Ridiculous Job Offers / Demands!!

[Matt Champagne]

Originally Posted by Jay Gladwell

There's been a heated debate the past few days on CraigsList Miami regarding the "lo/no" pay video jobs. This is one person's reply I found this morning:

-------------------------------------------------------

Reply to: job-229564448@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-11-03, 9:27AM EST


First, I would like to say that I am NOT the one who has been running ads on craigslist, but I am a producer of small films who often refers to the list for help.

I have been a professional cameraman/editor for 32 years. I am in the INTERNATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHERS GUILD and the NATIONAL PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION.

In short, I fully support those producers who are willing to give aspiring filmmakers a shot at working on their projects ("for free"). Where else can a filmmaker get EXPERIENCE...real experience...and screen credit? Just because someone graduated from film school doesn't mean that they have experience. In fact, the producer is taking a great risk that the photographer shoots blue, shaky video without audio...

The fact is, everyone has to start SOMEWHERE, and these free "no/lo" positions are REQUIRED before you can go on to bigger and better things.

I currently work for PBS, and can tell you that ww use DOZENS of no-pay students on our field shoots. The list is long, and we are swamped, and I mean SWAMPED with applications for these no-pay positions.

Even today, after all these years and years and years of experience, I STILL WORK FOR FREE on a couple of projects a year, just to "help out", or do sharpen my skills lighting a "green screen", or operating a "jib", or whatever. It's a win/win situation. I enjoy it/they get the job done.

Putting the pressure on producers to pay for their help doesn't mean that that WILL pay...it means that they will do the project WITHOUT any help. Nearly all of the films done in Florida are done "on spec"...meaning nearly all of them will never see the light of day. So there are NO BUDGETS.

Have you ever wanted to go on a film shoot "just to watch"? Have you ever said "give me something to do, I'd like to help"? SO HAVE DOZENS OF OTHER PEOPLE. If you haven't, maybe you should.

I can tell you from 30 years of experience, if you don't have the experience, people are not going to hire you. And where do you find that experience?... in those crazy little ads in Craigslist.

If you don't want to participate..don't. But don't ruin it for the hundreds of people who do. Please leave Craigs list alone.

While that person has a valid point, there is a huge difference between simple "work for experience" that alot of the craiglist posts request. Most of them ask for:

1) Equipment
2) People with experience
3) People with reels
4) Film experience

Or alternatively they:

1) Make insane promises like guarentees that it will have placement on television, or distribution (If you have guarentees like that, then you can afford to pay someone who can guarentee good product.)
2) Request free work, but indicate that they are spending an enormous amount on everything else (This will be a 35mm project, with names attached -- oh but we can't afford to pay you).



Its certainly reasonable to ask for an inexperienced cinematographer to work on your equipment for reel & credit, but requests like many on craiglist that meet the above criteria are outright rediculous and insulting. And that has been pretty much the theme of all these posts on this forum. No one on this thread has posted any "We are a small production company putting together a low budget dv movie, and we need help" sort of posts. Though its sad that the state of affairs in the media world is such that people have to work for free, at the very least those types of posts are reasonable requests.

[Josh Bass]

There's an an international cinematographer's guild? I've heard of ASC, BSC, France's. . .SC, but not this international thing.

And I don't agree with that dude's post. You can get work on real projects, legit non-craigslist stuff if you're gonna go the no-pay route. As a PA, or intern, I mean. And a lot of people claim the first PA jobs they got WERE paid.

I'm starting to think that experience on "Craigslist-type" stuff may not be so valuable after all. Let's say you volunteer your time and camera on someone's short/feature. How do you know that any of your are doing anything right? What I mean is, there's a way things are done on professional productions, and it's not necessarily the way people on no-budget stuff do things. I'm talking about set protocols, etc. So you have all this experience, then you start trying to apply for real gigs, and find out everything you know is wrong. What good is that? I know this applies to me personally.

I'm sure there are dozens of things I do "wrong" on all my personal projects. I would never ask someone to volunteer on one of my things and call it "experience", 'cause it really isn't. Unless the paid gig that guy/gal applies for next is someone shooting miniDV with a homemade dolly and little/no crew.

Perhaps it's different if the producer/director/someone has real world experience, and is disciplined enough to maintain that pro methodology when doing no-budget stuff, and teach people to do the same. That's probably not the case with most of these ads.

I don't know. What do I know? Those are my thoughts.

[Matt Champagne]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

There's an an international cinematographer's guild? I've heard of ASC, BSC, France's. . .SC, but not this international thing.

