I recently learned about a team (a prod co called Ethos - they made JOCKEY and SING SING) doing Community-Based Filmmaking where they take the appropriate SAG scale rate and pay everyone on the cast and crew the same rate. I’d love to hear more perspectives on this from the HFF community! I am starting my own production company and we’re looking into this model. It sounds like an incredible, less risky way to make a movie if talent will sign on! And if they don’t… do we really want to work with them anyway? 🤔
It's a great idea and not even a new concept... After making Badlands Terrence Malick gave a masterclass at AFI in which he explained that paying everyone the same is how he was able to produce the film himself and keep the crew in relative harmony. I think he may also have split profits with the crew, as Ethos is doing, though I may not remember that correctly. The flip side is that he also explained how he was able to raise financing: at the time just finishing the film almost guaranteed being picked up for a solid profit-making sum by a major distributor...
Not sure if it’s up online still. The filmmakers did a q&a panel for Sundance a couple years back and walked through how they worked the process on Jockey in a fairly detailed way.
“Lo & behold it proved even a better networking opportunity than Erewhorn or AA. The producers were out in good supply. Who knew a vaccine was another op to hobnob.” 😂😂😂
I recently learned about a team (a prod co called Ethos - they made JOCKEY and SING SING) doing Community-Based Filmmaking where they take the appropriate SAG scale rate and pay everyone on the cast and crew the same rate. I’d love to hear more perspectives on this from the HFF community! I am starting my own production company and we’re looking into this model. It sounds like an incredible, less risky way to make a movie if talent will sign on! And if they don’t… do we really want to work with them anyway? 🤔
It's a great idea and not even a new concept... After making Badlands Terrence Malick gave a masterclass at AFI in which he explained that paying everyone the same is how he was able to produce the film himself and keep the crew in relative harmony. I think he may also have split profits with the crew, as Ethos is doing, though I may not remember that correctly. The flip side is that he also explained how he was able to raise financing: at the time just finishing the film almost guaranteed being picked up for a solid profit-making sum by a major distributor...
Not sure if it’s up online still. The filmmakers did a q&a panel for Sundance a couple years back and walked through how they worked the process on Jockey in a fairly detailed way.
“Lo & behold it proved even a better networking opportunity than Erewhorn or AA. The producers were out in good supply. Who knew a vaccine was another op to hobnob.” 😂😂😂
❤️💚💙