
  And you recognize that photo from previous shoots?
• 6:03
  Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to throw that out as
• 6:06
  it's a red flag, but also I am going to give kudos to whoever
• 6:10
  that producer is because that is a very creative solution.
• 6:13
  Yes, a terrible one. Terrible, but creative.
• 6:16
  Not all creativity is good. No.
• 6:20
  So I just. Feed people.
• 6:23
  Yeah, OK. All right.
• 6:24
  How about I've got one for you? Yeah, there's craft services on
• 6:30
  set, but it's homemade. Oh, for me, if I make it, it's a
• 6:35
  red flag. So if you're on one of my sets
• 6:38
  and I said I made food for everybody and you see me eating
• 6:42
  something different that I ordered, then yeah, don't,
• 6:45
  don't. Don't touch the don't.
• 6:46
  Touch the food that is fair that's I've had I've been on
• 6:52
  some crafty or some sets with crafty that were done by like
• 6:57
  really good cooks. Yeah.
• 7:00
  But I also knew the person and trusted them.
• 7:02
  And it doesn't take much to have a little bit of food experience
• 7:05
  to know that, hey, if food is between 41 and 140°, don't eat
• 7:10
  it. That's the danger zone.
• 7:12
  That's where bacteria proliferates.
• 7:16
  Not a good time. But if you see that they have
• 7:20
  those little, what are those? The Sterno burners.
• 7:24
  What they're called? I'm pretty sure that's what
• 7:25
  they're called. Oh, the ones that the the little
• 7:28
  pockets of fire that go underneath the the steel plates.
• 7:31
  Exactly. So if you've got some of those
• 7:33
  set up buffet style, or you see that they've got bowl set in ice
• 7:37
  to keep things cool, and you have a general level of trust
• 7:41
  that, hey, they may know at least enough about food safety
• 7:45
  to know not to kill me. And sometimes, I mean, that'll
• 7:48
  be some of the best food you eat.
• 7:50
  Yeah, sometimes not, but sometimes it really.
• 7:52
  Is well, you said so one of the people that was in one of the
• 7:56
  actors from dive Tate is a is a chef and you were on set with
• 8:01
  him or he he volunteered to do the cooking.
• 8:03
  Yeah, and it was really nice because he's a really good cook.
• 8:07
  But I will throw out that I've been on sets where his wife
• 8:11
  Heather is also the craft services person and she's also a
• 8:16
  very, very good cook. So those were actually some of
• 8:18
  the best times I've ever eaten on sets.
• 8:20
  And it's not difficult to do with, you know, bulk style
• 8:23
  meals. If you want to do spaghetti or
• 8:25
  whatever one night, you can make a lot of it really fast.
• 8:29
  And it's it's better than Little Caesars pizza.
• 8:32
  By the way, we're probably going to shed on Little Caesars pizza
• 8:36
  a lot in this episode. So if you're a huge Little
• 8:38
  Caesars fan, it's more of a euphemism.
• 8:42
  But it does also include Little Caesar's pizza, and we are
• 8:45
  judging. We've eaten a lot of Little
• 8:47
  Caesar's pizza on set. You got to be careful with that
• 8:50
  stuff. I remember our first feature
• 8:52
  film the the staple that we used was Winco, which is a grocery
• 8:58
  store chain at the time they had a do.
• 9:00
  You know where it's a chain at because it used to be Walmart.
• 9:03
  Do you? This is just a fun stupid trivia
• 9:05
  fact. Do you know where it's located
• 9:07
  for that chain? No, it is in Washington, Idaho,
• 9:10
  Nevada, California, Oregon. Winco.
• 9:13
  That's. Why it's going?
• 9:14
  Winco. So if you're on the West Coast,
• 9:17
  you know, a Winco is and they have a deli that's very
• 9:20
  inexpensive. And at the time I think it was
• 9:23
  like 3 or $4.00 for a well over a foot long Italian sub.
• 9:29
  And it was loaded U with like ham and salami and cheese.
