Now all us media industry types know how fickle an industry it is. There are so many photographers and videographers out there that when you get paid work it really is a blessing. There are so many people out there who are keen to learn, keen to shoot for free and thats understandable and…

NB: The following article concerns professionals, not beginners (you guys gotta earn your place first haha)

TG and I were just having our usual midday team chat about everything and anything over the interweb (as we need to do at present because we live 5 hours apart). But during the conversation Tom passed over this link and said “read this, it’s awesome, not just for weddings but for what we do”. Then he said “read it all properly, don’t skim over it, I know what you are like” haha! What can I say, after 6 years of dealing with my many wondrous yet infuriating work traits he can make a safe call on what I do. But this article is great, and it puts into a perspective why a price is a price.

Largely when people or artists approach me for work they will enquire on a price. I’ll price things up as fairly as I can, but the long and the short of it is that I run a company. This company has to pay its freelancers, its equipment costs, it’s overheads and then also, myself. About 2 years ago I was probably shooting music videos for around £400 just for the experience. As you can imagine I walked away with hardly anything. Now if anyone approaches me with that I flat out say NO, sorry. A lot of time I get these kind of insulted reactions back. Sometimes though I’ll explain to the band if I like their track enough, why they have to pay me my fees. Then they come on the shoot and normally if it’s their first video, at the end of the day they will be destroyed. They literally will be dead men by the time I’m finished because I have worked them into the ground. I remember Lee from Feed The Rhino shouting across the studio at me on the last video “fucking captain blood’s back, fuck this” because he was on the floor out of breath by take 6. He said shooting a music video was worse than touring because it’s so hard to constantly keep performing for a day. It’s like you’re playing a festival all to yourself and you’re every single act on that day, on your stage. 

Anyways on top of me having to work hard to motivate you, and show you how to look good. I have to work with Tom to get the shots right, we will already have ideas before hitting the studio, but with Tom I will work to craft things right. We will both discuss the shots and I will tell him what I want to achieve and give the framework to how I want this. He then steps in with his knowledge and sets up the camera as he thinks best, adjusts the lights. He then will step back, I’ll have a look and be like an annoying teacher who always corrects that one kid in class. Finally we reach a decision and we step back. The shot is performed. The take is done, and it’s onto the next one.

Lets not forget before we even got to this place I’ve talked to Tom and Josh about our lighting design. What I want, how it fits into the concept etc. Josh then designs something or works with his brother to come up with a design with a list of the things we need. This comes back to me, I look it over, clear it, and then send it to Tom. Tom gives his views, then we move forward. We book the lights and any other grip gear we need. After that I have to find a location, and then once we found it the location has to agree to letting us use it. It needs to be signed off to agreeing to us having a PA blasting ALL day while the band perform to a click tracked song. I also need to see if the place has 3 phase power for our lighting design, or if it needs to be rewired, or if it we are running off a simple house style mains connection. Maybe it’s outdoors and maybe we need a generator etc etc etc. Once that is cleared we are set, but then I’ve still got to liason the entire crew, band and equipment to appear at one place at the right time. I might have to drive for 6 hours to the location so we might need a hotel the night before or somewhere to sleep. I need to take into account also when we start shooting, because if it’s outside and in the winter it gets light enough to shoot maybe at around 9am but stops at 3pm. So many factors, and many many more which I won’t go into.

Then after it all, when we’ve shot, and the band have left, Tom, the crew and I have this routine which we normally do. We put on Crime In Stereo over the PA, and just tidy up. We pack down. There are many times I’ve just not eaten in a day. I just get up, work and then it’s 10pm and I’ve had one digestive while I had a cup of tea. My body is like “dude you’re about to collapse, please eat”. So I’ll grab a left over soggy sarnie or something and keep packing up. We get in our vehicle and then I’ll either have to drive home, or maybe to a hotel, or a house to sleep at. I remember after the Heights shoot I got into a boiling hot bath and just laid there for an hour under the bubbles. I had lit some candles like the poof I am and just thought about everything. I think I made like £200 on that shoot, and I laid there thinking how earlier that day I had got up and motivated myself at 5am, in the snow, to go and do a shoot that had so many uncertainties. Self belief is powerful. We had a similar deal with the recent sharks shoot. But at the end of those shoots you feel a camaraderie like nothing else. I feel so proud of the people and the bands I work with. The ones that are good enough to humour me and believe in me, because I will see it through. I have that belief, even at the points where you see a park ranger driving his land rover over to you when you are shooting a video on private land which you didn’t clear (DON’T DO THAT unless you have serious blag skills like myself). If you look at that photo from the Heights shoot you can see it in our faces. That look of ‘we did it’. I honestly felt like I’d been on an SAS campaign. And the whole time in me was this feeling that we had to make this video amazing, just like I have with all my projects. I want to be the best.

Therefore it’s insulting to me when people try and ask me why they should pay my fee for a video (I’m not telling you it, but it’s not unreasonable at all). After a shoot I’ve got a mobile bill to pay for, insurance, car costs, rent, food etc. Yet I jeopardise everything in that list to give more of the profit to the budget. I feel like it’s someone saying ‘why should we pay YOU this money’. My reply is simply, that’s my cost, go look at my site if you want to see what we do. And that my friends why a music video can’t be made for £400. It’s something that hurts when people say it, and causes me to see red. And if you remember someone the other day asked me what my biggest hurdles have been, and I said attitude. Imagine my fiery attitude in a moment like that, where someone asks me why I cost that much. I put it akin to a bottle of large coke after it’s been violently thrown at the floor. You look through the plastic and you see the hell inside and know that if you take the lid off there is going to be serious trouble all around. Well, I’m like that. I just kinda bottle it up and look at them through hollow eyes. At the back of my eyes theres something which I can’t put on here for professional reasons. But at the front I’m like that video of homer simpson stepping on a nail when he can’t swear. Yep, that’s what I’m like.

“Fiddle dee dee! Someone just tried to say I’m not worth the money. LA LA LA.” *frank sinatra song plays*

It’s so insulting. I’m here to be creative and LIVE MY LIFE. Right now it’s just me but one day I’ll go home and there’ll be a partner there that I’ll want to go “lets go for a meal”. I’ll need to spoil them and tell them they are the greatest because I have been in another world for two days. I’ll want to take them out, buy them clothes or shoes, then say ‘lets go here for a week’. Money isn’t everything but adventure is part of life, and now and then, just sometimes I’d like to spend money on the one I love, or maybe even myself. I don’t do it much. Right now all I do is work, and sometimes I’ll go for food or have a couple beers with a couple friends. I’ll go for a surf when I go back home to cornwall or go for food with my buddies. I’ll not wanna think about work or talk about it because quite frankly WHO CARES. So a little cash helps.

Sorry if you don’t get this rant, but I think it’s something people need to understand. I love my job, I love the people I love, I like to have a little cash to live a life that has the potential to be wonderful. I work very very hard for that. People need to revise there questions, because I don’t mind talking about how a project works, but I sure as hell shouldn’t have to justify my costs. I always work deals, I always wanna help out bands, but I don’t do it for schmucks that have a bad attitude. Remember these quotes my dad gave me; ‘profit’s not a dirty word’ & ‘buy cheap buy twice’. Because normally if you get some cheap son of a bitch to do the work you’ll only be 50% happy. Furthermore I must be doing something right because now our client roster has all the major labels on it. EMI, Universal and Warner Brothers (and we’re talking the LA based sections here, not the spin offs). 

Adios friends, Tuesday’s rant is OVER! Here’s that moment on the Heights shoot I was talking about.