How many people does it take to make a movie?

[PD7]

The other day I watched a television show on animal planet. It was about this guy that is a self proclaimed cat expert. I ended up watching the whole show for some reason and I am glad I did now. I watched the credit roll by at the end. The first thing I thought was "How many people does it take to make a show about cats?" I would imagine you need a person to use the camera, a person to find the mean cats, the cat expert guy, some person to pay them for doing it, and some person to watch it. If you click this link you will see that it took 30 people to make this show(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1933073/fullcredits). My theory is that at least 43% of these people are not even real. Someone just puts a name there with a job title so it looks nice. Maybe the people attached to the show that are real are charging the person that is paying them to make the show and then pocketing the extra income from the imaginary people that they wrote on some piece of paper. Of coarse this theory could very easily be dismissed by looking up all the people on this link and making sure they are in fact real. I have neither the time or patience to do that. But unless someone does I will always think this.

[Ziven]

A very good idea.

However, I suggest that you can construct a mathematic differential equation to describe the dynamic mechinism of Hollywood. For example, the left of this equation describe the changes of the quality of the movie, while the right of the equation includes some viariables such as producer, director, screenplay, costs, time and so on.

[Phi for All]

A lot of those people listed are producers of some sort, which are usually the people who pony up the dough for production costs. Why would they be willing to pay for fake names? Producers are notorious penny-pinchers. Didn't you notice the production accountant title? That person is there to make sure all the receipts total for the producers.

 

People like the operators, editors, mixers are paid union scale wages, typically by the week. Your main series editors, if they're MPEG members, would make $2,899.17 per week on an independent shoot. And these days EVERYONE gets a credit (not necessarily on IMDB, but on the rolling credits at the end) as part of their compensation package (really helps verify the resume, and even caterers get a listing).

 

Typically, a television show is produced and then sold to a network. The network only buys if they have advertisers or subscribers willing to buy slots on the show. These folks don't really care how much it costs to produce, they only care how much they'll have to pay and how much they can get paid. What you're suggesting would only work if you had a producer who didn't care about making money, which would definitely get you a ROFLMAO if you mentioned it at any industry party.

[ACG52]

It all depends on how big the film is.

 

On a low-budget, independent film my son was in, there was 6 cast and sixteen crew. This is with none of the support staff that gets credited on real movies, the caterers, the drivers, all the electricians, the sound editors, the continuity person, etc, etc.

 

Of course, a big budget film is a sow with many teats, and feeds an extraordinary number of people. That's why it has a big budget.

[PD7]

Ziven like I said not everyone would do it but at least a few would. I'm not so much as saying everyone one does it. Just a possibility.

Phi For All I learned a lot from what you said. Sorry couldn't figure out the quote thingy, been ages since I got on a forum. You still can't deny that maybe at least one person has done that.