After hiring the right financial staff, Stanton Studios' new project is officially set up, and unlike the other crews, most of the behind-the-scenes jobs on this project are still vacant.
There are only a few positions that have been finalized, Director and Producer Murphy, Assistant Director Paul Wilson, Assistant Director Seth Rogen, Makeup Artist Jack Watson, Props Artist Becky Claybert, Editor Jodi Griffiths, and Telephone Operator Rosa Rodriguez ...
The cast is also tentatively set with a few, Seth Rogen, who passed his audition, James Franco, who ended his negotiations, Carey Mulligan, who is temporarily under the school's tutelage, and Paul Wilson and Rosa Rodriguez, who can serve as backdrops.
In addition to these people, Murphy also met with Bill Rossis to meet a number of signees under the CAA umbrella, of course, all of them are people who do not have much seniority and fame as he does, but it is true that, as Bill Rossis said, those who can be signed by the CAA must be guaranteed of basic ability.
Since Murphy is listed as a super prospect, Bill Rossis has introduced some pretty solid guys.
"Murphy, this is Philly Rasher ..."
In a meeting room of CAA, Bill Rossis introduced a middle-aged white man probably in his thirties to forties to Murphy, "He's worked on two TV shows and was a second cameraman on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 4."
Turning his head, he introduces another mixed race woman in her late thirties, "This is Helena Espola, art director for three episodes of The End ****** and is as capable as she looks."
Then, to Murphy, he introduced the remaining one, "This is David Robbie, from Australia, just last year he was the lighting technician on 'The Female Wolf Club'."
Finally, he looked at Murphy and said, "Philly, Helen, David, this is Murphy Stanton, an excellent director."
"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you ..."
Murphy shook hands with each of these people and said hello, and both parties sat down on the sofa on the window side at Bill Rossis' gesture.
"Director Stanton ..." It was the director of photography, Philly Raschel, who spoke first, "Bill told us about your project, and we've seen your Fruity Hard Candy, and I'd like to ask you which genre?"
Often, it's not just the director who chooses the cinematographer, but the cinematographer likewise chooses the right project for him or her, and if a movie's style is grossly out of sync with his or her own style of cinematography, it won't do much to help the cause, and can even have a negative impact.
"Plasma horror movie." Murphy knew what the other party meant by asking this and said directly, "A noir style CUT film type."
Once this latter sentence was said, the three people, Philip Raschel, Helena Espora and David Robbie nodded at the same time, this was exactly the style that they specialized in.
They weren't the only ones who had seen Fruity Hard Candy, Murphy had seen their work before coming here and had long talked to Bill Rossis about the style of the new project, and he'd gotten the right people for that style.
Whether it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or The End Times ****** and The Werewolf Club, they all have the typical noir style.
These three people, if they enter the cast, do not need to have a fundamental change above the concept, as long as relatively simple adjustments and adaptations can be made.
From this aspect, it can also be seen that Murphy's first time to make a movie is seriously inexperienced, "Fruit Hard Candy" project, he did not even consider so much, the recruitment of manpower removed Jack Watson, the ability of all miserable.
That said, Murphy couldn't have asked for more given his condition at the time.
Now is just the first time the two sides met, Murphy talked to the three people for a period of time, especially in the film style and philosophy, exchanged a lot of views, to be precise, between theirs are similar concepts, there are also points of divergence, these are very normal.
It is not possible to meet for the first time to formally finalize the cooperation, this is after all the filming of the production of the film, not a child playing house, Murphy also want to carry out a comprehensive consideration, and the three people may not join his crew, which also depends on the Stanton Studios opened the salary.
None of these three people look like the three people with the corresponding careers in Fruit of the Loom, they are more than just themselves, Philly Raschel has a camera assistant, Helena Espola works with two set designers, and only lighting technician David Robie is alone.
According to Hollywood rules, hiring them also meant hiring their team, and in addition to their respective individual salaries, the crew had to cover the team's overhead.
All of this is fine with Murphy, the new project involves several times more work on scenes, actors, and sets than Fruity Hard Candy, and it can't be as simple as the previous one, it has to be a fully fleshed out crew.
And Murphy also has other considerations, as a director with ambitious goals, he also needs to consider forming his own relatively fixed team.
Working together is the best way to see the ability, but also the best way to cultivate the tacit understanding of cooperation.
Every behind-the-scenes occupation of the crew is quite important, and a problem at one point is likely to cause the entire project to come to a halt, removing these key laborers, Murphy then met with seven or eight other people recommended by Bill Rossis for other positions, all of whom came from the CAA's many potential signings, and as said before, fame and seniority may not be there, but those who can be seen by the CAA always have a certain guarantee of ability.
Spend a whole week, Murphy one by one to finalize the various positions in the crew, and the last recruitment of cheap manpower is different, relatively excellent ability also means relatively high salary, not a lot of payroll expenses, but also allows Murphy to continue the stingy phase of the careful budgeting.
Not to mention other things, just the four aspects of photography, props, lighting and art direction, the expenditure is quite large.
The importance of cinematography to a movie is unquestionable, and salaries in this department are generally high, in most cases exceeding other behind-the-scenes positions.
Philip Lasher and his team were paid $5,500 per week; art director Helena Espola's team was paid $4,000 per week; the lighting crew was a little less, at only $3,000 per week; and with the $5,000 for the props team, the crew was billed nearly $20,000 per week for just this one department.
If a new project is like a mainstream Hollywood movie, where the preparation and filming takes more than half a year or even a year, the personnel remuneration alone can overwhelm Murphy's budget and bankrupt him.
Murphy's own estimate of the production cost of eight hundred thousand dollars, so the shooting time must not be too long.
According to his plan, if everything goes well, the movie will not take more than two months from preparation to shooting.