I just wanted to post this to vent and make other people out there aware of how important is it to GET IT IN WRITING!!!

I am shooting a music video this Friday.Three weeks ago, I met with the GM of a night club here with my Gaffer and PA. We all agreed to shoot there, and the GM said it was okay.

Fast forward to Tuesday (yesterday)...The GM sends me an email and calls me saying the owner told him he has to collect $340.00 more dollars for the rental. Well my client's budget is tapped. And they don't have any more money for that so now we are on a mad scramble to find another club we can shoot in on such short notice.

Really SUCKS! The agreement was verbal with paperwork to be done the morning we showed up. Lesson learned. At least we have one other location scheduled so we can get SOMETHING done.

I feel your pain. I had a similar issue years ago. To piggyback onto that, always speak with the owner of a property/establishment, not the "manager" or so. There's a huge difference & vested interest in precaution & liability, and an owner wouldn't want to be caught off guard by a "manager" saying "Oh yeah, some guys are coming in tomorrow to shoot some video stuff".


Not saying it's your fault, but you never know how it gets relayed to the owner.

True.

As it turns out, the client got a new venue the day before and everything ended up working out great! I and the Gaffer didn't like the fact that we couldn't scout the location, but it worked out in the end!