• 9:31
  And they were 4 bucks apiece. And for the first feature film
• 9:35
  that we shot, which was limited cast and crew, we did a lot of
• 9:39
  those every single day. I, I can still taste them in my
• 9:43
  mouth and I can smell them like think about whenever I see them
• 9:47
  at the deli, I'm like, I know exactly what that sandwich
• 9:50
  tastes like. I know what it smells like.
• 9:52
  It still haunts my dreams. And I don't know how much of it
• 9:55
  I can eat before I feel a little bit queasy.
• 9:59
  Very fair, Very fair. It was our first, it was our
• 10:01
  first go around and we were shooting with with friends and
• 10:04
  family. So it was a little, there was
• 10:06
  some leeway there. You know, it felt a little bit
• 10:09
  more amateur student film like when we were shooting that.
• 10:12
  But at the same time, yeah, I feel bad, sorry everybody that
• 10:16
  was on that set that had to eat that sandwich over and over and
• 10:20
  over again. But it was cheaper.
• 10:22
  It was cheaper than the Little Caesar's pizza at the time,
• 10:24
  even. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:26
  Though I will say if you're going to do pizza, some of those
• 10:28
  take and bake places like which they often sell at grocery
• 10:31
  stores too, even that feels a little bit better because you
• 10:36
  can, you can make sure they're like, you know, vegetables on it
• 10:38
  too. And you know, but one thing to
• 10:41
  keep in mind is when it comes to food preferences and allergies,
• 10:46
  sometimes that can throw a wrench in things.
• 10:48
  And there was one set I was on, The Man Who Would Not Shake
• 10:53
  Hands, where we did have catering provided, which was
• 10:56
  awesome, but it did not meet the dietary restrictions of a few of
• 11:00
  the cast members, which meant that I was making their meals
• 11:05
  separate and bringing it along for the day.
• 11:09
  So sometimes you do need to keep in mind that whatever food you
• 11:12
  get may not be 100% safe for everyone.
• 11:16
  And you can work that out with people where maybe it's you
• 11:18
  offer them a stipend to be able to bring their own food or you
• 11:22
  take it on yourself or one of the other producers takes it on
• 11:24
  themselves to create the food. You know, saying create the food
• 11:30
  doesn't sound as good as make the food.
• 11:33
  Yeah, create, create and make are very synonymous, but not in
• 11:36
  that sense. Sorry.
• 11:40
  Though I will say that sometimes along the lines of the take and
• 11:44
  bake pizza, you can you can dress up some staples.
• 11:48
  Yeah. That are very cheap but in
• 11:51
  better ways like a hot dog bar is a microwaved hot dog doesn't
• 11:55
  sound great to most people, but if you have a grill on set and
• 12:00
  somebody you can throw on the. Someone you can throw on the
• 12:04
  grill. You have someone you can assign
• 12:06
  to the grill to them, throw hot dogs upon it.
• 12:09
  Nice. Man.
• 12:10
  Words are rough for me today. Sorry team, but.
• 12:15
  I'm the team. Well, I was including the
• 12:18
  listeners and they. Have to listen to oh, that's a
• 12:19
  good point. Yeah, I thought like camera
• 12:20
  team, that's just a tripod. They don't need craft services.
• 12:25
  That's a cheap date, I know. Exactly.
• 12:28
  But just use stands. Lots of stands.
• 12:31
  But then you could have, you know, a bar of toppings and
• 12:34
  things, you know, from the hot dog thing back to the hot dog
• 12:36
  thing. Caramelized onions, mustards, a
• 12:39
  couple different types of mustards, relish, ketchup,
• 12:41
  things like that. Maybe two or three different
• 12:43
  types of buns. It still keeps it very
• 12:45
  inexpensive, yeah, but kind of dresses it up a little bit and
• 12:49
  can help boost morale a little bit more than a sad little
• 12:51
  microwaved hot dog. Yeah, that's a good point to
• 12:53
  have somebody grill the hot dogs, frozen hamburgers, they
• 12:55
  are a little bit different if you have a grill that that you
• 12:58
  can bring out with you and exactly and get it rolling,
• 13:01
  which the morale thing is, is important.
