I've seen on these boards that there alot of big teams.. Im just interested in hearing from the teams who have 5 or less, including actors, extras etc... At the moment my team stands at 2 maybe 3. This has been done on purpose as I was involved with a big team last year and this year I really wanted to give it a go myself to see if "less is more"...

peace

ECF

Yep, we have a core team of 2-3 ppl, with only probably 5 more actors and assitants, just made up of friends.

Rick

We've got two writers, three guaranteed actors, and an editor. So, that's six! And I use the terms 'writers' and 'actors' in the b-r-o-a-d-e-s-t possible sense...!

Glyn

Last year we had a team of four plus an actress who we had for saturday. i had to work during the day on saturday and another member (we co-directed) had to work on sunday. so the maximum number of people we had at one time was five. (most of the time it was 3 or 4). yet we still managed to get it in with 5 minutes to spare due to some creative Dukes-of-Hazard style driving. this year there are at least six of us.

We have 4 writers, 1 editor, 1 sound editor, 4 main actors, 4 assistants, 4 directors.

And we only have 4 ppl.

You could liken the crew size to any production ie: the huge crew of a hollywood "blockbuster" may look nice, but often turns into a shitpie (anyone seen raising helen?) hahaha
Compared to a smaller independant crew, which will pull off a good film more often than the Hollywoods, but may not have all the fancy effects...
The 48hour is a great oportunity to get stuck in into making something that you may not hold up as your lifetime achivement, but you can forget production values if you want and it may not matter...... The team that won wellington last year had a total of 3 members. All did everything.

[Hi there
We are a small team - a mum, dad, and 3 daughters. The director was 16 years old, the camera operator was 14 and the editor was 11. We won regional final - best emerging team for Taranaki

quote name='evacassidyfan' date='May 10 2005, 11:26 AM' post='2105']
I've seen on these boards that there alot of big teams.. Im just interested in hearing from the teams who have 5 or less, including actors, extras etc... At the moment my team stands at 2 maybe 3. This has been done on purpose as I was involved with a big team last year and this year I really wanted to give it a go myself to see if "less is more"...

peace

ECF
[/quote]

I spotted at least two single person animation "teams" in Wellington this year, so well done to them. Must be pretty hectic.


We usually have four people in our animation team, but this year had five. We don't really have roles, but if I had to summarise it, we have

One artist who draws our requested characters and backgrounds onto paper
One animator (me) who storyboards the film and turns the drawings into animations
One sound guy who records our voices and edits them, finds music and sound effects etc
One editor who converts and edits the animations ready for mini-dv
One Producer who keeps us all on time, manages paperwork and has an 'overview' of where we should be

In reality we all cross over into the different areas if we have a spare half hour.

We don't have anything to do with movies or animation in our normal lives and just get together to have a laugh and do 48 seconds and 48 hours once a year.

We had director/camera, actors, backup camera as our actual crew most of the time - the CG and music teams being off site and quiet until required.
Over all I guess we were about ten or twelve. I remember one entry from Christchurch a couple of years ago doing a musical as a solo project, and I think there was a solo claymation in Hamilton last year. That was madness.

Just 4 of us blokes in Goodfellas (6 this year with the our talented Art Director/Female lead and Malosi the superstar baby in our short)

I think the tallest member in our team is about 6 foot 2, the rest aren't that much smaller.

Love the disclaimer - i need one of those

You're welcome to cut edit and paste mine.

I can see why Jeremy is the accountant

I'd actually really like to work in a small team, just cause I feel like there'd be more creative collaboration and flexibility throughout the weekend.

Agreed. Unfortunately the opposite has happened, with more and more people hearing about it every year and wanting to join in.
Next year we might just defer them all (aside from core crew) to stand by on Saturday if needed.

our team was a core of 4 who did pretty much everything. from writing to shooting to acting to editing.

2 friends who came and acted.

and one other friend who engineered/recorded the music as well as acted.

total of 7 worked on it.

Had a core group of 5. Made things so much more enjoyable with everyone being on the same page

We were about 12, although it was a core group of 6. First year I did it I was in a team of 30+ which was alot of sitting around - much like a real film set not really the 48hours everyone running and gunning sort of environment.

We have a core team of six... plus our actors father who was visiting from Oz and was drafted to assist with lighting... plus a couple of friends who wanted to help out. I'm not sure if they new what struck them!!!

