Talk:Film crew/Archive 1

Merge
Merging doesn't make much sense, as filming production roles seems geared towards *television* production, not film, as here. - JVC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.194.59 (talk • contribs) 14:27, June 24, 2005

I would speak in favour of merging the two. The roles are more similar than they are different, and the few differences could easily be dealt with through notes. In fact, I’ve noticed that over my years in the industry (15+) there’s been even more convergence. Post production in even high-end film has moved completely to digital editing. At the camera end, the trend to shooting high-definition DV means that for almost all of the technical crew, it makes not the slightest difference if the show is going to the big screen or the little one.

One caveat: in-house live-to-tape shows --think news and talk-- do have specialists (e.g., switchers, floor directors) but these should be covered in an article explicitly dealing with live-to-tape television production.

I would be happy to assist with this project. --OldCommentator 20:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems like a while since this idea was posted, but I agree that the relevant parts of filming production roles should be moved here, and another article, television crew should be created from the remaining telvision-specific content. I will start working on that and then see if there is any dissent here before finalizing the move.  -Parallel or Together? 09:46, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Television Crew already exists in capitalized form, although it should not be capitalized. I will instead merge film production roles with this page, create television crew and have the capitalized version turned into a redirect, and everything should be great.  Any objections?  I'll leave this up here for a while before doing it.  -Parallel or Together? 10:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Certainly no objections--my advice, however, would be to discard the Pre-production/Production/Post-production organization of the filming production roles when you move the occupational descriptions over. These terms apply to the phases of the film production cycle, but it's inappropriate (and misleading) to categorize occupations this way. Real film crews are organized by department (i.e., Production, Sound, Camera, Editing...and so on) rather than by production phase.


 * If you wish sources for departmental categorizations I'd be happy to supply them.--OldCommentator 13:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Please do! In the meantime I have set up Film crew/Temp to start working on the article in the new departmental categorization format and incorporate the material from filming production roles.  -Parallel or Together? 06:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


 * So far the temp page has a departmental organization, and a merged list of roles, although I haven't yet merged/included the descriptions. If someone wants to start working on that... I've got to go to work.  -Parallel or Together? 08:01, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay so I've finished porting over all the relevant aspects of filming production roles to this page. The rest of filming production roles should be sent to Television crew, I would imagine. -Parallel or Together ? 04:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I removed the merge note given that this appears to have now been completed.--OldCommentator 02:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Lighting Technician
I am proposing to rename the article Light technician to Lighting technician. Discussion here: Talk:Light technician Threephi 05:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Length concerns
I'm concerned that this page is going to grow to an unmanageable length, given there are many more positions to add. I’d like to take the liberty of moving some of the non-essential job-descriptive material from this page to the individual job-description pages that link from here. I trust no one will object.--OldCommentator 17:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Set Designer
Moved Set Designer to the core Art Department where it belongs.OldCommentator (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Setting a goal: This page should list every job that would appear in film credits
I think it'd be nice if someone could read film credits and then refer to this page and figure out what everyone does. As oldcommentator points out, detailed info should be pushed into pages specific for that position. This goal goes out of me being interested in the weird film credits, like "Inferno" (VFX artist who operates a VFX system named Inferno).

Glennchan 09:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe the page would be better served by simply and explicitly being an alphabetical list fully inclusive of all regular film crew jobs? I agree, leave the description to the article. Girolamo Savonarola 09:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Dividing the crew positions into sections may help; it organizes things conceptually into the reader's head. The grouping stops the article from being a ridiculously huge list.  A further grouping of pre-production, production, and post-production might also make sense (if it's a producer, then they go into pre-production; we should order it so wherever they do work in first, that's where they go).  As well, perhaps there could be some article that lists everything including cast, and explains what above-the-line and below-the-line are.Glennchan 10:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Film crew positions that should go in
Here is a list of film crew positions that I haven't done much research on. Eventually we should get one-line descriptions and stick them into the Wikipedia. Glennchan 10:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * My responses for what I can help with... Girolamo Savonarola 10:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Where does storyboard artist go? - It's a pre-production job for the art department
 * studio execs? - development
 * What's an archivist? i.e. on superman returns    - depends where in the credits this appears. In theory, different departments might need this for varying capacities.
 * draughtsperson ? - art department, sketches models and blueprints, IIRC
 * The term 'draughtperson' refers to the Set Designer. It's rarely used today as a credit, aside from British productions -- even there, the term is considered old-fashioned. It is not an official position under IATSE or Directors Guild of Canada collective agreements. Care should be taken not to cause confusion with Scenic Design -- a term from theatre.OldCommentator (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * screen graphics supervisor
 * model maker foreman - a supervising modelmaker


