If you don't pay everyone (cast and crew) you should not pay anyone. If you can afford to pay you should. It provides a sense of obligation that will not otherwise exist which means they can take days off work to be in your movie which is unlikely to happen on an unpaid gig.

Also remember that unpaid actors are the actors just starting on their careers. They are gonna be an unknown quality and many might not be as professional or skilled.

To be honest I wish I would have gone the paid route and gotten my actors to work on weekdays. I could have slammed out my movie in two work-weeks (plus bits on weekends with different actors) and be done rather than taking two months or more of weekends (including working on the workweek at my day job). It allows for a quicker production and I now see the value of that because of weather, school schedules, and exaustion and all.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

I have found asking actors to work for free for a short period of
time works out well. A weekend. One weekend a month for three
months. Maybe four or five days in a row. I?ve have excellent
results with short term commitments.

My advice to movie makers who do not pay is to treat the actors
and crew very well. Remember they are doing YOU a favor by
spending their free time working on your movie. Feed them! Too
many movie makers seem to hold the idea that they are doing the
actors a favor by allowing them to be in their movie.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

i think it is important to think about it from thier perspective.
the 2 main things they are likely to want out of it are:

1) to get noticed, so the bigger/ more proffesional the movie seems the more likely they are to get seen.

2) experience, they are going to want to get experience out of it, learn somthing new. eg if its a war film, do a day of training before the shoot, get an ex army guy in for that one day. give the actors productive critisism ( in a nice way)

as certified instigator said, feed them etc, and its probably a good idea to pay thier travel expences. the happier they are the more effort they are going to put into the film.

i find andother important thing is make it fun. to me a very important part of film making is having fun on set. this does not mean compramising the productivity / going at a slower rate, just having a giggle and keeping a positive attitude.
a good example of this is the behind the scenes of transformers. michael bay is an exttremely organised/productive director, yet he always manages to have a lugh every now and then.

hope that helps

I find that working with teenagers. They expect to get paid even though i'm the same age (where would i get that kind of money?) and i tell them this is something I'm doing to further my knowledge of filmmaking among other things. But feeding actors really goes a long way.

Many people my suggest that you check out SAG's Ultra Low Budget agreement, but before you do you may want to read this first:
http://www.easy-budget.com/articles/articles.asp?article=ultralow

Awesome article, thanks for posting this link! I had read over the agreement but sadly never come to the excellent conclusions the author gives in this article.

That article is certainly an eye opener. Thankfully a lot of this doesn't pertain to Australia, but I do know that we can still utilise these agreements here, if we wish to hire SAG actors. But, it is certainly no help for the small independant producer who, without them would have many more actors out of work for extended periods of time.

Michael Rogers
McRogson

quote:

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After all, no pay usually means no obligation whatsoever

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Exactly! I made one 17 minute film, where I replaced the lead actor twice. I was shooting 16mm film for a class project, so imagine my disappointment in having to toss about 13 rolls of film!

My best results have come from paying the cast. It doesn't have to be much - my first feature paid $50 per day and the actors were grateful for it. Of course, the less money you have, the better the food should be! Always try to have a good caterer. I use my wife (a former chef).

If you are trying to sell your movie, you should really pay something. When you do sell it, you'll have no obligations and everybody will be happy! I've been involved in "deferred" paying productions and I never liked it.