This year I was a one-person team - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVuk9bYkSQw - pretty happy with the result considering I did it all myself, but yes it sure would have been easier and better if I'd had another experienced animator with me.

I've worked on flicks with big crews (20+) and small crews (5 + a caterer) and its always 'funner' with smaller units,
lighter & easier to pile into one vehicle (sans sandwiches) and make your escape to another location.

Was a 1 person crew with 5 actors.

Is definitely less stress with no-one else on crew.

This year there was just two of us (and a number of lego characters). We did it all, wrote shot, edited etc.

Our first year had about 30 people in it. We did much better as a big team but had way more fun as a team of two. However overall I'd rather keep it small and have a great time and still produce something we're proud of than just not really enjoy the experience that is 48hours.

Having a couple of extras would be nice for acting etc but seem to have trouble with peoples schedules changing last minute. I'd still do it if it was just me as I really enjoy this comp.

We had ten people altogether - most of whom worked on brainstorming and story, a slightly smaller set did the script, then everyone did everything in production, paring down to three of us in the edit/music suite. Worked pretty awesomely but next year I'm hoping for a slightly smaller writing team probably.

Small crew is always best IMO, just enough people to make it so it's not one person doing everything and there's someone on call to "go get this" or "go get that". That said, the best shoot I've ever done was a two-person crew. Although obviously in every case it depends on what the project is. A bigger project needs a bigger crew. But most can be small, I've found. A small group of people who know WTF they're doing is best.

Don't forget to add Rihan

I really like the idea of doing it all of the production myself. Unfortunately my team told me to get fucked when I suggested I should do everything.

Ha ha. Maybe that's why my teams so small after all. I like to do all the production too

i think 2 guys, was just one guy and the movie sent over from australia.

We had... 4 core members. Director, Make-up artist, writer, and composer. But the director, writer and composer also doubled as actors and cameramen, the director doubled as the editor and the producer, and we had 3 more actors on top of that. So a 7 person team all up. Oh, and two people showed up to help with the music, composed about one bar and then left. So a total of 9 were involved.

We knocked out the movie in thirty minutes between the five of us and spent the rest of the weekend on expensive whiskey and cheap, cheap hookers.
That would explain why our movie is lousy and we all have crotch monkeys

Our total was 14, however 2 of them were caterers and you can't miss them out. One was away for a fair bit of the weekend at a funeral. One was there as an image on an an iphone (my real wife) so it was a team of ten. Everyone was together for the initial brain storm then down to a couple to write. Everyone together on Saturday for the filming but 3 were excused for about three hours as they weren't needed for one scene. All back together for the last couple of hours shooting on Saturday and wrapped at 5pm. One core editor on Sunday with some extra help later on. Movie in by 6pm.

Next year I will go with similar numbers. This works well, there is plenty for everyone to do and creativity is good. I have more people who want to get involved so will enter two teams under the Team Inneredge umbrella. Two small teams are far better than one large unruly mob. Also with two teams we can share resources where necessary and critique each other while still being independent. My aim at the beginning of all of this was to look at how teams work and this process has been very beneficial. Am writing an article on the experiences for publication.

Team Inneredge
2010 Complete Fabrication

hell yeah!

We had 4 people in total, 2 actors and 2 behind the scenes doing everything else...

Small teams can be good when you know what everyone can do.
I always think of the 48hours of sleeping friday then no sleep sat, so the main advantage of
a larger team other than creativity/talent would be the fact that you get more sleep if
you have someone who can take over and give you a break.

Hey I slept Friday and Sat 5hrs each, we finished on time and I wrote (with my team), then
directed, shot, cut, scored and sound mixed our film alone...so in short it's all about time
management not the number of people. Fun is fun, with 4 people or 14!

My best advice is make sure you enjoy working with those you're in a team with.

we had 5 team members but we had one extra..
the smaller the better...less people to all agree with an idea haha

Haynesfilm/Ow only had about eight people this year and they put out a pretty amazing looking film~ When you see the quality of 'Two Timer', it's a strong argument that bigger teams don't necessarily produce better products.

I would say that it's not so much about the quantity of the crew you have but who you have in the crew.
Technically I could make by with just me a camera and a guy to hold the boom pole as long a I have a cast of talented actors.

A big crew can be pretty efficient if you have the right mix of people, same goes for a small one.

What can I say... Just the 2 of us..

Well said. Quality vs quantity... every time...