MAJOR PROJECT: Shoot Days: Catering

As a Production Manager on a small, independent project, it was my job to ensure that all of the crew and cast members were well catered for. The shoot days were 12 hours in duration for the crew members, which meant that at least 2 meals were required to ensure that everyone's basic needs were met. Before choosing what the meal options would be I emailed every cast and crew member to find out everyone's dietary requirements and check for allergies for health and safety. To keep track of what I wanted to buy for the shoot, I made a shopping list so I could assess whether there was a good a variety of options and to give me a list to tick off when I would purchase everything the day before. To keep costs down, we decided that 2 out of 3 evening meals would be prepared by me prior to the shoot days and one evening, we would order pizza which was a much more expensive option.

Food Plan

Food Plan

For lunchtimes, I decided to get sandwich ingredients with plenty of choice and a wide selection of snacks and drinks so that there was plenty of choice. For evening meal times, we went for pasta dishes and chicken fajitas, with several side options of salad and coleslaw etc.
We were very fortunate to have a working kitchen at the location with access to boiling water, a fridge and a microwave. It was also fully kitted out with crockery and cutlery which meant that I didn't need to supply this myself. Once I got to the location I unloaded all of the food straight away so that everything was refrigerated and kept in order. I organised most of the food but had some production assistants to help out during the evening which made the meal times very easy going and ensured that we didn't overrun the schedule.

Generally, the food and catering was all successful and well organised. It was one of the biggest expenditures from the budget but, we were all happy to spend a little more and make sure that all of our cast and crew felt happy and well catered for throughout the shooting period.