Have you ever dealt with someone trying to steal your credit?

E

ecd

Member
I apologize now for the short story below, it's all there as a backstory to my problem. There are some cliffs at the end of the post.

A couple of weeks ago I had entered a 48 hour film fest with a team I've been working with for a couple of years now. This year we added two new members because one of the guys on the team formed a media group with some people and they wanted to join in on the film fest too.

Going into the film fest we agreed on each of our roles and stated that everyone needed to follow them. Last year we had a problem with too many chefs in the kitchen and it took us way too long to come up with an idea. Consequently our film barely got in before the deadline and was shoddid-ly edited because of it. We said we were going to learn from our mistakes and do it better this year.

Like last year, I took on role of Director/Editor and from the get go started having disagreements on potential ideas with one of the new people (we'll call him Greg) from our group. Immediately I could sense a power struggle coming just by the way Greg was talking. Greg's a self proclaimed rapper with no film making experience behind him let alone a time constrained one like a 48 hour competition. What Greg does have is connections through one of the members with whom he's formed a media group with.

I could see Greg was trying to weazel his way into becoming Director of the film and after stating my concerns to the other team members of the group and even talking to Greg about it, I was reassured that it wasn't the case. Before the shoot I told Greg, "on the day, we can't spend hours arguing about how it's going to be shot. We're not going to get anywhere and you need to let me do what I do"

Come the weekend of the shoot Greg and two others members are designated to write it. I trust them to come up with something half-decent and let them do their thing. All I asked was that when they have their story outline one of them sends it to me so I can start conceptualizing it. I didnt hear from them at all until the next morning. When i do ask for the story outline I'm told to wait until i arrive at the location. I'm finally presented a story at 3pm the next day with just over 24 hours to go in the competition.

Greg has this one set-piece in mind when writing the film. There's a giant hook in a warehouse where we're shooting that he wanted to be predominantly in the film. What he wanted was for one of our actors to be dangling upside down for that scene. It didn't take me long to shoot down that idea mainly because of the complexity of having to rig one of our actors upside down to a chain and the safety issues of us not really having proper equipment. Not to mention the floor underneath him being concrete and long metal strips stacked up all across the floor. Greg keeps reassuring me to "not worry" and "it's going to be easy". I continue trying to talk some sense into him but he's not hearing any of it. Before the shoot I went over the story with one of our actors (also one of the writers) who was the guy going up on the hook. When I asked him if he was comfortable with that he flat out told me "no". When I had asked him if he brought those concerns up to Greg I got another "no".

I went back to Greg with these concerns and told him we are just going to shoot him tied to the hook right-side up. Again there was another argument and I lost out after no one bothered to back me up. We spent 2 hours trying to figure out just HOW to put him on the hook and then another hour just trying to get one shot of our actor upside down on it. The first shot of our actor upside down got screwed up because someone missed their mark. The actor on the hook absolutely lost it, didn't like hanging 7 ft upside down and didn't want to do it again. At this point Greg tried to reassure him it was going to be ok and I lost it on Greg for wasting our time with this one scene and lost it on my team mates for just standing around like idiots and not speaking up. Keep in mind that it's now 8pm with less than 24 hours to go and all we've got filmed is one unusable shot. Eventually we had agreed to shoot the scene with our actor hanging right-side up like I had been trying to do from the beginning.

We didn't end up getting the film submitted on time and missed the deadline by 30 minutes. Me? I put the blame mostly on Greg and his inability to stick to our agreement of everyone keeping their role. I also partly blame my team mates inability to step up and say something when his ideas are getting in the way of making our film. They just allowed some guy with ZERO film making experience to join the group and tell them what to do.

The worst part of all this is our film still got screened despite missing the deadline and would have easily made it into the finalists round of the festival had it been submitted on time.

When it was all said and done i was just happy to have to never work with Greg again but sadly this hasn't been the case. Since it was a 48 hour film competition it wasn't edited as well as it could be. I'm still in the process of editing the film and having to still deal with Greg and his associate. Greg has done nothing but mention since the first time I met him of all the media backing they have and development deals in place. I guess trying to show people that he's big s*%t. When I ask him about their projects and development deals he's very coy and doesn't like talking about it much...Only just to brag he's got them in place.

Today I got bored at work and decided to Google Greg's media company. I went to their "about me" section of the website and under Greg's profile saw this:
"As a songwriter and composer for more than a decade Greg has transitioned his talents to directing and producing films. With his directorial debut titled "Off The Hook" which was successfully recieved in 2013"

Now I'm really pissed. This guy just essentially stole all my credit to prop himself up to potential clients on his website. Working with Greg has been nothing but stressful and to see that stress is essentially going to be for nothing, I'm fuming.

I'm not sure what my next move should be. Like I mentioned earlier I'm still in the process of editing this film to a level I'm happy with. Now I'm not sure if there's a point. Not if Greg is going to turn around and use this film to shop for potential clients or more deals. Part of me wants to hand these guys the raw footage and let them re-edit the whole thing. What that would ensure though is Greg listing himself as Director. Another part of me wants to just say "the film is the film" and move on to my next project. There's nothing in this film for me anymore and if my hard work is going to go towards propping up this guys media company then what's the point?

