Your production is well planned. An excellent script is written and you have signed wonderful talent. The problem is that you don’t have the budget to hire a professional crew. You know you need first rate production value in order to sell your web TV show to potential sponsors. What are the secrets to finding a qualified, free web series crew?
Getting Free Crew
Experienced crews are attracted to interesting, quality productions. If your project has an award winning script writer or one of your actors was in a well known B horror movie or even a porn movie, will help. Anything that shows your production is higher than amateur will bring in crew willing to pad their resumes over instant cash. Film and video crews love to keep working. In between paying gigs, they look for respectable projects that will hone or add new skills.
To find crew, advertise on your state or country’s production web page and maintain a blog to create buzz and interest in your movie or web TV show. Have pictures and bios on all your actors and an attention grabbing story description. Post your project on IMDb.com in order for your crew to receive widely recognizable credit. Take the effort and time to make sure you are running a class production act, and you will easily attract a film crew for no upfront cost.
Respecting Crew
Too often, volunteer crews mistreated more than paid crew members. You may be the director, or producer, but the bottom line is you can’t do it without the expertise of your gaffers, sound and camera operators. Where would you be without competent script supervisors and an awesome 2nd assistant director to keep things in order? Don’t let the stress of producing your web series allow your ego to get out of control. You may just find yourself alone on the set with no one to yell action to.
Do not exceed 12 hours in a shooting day. Independent productions may find this difficult to do, but just because you are not paying over time, you still must keep a reasonable schedule. Feed your free film crew well. You absolutely must feed people who are working for you for free. In fact, if you are not prepared to feed your film crew, you are not ready to shoot a thing. Provide a questionnaire to determine each crew member’s likes, dislikes and allergies and plan thoughtful meals.
Keep Promises
Producers sometimes promise a percentage on sales, credits and show copies and don’t deliver. Not cool. What ever you promise your volunteer crew, find a way to deliver it, period. Word will get around, and it will taint you and your production, now and into the future if you don’t do what you agreed. These key secrets to finding and keeping free production crew will get you high production value and a great reputation that will bring professional crew wanting to work the next episode of your web series.
