Had a good shoot today and silly phone conversation... well, two. I've been keeping track of all the ridiculous clients that I get calls from on a blog.
http://freelancepurgatory.blogspot.com/
http://freelancepurgatory.blogspot.com/
Another goofy story, 3 days notice, 30 day shoot, $150/day
- Thread starter pulp
- Start date
Scott F
Pug Life
Now hold on….I don't want to get into a whole thing here. Because believe you me, I read & enjoy your blog. I even have a link off of my blog, because I fully support what you're doing. But wait, I have a question.
One month's worth of work @ $150 a day. Hold on, let me get my calculator…….that's at least 45 hundred bucks before Uncle Scam gets his hands on it.
You spawned this thread where the basic complaint was you were working an unsteady gig @ $120 a day. But this one is $30 more with a month guarantee of work. And your argument is you don't want to miss hot dogs & fireworks? You should have taken the gig!
If you have solid plans to trump the 45 hundred, God bless you, but this would have been guaranteed work. Unless they were super-sketchy and weren't planning on paying the crew. But that's never happened before, right? :undecided
So maybe you did make the right decision? I don't know, I'm asking here.
One month's worth of work @ $150 a day. Hold on, let me get my calculator…….that's at least 45 hundred bucks before Uncle Scam gets his hands on it.
You spawned this thread where the basic complaint was you were working an unsteady gig @ $120 a day. But this one is $30 more with a month guarantee of work. And your argument is you don't want to miss hot dogs & fireworks? You should have taken the gig!
If you have solid plans to trump the 45 hundred, God bless you, but this would have been guaranteed work. Unless they were super-sketchy and weren't planning on paying the crew. But that's never happened before, right? :undecided
So maybe you did make the right decision? I don't know, I'm asking here.
I completely understand your point, and it definitely wasn't lost on me while I was on the phone with her. It was pretty tempting.
However, today I made $300 for a half day shoot, and I got travel comp. These guys wanted a "assistant camera person," no description of what camera they used, what the film was, how many days we'd be working of that month commitment (from my experience, no "month long shoot" is actually a month; everyone would be dead, so they get at least one day a week free to do laundry and have a normal life). There were basically no details at all, aside from "$150 a day, starting in three days, four weeks." I have a few obligations in July, and I could potentially move them about, but not that short of notice.
I'm also not giving up the option of making more money on a shoot (per day) because I'm working this one. Granted, I probably won't make $3000 this month on other shoots ($150/day, 5 days a week), but I've made $600 this week in two half-day shoots. I'd rather do a few shoots and make good money, and not burn myself out, then kill myself on a film set (the last one like this I worked on was 2 weeks, the shortest day being 8 hours, the longest being 23, the average being 16) for a month straight for $150 each day. Also, I would have had to of stayed in a hotel for that money, as well. As well, I don't suspect anyone who thinks that they can have a film edited in the amount of time it takes to shoot the film is really... someone I want to work with. That seems like a red flag for ineptitude and trouble.
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Scott F
Pug Life
The only thing I could think when first reading your post/entry was that you are young & do it for the experience.
But about halfway thru my reply, I starting thinking this film gig has low/no/deferred payment written all over it. I have no experience with any long-term commitment projects like the one you speak of. All my work is mostly short-form corporate videos and commercials. Not film.
But again, keep posting those entries, I think they are hilarious.
But about halfway thru my reply, I starting thinking this film gig has low/no/deferred payment written all over it. I have no experience with any long-term commitment projects like the one you speak of. All my work is mostly short-form corporate videos and commercials. Not film.
But again, keep posting those entries, I think they are hilarious.
Yeah, I've done a few feature films that were low/no payment, just so I knew more about the trade and had it on my resume, and a credit on IMDB and elsewhere. Even if they were offering more, I would have had trouble re-arranging an entire month's schedule to accommodate the shoot, but knowing how long of hours a "low budget film" that is mostlikely renting equipment and paying crew (even if it's low pay, $150/day for each person on set adds up, so it's probably a $50k shoot), they're going to work the everliving hell out of each person on set. Without seeing their contract, I wouldn't be surprised if there were no minimum turnarounds (so they could work you til, say, 5am and expect you back at set at 7am), no meal stipulations, no board (actually, I knew there was no housing), etc. And, on top of all that, I'd expect that anyone who believes they can find a fairly decent professional for a month on 3 days notice, or that a feature film can be edited while it's being shot and completed by the end of shooting, probably isn't the brightest, and won't treat people the best.
Like I said, guaranteed work for that rate would be great, but I know how these kind of shoots run, and judging from what little information they provided, they're not going to be the kind of people any professional will want to work with. I wasn't so much scoffing at the amount of money as I was the expectation of finding someone for that long on that short of notice, with no information provided.