All language subtitles for Communicating with the crew

in this whole chapter

we're going to look at keeping the crew happy

I've been on sets where the crew is united

and hating the production

and every second is just pure agony

and it seems like there's always someone on set

that's just overtly negative

and that attitude

is a tendency to spread quickly through the production

unless people are kept happy

one of the most important things you can do

is be honest and upfront with your crew

look unexpected problems happen on every set

everybody makes mistakes sometimes

from my experience

crews might grumble a little bit

but they're quick to forgive

they wanna make a good movie too

so usually willing to step up if there's a problem

unless they've been lied to or misled

because we didn't have pre production meetings

as an entire team

we had a lot of issues

that would have been solved with better communication

I never mentioned in my ads that my wife

Heather and I made personalized goodie bags

for every single member of the cast and the crew

including each of the extras

so a lot of the extras left

without even knowing about the goody bags

which is our way of thanking them

for their work in the film

that was a heartbreaking

embarrassing blunder

that was 100% my fault

because I didn't have

the necessary pre production meetings

or communicate well to my ads

we also had to be honest with our crew that night

we had a big night shoot scheduled

we set up and we got a few great shots out of it

but as we'll talk more about in Chapter 6

I knew we weren't going to get any more usable footage

we could have just pressed forward

so we maintain this appearance

and everything was going exactly as planned

but it wasn't

so we were upfront with the crew

and told them exactly what was going on right then

let's also not forget the moment we talked about

in the last training series on directing

I was stressed while filming the pivotal goodbye scene

and wasn't really listening well to the crew

and their concerns

and so they kind of banded together a little bit

in between takes

they would talk to each other

about the bad decisions I was making

and they were a little cold to me

you can tell

they just stopped feeling like collaborative partners

and it added to the stress of the shoot

once they felt heard

you could just see it in their body language

that they were on my team again

on the third day of production

we had a major reset

right at the beginning of the day

that was so embarrassing for me

the day I had planned was way too ambitious

and I was the only one that planned it

so it was completely my fault

I was torn because

as director

producer and DP

if I look like an idiot

I lose everyone's trust on every level

so I could have just proceeded as planned

in order to say face

even though it would hurt the film

but I decided to just be upfront

and honest with everyone

and as we'll see in Chapter 6

I borrowed our first ID

and scripts advisor to help me out

but I kept our department heads in the loop

as much as possible

as you'll see in Chapter 6

being up front and honest worked out very well

the cast and crew were extremely supportive

about the time that I wasted because of my mistakes

but the lesson here is

that communicating with your crew

and being completely open and transparent with them

is always the correct decision