Don't Hire Your Friends

To be clear: it's fine to hire your friends, but don't hire them just because they are your friends. Hire the best person for the job, period. If they happen to be a friend, that's great. You'll all have a good time on set. But hire someone who you can trust to do a job to the best of their ability - an ability that is the quality and level of competence that you need for the job performance. Then, you can deliver the best product possible while enjoying the experience.

But the product must be your priority at all times. We see it all the time: hiring decisions are made amongst friends instead of considering what is best for the project and in the end, both the project and the friendship will suffer. I've both witnessed it and experienced it. And it's no fun to have to clean up after that kind of mess because it's both professional and personal.

It's always a reminder for me on our own projects to ask: "what's best for the production..." and that answer is usually clear when you force yourself to think objectively.