 * VFX:
 * 3D artists (there are many kinds of 3D artists? i.e. characters, environments) - probably. a lot of this is organized based on the VFX company or scale of film
 * 3D environments - see above
 * 3D animators - see above
 * lead texture painter - creates the texture mapping
 * animator (the non-3D kind??) - depends
 * (character) rigger- these people just do the skeletons for character models???
 * compositing
 * match moving (subset of compositing??)
 * digital asset coordinator; data wrangler is same thing?
 * CG lighting artist; lighting technical director is sort of same thing?
 * lead development artist?
 * camera animator (is this a subset of 3D animators?)
 * systems engineer (someone who maintains the render farm and other IT stuff?)
 * pipeline software developer - a programmer?
 * matte painting - mostly done in-computer now
 * previs artists / pre-visualization - animatics (4D storyboards, basically)
 * Spydercam foreman - in charge of rigging and controlling the Spidercam (it's a cablecam controlled with four wires)
 * visual effects editor?
 * pipeline technical director - not sure what this is - coordination of data between remote points, I think
 * colorist / digital color timer / color timer (photochemical / non-digital intermediate) / color grading - post-production management of the look of the film, usually done in coordination with the DP; specifically colors, contrast, saturation. Like Photoshop on steroids.
 * visual effects dailies operator; same as dailies/telecine operator/colorist; colorist who doesn't do final grading, just the dailies - dunno about that; VFX dailies sounds like something coordinating the VFX with the DI, but that's a guess. Telecine op is usually the one who handles the immediate transfer for offline editing.
 * Film scanner operator - Like telecine, but using a film scanner (2K and up).
 * video assist - the person in charge of all the video output from the camera (this position still exists even if using HD) to the on-set monitors. May also have additional accessories to print out freeze frames and quickly retrieve/compare takes.
 * character pipeline lead ?
 * publicist, public relations - unit publicists take care of handling press during shooting; otherwise they're doing the marketing afterwards (probably from wherever the production company is based)
 * special skills extras- singers, dancers, etc.
 * dialect coach - works with actors and maybe director to find right accent
 * set medic - usually just hangs around until someone asks for assistance, but also keeps an eye on health and safety
 * set security - usually coordinated through locations; may be hired from local community
 * stand-in - used to judge lighting and camera moves without hassling the actor
 * craft services / catering - (yum) - they handle all of the food; on an average day, breakfast, brunch snacks, lunch, teatime snacks, and continuous tea/coffee/water and miscellany during the day. This can vary, however, given stranger hours or cheaper budgets.
 * driver - many types of these, from driving cast and higher-level crew to all of the big equipment trucks. They are mainly used for beginning/end of day, from set to meals, and moving between locations. Occasionally they are also sent to pickup things.
 * libra head operator - handles the Libra head, which is a remote three axis camera support. a specialized type of grip.

Hope this helps. Girolamo Savonarola 10:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is one more that should be included:
 * 24 Frame Playback Operator - The person responsible for the syncing all monitors such as a television set to the cameras. Also responsible for the color shading and lighting of the monitors, and all video playing on said monitors.  Sometimes called Video Playback Operators. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.80.8.99 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 31 March 2007‎

Globalize
The "globalize" tag was added with the following edit summary: I like this article a LOT, but it is not wholly representative or descriptive of the breakdown of job responsibilities for any area outside of LA. user:Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:57, 11 July 2009‎


 * The article is not all that bad with respect to representing crew positions and structure for North American, British and Australian productions. (I can't speak for the Chinese and Indian industries.) There are a few international differences: UPMs are a distinctly American thing, just as the Brits have the unique position of Standby Art Director. I'll see what I can do to add these to the article. OldCommentator (talk) 22:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Complete tosh!
Some of this is pretty iffy stuff. For example, A second unit director is what it says and why on earth? would a stunt co-ordinator be put in that role?


