They Call Me the Muffin (wo)Man

Greetings! - your producer here.

Some of you may be wondering how I spend my time when I'm not crunching numbers for the budget, creating deadlines for pre-production, hiring crew, planning meetings, solving problems as they arise, or working with the director and department heads to make sure they have everything they need for production. Well...

I make muffins! (With the help of my sweet roommates and friends)

Among the unexpected shifts that have happened throughout pre-production was the promotion of our UPM, Tessa, to also be in charge of craft services. With just a week before production, she swiftly pulled food resources together for our shoot today. To ease some of the burden, my roommate and I offered to bake the main breakfast offering - muffins! I've never shopped for ingredients in such large quantities. My roommate and I wandered the baking aisle in Wal-Mart thinking "how many pounds of flour do you think would be enough for 20 cups?"

20 CUPS of flour?!??! Yes, feeding a crew is that epic.

We made 3 varities of muffins, estimating about 48 servings of each, which meant a normal batch of muffins times 12! Among them were lemon-poppyseed muffins, chocolate chip, and banana. Check out the photo on the left, that's just 1/3 of the total batter we whipped out.

So how long did all this craziness take? I think we set a record. Over 150 muffins in 4 hours.

I never realized how vital it was to have food on set until I started working on larger productions, but when it is the only way you can pay your volunteer crew for their work, if you don't have food, you lose your crew fast.

If nothing else, when this production is said and done the crew will not be able to say that they went hungry on set! And don't worry, with an early call this morning, we were sure to provide coffee as well.

Finally, I want to give props to my crew for showing up on a SATURDAY MORNING at 7:30am with great attitudes! You guys are awesome!