I may be a bit unreasonable right now but this rant is being driven purely by emotion. Have any of you guys dealt with something like this before? I'm somewhat happy with this product and I'm hoping to find a solution that doesn't mean I'm getting screwed.


Cliff notes: A guy who was a nightmare to work with on a 48 hour film fest decided take my credit and list himself as director on his media groups website. This guy also thinks he's the s*%t and never fails to mention the development deals he has in place.

I'm still editing the film to a level acceptable to me but I'm not sure of the point. Not if all my works going to get stolen.
 
Last edited:
Look like this guy has realised your other team members are a walk over, and that's the worst part.

Don't do any more work on it, write it all out then write it off. It'll only get worse and after reading this he'll bad mouth you around town.

Maybe send a disclaimer to the relevant festival folks. Good luck.

Cheers.
 
Don't discredit the efforts of everyone else on the project. Stand tall. Finish what you said you would do. You will get the director credit on the film right there on the screen. If he wants to take credit for it on his website, well, so be it.

You know and he knows he didn't direct it. So what if he pitches himself and uses the film as a booster. You need to get over what others are trying to get away with. You need to move on and be the bigger and better person. Otherwise, it will drive you nuts and for no real useful reason. You will disappoint a lot more people and be a discredit to yourself if you don't do your part on this project.
 
tie up the loose ends and render it out, but not before putting opening credits that roll through the first few seconds of the film: name the lead actors, and then you as director. put it up on youtube and vimeo and email it to everyone involved in the project and declare it complete, you as the director gets to make that decision. ensure that any other copies such as the one with the festival are deleted or replaced with your new final.

leave scum to scum, tell your filmmaking friends that you ONLY wish to work with other filmmakers on future projects, and anyone that does not have any training/experience in filmmaking can only act as a PA.
 
Thanks for the input guys. I've decided to not screw over everyone else who has worked on it too. I'm just going to edit it to a level that I'm happy with and put it out there. If he decides to rip it from my channel, edit the credits, and put his name in...all the power to him.
 
I was the first man to walk on the moon.

I just stole Neil Armstrong's credit. Right?

It's his own site, he can write anything that he wants. It doesn't change what the facts are nor what it says on the film's actual credits. Anyone he's trying to impress by writing that on his site will know the facts if they ever look it up on IMDB, etc.

He hasn't stolen anything. He just wrote a lie on his own site.
 
I work all the time with rappers who will say anything they can that will get them new connections, recognition, and credibility and most of the time it's all just hot air. If he gets coy or won't talk about the deals he's making, then maybe consider that it's all just BS and a 'development deal' might just be some guy who told him he'd like to make movies but won't be there if something's presented. Recognizing when someone's legit and when they're not is a valuable tool to have so consider if there's any big red flags popping up for you besides it.

But yeah, don't bury your cast and crew just cause he got his way on a lot of things. There's much blame to be had on many parties but as director, keeping some of those disagreements away from the others and trying to deal with it privately instead of lashing out helps keep morale okay and if an actor's not comfortable with a dangerous stunt, that should be final. If the guy's trying to use the movie as bait to get more director jobs, just put it behind you because if he gets tasked with making something and he actually tries it, he's likely going to fail and they'll notice that. Sometimes people have to learn a hard lesson first
 
I completely forgot to put an update in this thread. First I'd like to thank those who replied and helped me see the light in all this. It would have been wrong to punish everyone else that worked hard on this film.

I ended up confronting him about what he put up on his website and at first he tried to defend his actions with "it's my website, completely seperate from you. Am I supposed to build you up?" I told him he's right, it's his site and he can post whatever he wants but that doesn't change the fact what he did was wrong. I told him I would make my final cuts and he will see the finished product along with the rest of the crew when I post it up online.

He then went the route of bashing my skills and talking about how I have no idea what I'm doing and stating how he held my hand for the whole process. This really set me off because I know I'm nowhere near professional but I do have a body of work behind me and I'm not about to take crap from someone who before this experience never stepped foot into the world of film production.

He then stated that I had 24 hours to hand over the raw footage from the shoot and if I didn't comply, I could expect to face a long legal battle. Again he thought I was just another push over and the threat of a lawsuit would make me crumble and cave in to his demands. I then wrote a lengthy e-mail to Greg and the other partners in his production company stating that the film we made was specifically for a 48 hour film fest. With the film fest being done and our partnership over, we no longer had any business together. I then stated that if they wished to use the raw footage they would now have intent to re-purpose the film in an attempt to make a monetary gain. If this was the case, they would need to buy out my rights to the film.

I never heard from him again after that e-mail...

What I learned from this situation is to always follow my gut from now on when it comes to partnering up with people. Film production is stressful enough as it is. It's even worse when you add poisonous personalities to the mix.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top