Morning rant

vnguyen972

vnguyen972

Well-known member
So as I'm prepping for my short for BetrayalFest and there was this guy contacting me showing interests of joining the crew. He's still a student at an Art Institude so I said okay, I cannot promise any big buck but if you're looking for a chance to learn and earn experience, then you're welcome to join. He sounded excited then friend me on FB, Youtube and became a fan on my film Fan Page on FB...

Then we discussed some more, then he offered me that if I need help on audio, he has this mixing equipment and will record audio straight into his laptop... I was like okay I just got my H4N.. he said he never works with H4N but he could try to work with it and this is a good chance for him because he's learning about audio and kinda wanna improve his skills... so the night before last, he brought his computer and his mix and we tested it out... it worked out awesome... and we were all satisfied with the results... so we decide not to use the H4N and use his mix equipment to get the audio onto his laptop...

At the end of the night he asked me if I were to pay him on this project, i was like.. uhmm... I'd like to, but unfortunately my hands are tight ... so he said that's cool, no problem, he wanted to earn some experience anyway, chance to learn stuffs... so I said, yeah... i thought we already discussed this... then he said, no problem, it's all good.

Then the next day I sent out to everyone on the cast and crew the callsheet for the weekend, Friday and Sunday shoot... he txt me said he couldn't get off work on Sunday, and only can help on Friday... i said, okay, so how are we gonna record the audio on sunday, he said maybe I should use my H4n on that day... I was like... well, duh... but I really want to have it recorded the same way so it'd be consistent... he said well, he can't so that's the only way... so I told him, okay, we'll use my H4n on both days then and on friday, he could help out on other things.... he didn't reply...

Hours later, he sent me an email saying that he is no longer interested to be involved on this one, maybe next project.... so I was like.. okay... but it's cool... i understand... then later, I went to my Fim Fan Page on FB and bam, he's no longer a fan... I was like.. ok... then i checked my friend list and he's off of my friend list too... so apparently this guy went and defan himself out of th fan page, delete me out of his friend list on both FB and Youtube... I said to myself... what's he doing? and why is he so pissed? is it because I couldn't pay him or is it because I took him off the sound department?

I even took him and his GF out for lunch as a token to thank him for helping me out and this is how it turned out... I guess being deleted from a friend list pissed me off... but I guess it's not really a big deal... right? lol... but it did make me wonder... was I being an a**hole?

Okay, sorry for wasting few min of your life reading this... but I guess I need to let it out of my system :-)
 
The question is before you sent the call sheet, did he know the schedule ahead of time and commit to it? If he did, then it's his fault and he is in the wrong. If he didn't, then it's your fault and you can't really be angry at him for having to work on that day.

In my experience your actors always come first with the call sheet. You align their schedules up and set the day the best you can to shoot based on them as a top priority. Then you find crew who can do those locked in days. If they can't do those days, unfortunately you just have to take the cancel, cut them and find someone else. I think everyone experiences it. Even on my last short I had someone cancel on crew and they knew the schedule well ahead of time and were verified on board. This person had worked on crew on a feature for an academy award winner, and were coming to do the same role on my project. So they knew the process. They cancelled because a really good paying gig came up. I responded that it is was fine, wished him the best on it and moved forward. He responded, thanks for handling it so professionally, maybe we can work on something in the future, and I wish you a lot of success with the project. He kept me as a friend on all my pages. He's a good guy who's just doing what he needs to do, I have no hard feelings towards him. Even if he would have removed me from all the pages.

I think the problem is this audio guy is new to the process and may not realize that crew comes second and that the actor's schedules come first. It's possible he thought "hey we're the crew, we stick together and align schedules first, sounds like you're trying to do it without me". Kind of like, hey I work that day, what do you want me to do about, just pick another day.

Also he probably just lost interest in not being able to do the complete audio for the project. It's kind of like if someone contacted you and said could you be my DP on these days and you said I can't do that one day. And they go, that's fine, I'll have someone else do it on that day. Suddenly you feel like less of the DP, do you share credit, what if the rest sucks, are you to blame? So it just would leave a bad taste in your mouth and you'd likely back out and say maybe on the next one. Me personally, I wouldn't mind helping a friend do audio on one day and someone else do it on another. And you as a producer/director probably wouldn't mind either, because neither of us are trying to establish ourselves as audio people. Versus a guy like him, who's got mixing equipment and a process to do it, it's more personal to him. Like you being a DP or director on a project. It would ruin it for you if someone else came in and did the other 30 percent.

Also regarding the mixing of the audio, he has to know that you want to keep it consistent, if he's an audio guy he should know better than to even suggest that. And for him to ask about pay after it was already discussed, he's either just really new to it all or really in need of money. Or maybe he thought once you saw what he could do for your audio, you'd appreciate it more and offer to pay him. I think you just got to look at them and think to yourself, is it worth paying them something to have them on if it means that much to them. Even if it's gas or anything. I had one person like that on a project and I knew they were worth a lot more so I said, you know what, sure I'll pay you to do it. In the end, they refused to take my money because they were so grateful to be a part of the project. When most people bring up pay, it's not so much they want $200 a day. It's often because they think that the project is putting them into the negative. They got to waste all that money on gas to drive out and all that time to do stuff. They feel like they are having to pay money to be a part of it. He probably would have been happy if you just covered his gas, or maybe picked him up to carpool and reassured him there would be food and drinks on set. At that point, he's not really losing anything to come out if he's interested and available. You got his gas covered, he's getting some good food on set and gets the experience and credit on the project.

That's just my thoughts on it.
 
Last edited:
think of it this way. you dodged a big bullet. It's a good thing this happened so early in the production and not in the middle. I wouldn't be suprised that once he found out you weren't going to pay he probably got another gig. that's why it took him a while to email you back. probably making sure the second gig didn't fall through before burning bridges.
 
vnguyen972 said:
... I'd like to, but unfortunately my hands are tight ...
Click to expand...


Unfortunately, you get what you (can) pay for.

As for the Facebook shenanigans, it sounds childish...BUT, I had a falling out with a guy I was supposed to shoot a film for. Just about right before the the whole thing imploded, I deleted him as a friend. #1 reason was that I didn't want this guy keeping tabs on my personal life and goings on. (He wanted everyone focused on his film)

I rarely go on Facebook anymore, so that solves that problem. :2vrolijk_08:
 
Right now I am about to go to the store to buy some dual layer dvds. Then I'm going to go get something to eat, I was thinking about chinese food. Then I'm going to work on finishing up my script. It's a pretty cool script I came up with, everything happens in reverse! Add me on myspace and track my goings on, you will not regret it, it will be the best thing you've done all day, do it now before I run out of room to add any more friends!!...
www.myspace.com/goodluckpictures

:D
 
Last edited:
I feel you Vu. It's extremely frustrating to work with someone and then have them flake out on you like that. I don't mind that people would prioritize a paying gig over a non-paying one (duh!) but they really need to be upfront with me about it. Furthermore they need to treat every project as a serious commitment, paying or not. Ihdor is right, you've dodged a bullet there; you don't want somebody like this on set anyway.
 
She's a really nice person! Maybe it was something you said or she didn't know you. I don't know. I guess it hurts worse on facebook to be unfriended because the people that add you are suppose to really be your friends/know you. I don't know, I'm not on there. I don't want to know how many friends I really have. Or have to deal with trying to add someone who I think is my friend and they're like screw this guy. :D
 
Unpaid people = unprofessional. You are very lucky you learned about this guy before he really screwed something up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top