• 13:04
  I feel like that's one of the most important parts of Crafty.
• 13:06
  Yeah, long set days. You need a break.
• 13:08
  And when you take your break, you don't want the break to be
• 13:10
  uncomfortable where it's like, I might as well just be doing
• 13:13
  stuff anyway because I'm basically shoveling food in my
• 13:16
  face. Yeah.
• 13:17
  So that I can keep going. I have a question for you as far
• 13:22
  as red or green flag. OK, and this comes from a story
• 13:26
  that I've experienced that I'm excited to share.
• 13:28
  But let's say that the craft services are a result of a
• 13:32
  dumpster diving session. Do you see that as a red or a
• 13:35
  green flag? That is, That is a giant red
• 13:38
  flag. That is a bold neon red wacky
• 13:42
  WAVY inflatable arm flailing tube man red.
• 13:44
  Oh nice, that is bad. That's why I didn't eat while I
• 13:48
  was on that set. I'm not going to say names, but
• 13:52
  I have been on a set where the one of the producers that was in
• 13:57
  charge of getting food together for the the people that were
• 14:01
  helping film that day was excited to bring some food from
• 14:05
  Trader Joe's that was going to get thrown away in his in his
• 14:09
  words. You know what, you know, I'm
• 14:11
  going to throw it out there if you want to talk to local
• 14:16
  bakeries or like, probably not, probably not anything meat
• 14:21
  oriented. I just wouldn't do that ever.
• 14:24
  But or, or kitchens or whatever, if you want to talk to any of
• 14:28
  those places and try to sort out something or if they have
• 14:31
  leftovers at the end of the night, you can buy it at a
• 14:33
  certain discount or something. I'm all good with cutting down
• 14:37
  on food waste in the restaurant industry.
• 14:40
  I don't think you should ever tell your cast and crew.
• 14:44
  Well let's see this. They were just throwing it out
• 14:47
  because you don't actually know if it made contact with the
• 14:49
  dumpster. You know, there's a lot of SUS
• 14:53
  details. Yes, and dumpster diving aside,
• 14:58
  I do want to throw out a red flag to like yellow tags
• 15:03
  specials at delis because I was a teacher for a very long time
• 15:08
  and I would figure out the cheapest way to eat as as often
• 15:13
  as I could and sometimes I wouldn't have time to make
• 15:16
  meals. So the cheapest meal for me I
• 15:19
  knew was the local Fred Meyer slash Kroger's slash King
• 15:22
  Soopers or whatever they are in your state, like Cub Foods,
• 15:25
  whatever. I knew what time they would,
• 15:27
  they would yellow tag their deli and mark it down half price and
• 15:31
  so I would grab stuff there. But my God, I have definitely
• 15:35
  suffered from that periodically. I'd say like it would be like
• 15:40
  10% of the time. So it took me quite a few
• 15:42
  opportunities to learn this lesson that like, if I eat this,
• 15:46
  I'm going to be feeling pretty bad the next day.
• 15:49
  I love that your tenacity was strong enough to let you do it
• 15:53
  on repeat that way. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:55
  Your love of the science and figuring out this inexpensive
• 15:58
  method was more important then. Yeah.
• 16:00
  I mean, I'm not going to be able to be more than 10 feet from a
• 16:03
  restroom tomorrow, but hey, that's OK.
• 16:06
  It's worth it. Maybe it wasn't that slightly
• 16:09
  moist wrap that I ate that kind of falls apart in your fingers
• 16:14
  and the the flour tortilla is a little bit more liquid than it
• 16:17
  is solid at that juncture. Congratulations, we've just
• 16:20
  nauseated everyone. So.
• 16:24
  OK, good point. My my caveat would be that's the
• 16:27
  difference between suspicious levels of bargain hunting versus
• 16:34
  negotiating day old bagels. Yeah, that.
• 16:39
  Would be my difference. Bagels are good.
