fees for documentary interview subjects

D

dilby

Member
Hi all -

By trade I'm a designer and do small-scale company videos, but I've long wanted to shoot a doco and have the opportunity to make a sports documentary thanks to a few good contacts and some lucky timing.

I have the opportunity to interview some well known sports people and pundits but this will be a first for me, so I was hoping for some input from me on what is common protocol? Do well known interviewees generally have some sort of appearance fee, and if so how is that dealt with? Or do they generally appear to help their profile?

I wouldn't be making the documentary for the sake of profit, but if it did become successful in the streaming world, I would be earning some revenue. Is it common to then share this out to who is interviewed?

I'm aware there may be no hard and fast rule, but I'd like to know other people's experiences and any general practice. I'm based in the UK if that helps.

Thanks so much
 
If you pay your documentary interview subjects for their interviews, it's not a documentary, it turns into something else. Not to say that you cannot reimburse them for expenses to appear at your shoot (I have had to hire limos and Ubers plenty of times to get a subject to a specific place to shoot an interview) or work lost while spending time shooting your documentary (we are pitching a one off that would be shot with working class people, we would be taking them for a few weeks to another country, which means they would lose their normal wages for the two weeks we were gone unless they take their vacation time, if they have that much). I don't think it's wrong to reimburse them for their work lost while out of the country for two weeks shooting our film, but it's not really a true documentary as we are totally putting them into a specific environment and taking them to specific locations and attractions that we are choosing. If you think about it, there are few pure documentaries being shot these days where the filmmakers just point cameras at what is happening. It seems like the term documentary has morphed into something else, largely due to the influence of "reality" TV programming where nothing is documentary, every second is contrived. We are pitching another documentary that is more genuine as we are just pointing cameras at an event that is happening, we are trying very hard to have zero influence over what transpires, we just want to capture what happens.

Imho, you cannot pay documentary subjects to appear before you cameras and still call it a documentary. That's acting. But that's a gray line. What if you were shooting a documentary about human traffickers and gained the trust of some traffickers to let you shoot them doing their work by paying them? Is that still a documentary? Tough call. I see plenty of programming where I suspect the filmmakers had to bribe or pay shady characters to appear on camera. A lot of the Vice stuff seems like it is made this way.
 
You don't say where in the world or which sport or which level. Context is all. As it is in any documentary

As noted above by Puredrifting "it depends" but on the whole for a documentary there is normally no payment other than expenses. (even if it is 2 weeks wages + hotels!) The best most of mine get is a coffee and a sandwich!
 
Big topic. I have many thoughts about it. But one way to weasel around the no-pay-for-interviews stance is to call the interviewee a producer of some sort (either so they feel awesome or so they get paid that way), or to pay them for access to their archives of photos/videos/etc. I have very mixed-to-negative feelings about that approach, but it's common.
 
Putting interviewees on the credits as a "producer" implies they had some control over the content. Not so good.
 
Thanks so much for the replies everyone, all good food for thought. I also was thinking along the lines of covering costs, but because some of these people are quite high profile, it seemed weird assuming they'd be bothered about a few quid. I like the idea of just making them feel appreciated by sorting out transport, a meal and having someone to look after them while I do my thing. Not many people will say no to that and its a good leveller - I can treat the well-off celebs and the nobodies the same way and they'll feel appreciated. That's my thinking at this stage. I was more concerned if there was a general protocol but it seems it's a bit more done by feel and common sense to that particular situation, which I'm generally a fan of.

In regards to others shooting 'documentaries' and getting the responses they want through payments, I feel that this happens anyway no matter if they're paid or not. Of course it helps, but I'm always surprised what people will do on camera for their 15 seconds of fame!
 
dilby said:
, but I'm always surprised what people will do on camera for their 15 seconds of fame!
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I used to be... not any more. The problem is a lot of people, thanks to the impunity of saying what you like on Facebook and getting away with it, people now seem to think they can say what they like with impunity. Also we have in this time of "fake news" anyone can present any old rubbish as "alternative facts" and corroborated facts are "just your opinion". Makes the life of a documentary producer very difficult especialy fact checking and not getting sued.
 
