A couple months ago my friend who happens to own a nice Sony Z1u approached me about a possible job opportunity he had been brought into the fold on. This job consisted of developing and operating a production company around a tv series concept. Lots of promises and lots of changes and rescinding on said promises later, and one bunk storyline and proof of concept after another we arrive at Friday October 15th.
The producer has me cabbing him around first to pick him up and we go to meet our private investor company whom, after an hour and a half or so of bantering and not even talking business really - decided to hand our producer a final check for the "production". I can't go into detail on how much exactly but it's a generous amount to actually do something business-like with.
The plans change about 3 times in the span of an hour after getting said funding and our producer decides on a whim and without anything packed, that he wants me to drive him out even further to oakland with a stop in pleasanton so that he can fly out to vegas that same day. God knows what for...
I advised that we get a business license set up, start planning out a rough schedule, and book hotel(s) and come up with a budget, as well as a contract that weekend so that we could have everything on solid ground before we depart for Vegas on Sunday by car. Now,
- Lesson #1: never do anything without at least 10% pay up front.
- Lesson #2: Have binding documentation as to what the nature of everything is and how everyone is to be compensated (a contract, basically).
So, Sunday October 17th, we depart late afternoon after a brief conference with our producer over the phone. We have no idea what he's been doing out there the whole weekend. I asked him to book us the hotel in the morning so we can have everything arranged for us to just come in and unpack when we get there at night. The producer didn't book the room until we got into Vegas... To make things worse, the next morning we were up early and on time to get prepped and ready to leave so we could make it to the shooting location we needed to be at by 9. Our producer - being completely unprepared and came out with nothing but the clothes on his back, demanded I cab him to a bank and then to a Wal Mart to buy clothing and some miscellaneous items. We also needed to purchase some groceries to minimize food expenses but we didn't have time. Our producer bought himself new clothes just for the day (not the week), and we picked up some missing items we simply forgot to pack like shampoo and conditioner.
- Lesson # 3: make sure everyone is clear on expenses.
So just what is our jobs on this project, you might be asking... Well, since I am in all ways not bound to any NDA agreement, and I myself actually wrote the contract (notice this is not notarized nor am I any type of legal representative, this is just purely for clear and concise documentation as to what the project is and who is responsible for what).
Crush The Record Production ContractOn behalf of Crush The Record Production, I ___________________________(Executive Producer) hereby appoint ___________________________(Production manager, Production Sound Mixer) and ___________________________(Director of Photography, Digital Imaging technician) as project employees, and enter into the following terms of agreement:1. Terms: ----- ----- on behalf of Crush The Record Production shall be known as Executive Producer. Cameron Bashaw for the duration of the project shall be known as Production Manager, and Production Sound Mixer. ------- ---, for the duration of the project shall be known as Director of Photography, and Digital Imaging Technician. The three negotiating entities shall collectively be called the “parties”. The pilot episode production for Crush The Record Production shall be called “the project.”2. Definition: The parties wish to enter into the project on behalf of Crush The Record Production for the purpose of creating the pilot episode of a TV Series concept which technical descriptions shall be entered into agreement orally. The agreement discussed in this contract on behalf of all parties is for mutual assurance of satisfaction with exchange of services for compensation.3. Crush The Record Production Contract:a. The Executive producer shall be responsible for handling the financing of the project which includesi. Handling of all fund(s) generated by project from initial private 3rd parties and/or commercial entities entering into business with Crush The Record Production, and accept ON BEHALF OF Crush The Record.ii. Payment of employees and those associated directly with project. Anyone involved in project doing work for hire directly for Crush The Record Production (i) only as considered part of video production (ii) involved in front of, or behind camera as a “personality” for Crush The Record Production (iii) not as a third party already being compensated by alternate source whether in front of, or behind camera.iii. Proper compensation shall be provided by the end of the project duration, and paid in full.b. Production Manager shall be responsible for organizing documents, and schedules, and coordinating the project once on-location and operatingi. Handling of any task relating to disclosure of documents within project team and to third parties if necessary with approval of executive producer.ii. Coordinate with Executive producer on organizational tasks and oversee the project operationiii. Manage progress of day to day shooting and scheduling according to viable content that can be obtained throughout.iv. Create and organize documents and any bookkeeping throughout duration of project.c. Director of Photography shall be responsible for delivery of video content and production value throughout the duration of the projecti. Creative control and consistency of videography throughout productionii. Communicate effectively with Production manager and Producer to obtain the shots needed for project, and stay on task.iii. Directs Digital Imaging Technician on all creative aspects of videographyd. Production Sound Mixer shall be responsible for delivery of audio content and production value throughout