 * The reason that stunt co-ordinators are given directorial control in not so mysterious, it's primarily a matter of legal liability. Insurers require that potentially dangerous stunts be supervised by highly experienced personnel -- this is simply the industry standard.
 * Regarding insert shots, occasionally this falls to the editor, but in my 20 years in the industry, I've seen several other crew positions fill this role.
 * Please understand that there are three key aspects of second unit work:
 * because this often involves highly technical shots, more set-up time may be required
 * it does not involve principal actors, hence less expensive to shoot per minute
 * from a contractual point of view, it is not considered part of principal photography -- hence principal can wrap while second unit work can continue without paying financial penalties. --OldCommentator (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This need a complete rewrite it is unaccurate and incredibly ambiguous in tone
 * It would be more helpful if you were to point out what you feel to be "unaccurate" or ambiguous -- we could then make the necessary corrections. --OldCommentator (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Reorganization
I've taken the liberty of rationalizing and reorganizing this article. I was preparing a lecture for next week on "The Structure of a Film Crew" for my first-year class and thought I'd take a look at the Wikipedia article first. I've put the positions in their traditional departments, added more to the introductory paragraph, and removed the above-the-line producers and screenwriter from the section -- most of those I know would be horrified to be considered members of "the crew."OldCommentator (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Am I to understand that the way you have it listed is the way it would be listed when the credits are rolling on the screen after any given movie?66.19.240.4 (talk) 02:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In a belated answer to your question, "no".
 * The order in which credits are listed in the crawl are -- more often than not -- dictated by either union contracts or, in the case of head credits, by the individual contracts between the principals and the production company. However, many of these follow long-standing traditions of precedence; as an example, the production designer's name will usually appear after the editor's but before the director of photography. This is similar to the ranking of names on movie posters.
 * The order of the various departments in this particular article is a bit arbitrary, but not unreasonable. It reflects the idea that there are functions that are more core and those that are more peripheral. (I can already hear the howls of protest!) --OldCommentator (talk) 14:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Writers
Writers? Misty MH (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
 * If you check the article history, User:OldCommentator purged large sections of the article on January 2, 2014 and rearranged others. While about half of his edits were quite good, some did not make sense, such as taking out the sections about insurance brokers and screenwriters. Anyone who reads Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, TheWrap or any of the other entertainment industry inside news sources knows you can't make a real film nowadays without (1) a screenwriter or (2) an insurance broker. (If you have no insurance, your investors will run for their lives.)  --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:14, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oops. Just saw the section above this. I agree that screenwriters probably would not consider themselves part of the crew, but they're not part of the cast, either.  Of course, that probably puts them in the same netherworld as the extras.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I just edited the introduction to give greater clarity to the role of the screenwriter. I think the confusion was stemming from not making clear the difference between the development stage of a project (before being green-lit) and the production stage (after being greenlit). Once the script has been "locked", the screenwriter generally has little more to do beyond cashing his/her royalty cheques.--OldCommentator (talk) 15:32, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Problem of "lacking global perspective" solved
I'm going to take the liberty of removing the "lack of worldwide view" tag. I believe that a great deal of progress has been made since this was first attached six years ago and several of the different cultural practices (Hollywood, Mumbai, Lagos, London, Hong Kong, Beijing) either highlighted or corrected. Having said that, there are far more similarities than differences between the various film-crew structures and position titles -- a gaffer is a gaffer is a gaffer no matter what language he/she speaks. Nevertheless, if anyone still feels strongly that the article is geo-biased, please feel free to put the tag back on. --OldCommentator (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

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Is it a list, or is it a duck?
This list needs accessibility scrubbing per MOS:ACCESSIBILITY, particularly the bolding of subsections. We are not supposed to use semi-colons to create quasi-headings. Ping me back. Having fun! Cheers! 08:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Checkingfax (talk • contribs)

DIRECTOR Section Glitches and Clarification
1. Why does the Director section have 4 references that are not working but are part of the text (in brackets)? 2. It is my understanding that the Director is NOT the top on set, but the Producer etc. Furthermore, in several years of doing filmmaking, the Director typically lets the AD (Assistant Director), various managers, and others run the set functions while the Director focuses on talent, picture, hopefully-sound, and confirming art design, etc. Misty MH (talk) 02:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)