Am I being taken advantage of?

C

cpurchon84

Hi everyone,
I'm pretty new to this film stuff - no school, hobby or any real experience prior to being thrown in the deep end by my work who decided that as the only person under 30 in their office, I should be the one to tackle the biggest technological challenge our company has ever faced. We sold a project to a big company in France to create a new market position for them and to analyze their existing positioning. We sold the project for half of what we had valued it at, did not do a feasibility study, and that left us with no budget for filming - and videos constitute about a third of the entire project. I was given 2 weeks to research and buy all equipment (Panasonic DVX100B and Macbook Pro 15' and FCE 4) and get my life in order before spending a month in Paris. I shot all footage and have produced all the shorts (over 30 at this point) for a website as well as longer ones for major presentations. The videos are nothing special, just heads talking, but there's about 40 hours of footage of people talking about different experiences in workshops, and I have now copied the main hard drive 3 times for my co-workers, who I trained on everything I know (they type with two fingers and are slowly catching on... did my best) before leaving Paris. I know normal video editing hours are long, but I was working 18 hr days for about a month straight, on my regular wages. I didn't get overtime, my expenses were reimbursed yes, but I was staying with a friend and living extremely cheaply, especially for Paris, and I didn't even get a direct flight! My salary works out to about $25/hour, but I thought editors made more than that? Can any of you with more experience doing this kind of project let me know whether I should keep working on this project as is, in other words if the terms are normal for videographers, or if I should dig my heels in and fight the good fight?
 
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So what is your beef? You didn't get paid enough and didn't get a per diem or pay for a place to stay? The job turned out to be more work than you previously thought? What was the original agreement before you took on the job? Did you complain to the company?
 
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If you are asking what an editor makes in a post production house, you are not at that level yet, so it doesn't matter. You are taping talking heads and assembling footage, your skills may be in line with a videographer or second assistant editor, so I think you are making a decent buck. You agreed to this, right? If you want a raise ask for one ;).

PS. You don't get overtime with salary, so next time, work something out if you think they are going to work you 18 hours a day.

PPS. You're getting good experience, you can always job search if you like the editing portion of your job.
 
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cpurchon84 said:
My salary works out to about $25/hour, but I thought editors made more than that?
Click to expand...

That's not a bad rate at all. Experienced editors can get anywhere from $25 an hour to $350 an hour, but it depends on the city, the job, and the experience level. If I were you, I'd consider $25 an hour to be a phenomenal rate.

Studios and post production facilities charge rates of $125-$1,200 an hour to use their place and often include the editor's salary in that. At a place like that, and with most TV series, etc. the editors work on a salary position and not at all on an hourly rate.
 
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At least ask for a title...Multimedia Vice President, Director of Video Programing. Something to attract the girls!

I must say, contrary to the others, from what you said they asked you to go into an area where you didn't have experience or training, and you're bailing them out of a problem, so my advice would be to get it done, and then explain to them the efforts that you put into the project, and ask them for a bump in pay, or in today's economy, at least a better office and that cool title.

That doesn't mean that you'll get one, but it never hurts to push for recognition. I've learned through the years, if you don't ask for it, you're probably not going to get it.

Chris
 
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Sounds like everyone is getting taken advantage of. I'm in the same boat, only worse in my mind. I've been working 9-15 hours a day, 6-7 days a week for the past month, getting paid only $10 an hour. We're shooting online seminars that the company plans on selling as online school courses. Me and one other guy are setting up the shots, lighting, directing, managing content, editing, compressing, working with all the web guys, pretty much running the entire production for $10 an hour.

We have about 15 seminars, each with 10-15 HDV tapes (about 4 cameras that we have to sync for each seminar) and the final products average around 3 hours long. We've been given about two months to shoot, capture and edit all this between two people for $10 bucks an hour. I think we've got well over 150 tapes. I'd say that's pretty close to getting taken advantage of.

To add to it, it sounds like even though I just moved to LA three months ago they are sending us down to Orlando for several months otherwise we get fired, and for no pay increase or per diem... I would actually love the $25 an hour! I'd love to say yes your getting taken advantage of but... Hope you get a pay increase or something though!
 
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I do know that TV shows like the reality series on 5 days a week, 30 minutes each episode, like the syndicated 5TH WHEEL only paid $12.50 an hour for editors and they had about 20 of them. If anyone complained, they just went to the nearest college with a media department and hired a replacement.

Much like anything, it's supply and demand. If someone is willing to work it, they will find someone for the $$$.
 
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Thanks guys, I just needed some perspective because I had heard about the rates studios charged, hence my sense of unfairness, but had never heard of what independent filmers will typically work for. A lot of what I had been told about how the project would be run turned out to not be true, and the production schedule was set entirely independently of me even though I was in charge of the rest of the video production process, so a lot of that contributed to my negativity about the situation. I think getting to change my business cards from Research Analyst/Personal Assistant to Research Analyst/Director of Video Production would be more than satisfactory, especially in light of what you all contributed.
Thanks again!
 
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Always get it in writing in advance (via email if nothing else). For what rate? How long is a day? 8 hours? Get paid weekly, bi-weekly, or daily. What are all of the little jobs that you are supposed to do? For example a "line producer" could do everything from A to Z or almost nothing in between. There are some producers out there who are in the business of screwing over people.
 
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