One of the most bittersweet aspects of filmmaking is the “set family” you build during production. When you’re on a project for months, or even years, you share long hours, high stress, creative breakthroughs, and the kind of vulnerable moments that often feel like they’ll bond you forever. But once the shoot wraps, people move on to new projects, and those relationships become more distant.
Emma Watson recently spoke about this in a podcast interview, reflecting on how Harry Potter shaped her expectations of what a set family could be. After 12 years growing up with the same cast and crew, she assumed future projects would be just as lasting. Instead, she found Hollywood often operates differently, more transactional, less familial. Watson admitted it was “bone-breakingly painful” to realize most people weren’t there seeking lifelong friendships, but career opportunities.
It raises an important question for all of us in filmmaking: how do you balance the intensity of these on-set bonds with the reality that many of them may not continue after the final wrap? And more importantly, how can we work to change that? What would it take to build stronger, more genuine connections on set that don’t just dissolve when the cameras stop rolling?
Do you see your collaborators as lifelong friends, or do you view set families as something beautiful but temporary? How have you navigated that shift once production ends, and what do you think we can do as an industry to keep those connections alive?
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Great topic, Ashley Renée Smith! I haven't been on set yet, but I see a lot of my collaborators as lifelong friends. I collaborate with different creatives and industry pros, but I mainly collaborate with the people I've known and collaborated with for a while.
I rest or jump into another project once one is finished.
We can stay in contact, hang out (it doesn't always have to just be about the industry), and continue working with each other.
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I love being on set. It's like going home. I've done a lot of theatre work - onstage, backstage and front of house. The only film and tv I've done so far is as background/extra. I've also done quite a bit of street performance, but that was back in the olden days of late last century. I love it all, but there's something about film and tv, though. It's that feeling of laying down the track as the train is rushing on, constantly trying to stay just ahead of the engine. It's an adrenalin junky's game, really. There's also the sheer skill base necessary for getting a film or a show up and running - hundreds or thousands of people all working together toward the same goal. It sounds like it should be harmonious bliss, but of course it's not. We're humans so it's messy and complicated. There's conflict handled well or badly, usually a bitchy-bickering session in one corner and an expressing-our feelings-through-the-medium-of-modern-dance session in another. Highly technical conversations going on about the lighting changing the sound while an extra is being slapped by a props master and told to stop eating the damn props bread for pete's sake. The whole thing is amazing. There's enough skill to run a country and it's all gathered to tell The Story. There's nothing better. It's easy to see why it's hard to walk away from.