Film crew

A film crew is a group of people hired by a production company for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. The crew is distinguished from the cast as the cast are understood to be the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew is also separate from the producers as the producers are the ones who own a portion of either the film company or the film's intellectual property rights. A film crew is divided into different departments, each of which specializes in a specific aspect of the production. Film crew positions have evolved over the years, spurred by technological change, but many traditional jobs date from the early 20th century and are common across jurisdictions and film-making cultures.

Motion picture projects have three discrete stages: development, production and distribution. Within the production stage there are also three clearly defined sequential phases — pre-production, principal photography and post-production — and many film crew positions are associated with only one or two of the phases. Distinctions are also made between above-the-line personnel (such as the director, the screenwriter and the producers) who begin their involvement during the project's development stage, and the below-the-line "technical" crew involved only with the production stage.

Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew.

The director is considered to be a separate entity, not within the film crew's departmental structure.

Production is generally not considered a department as such, but rather as a series of functional groups. These include the film's producers and executive producers such as the production manager, the production coordinator, and their assistants; the various assistant directors; the accounting staff; and sometimes the locations manager and their assistants.

Since the turn of the 21st century, several additional professionals are now routinely listed in the production credits on most major motion pictures.

Grips are trained lighting and rigging technicians. Their main responsibility is to work closely with the electrical department to put in the non-electrical components of lighting set-ups required for a shot, such as flags, overheads, and bounces. On the sound stage, they move and adjust major set pieces when something needs to be moved to get a camera into position. In the US and Canada they may belong to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

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