unproffesionalism

[Kathy S]

I don't like to bad mouth people, but I want to see what people on this list think to people being proffesional on a low budget set. I met someone on this list and he seemed keen he read the script and said he liked it, he had an actress friend who was up for the main part, which I gave her. We met up and after that he went on holiday for over two weeks without giving me contacts for the actress. When he came back he agreed to do sound. I went away for the weekend shortly before filming, when he got back he said he couldn't do the orignal dates and didn't want to do sound. He said he's see what he could do and then didn't get in touch again. I enquired with another actress and some more film, then suddenly he pops up again expecting to do it again. when he doesn't keep in touch, doesn't turn up for meeting and keeps wanting to change the date. Now he has sent me an email slagging me off- saying I have egg on my face. Well that aint true as I do have a good crew (still lacking in sound) a strong cast, a brilliant composer and a fab new camera, has anyone else dealt with people like him, how do you spot them and how do you weed them out

Kathy

[Mods]

I have a friend like that, that can only do things around him. But because he is an important part of the team I can't just get rid of him.

If you do want to weed someone out, I suggest you just tell them to buck up and show some enthusiasm or just get lost. Then you'll either get the Twister scenario of him trying to be better than you, or you'll show him you mean business and he'll come crawling back. Or just get lost.


Mods

[Chance1234]

being on a low budget set , should be no difference then being on a full budget set. if a person is a proffesional then they are professional no matter what the conditions are.

Through my projects i have easily been through 200 + people, to get down to the fourty i have now. there are three types of people in this world Jaw Bones, Knuckle bones and the lazy bones. unfortunatly the jaw bones in this game out number everyone else a thousand to one.

my advice is, if they show for the initial meeting , get them to another meeting, if they dont turn up to that without reasonable excuse then kick them off, after that get peole to sign paperwork such as NDA's , letter of commitment etc etc if they can t do that then kick them off. give them a task to do, with a strict deadline if they dont deliver kick them off. if your producing this piece , it is up to you to select the right crew for the job and after a while you get to tell from people initial contact with yourself whethter they are going to waste your time or not, ask for CV's ask for showreels get references if you have to

you have to be brute, dont be afraid to kick people off and tell them what you think of them, after all its your show, you run it, dont let anyone dictate to you otherwise. and there are plenty out of people out there willing to do the job , try www.shootingpeople.org also the best crew are always freelancers, ie people who do this as a living , you can get them for free quite a lot of the time as there not always working plus they want to build on ther eexperience as well, no offence to students but in general students make the worst crew.

clasic phrase which i like is, you dont have to be nice to people on the way up if your not coming back down ;-)

[Onejob]

Sound advice from Chance there. Getting a group of people to work together is very much a psychological process. What starts off as a group of friends can quickly become a small war zone if not handled correctly with people dropping out all over the place.

The more hard lined and professional the production team is, the better everyone else tend to work. Call sheets, chain of commands, reccies and so on all look good to the rest of the cast and crew as well as being useful. This then adds to the overall morale of the group.

And, as Chance says, if they can't be bothered to turn up for a meeting, sod'em and get someone else!!

Simon.

[Kathy S]

cheers for advice everybody- got a letter from the original actress who said i was being unproffesinol- which i was as i didn't get her number- but how was i supposed to know that I would no chance of contact until he got back from holiday- when he didn't give me the dates he wsa away. I still stand by my reasons of calling him unproffesional- and he shouldn't of slagged me of for that. Just sorry the actress has to miss out because of him, anyway cheers once again

Kathy

[ilpostino]

I can imagine that being a frustrating situation being called unproffessional when you've probably put a lot of work into the project. And as for people writing you letters to tell you so, they've obviously got too much time on thier hands. Don't worry about em you've got enough to think about without assholes messing you about.

[king13]

ok kathy, exactly how unprofessional is it to be petty enough to come out and air your dirty laundry in public, however if thats the way you want to do it, so be it. first of all kathy you didnt even mention another meeting, secondly, you assumed i would do sound for you and thirdly you originally stated that the dates would be in the first or second week of june, the original dates were fine as i was more than willing to compromise my own work for you, however the week that you decided to change it to was fairly impossible for me two do as i was trying to finish editing my own film and get it ready for exhibition, the film in question counted for my entire years college grade, even though this was the case i still said i would be able to make two days of your three day shoot. even if I was only being used for sound it is still your job to organise everything, i gave you the actresses phone number and it was i that passed on the script to her, even though i was hesitent about your script, (which i believe was grossly underworked and lacked any kind of originality or spark that would give it the vital hooks it needed)it was your appauling lack of organisation that really put me off as after two weeks of getting messages telling me the dates were being change and people were dropping out here and there it kind of put me off, a perfect example is that i told you a week and a half ago that i did not feel comfortable doing the sound for you, i said that my lack of experience in the area would compromise the quality of the film, you are shooting on monday and you still dont have sound, good look

by the way, just so you'll stop going on about it, you dont have egg on your face, when i met you you walked around for 5 hours with byro ink splattered all over you

so maybe if you stop crying about this and get on with sorting out your actress and your sound you can try to salvage something.....maybe?

[Kathy S]

Ashley, take a good luck at yourself before your criticise too much- and just think I never mentioned your name- you did. It doesn't take 5 minutes to tell people properly what dates you can do- and with email it's easy to reply- and not leave until the last minute. I have been good at trying to arrange a date that will suit everybody- you never replied to my questions and I had no idea when you would return from holiday and when you did you said the dates where fine- it was until a few days before the start date you mentioned a college project. How am I supposed to know- do you think my physic ink spots will tell me? Or could it possibly be your job to tell me. I would have happily given her a script if you had given me her contact details to start with. You only gave me it when I realised you couldn't do the full shoot- therefore I couldn't use her. Anyway, tommorow I will shoot and I do have someone to do sound, I've got a good crew, and excellent cast and two possibilities for sound. Good luck with your college project, and good look with uni at London- I hope you can learn to be more communitive in the future

Kathy

[machead]

round 1 to Kathy

[Onejob]

What did I say about war?