• 16:41
  Because a day old is still going to be fine, especially if you
• 16:44
  have a toaster available. You toast them, you have cream
• 16:46
  cheese available. That's a great mid morning snack
• 16:48
  that isn't too expensive, but it's not going to make people as
• 16:51
  I'll as a very damp wrap. I love how our listeners out
• 16:56
  there are probably thinking what this is common sense stuff.
• 16:58
  But at the same time, if you've been on an indie film set,
• 17:01
  common sense gets thrown out the window when everybody's rushing
• 17:04
  and the last thing on their mind is feeding people midway through
• 17:08
  a shoot day and it all just ends up coming together at the end.
• 17:11
  Wasn't that? Wasn't that a Thomas Paine
• 17:13
  quote? Common sense is the least common
• 17:16
  of all senses. I think.
• 17:18
  So I think it was Thomas Paine. I agree with that.
• 17:20
  It's hard to define common sense anyway.
• 17:22
  It really is, especially now that we don't have pennies
• 17:24
  anymore. True, I don't get it.
• 17:28
  Sense. Like sense.
• 17:30
  Common sense that. Was the grammar well?
• 17:34
  It was a pun. It was a pun.
• 17:35
  I thought there was a deeper reference there, but no.
• 17:37
  Pennies are in a shortage. I don't know if you've seen it
• 17:40
  here. We don't make pennies anymore,
• 17:41
  and we didn't do anything to solve that problem anyway.
• 17:46
  What a great time for mints everywhere.
• 17:51
  Yes. OK, question for you.
• 17:54
  Yeah, we've all seen, if not been inundated with
• 17:58
  advertisements for meal kit and meal delivery companies.
• 18:02
  Oh yes. If you're crafty is a little
• 18:09
  microwavable meal kit thing. Red flag or green flag?
• 18:13
  I guess I wouldn't mind that at all if it was a meal kit and you
• 18:16
  actually came up with a really clever idea how to Juke the
• 18:20
  system out there on these meal kits, which I was excited about
• 18:23
  and hopefully can use in the future.
• 18:26
  Well, a lot of, especially if you haven't signed up for them
• 18:28
  before, will offer discounts and free meals to include in your
• 18:33
  kit or in your first dispersed through your first box or two or
• 18:37
  whatever. Yeah.
• 18:38
  And if you're out there wondering what company might
• 18:40
  offer these services, just listen to every single other
• 18:44
  podcast that has. You're going to get Blue, Blue
• 18:47
  Apron, a home chef, sun basket, like we could go on for a turn.
• 18:52
  There's a million of them and they're all going bankrupt, but
• 18:54
  they're not working, so they are trying desperately to get more
• 18:58
  customers. They're trying to get that
• 18:59
  yellow tag food out the door before it goes bad.
• 19:03
  So if you would like sign up for one of those, yes, you're going
• 19:08
  to pay for the first basket or two basket, but most of them do
• 19:11
  not require a commitment of a certain like contract length.
• 19:14
  OK, So you can go month to month and decide if you want it or
• 19:17
  not. Don't forget to cancel it.
• 19:19
  Yeah, that's important. But when you get those deals and
• 19:23
  you get some of the free meals included in them, then suddenly,
• 19:26
  hey, at least you're getting this big.
• 19:29
  I don't want to use inundated again, but this, I don't know,
• 19:33
  vast. Now I'm thinking baskets, man.
• 19:36
  That's OK Foods come in baskets. Maybe these giant cornucopias of
• 19:42
  of prepackaged food. But you end up with a lot of
• 19:45
  food. Yeah, it's an it's probably too
• 19:48
  much for just one person or or a household of two to eat.
• 19:53
  But if you need a bunch of food for craft services, yeah, there
• 19:56
  you go. Just sign up for the discount.
• 19:58
  Five of these companies all at the same time and then cancel
• 20:00
  next month. Boom, I'm sure they'll love that
• 20:03
  we said this. Yeah, hey, you got to work the
• 20:05
  system and they're a part of the system and not unless it's a mom
• 20:09
  and pop company, then don't do that to them.