And I don't agree with that dude's post. You can get work on real projects, legit non-craigslist stuff if you're gonna go the no-pay route. As a PA, or intern, I mean. And a lot of people claim the first PA jobs they got WERE paid.

I'm starting to think that experience on "Craigslist-type" stuff may not be so valuable after all. Let's say you volunteer your time and camera on someone's short/feature. How do you know that any of your are doing anything right? What I mean is, there's a way things are done on professional productions, and it's not necessarily the way people on no-budget stuff do things. I'm talking about set protocols, etc. So you have all this experience, then you start trying to apply for real gigs, and find out everything you know is wrong. What good is that? I know this applies to me personally.

I'm sure there are dozens of things I do "wrong" on all my personal projects. I would never ask someone to volunteer on one of my things and call it "experience", 'cause it really isn't. Unless the paid gig that guy/gal applies for next is someone shooting miniDV with a homemade dolly and little/no crew.

Perhaps it's different if the producer/director/someone has real world experience, and is disciplined enough to maintain that pro methodology when doing no-budget stuff, and teach people to do the same. That's probably not the case with most of these ads.

I don't know. What do I know? Those are my thoughts.

You have a point there, but I have to say there is an element of experience that can be learned from even working with inexperienced people. I find I've learned something on every project I've worked on, and that learning typically comes from encountering unique problems and working as a team to solve them. The next time the problem comes up, its not nearly as much of a big deal. It's great experience for people who want to produce their own material independently. But if you are attempting to get experience needed to work for major producers, or television then I agree that the no pay work is probably pretty useless. It's better to beg your ass off for a PA position on a big budget production.

Secondly, I do alot of "no pay" work for the advantage of connections, work trades, or borrowing of equipment. If my contribution is significant, I may instead ask for some equity share in the project if I believe in it enough, but the producers can't offer me any services in return.

So I guess really, I think its best to never work for free, but that doesn't mean you have to get paid in cold hard cash every time.

[Ryan Paige]

Not directly related to videography/cinematography, but I saw a posting the other day on a film-related message board looking for a screenwriter to write up an idea this person had for no/deferred pay. Not necessarily anything wrong with asking, of course, but then they went on, requiring:

The screenwriter have produced credits distributed by one of the major studios.
The screenwriter be currently repped by CAA.

Maybe it's just me, but I would imagine that most screenwriters with major studio credits and an agent at CAA aren't out looking for no pay jobs on message boards.

But I'll admit that I might be wrong on that.

[Jay Gladwell]

Originally Posted by Matt Champagne

While that person has a valid point, there is a huge difference between simple "work for experience" that alot of the craiglist posts request. Most of them ask for:

1) Equipment
2) People with experience
3) People with reels
4) Film experience

Or alternatively they:

1) Make insane promises like guarentees that it will have placement on television, or distribution (If you have guarentees like that, then you can afford to pay someone who can guarentee good product.)
2) Request free work, but indicate that they are spending an enormous amount on everything else (This will be a 35mm project, with names attached -- oh but we can't afford to pay you).

Matt, I think you hit the nail on the head!

[Patrick Swinnea]

This one looks kind of iffy. For the amount of time it takes to schedule, shoot, and edit a 3 minute video, $50-$200 seems pretty chintzy! Especially considering you have to provide your own 3CCD camera, 2 (TWO!) wireless lavs and your own music. Besides all that, how would you do this right without two people?







Testdrivevideos is looking for a special breed of videographer to make our Street Team.

Street Team members will visit their local car dealers to take a test drive, videotape their experience and edit it down to a 3 minute clip including background music for posting to our website.

You will be provided:

Embroidered team shirt
Team business cards
How to succeed as a Test Drive Video Street Team Member
Agreements
Video forms
You will earn from $50 to $200 per video and should spend an average of 2 hours working on each video.

This can be full or part time work. You can be a student or professional with several years of video and film experience. You will need the following as a minimum:

A valid drivers license
Proof of insurance
A 3-chip (CCD) digital camera
Two UHF wireless lav systems
A digital non-linear editing platform capable of adding titles.
Capability to encode to Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Flash (Final Cut Pro, Avid, Premiere or equivalent; iMovie is not good enough).
Music library or score software that is license free and must be cleared to play online.

To be selected, please answer the following questions and send me your reply and demo reel by Monday, 11/13/06:

Why should we hire you?
Do you work better with others or on your own and why?
Would you rather be backstage or onstage and why?
Are you a car or small truck enthusiast and why?
Would you like to appear in your video’s and why?