I've interviewed people like Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and quite a few other high profilers for documentaries. With people like that, it's the opposite problem, you could never pay them nearly enough for them to even sneeze your way much less give you an hour of their time for the camera so with them, they certainly don't need the money, they are already super exposed in the media, they have all of the fame anyone would want or need so how do I land interviews with them? Persistance and having an appealing project that they are personally passionate about or interested in. And never neglect the old "calling in favors" card, if you are tight with someone who is friends with them. That's really the only viable way. The other challenge is how to do you get past their gatekeeprs, agents, publicists, managers and other people who don't want to give you the time of day unless you are putting money into their pockets by paying their talent? Not easy, some of these I had to call for six months to two years before I actually got them into the chair. You have to be willing to travel anywhere also, I had to fly to New Zealand for ten minutes with Peter Jackson and to NYC for an hour with Scorsese. The great thing is though that high profile people have a vetting process that is very much akin to "keeping up with the Joneses". Meaning if you can land an interview one high profiler, you can often get ten because the other people figure if person XYZ is in on this, then maybe they should be. It's very Lemming-like behavior but Hollywood is a town and business full of Lemmings, ourselves included.
 
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puredrifting said:
I've interviewed people like Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Quincy Jones, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and quite a few other high profilers for documentaries. With people like that, it's the opposite problem, you could never pay them nearly enough for them to even sneeze your way much less give you an hour of their time for the camera so with them, they certainly don't need the money, they are already super exposed in the media, they have all of the fame anyone would want or need so how do I land interviews with them? Persistance and having an appealing project that they are personally passionate about or interested in.And never neglect the old "calling in favors card, if you are tight with someone who is friends with them. That's really the only viable way. The other challenge is how to do you get past their gatekeeprs, agents, publicists, managers and other people who don't want to give you the time of day unless you are putting money into their pockets by paying their talent? Not easy, some of these I had to call for six months to two years before I actually got them into the chair. You have to be willing to travel anywhere also, I had to fly to New Zealand for ten minutes with Peter Jackson and to NYC for an hour with Scorsese. The great thing is though that high profile people have a vetting process that is very much akin to "keeping up with the Joneses". Meaning if you can land an interview one high profiler, you can often get ten because the other people figure is person XYZ is in on this, then maybe they should be. It's very Lemming-like behavior but Hollywood is a town and business full of Lemmings, ourselves included.
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I shot an interview for a doc for a guy about two years ago that he had spent five years chasing, begging for and trying to line up and they finally said YES. The subject just happened to be in-town here for an event when his people said he would do it, so the producer had to fly half-way across the country for it. The interviewee comes in super late after his people asked if we could go early, slouches down in the seat, which completely blows the shot, then we get maybe 10 minutes with him and there may have been ONE useable bite out of his interview.
 
Run&Gun said:
I shot an interview for a doc for a guy about two years ago that he had spent five years chasing, begging for and trying to line up and they finally said YES. The subject just happened to be in-town here for an event when his people said he would do it, so the producer had to fly half-way across the country for it. The interviewee comes in super late after his people asked if we could go early, slouches down in the seat, which completely blows the shot, then we get maybe 10 minutes with him and there may have been ONE useable bite out of his interview.
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I've had a few of those in the day as well. People seem to forget that there are so many sociopaths in this business. Just because someone is famous doesn't mean that they aren't a reprobate.
 
puredrifting said:
I've had a few of those in the day as well. People seem to forget that there are so many sociopaths in this business. Just because someone is famous doesn't mean that they aren't a reprobate.
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Next you will tell me that Celebrities don't sincerely and individually love every one of their fans :-)


There is a video on you tube (and probably more than one if I could be bothered to look) that lists a whole load of A list actors who are a pain to work with and have a reputation for being unreasonable, difficult or just plain rude. the video cites several incidents for each actor.

People are people and being a Famous Person[SUP](tm)[/SUP] doesn't mean they will be any different to the rest of humanity. Most of what you will have seen of any Famous Person will have been carefully choreographed by their PR team (or Hollywood)
 
jagraphics said:
Next you will tell me that Celebrities don't sincerely and individually love every one of their fans :-)


There is a video on you tube (and probably more than one if I could be bothered to look) that lists a whole load of A list actors who are a pain to work with and have a reputation for being unreasonable, difficult or just plain rude. the video cites several incidents for each actor.

People are people and being a Famous Person[SUP](tm)[/SUP] doesn't mean they will be any different to the rest of humanity. Most of what you will have seen of any Famous Person will have been carefully choreographed by their PR team (or Hollywood)
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Yes, actors are the panopoly of humanity, some are jerks, some are average and a few are really, really nice and extraordinary people. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with nearly as many agents, managers and publicists as I used to when I was working at a production company and had to beg A-List talent constantly to appear in our interviews. I have a documentary that I am currently producing where we are trying for interviews with about a dozen celebrities and actors though and I am dreading stepping back onto that horse. The difference is, this documentary is about a side business that all of these celebrities are in so interviews for them would be free publicity and visibility for their side businesses. it's my hope that we can land at least a few of them, their appearances and names would be incredibly helpful for us getting distribution and selling our little documentary.
 
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