• 20:10
  Yeah, that'd be mean. That'd be mean.
• 20:13
  So I want to talk to ask you about tiered crafty.
• 20:17
  OK, How do you feel about tiered crafty?
• 20:19
  As in the actors get to sit in a trailer and they get lobster and
• 20:25
  anybody who is a grip gets to eat cake?
• 20:30
  As in the phrase. Let them eat cake.
• 20:33
  Let them eat cake. Oh, I was like, I don't know,
• 20:35
  lobster versus cake. If you've got a shellfish
• 20:37
  allergy, that's a no brainer. I don't know which one I want.
• 20:40
  Peanut cake. Oh, that's terrible.
• 20:43
  That's rough. Plus dairy allergies are high
• 20:46
  too. Anyway, I I get it.
• 20:51
  I especially for an indie film set.
• 20:53
  I don't know if you're going to have any A list actors that are
• 20:56
  going to demand only green Skittles or something like that.
• 21:00
  We've seen some B&C listers out there do some stuff and in Idaho
• 21:05
  film. It'd be cool if you have a story
• 21:07
  about that. Leave that in the comments if
• 21:09
  you want to share if you if you were able to bring somebody on
• 21:12
  that was famous in like the 80s or 90s to your to your film.
• 21:16
  And they had very particular crafty requirements.
• 21:18
  They had particular crafty requirements.
• 21:20
  I I will say this is an anecdote.
• 21:22
  I can't, I probably shouldn't say names and and locations, but
• 21:25
  I did have a friend that was in college.
• 21:29
  He was responsible for booking talent for the for like the
• 21:32
  concerts that came to his school.
• 21:35
  And one of the things I got to help him do on a couple of
• 21:38
  occasions is go shopping for the giant list of necessary items
• 21:43
  for these music performers. Before they went on stage in
• 21:46
  their green room, they needed to have, and they all had lists of
• 21:49
  like dozens of different things. And it was like, we're going
• 21:52
  shopping. We're picking up all this very
• 21:54
  specific stuff for the talent to have behind like.
• 21:58
  That was the most unhinged thing on the list.
• 22:01
  Cristal, 6 bottles of Cristal. And this was like a college.
• 22:06
  Yeah, yeah. And, and in the Midwest, it was
• 22:11
  a Midwestern college. We just couldn't get it.
• 22:13
  Like it just wasn't going to happen.
• 22:15
  There's no way this is that. Were you even 21 yet to buy it?
• 22:19
  I don't know that we were 21 at that juncture.
• 22:21
  That was, that's a good point too.
• 22:22
  I don't think we were 21. So it would have had to have
• 22:24
  gone to somebody else that was 20.
• 22:26
  One to go source it from a. Liquor store.
• 22:28
  Yeah, it was kind of it was kind of funny.
• 22:29
  It's like you're you're in a small to medium sized city in
• 22:33
  the Midwest. Good luck finding 6 bottles of
• 22:36
  crystal any. Bottles of crystal.
• 22:38
  But that's that's though I will say I was on a commercial shoot
• 22:43
  last summer and there were again, musicians.
• 22:47
  And I'm not saying that this is a musician thing.
• 22:49
  I think it's just. A Snooty people thing.
• 22:54
  I don't want to say that per SE. I almost wonder if sometimes it
• 22:58
  gets heightened and blown out of proportion because one day you
• 23:00
  offhandedly mentioned that you liked this one thing and then
• 23:03
  everyone tries to fawn around you, and so then it becomes like
• 23:06
  an unrealistic demand. Anyway, we had to find a very
• 23:10
  particular beer in a very particular can.
• 23:13
  Oh nice. Because they did not want the 12
• 23:17
  ounce cans. They did not want the bottles.
• 23:19
  It had to be like the whatever 16 ounce tall boy specifically
• 23:24
  of this one type of beer. If you're drinking a beer, drink
• 23:27
  a pint. I don't know, they just that was
• 23:30
  it's. Easier to know how many gallons
• 23:32
  of beer you drank that way because it breaks down into a
• 23:35
  fraction. You know what, to be fair, based
• 23:36
  on the beer consumption that day, I will assume they were
• 23:39
  measuring it in gallons. So valence.