[Craig Seeman]

How can one do this in two hours?
Go to dealership. Test drive while talking to sales person (both you and they are mic'd my guess). Who drives while who shoots?
Go back home.
Input video.
Edit down to 3 minutes and title.
Compress to various formats.

Obviously they're not asking for great works of art or car commercials but this looks more like 4-6 hours for quick and dirty. Certainly might be a viable newbe job at $200 a day but absolutely pointless for less than that.

Are they thinking one can do 3 or 4 of these a day and that's why they say 2 hours?

Are they thinking one test drives 3 or 4 cars at one dealer?

Are people going to watch test drives and will that sell cars?

Originally Posted by Patrick Swinnea

This one looks kind of iffy. For the amount of time it takes to schedule, shoot, and edit a 3 minute video, $50-$200 seems pretty chintzy! Especially considering you have to provide your own 3CCD camera, 2 (TWO!) wireless lavs and your own music. Besides all that, how would you do this right without two people?







Testdrivevideos is looking for a special breed of videographer to make our Street Team.

Street Team members will visit their local car dealers to take a test drive, videotape their experience and edit it down to a 3 minute clip including background music for posting to our website.

You will be provided:

Embroidered team shirt
Team business cards
How to succeed as a Test Drive Video Street Team Member
Agreements
Video forms
You will earn from $50 to $200 per video and should spend an average of 2 hours working on each video.

This can be full or part time work. You can be a student or professional with several years of video and film experience. You will need the following as a minimum:

A valid drivers license
Proof of insurance
A 3-chip (CCD) digital camera
Two UHF wireless lav systems
A digital non-linear editing platform capable of adding titles.
Capability to encode to Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Flash (Final Cut Pro, Avid, Premiere or equivalent; iMovie is not good enough).
Music library or score software that is license free and must be cleared to play online.

To be selected, please answer the following questions and send me your reply and demo reel by Monday, 11/13/06:

Why should we hire you?
Do you work better with others or on your own and why?
Would you rather be backstage or onstage and why?
Are you a car or small truck enthusiast and why?
Would you like to appear in your video’s and why?

[Eric Brown]

deleted, I did not thoroughly read through the thread.

[Adam Reuter]

CineAlta Camera Operator Wanted...$150/day

Hello,

We are looking for a cameraman with access to a Sony HDW-F900 to shoot some interviews in the D.C. area. Shooting will begin December 16th and run to mid-January. A minimum of 3 days a week (approx. 6 hours/day) will be required of you.

This is a political documentary that features high-ranking, national political figures. This job will also require a lighting kit (at least 3 lights for interview-style) and a broadcast-quality lavaliere microphone. Job may lead to future gigs. Food will NOT be provided at the locations. We will pay for tape stock.

Please send demo reel link and contact info to above address. P.S. No, that's not a typo. One-hundred fifty dollars and zero cents per day is a fair rate.

* Location: D.C.
* It's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: $150.00 a day

Wow...I'm speechless. I know the F900 is now the "old" model or whatnot but that's like renting a Panavision film camera for the cost of a DVX100!

[Josh Bass]

Wow, what balls!

Not only offering to pay crap, but no food, and insisting they're not paying crap.

[Philip Williams]

That's awesome. $150/day for an F900, a 3 point light kit and operator.

But hey, I guess $150 isn't too bad for DC. I mean, with the low cost of living there and all.

[Simon Wyndham]

I love the way they insist that $150 is a fair rate!!

Whats the email of this guy? We should be told!

[Nick Hiltgen]

I wonder if they realize that they will be spending more a day on tape stock (at least 6 hour shoots will be 4x40min pieces) then they expect to spend on the operator, camera. lav, and lighting kit

[Marcus Marchesseault]

I have access to a F900 package that includes monitor, lav mics, a shotgun mic, and fishpole. I will even work for $150 a day if it looks good on my reel and I am treated decently. The only question I have is if the rental house will trust me to go off-island with the $2500/day camera package. I'm surprised that this employer won't pay for food but will be paying $2500 per day for the camera and mics. Oh, I'll bring my light kit for another $150/day...

Everybody has ACCESS to an F900, you just need to supply the minimum number of presidential portraits.

[George Ellis]

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

I have access to a F900 package that includes monitor, lav mics, a shotgun mic, and fishpole. I will even work for $150 a day if it looks good on my reel and I am treated decently. The only question I have is if the rental house will trust me to go off-island with the $2500/day camera package. I'm surprised that this employer won't pay for food but will be paying $2500 per day for the camera and mics. Oh, I'll bring my light kit for another $150/day...

Everybody has ACCESS to an F900, you just need to supply the minimum number of presidential portraits.

Benjamin was never president (haha).