the duration of the projecti. Handling of audio equipment and content quality, including jobs of boom operator and Utility Sound Technicianii. Maintain audio equipmentiii. Deliver audio content to executive producer for review and editinge. Digital Imaging Technician shall be responsible fori. Handling of video equipment and content qualityii. Operate and maintain video equipmentiii. Deliver video content to executive producer for review and editing4. Mutual Agreement of the following terms outlining the proper compensation of the following parties by the Executive Producer: Production Manager and Production Sound Mixer, Director of Photography.a. Prerequisites: The employed parties agree to (i) arrive at Las Vegas no later than Sunday, October 17th for check-in, unpacked and prepared for production. (ii) Begin production schedule on Monday, October 18th, conclude no later than Friday, October 24th. (iii) Production team is allowed short-leave, but must return no later than Sunday, October 24th, checked-in, unpacked and prepared for production. (iv) Begin production schedule on Monday, October 25th, and conclude no later than Saturday, October 30th. (v) Production team will leave Las Vegas on Sunday, October 31st, ending production duration. (vi) Work per-Diem: set compensation for day, hours can be more or less than state labor laws as long as lunch break and breaks are provided.b. Per-Diem compensation: The employed parties shall be paid for the duration of the project per day for services rendered and equipment operated and maintained. Each party member shall receive the value of $------- per day. The duration of the production shall be no less and not to exceed 11 days. The total compensation to employed parties across the duration of the project will reach $----- to be paid to ------- --- for the jobs of Director of Photography and digital imaging technician, and $----- to be paid to Cameron Bashaw for the jobs of Production Manager and Production Sound Mixer.c. Coverage of expenses: The employed parties shall have reimbursement for travel expenses incurred throughout the duration of the project as stipulated during development. Executive Producer holds the option to either:i. Pay directly for any expenses incurred throughout the duration of production (i) based on its relevance to project, (ii) necessity to travel for project including but not limited to gas, lodging, food, and utilities for production.ii. To reimburse expenses incurred throughout the duration of production (i) based on its relevance to project, (ii) necessity to travel for project including but not limited to gas, lodging, food, and utilities for production.d. Exclusions to coverage of expenses include items that are purchased for personal use or have no necessity to travel or stay throughout the duration of the project.i. Miscellaneous items and personal habit materials purchased are considered personal purchases and not to be covered by fund(s) generated by and for Crush The Record Production.ii. Excessive purchases of any items that cannot be properly documented for production or have no receipt with which to claim.e. Proper documentation and clear and concise reporting by Production Manager to accurately document all expenses incurred; Production manager is not responsible for acquisition of receipts from all parties.5. Disclosure of this agreement herein provided solely for the purpose of identifying parties, services, and compensation shall be considered for good and valuable measure sufficient to all parties for the purpose of conducting the project.a. All parties arrive to mutual agreement and act according to common code of conduct including but not limited to: professional behavior, representation of the company values, adhere to any dress code, and punctual attendance according to any derived schedule.b. Any and all compensation is considered final and non-refundable.c. Any exemption from transactions must be weighed with good and valuable measure within reason upon breach of any of the terms stated in this agreement.
Upon reading and agreeing to the terms stated in the agreement, Each party hereby validates and enters into business of the project. Proof of this shall be supplied by signing below. Each party must sign each copy of this document as required for authenticity.
Now, without going into a detailed day-by-day description, I'd like to describe more of the useful experiences that were derived from this whole project. From someone who's come from a studio background and this being the first travel / on-location production, there was a lot of learning going on for me.
First off, business to business side of things were developing relations with the raceway association, the company building the car for their client to compete in the upcoming race event, and then getting a hold of the parts companies being used on the car that is being captured for the tv episode to see if they want any involvement. The producer is actually decent at pulling in interest from companies but that's fairly easy considering they have a budget to spend on things like advertising and marketing.
Working with what's really only a 2-man crew: 1 camera operator, and 1 production sound mixer tripling as Boom Operator, and utility sound technician; was not actually that bad, but limited the scope of what we could achieve as far as capturing "cinematic shots" for the TV series' look and feel the producer wants.
Working with only mono for external mic to capture sound and our location primarily being a large machine shop for fabrication, everything was extremely hard to capture. To add to that, while our producer wants the end result to feel very "weekly movie" the true aspect of production is fully reality / documentary as we spent most of our time in the "hurry up and wait" mode. We captured 90% of the footage as we were able to shoot them, if things happened (and often they did) we just got rolling and shot what we could without interfering too much in the business. Aside from a few key dialogue moments, a lot of the footage would probably end up on B-roll or secondary footage used without any real audio or character focus.