• 23:41
  Alright, maybe that was it. Maybe there was a reason to it,
• 23:44
  I just didn't know. So yeah, so tiered crafty, I'm
• 23:47
  going to say that's a little bit of AI guess it could be a green
• 23:50
  flag in the sense that, hey, this is a high level set that
• 23:53
  we're on. But also I don't know I I have 0
• 23:56
  interest in being on a set that operates like that.
• 23:59
  I just don't, yeah, it works a little bit better when
• 24:02
  everybody's in it together as much as possible.
• 24:05
  And obviously some people are running around constantly and
• 24:08
  some people are sitting there and some actors are forced to
• 24:12
  not move at all. And you know, there's a, there's
• 24:15
  a varying level of activity demands of job responsibilities
• 24:19
  of overall tasks being done. Yeah.
• 24:22
  But generally speaking, I don't think the caloric needs are that
• 24:25
  different. Well, I mean the people that are
• 24:28
  moving heavy equipment, the. People that are moving heavy
• 24:30
  equipment probably need more calories, but do they need
• 24:33
  lobster calories or will they be fine with the same pasta dish
• 24:37
  that everyone else is getting? Yeah, I don't know pasta dish
• 24:43
  that makes my stomach upset. Just give me one of the give me
• 24:46
  a soggy wrap any day. No.
• 24:49
  So do you want to do you want to talk about the on on screen
• 24:53
  sponsored? Yeah.
• 24:54
  So I would say that for Sponsored Crafty, I think people
• 25:01
  assume that it's sort of a A1 way St.
• 25:04
  You go up to somebody, preferably in a position who can
• 25:08
  give you food and ask them for free food and they say yes or
• 25:11
  no. And there is a little bit more
• 25:13
  to it than that. You do have some negotiating
• 25:15
  power even as an indie filmmaker, right?
• 25:17
  I talked about having Big Daddy's BBQ as one of the
• 25:21
  sponsors for the food on the man Who would not shake hands before
• 25:25
  because in exchange for showing their logo on screen then and a
• 25:30
  special thanks in the credit and they were happy to provide food
• 25:32
  for us. Yeah, which is awesome.
• 25:34
  Which was great and some restaurants may be willing to do
• 25:37
  that for you. You can always go and ask.
• 25:39
  You can always ask them for free food too and just see what they
• 25:41
  say. They might be excited about it
• 25:43
  or looking to help out. You never know.
• 25:45
  But you also have the offer or the option to trade like for
• 25:48
  like. So if they give you food, maybe
• 25:52
  you are willing to film a commercial for them or you're
• 25:55
  willing to film at least like some social media vertical
• 25:58
  content that they can share. That looks good.
• 26:00
  I did that before for a pizza place too and we needed to film
• 26:03
  inside of a pizza place. Oh nice.
• 26:05
  I offered them some vertical cuts if I all.
• 26:07
  All I needed access to was to be able to film some of their
• 26:10
  people working and cooking some of the pizzas in the actual
• 26:13
  restaurant. So they do need to know that you
• 26:15
  will have to come film, but as long as they're cool with that
• 26:19
  and then happy to let you use the space in return.
• 26:20
  And that worked great. You also have the option of just
• 26:23
  the special thanks in the credits if they want to be
• 26:25
  featured there or if you want to do some sort of a social media
• 26:29
  promotion with them where maybe you, if you have enough
• 26:31
  followers online, can go live and talk about what everybody's
• 26:35
  eating for Crafty that day. Depending on union rules and
• 26:39
  what not, you may or may not be able to feature all of the
• 26:41
  people who are doing just that. But you might get a couple crew
• 26:43
  members who are happy to wave and say hi as they hold their
• 26:46
  little Taco Bell Taco or whatever.
