150 chapTer 7 the Cast and Crew scheduled without first meeting with the crew to deter- mine their availability. The more your teammates know, the more they can do for the project and the more effi- cient the production process will be. (Figure 7-8). It is always a good idea to include your crew in the ini- tial script reading in order to allow cast and crew get to know each other. After previsualization, you should also schedule technical read-throughs with each department so that you can concentrate on the techni- cal requirements of each area in isolation from the rest. Additionally, you should meet with your crew whenever there are major changes to the visualization, produc- tion requirements, locations, or production schedule. Obviously, communication is essential, but can you have too many meetings? Yes. You need to conduct efficient and informative meetings and not hold unnec- essary ones just for the sake of meeting. You will respect people's time by not wasting it. Figure 7-8 A student film production crew meeting in progress. Crew meetings are essential for creative collaboration and logistical coordination. Being a crewmember When you are just starting out in filmmaking, it is imperative to crew on as many movies as you possibly can. You always learn an extraordinary amount on well-run productions and on poorly run productions alike. There is no substitute for on-set experience--being part of putting a movie together, watching other people at work, and witnessing the travails, struggles, successes, styles, and procedures of filmmaking firsthand is by far the quickest and most valuable learning you can attain. As a crewmember yourself, it is essential that you endeavor to be as informed, skilled, and cooperative as possible. A great deal of time, money, energy, and hope is poured into mak- ing a movie, so reliability and resourcefulness from every crewperson is essential. Never forget that whatever your role on a film project, no matter how humble, in this business we build our reputations, professional relationships, and careers one film at a time. You must maintain a professional demeanor no matter what your role is. The film producer Cirri Nottage (Girl Six) once said to my film class that she always keeps her eye out for the per- son who excels at their job, even if it's a small job like photocopying and stapling script pages. "If that person is the best and most reliable script photocopier I've seen, then that person is going to be hired again and promoted, because that's the attitude I want on my film set." Initiative, effort, and energy pay off. If you show these traits, you will find yourself on a lot of film sets. Even if you're in school and taking your first film production class, the impression you make on your classmates follows you into the intermediate and advanced courses and beyond, into the professional world. This is how any creative community is developed. Often, the people you call on to help make your first films after graduation are those whom you trusted and collaborated with in school, and if you have proved yourself to be a trustworthy, energetic, and resourceful crew member, you can expect to get a few calls after graduation. on-caMera TalenT Casting a film means finding the right people to play each of the various roles in your movie and securing their commitment to the project. The formality of this process varies widely depending on the scale of your film, but that doesn't mean you can ever be care- less about casting. The success of small films and exercises, all the way up to big-budget features, depends enormously on the quality of the on-camera talent. The on-camera tal- ent can determine the success of a film in two ways--through their performance skill and charisma and through their dedication to the project. Deficiency with either of these can likewise sink an otherwise admirable effort. There is a common adage that says that if a