Nevada Film Office: On a film set, there are two different departments that handle food for film crews – catering and craft service. Craft service is the department that makes sure that food and beverages are always available throughout the work day for cast and crew members, inbetween the hot plated meals served by the catering department.
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Food and craft service is something that I think is probably often overlooked when considering the logistics for a production- yet it is critical to success. A hangry cast and crew makes for an inefficient day. What I found particularly interesting about this piece was actually the emphasis placed on craft service. While meals are important, so are all the snacks in between. I know that if I don't have a pretty steady supply of coffee and diet coke throughout the day, then my efficacy as a designer and technician is reduced. Keeping your cast and crew happy via lots and lots of snacks is such a great idea. In high school, I often brought snacks for all my buddies on tech days to keep everyone motivated and focused. It worked like a charm! I'm glad that this principle of feeding your people carries into the professional world.
Food and craft services is one of the most important departments. Being able to quickly grab food and water when working long hours is very important. I often find that when working on productions where their is not craft services, having even small snacks around can really help. No one can work effectively and efficiently if they are hungry. I know that I am someone who likes to snack throughout the day, so being able to eat and work is helpful. I would like to see how budgeting for something like this works out. Because food can be a big expense, especially given the size of production teams and with a large cast just one day of craft services is probably pretty pricey, then having it over a period of time it is going to need a big budget.I wonder how the budget of a full production correlates to the budget of the craft services. Those with the bigger budgets would have more room for a bigger craft serves budget and accommodations in general.
I believe craft services is one of the most vital things for the entertainment industry. Craft services, I have always known to be for film and television but the idea applies to the whole industry. I have heard plenty of stories of the power of food and the one that I remember the most was told by a director I was working with. He told me that one production he was working on, “the crew was terrible” because they wouldn’t do anything and anything they did do was done poorly. Until he decided to bring in pizza, one late night, at the theatre for everyone. He brought in just a couple boxes of pizza for everyone and “the crew turned around 300%” they became the best crew he had ever worked with. One summer I was also working and they gave us forty-five minutes for lunch with no lunch provided. In the time it took to get a block down the street, order the food, receive the food, and walk back. I would have about five minutes to eat and those five minutes would be cut short because something needed to happen and it couldn’t wait. So, speaking from experience, food makes a world of a difference and having it on site, catered (rather than fast food) is the best thing ever. It really does improve your day, make you feel more energized, and improve the whole flow of work being done. I always commend people who provide food and especially so for craft services because they are not only doing it but they are doing it specifically for me, and for other crew members.
I think it is interesting how the video embedded in the article mentions how the sales company of craft services thinks sets should have food brought in for shoots 4 or longer. This seems very generous. Many rehearsals that I work on don't provide food and if they do it is usually just a snack. It is an expectation to bring your own food. I understand people aren't performing for 10 hours straight in live theatre and people get breaks but in theatre rehearsal world it isn't as much of a standard to bring food and live theatre workers do need food. Now I haven't worked on a lot of equity shows but most of the longer rehearsals only provide a food break to get food or you have to bring in food. I wonder if craft services originated because film sets are sometimes more remote or if it had to do with film budgets possibly being greater than theatre budgets. I also wonder if in future years Actors Equity will start requiring food budgets. Lastly I wonder why it isn't an expectation for movie set workers to bring their own food.
Yes! The unsung heroes of Hollywood, the ones who make the food! This article made me pretty excited because I have had the opportunity to be on a film set and see these people in action and they really do great things. It encompasses far more than a quick bite between takes, they make full gourmet meals and are hardly thanked for what they do. Thankfully, my high school was a huge advocate for proper food during rehearsals so during tech weeks we would have catered food, which in turn made for happier and stronger rehearsals that got a lot more done. In turn, I have truly become an advocate for eating properly during theater work, a healthy crew member is a happy crew member. Often times, we forget to thank the people who put smiles on our faces, and thats exactly what these people do, a fresh plate of food after a hard days work is exactly what modern industries need to boost worker morale. Similar to how google and other high tech companies have allocated times and architecturally beautiful places for workers to sleep during their breaks to improve the workers self-care and health, Hollywood has brought workers a primal need, food.
This was an interesting and new type of article. When I clicked on it I thought by “Craft Services” they meant something similar to an Art Department on films. I was right about it being for films/filmings but I was very off base with the type of work. Apparently craft services is crew that provides refreshments to cast and crew in-between formally catered meals. Obviously, this department is necessary for 12+ hour shoots where everyone is trapped on set, but I never thought about that before. I guess I assumed the donut platters and bottles of Gatorade and water were just provided by catering, but again, I was mistaken. We really don’t have anything like this in the theater world, I suppose the closest thing could be company management or a different position I am not even aware of. The other thing that caught me off guard was during the video when the guy talking brought up what he thought might be a standard crew members hourly wage and I was struck by how much higher it was than I expected. I suppose this is Hollywood and everything is so expensive, but $125 an hour? That’s not bad.
That video was both very convincing and informative and also makes me really want a sandwich. I already knew that they tended to keep food available on film sets, but it is nice to see someone explain how being nice to your employees and acknowledging they are people who get hungry is actually cost effective. The thing I find the most interesting is that craft services and catering are separate. Wouldn’t catering companies want to make more money by also providing the snacks throughout the day? I’m sure there is some historical or economic reason why catering and craft services are separate, but it is definitely surprising, and I’d like to know why. Side note, his point about why providing meals is effective and his point about the economic loss of people leaving to get food reminds me of a lot of tech companies like Google. By providing food, their employees take shorter meal breaks (and are more likely to grab food and bring it back to their desk), are more likely to talk about work during lunch breaks with their co-workers, and also since people end up staying for dinner end up working more hours in a day since they might stay after dinner to finish up some work.
I opened this article solely because of the amount of people have commented on it. And it turned out to be a really informative article about a part of production that I have never had to think about since we are in a school setting and rarely have food ordered for us. But I must say that any time that food has been provided it instantly makes my day better and I’m a lot happier. Also it is really important that people are not hungry when working on a production. Nothing is worse that a churning stomach that just wants food and takes up all your attention. It makes you unhappy and it makes everyone around you unhappy. What interested me about the movie is his math for how much you are going to pay when your crew goes to lunch for an hour and half, when at the end he says you should break for an hour to eat lunch in the building. I get what he’s saying about people continuing to talk about the production which means when they get back they will have ideas right away to work on, but I feel like it made his argument a little less valid since you are saving half an hour of labor but buying catered food and snacks and drinks for in between. But either way craft service is really important and I can definitely see why you should always get it.
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