• 26:47
  You. Never know, trade is great,
• 26:49
  trade is great. And Lower Gentry Studios has
• 26:51
  leveraged trade by working with musicians in the Boise music
• 26:55
  scene quite a bit. Where it's like we do all sorts
• 26:57
  of discounted or free video shoots and we've never paid to
• 27:01
  for a needle drop in any project where we can just use music
• 27:06
  there. Musicians are more than happy to
• 27:08
  to let us use their talent and you know, professional recording
• 27:14
  and mixing skills for scoring films, which help out a lot.
• 27:18
  And that's awesome that you can do.
• 27:20
  You've done the same thing for for crafty services.
• 27:23
  The the value that you get in trade for your video skills
• 27:27
  often times is a lot higher than people are willing to pay cash
• 27:31
  for. Yes, because it feels one,
• 27:36
  They've probably looked into advertising and things.
• 27:38
  Yeah, right. All those musicians you worked
• 27:40
  with, they probably talk to places about how much it would
• 27:43
  cost to get something like that done.
• 27:45
  Yeah. And they already know the value
• 27:47
  of that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:48
  Or maybe some of the musicians out there that have tried to get
• 27:52
  a music video done very inexpensively have learned that
• 27:55
  sometimes you don't want to pay that low price for video.
• 27:57
  Sometimes you do get what you pay for.
• 27:59
  Yeah, not always, but sometimes you really do.
• 28:02
  Well, I just want to spend like 100 or $200 on a music video and
• 28:05
  that's what you end up getting. Unfortunately, yeah.
• 28:08
  OK, Next up I would say cheap deli or Little Caesar's pizza.
• 28:14
  Well, we kind of covered that a little.
• 28:16
  Bit I know, I just really want to hit it home that that is a
• 28:19
  red flag. You can do better, do better.
• 28:23
  If it's literally all you can do, then it's literally all you
• 28:25
  can do. But come on, think outside the
• 28:28
  box a little bit here. We can do this together.
• 28:29
  We can make craft services on sets better.
• 28:32
  Yeah. It just takes a little bit of
• 28:34
  effort and foresight. And so how do you feel about
• 28:37
  bulk, cheap family style meals, freezer meals, those types of
• 28:41
  things? I'm actually not opposed to
• 28:43
  those. I don't think those are a red
• 28:44
  flag at all because you can go get one of those family size
• 28:48
  like Stouffer's lasagna or enchilada platter or whatever.
• 28:52
  You can throw it in an oven. Yeah, for a while.
• 28:54
  It's like over an hour. So prepare yourself for that,
• 28:57
  schedule accordingly. But you can get one of those
• 29:00
  probably for the same price as Little Caesar's Pizza and yet
• 29:04
  it'll feed more people. And it just, it feels like a
• 29:06
  hearty meal. It is a lot of sodium.
• 29:10
  So maybe don't do that everyday if you've got a two week shoot.
• 29:12
  Yeah, or somebody with a heart condition.
• 29:14
  Yeah, maybe, you know, keep that in mind.
• 29:17
  Maybe throw some extra vegetables, but like those giant
• 29:20
  bowls of salad. Yeah.
• 29:22
  And one of those lasagnas, I mean, that can easily feed
• 29:25
  probably, you know, 7-8 people. Yeah, for what, 15 bucks?
• 29:32
  Yeah, and I've been on sets where we've heated things up in
• 29:35
  the oven and it works. It works great.
• 29:36
  You just got to be careful. Like for me as the audio person,
• 29:39
  I'm like, I don't want the oven clicking and running.
• 29:41
  It's not that loud but it drives me crazy if it's got like a
• 29:43
  little Click to it. And only the audio guy is going
• 29:46
  to complain, so it'll be great. Yeah, exactly.
• 29:49
  And everybody ignores the audio guy.
• 29:50
  Yeah, so don't. I guess that's the lesson there.
• 29:53
  Just don't even worry about it cuz you'll just have some jerk
• 29:55
  with headphones and a microphone on at the end of a stand that
• 29:58
  can easily be replaced. By AC stand.