The entire first week was primarily spent at the shop with the fabrication company building the car for their client to race. the Second week we started getting other footage needed while still basing our operations at the shop. By Tuesday, October 26th, we had private access to the Bull Ring track at the Vegas Speedway to shoot some B-Roll footage of the track itself, as well as from the stands, some trucking / dolly shots, and transition shots. Thursday we started shooting interviews and prepping for Friday's practice, and Saturday's event.
Friday was perhaps one of the longest days we spent out there as we tried to get there as early as possible to get footage of the last bits being worked on the car, while our producer spent time with his dad who came through for the day, as well as at the track setting up onboard camera shots with a very lucky turnout.
Our producer was lucky enough to have a couple reps from Go Pro buy into the concept of the show and loan us 6 Go Pro Hero HD cameras with mounting kits and memory cards. Our producer set them up on the cars, while we stayed at the shop to wait around to capture the last moments of the car being built and hopefully catch them doing the first engine firing and tuning.
Friday's schedule for the Bull Ring consisted of practices for all the different leagues and classes of cars on teh track that day. The first SMRA practice session was at 4:15 pm, then again at 6:15 pm, 8:15 pm, and finally at 10 pm. the two of us stayed at the shop the entire day waiting around for our shots which didn't actually happen until 10 pm finally when they got the top wing fully assembled and on the car. By now, 3 practice sessions had already happened and 2 competitor cars were at the garage already being worked on by their teams due to complications on the track. After a good 20 minutes of clearing out the cars and getting our car prepped for it's first run, we set up and were ready to shoot the first firing.
Because of the type of design and the way the cars work, they have to be push-started, and our location made it feasible for the company to do this with their own trucks get the car in place, we were able to get static shots of the whole process, which at first, consisted of us running around the whole block keeping up with the push-truck and the car as they did laps around the building to make several passes at starting the car. The whole firing attempt was successful but with some tuning needed on the engine which they promptly just pulled into the garage and started working on. We rushed inside and stayed handheld through the rest of the shot and captured some amazing dialogue (compared to the rest of the production we'd done thus far).
Saturday we were up bright and early even though we had ended late the night before. With some typical delays from our producer we still made it to the track early enough to beat traffic of the race event. After checking in and getting our pit passes we started rolling out immediately and prepping gear for initial shots in the pits with the vaious racers. The first practice session started at 1:15 pm, the 2nd at 3:15 pm, qualifying at 5:15 pm, and the main feature at 8:30 pm.
3:15 pm rolls around and we made it up to the track to start filming the practice session and plan out camera angles and get b-footage of the practice. We weren't expecting to be involved in a crash on the track at 150+ mph! The #85 car had a problem during his deceleration at the end of the straightaway on the track coming into the 1st turn and barreled toward us with a broken front axle. The car slammed into the barrier at more than 150 mph and got airborne, slamming up against the upper fence where we were filming a good 4-7 feet to our left. Luckily no one other than the race driver was injured.
However the impact was extremely severe and he is hospitalized. While we waited and watched what we could before the racing association cleared out the track area of all bystanders, we reviewed our tape and realized we had caught footage of the accident as it happened. We showed the racing team that wanted to know what happened, and representatives of the track and racing association that asked to see what happened. They also asked for a copy of the footage of just that portion for insurance purposes. We cooperated with and respected their wishes and destroyed the footage after.
I just found out today however, that he is still alive, had just come out of surgery but is in stable condition though critical. Our prayers go out to the race team and family. It was quite an unforgettable experience...
The show, however, rolled on. Even with a 2 hour delay on the track from the crash, the qualifying round still happened about about 7:15 pm, and the main feature at 9 pm. For the main feature we were able to get clearance to get down on the inner ring of the track behind the barriers. After the race we finished up with some interviews of the various people racing, as well as final interviews of the builders and car owner we followed throughout the production.
Now, production may have ended Saturday, but we have still been very busy. Sunday was an all-day drive back home, a very long and not very pleasant drive. What was originally just me and the camera guy turned into his gf, and our producer riding home with us. Everyone got home and unpacked pretty much killed the entire day, so on Monday we were supposed to capture footage. Monday was pretty much everyone's rest day so I took it upon myself to work on some of the various other projects that need managing.
So, here we are at late last night. My camera guy brings over the equipment and tapes so we can start capturing. today we just brought the producer the footage we captured so far, as well as getting my primary payment. Up next is discussing reimbursement of all the travel expenses.
All in all, I highly disliked the experience working with a shady producer, who's completely unprofessional. That being said, the experience has allowed me to prove to myself I am capable of operating such a project at a professional capacity, whether or not I can put put this experience on a resume.
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