Food For Films

Selecting the right food for crew members and actors may not be easy on all productions due to various factors including budget, diets and even weather. Film catering is still not rocket science and filmmakers must stay clear of making decisions that will ultimately have a negative impact on their production. Here are the five riskiest catering decisions filmmakers make when purchasing food for cast and crew.

Serving Beer on a Film Set
Drinking alcohol is nothing new in the film community but save these beverages for the wrap party. At least you will know that all of your footage is "in the can" and there is no need to worry about the Director of Photography getting drunk and ruining your master shots. Beer, cocktails, wine and other alcoholic beverages are one of the riskiest film catering decisions to make when it comes to producing a short or feature of value. They should be banned from your film production set in addition to being skipped on the grocery shopping list.

Too Many Generic Brand Foods
Filmmakers can save a lot of money by purchasing generic brands. This practice should be done in moderation and used toward food catering options that are not a big deal. You may be able to get away with purchasing generic brand rice rather than cereal that no one on your crew is familiar with. A good rule of thumb is to write down all of the foods you would not mind eating a generic version of and then survey the cast and crew to find out which of these preferences match up among the majority on your production. The Down and Dirty blogger mentioned that if you give your crew cheap food, they may return the favor by giving you a cheap looking product.

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Not Providing Enough Food
Planning to have food for everyone on a set should be obvious, right? Unfortunately, this is not always the case and can cause problems on a film set. Count the number of cast and crew who will be working on your film for a specific day (including yourself because you have to eat too, right?!!!) and buy enough food to cover all of these people. If your film set is being catered by a third party, communicate with the company or individual so there is an understanding if what is needed. Scarce food selections is one of the riskiest catering decisions filmmakers make that can usually be traced back to the following no-no.

Setting an Unrealistic Film Catering Budget
Not having enough money to cover food for crew members and actors is one of the riskiest catering decisions that is directly related to not having enough food. Sometimes filmmakers can get so wrapped up in securing the right equipment, staff, locations, wardrobe and other factors that food is only provided by whatever money is leftover. In other circumstances, filmmakers set aside a flat rate of what they believe food will cost for a particular day or an entire production. These risky catering decisions will only end up making you look unprepared as the cast and crew suffers from hunger after four to seven straight hours of work.

Set aside a few hours during pre-production to research prices for your planned film catering menu. This works out better than believing $20 will cover you for a day or $100 will cover the entire duration shoot. Planning ahead and allocating the proper amount toward film catering will also keep you from overspending on food.

Serving Snacks on Long Production Days
Snacks may work when feeding cast and crew on a short film production that only lasts 1-2 days. Serving snacks on full production days that consist of four to eight working hours is just plain selfish and very risky. Do not try and expect actors and film crew members to live on beef jerky, potato chips, cookies and peanut butter crackers for long workdays. I'm not suggesting that you prepare a full course Thanksgiving style dinner but have enough respect for the efforts that others are bringing to the table when producing an independent film by feeding them something of substance. It does not take much additional effort or money to provide a few sandwiches or quick 10 minute meals on set.

Which one of these film catering tips do you practice when making movies? Leave your comments below!


The above image is of late Paul Fraser, was actor Jack Nicholson's personal chef and also worked at high end venues. Photo is courtesy of Peter Duke.



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