• 30:01
  Yelling at you about things. No.
• 30:03
  OK. All right.
• 30:04
  Then Last one, how do you feel if First day, craft services.
• 30:11
  Pretty good. Nice.
• 30:12
  Second day, this feels familiar. Third day?
• 30:17
  Oh, no, I've seen this plate before.
• 30:18
  I've seen that exact piece of corn before.
• 30:21
  Yeah. How are you feeling about
• 30:22
  leftovers? Yeah, I get a little bit worried
• 30:25
  about leftovers if we're eating the same thing multiple days in
• 30:27
  a row. Back to the wet wrap phenomenon.
• 30:31
  Know how long your food lasts? Yeah.
• 30:34
  Understand a little bit of food safety?
• 30:36
  You can get ServSafe certified online for free if you would
• 30:40
  like to do that, and then you can also learn the basics of
• 30:43
  food handling, safety, and then you can know whether or not
• 30:47
  you're actually going to poison someone with your craft
• 30:49
  services. Yeah, Day, day 2, if you're, if
• 30:52
  you're doing, if you're doing reheats, that's stretching it.
• 30:55
  Day three. I don't know if I want that.
• 30:57
  Especially if you're reheating it because you only have so many
• 31:00
  times to reheat your food. Good point.
• 31:02
  Can't. Do that more than once.
• 31:03
  All right. Well, any other tips for craft
• 31:05
  services for people out there that you have?
• 31:07
  Or any other stories that you can think of that people need to
• 31:09
  be wary of? Definitely don't dumpster dive.
• 31:11
  Don't dumpster dive. That was probably the biggest
• 31:13
  red flag I've ever seen. On set, you know what, I would
• 31:16
  take Little Caesars over that. I would have as well.
• 31:19
  I was just hungry. I would have eaten anything.
• 31:23
  I will say for your craft services table, if you do have
• 31:26
  the budget for it, you've allocated the money for it, try
• 31:29
  to have a mix of things. Have some fresh fruit and
• 31:32
  vegetables, have some little like protein hit snacks because
• 31:36
  people do want the protein but have a little bit of sugar and a
• 31:39
  little bit of candy there too because.
• 31:40
  People love candy. Yeah, everyone needs that little
• 31:43
  energy boost and a little bit of hype, and it's just, you know,
• 31:46
  it's good for morale. And give people choices.
• 31:48
  And the psychological aspect of putting it out and on display
• 31:52
  and having a space for it that looks nice can't be understated.
• 31:56
  And you had, I think it was Sam and Christy on your dive shoot
• 32:00
  that took the time to put all the craft services.
• 32:02
  Out and actually display everything.
• 32:05
  In a way that it's easy for people to grab and they're not
• 32:07
  opening up coolers or opening up like packages of stuff you had,
• 32:10
  you had ice, like bowls of ice with, you know?
• 32:15
  Jelly, meat and cheese. And things in there and, and
• 32:17
  everything was easy to grab. And it's like, oh, this is
• 32:19
  convenient. It makes you want a snack.
• 32:21
  And they kept a trash bag next to it as well so it didn't
• 32:26
  disturb. Like have a bunch of trash and
• 32:28
  wrappers on the area where everybody's eating.
• 32:31
  Yeah, good call, Good call. That is important.
• 32:33
  It's a good way to pack in, pack out for all the other indie film
• 32:36
  makers that are just getting started out there.
• 32:37
  Don't ever, always leave the place better than when you
• 32:41
  arrived. Yeah, like how they told us to
• 32:43
  treat parks when we were kids and now we don't.
• 32:46
  Yeah, exactly. But indie film making definitely
• 32:49
  follow those rules. You'll want to be allowed back
• 32:51
  in that. Case burning.
• 32:52
  You're just burning bridges for all of us if you don't.
• 32:54
  If you don't treat it well. Yeah.
• 32:55
  So, All right, shall we succinctly say goodbye at this
• 32:58
  juncture? Absolutely.
• 33:00
  Excellent. Adios bye.