If you were to ask me what the difference between an amateur and a professional was, I would have to say the biggest determining factor is consistency in producing stellar results, regardless of the occupation.  For example, in our industry it is possible that over the course of an Indie film project, a budding director would have several brilliant scenes most often interspersed with some dismal failures. A truly professional director would have much higher degree of consistency in achieving those same results.

Lets look at the job of an assistant cameraman. Who is more professional in your opinion, the AC who can consistently perform his job in any set of variable and challenges routinely hitting marks and pulling focus? Or the AC who is pretty good occasionally blowing focus and getting thrown by challenging shots, and dolly moves? How about the makeup artist, do you want someone who can do good makeup regardless of face, skin tone and effects required of them? How about DPs; do you want someone who can light any of the sets you throw at them, and technically handle any camera system required? For me, these are areas I look for in whether someone is worth their pay scale on my crew.

1) Consistency and Promptness Pays
If you have a large crew working on a budget, you can’t have individual crew members performing their jobs inconsistently. One crew member mis-staffed can blow an entire shoot and derail the project from day one. I recall an instance where a makeup artist on a particular project I was on nearly cost us the project. We were on a one day commercial shoot that was tightly scheduled, we had allocated half an hour for a makeup artist to do some touch up. After showing up late, she took around 45 mins to do the same job, throwing our already tight schedule off by nearly an hour we absolutely didn’t have. This leads me to another area of consistency, promptness on set. A professional will be consistent in arriving on time. They realize their job description is a part of a larger machine that requires them being on time and ready to work. Showing up late one or two days and being on time the rest of the time is one of the most frustrating things. I will not hire crew I cannot count on to show up on time consistently, there is too much potential for problems. Learning the discipline of being prompt and consistent is one easy way to set yourself apart from the crowd.

2) The Well: Drawing from Experience
Whether you have ever thought of it this way or not, consistency in producing stellar results is a major trademark of a true professional. In my opinion this is true for several reasons. First, a professional has a deeper well of experience to draw from in solving problems on set. When a problem is encountered, rather than guessing and trying multiple solutions that eventually lead to stumbling upon a solution that works, a professional can cross-reference the problem with a library of solutions that they have already proven to work in the past and immediately choose a workable solution. Experience in and of itself gives a working professional a vast headstart in creating consistency.

3) Learn to Learn, and Do Your Homework
The second thing true professionals do is homework. No experience level can be comprehensive, especially in our creative field. A professional will seek to expand their areas of consistency by filling in their experience gaps and doing their homework. For example, a DP unfamiliar with a particular film stock will probably shoot several tests to flesh out his experience level in order to know how to work with the stock on set. An actor or actress, who really needs to be consistent on set, may perform extensive character research to know exactly how to pull off a performance consistently throughout a range of scenes. It is always amazing to me that the people with the least experience to draw from often seem the most reluctant to do their homework. You would think it would be the other way around, seeing as their library for problem solving isn’t as deep.

4) Know Your Role and Be Aware
Consistency in performance can be increased by knowing your job description and learning to listen on set. No director or department head enjoys constantly giving orders, reminding someone of what their job is. A true professional learns how to hear what is going on, and realizes what his or her job in the big picture is. For example a DP may mention to the camera op that the next shot is moving to a dolly. A good dolly grip would hear that and immediately begin moving the dolly into position. Meanwhile the AC overhearing the same comment would begin to move the camera off the sticks. There is nothing more refreshing than turning to call for a piece of gear only to have it placed in your hand by an attentive crew member who knew their job and was listening. A career AC once told me you can tell a seasoned crew by watching them on short breaks; they always face into the set so they can still see what’s going and be immediately ready to move quickly.

5) Taking it All Personally: Advice for Indies
“Well,” you say, “That’s great! I would die to work with a crew like that, but I’m on a tight budget and I can’t afford to hire professionals on set. So I guess I’m stuck working with non-professionals.” Okay so let’s figure out what we can do to work most efficiently with non-professionals. The first thing is to realize that working with non-professionals will undoubtedly equal inconsistency in job performance. This is not by itself a bad thing, it just means you have to plan accordingly. When scheduling, you must schedule time for errors and mistakes. It’s that simple, inconsistency doesn’t mean something cannot be accomplished, it often just takes significantly longer to reach the end goal. Don’t put a professional schedule and demands on a non-professional crew. You will start your project by setting them up for failure, which erodes trust and creates all sorts of crew issues. Instead, start by compensating for lack of experience by giving ample time for your crew to work. If it’s your first time scheduling, I would say figure the longest time you could see a shot taking and add 20%. Ironically this will also help compensate with your lack of experience in the scheduling department. This goes for crew call times as well; assume some people will show up late and plan for it accordingly.

6) Say What?
Another consequence of working with non-professionals is that people tend to not know their jobs and responsibilities on set. In addition Indie productions are often forced to have crew members cross departments and work in multiple roles. The director has to make even more of an effort to be a great communicator on set. Assume nothing, make sure orders are given clearly and often, provide the guidance needed to facilitate the lack of experience on set. To facilitate communication on set when people are crossing department lines, try to communicate through clear channels from the top down.  If orders are given from just anyone and people are crossing departments you wind up very quickly given the same person multiple jobs. Few things are more frustrating then being given multiple jobs on a short staffed crew, only to be dressed down for overlooking something you had to drop to do something else for another department. Try and establish a chain of command and a priority for departments and try and stick with this throughout the production as much as possible.

It is even more important that you to do your homework and prepare yourself. The tone for a production is set from the top down. If the director is unprepared and not communicating clearly, those problems will often ripple down to the rest of the crew. This is especially true with a less experienced crew. They will all be looking to you to help guide them so your level of preparedness is critical in successfully completing the project. You owe to yourself, your cast, and your crew to be the as prepared as you can possibly be.

Whether you are managing a production set or working on one, I hope the aforementioned tips will help you avoid common pitfalls and help you achieve your goals. And if you enjoyed this article, please take a moment and pass it on to a few friends. Thanks for reading.