What do you think is the one most important factor in making a great movie?

[Flopper]

Making a movie? You got me. I still don't know what a gaffer and a best boy is. I suspect the motion picture union but it seems to me that the credits these days are almost as long as the movie was.

The gaffer is an electrician or chief election. The best boy is the assistant typically to the gaffer or Key rigger. The riggers are people responsible for getting all parts of the set in place and assembled, that is the booms, hoists, lifts, scenery, and scaffolding, etc.

In most sets there are dozens of power, sound, video cables, and control cables run all over the set connected to power sources or generators to lighting outlets, cameras, motors that change lighting position. sound cables connected to recorders and mics, and computer controls for sound, camera movement and object movements.

The Key Rigger Grip with the riggers, and set designer are the people that make movie sets look like real-world places and spaces.

Putting a movie set together is like assembling a giant erector set with thousands of parts. Each set has to to designed well in advance, all parts have to be order or created and ready for assemble on the day of the shoot. When you consider a movie may a have a dozen or more sets, you begin to see why movies are so expensive to make.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Teamwork.

 

[JOSweetHeart]

^^^ I second that. If no one on the set can get along well enough, the film will never happen.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

 

[Flopper]

Teamwork.

The director has to make that happen. Stars, cast members, and staff are often chosen because they have worked together on other pictures. Support people are chosen based on their reputation for reliability and quality work delivered on time. This is one of the things that makes it hard to get work in the movies. You not only need the qualifications but you have to have a good reputation and that often takes years. Casting directors, Set Designers, Director of Photography, Costume Designers, etc. have a rolodex of people they have worked with and trust. That's typically how movies are staffed.