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Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:02
When you’re budgeting for you low budget film, you need to consider the cost of catering. Whether or not your cast and crew are fully paid, they still need to eat. Snacks and sodas are fine of course if you are doing a very short shoot, but as a rule you need to provide a full meal every 6 hours of shooting. I.e. if you ask everyone to be at the shoot at 6am you need to serve them lunch around 12 and then the next full meal around 6pm.
What is considered a full meal then? Well, as an independent filmmaker that is of course up to you. The tip here is to keep your people happy so that they enjoy working. You also want to keep their energy levels high so they don’t collapse into a “food coma” after the serving. It doesn’t matter if you do boxed meals or a buffet style meal. The important thing is to make sure that it is enough. Pizza, sandwiches or pasta are fine alternatives but you may want to include a salad to keep both vegetarians and those on a lighter budget happy. An additional note to make is of course to ask everyone who is taking part if they are vegetarians, and – if anyone has any allergies or other dietary restriction. It may seem like a hassle to plan this much in advance, but it will show you care and also save you stress and keep everyone happy at the shoot.
How can you bring your low budget film catering costs down?
- Talk to both local restaurants and supermarkets, located close to your shoot, and ask for reduced rate meals – or even free food. If you offer them something in return (producer credit, a mention in the script or a thanks in the rolling credits, a tiny non-speaking part) you may even get some film buff restaurateur or shop owner to take it one step further and deliver the food out to your set together with plates, cutlery and glassware and then also take care of all the post-meal tidying. Aside from saving you and your team the energy surrounding the meal, this can also save you valuable time – and we all know that “time is money”.
- If you cannot convince a local restaurant and supermarket to do you any favors you may want to take care of catering yourself. Either make great home-made sandwiches, or prepare large containers of pasta and take with you (but please, if you don’t know how to cook, ask someone who can for a favor so people can eat well or at least not get sick). If you are really on a budget, you don’t need to have 2 alternatives at all – do it on the cheap, as cheap as you like, as long as the food is good and you look out for anyone with allergies.
- If you cannot get them from a local restaurant or store, bring your own knives and forks, napkins etc that you have bought cheaply before hand.
- Maybe you can’t get the food for free, and need to make it yourself, but you may find a store that will give you some sodas or bottled water for free? Always ask, politely, several times.
- Skip dessert, but just bring some small candy for everyone. A thermos of coffee will usually do to go with that. Something for people to snack on during the day.
A few other tips regarding catering:
- Never serve alcohol.
- Bring your own garbage bags to keep your location clean after you leave.
- Double check if you location has a refrigerator before you head out there, or else bring your own cooling boxes or bags (it can really be a health hazard otherwise)
- If you have a runner or an assistant, assign him/her the responsibility of dealing with the food delivery and set-up on the day so that you can focus on the shoot itself.
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Posted By frances