No. 12 - The Thick of Things
On being strung along, spread thin, and still showing up.
I have conversations with other freelancers regularly about the ebbs and flows of this career we’ve chosen. The past few weeks have been filled with both, but to be transparent, mostly ebbs.
And to be fully transparent, that’s the name of the game. Sometimes work’s incredible, and sometimes it’s a necessity. In the case of the latter, what makes necessity tougher to swallow is when you feel taken advantage of at the same time. That’s insult to injury.
About two months back, I was contacted by a “media company” to pitch on a fairly small campaign for an insanely large and well-known company. Their opening email said nothing about who the client was, only that there was an NDA attached below and that they had a fixed rate for whoever their director was going to be — three-day shoot and they’d budgeted about two days (on the low end) for a director. Immediate red flags, but given that they’d gotten my name through an old college friend, and knowing this company had been around for a while and I hadn’t worked with them, I reluctantly proceeded.
What followed were multiple hours of creative brief calls, a 40-page treatment with a surprise round of agency revisions dolloped in, all of which culminated in a 30-minute presentation call in which no one on the agency side had any questions. Along the way, I gave recommendations for other creative talent, such as photographers, DoPs, editors, etc. All in, I’d say I put in about 25 hours of work.
Days passed, and when I finally followed up on the following Monday afternoon, I received this response: “We’ve decided to go in another direction. Thank you for all of your time.” I’ve gotten used to losing pitches; it’s a huge part of my job. But something about this felt different. In all of our conversations, I’d been led to believe that this was happening. So I followed up and politely asked if they could give any more clarity on the decision. Never got a response, and later found out they reached out to two of the people I’d recommended. I’m guessing one of their CDs is directing it…
More than the question of what changed on the agency’s end, I was left asking myself, “Why do we pitch for free?”
Pitching for free
Is pretty damn standard! In the U.S. at least… In places like Germany though, it’s actually becoming less of the standard. Germany has figured something out that the U.S. just refuses to: your time and ideas are worth something.
Unpaid pitching in Germany is rare and generally frowned upon, thanks to industry guidelines enforced by orgs like the BVR.
Most big agencies and prod. co’s follow strict rules — if you pitch, you get paid.
If someone uses your treatment or concept (even partially), compensation is mandatory.
Violating these norms can cost companies their industry standing.
Meanwhile, over here, it’s still “we love your ideas, we might even use a few, we’re just going in a different direction (a.k.a. having a CD direct it).” Cool cool.
Chalk it up to a hard lesson learned — but even then, it’s not like I’m in a position to change the behavior I’m learning from, especially when I’m the one being taken advantage of.
Wearing multiple hats
After I had 12 hours to lick my wounds and vent to a few close friends who understand it, I moved on to the next project in the docket — one-man-banding some commercial work for a winery here in Napa. I was about a week and a half out from what would be a two-day shoot directing and DP’ing for the storied Grgich Hills Estate.
Though I never refer to myself as a cinematographer, in a pinch, I can get it done in what I’ll call an “artful” way. That’s a nice way of saying I visually approach a shoot I’m directing and DP’ing in a manner I’d maybe consider more reflective of a stills shoot approach — shoot during both golden and blue hours on either end of the day, stylize high sun shots with things like slow shutter (as seen in the clips above), or just try to be inside in the afternoons.
Now that I’m writing it out, that’s also been my approach to any motion shoot I’ve worked on. I chose to shoot a lot of carefully composed frames, many of which were locked off on sticks. For the verité work, if I was going to be following someone, I had an EasyRig with the serene arm.
I chose to shoot the work on my Sony FX3 with three of the vintage Leica M lenses I own — 28mm, 35mm, and 40mm Summicrons. I framed everything for 4:3 because I’ve never had an original thought in my life and I enjoy following trends. The first morning of the shoot, I was on Grgich’s American Canyon property by 5 a.m., and by 5:55 I was watching the sun rise over the mountains to the east through some fog drifting across the reservoir on their property. This picture-perfect start set the tone for what would ultimately become a highlight in the list of projects I’ve done in Napa since relocating out this way.
Also, the FX3 fucks.
A shoot that could have been pretty mediocre turned into something I’ve been having a lot of fun editing. And it’s looking pretty solid for the scope. The fact that I scouted all of the properties about a month in advance certainly helped, but there were some nice surprises along the way too. Maybe that’s when things go best — when you overprepare but still leave room to be surprised and spontaneous within the scope of work. I guess that’s what’s possible when a potential agency or client looks at your 40-page treatment and, instead of taking advantage of the situation, actually follows through on tossing you the rock.
Continuing to show up
To wrap things up, I think one of the themes that’s started to come through in a lot of this writing has been the idea of tenacity in a career that’s usually filled with nine no’s for every one yes. And while it certainly sucks to feel taken advantage of by an agency or a potential client after almost a week of full-time pitch work, that’s the deck of cards we’re playing with right now. Even if there’s no changing that anytime soon, there’s a little bit of poetic justice in sticking with it, moving on to the next thing, and feeling those small wins when you get them, even if it’s just you alone, catching the perfect sunrise through some fog early in the morning on a camera system that costs one twenty-fifth of what you probably should be shooting on.
Got a fun BTS article from an LG commercial coming for y’all early next week — all shot on 35mm and my Leica M9-P. Director’s cut of that spot will be done in just a few weeks. Sitting on a lot of unreleased work that I’m excited to share in the coming months. See y’all soon and have a great weekend!