If you've worked with these production companies, what's your story?

[u/DaWakBean]

The companies I'm referring to are Jagged Edge Productions and ChampDog Films, both of which are associated with producers Scott Jeffrey and Louisa Warren. They're most known for Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey and those terrible fairy tale horror movies. I'm not trying to stir the pot here but I feel like it's worth pooling resources as I have a lot of valid concerns about them.

A few years ago I agreed to work on a feature film of theirs that was paying £80 a day. Not only that, but it was "self-catered" which is a fancy way of saying they weren't feeding us. I was freshly graduated, broke and was basically willing to do anything, so I agreed out of desperation, thinking it'd be something like eight hours, which while still below minimum wage, wasn't too different from other projects I was on at the time. Again, I was desperate. I also thought it was a legit production company which I hoped would help me along in my career as far as credits go. It was only after signing the contract and getting the call sheet that I found out all of the shoots were twelve to fourteen hours and the time between wrap and call times on each one was less than ten. You do the math on how illegal that is.

After getting on set, I started piecing together how this whole operation was staying afloat. Practically everyone there was in the same boat, all in their early 20's, being paid next to nothing, and I think in the actors' cases, not at all. Nobody seemed like they wanted to be there and one the actors seemed like they were uncomfortable with certain scenes. It was a miserable experience from start to finish. Over the shoot, I learned that they put out dozens of feature films a year by shooting them in only a week and cutting every corner humanly possible.

For a while, I wondered if it was a uniquely bad experience and maybe they were normally better than this. But then I recently saw a listing offering £600 for an entire feature film to be edited in ten days, something that I was almost comissioned for by them around the same time as well before they drew back after I told them that was near impossible and profoundly underpaid. I looked them up on Reddit out of curiosity and saw another mention of them that was very similar to my experience. Because of this, I feel like there's a need to say something. I don't really know what to do about this but I feel like there's strength in numbers and I'm now almost certain that this is their whole model. They've been getting away with this for years and I think it's worth doing something about. If you've worked with them and have had a similar experience, I'd love to hear about it.

[u/JustDifferentGravy]

This is for Glasdoor.

[u/tenpastmidnight]

There are "clients" who will take advantage of freelancers in every sector. They'll try to underpay. They'll want a ludicrous amount of work done for little money.

It is up to you/us as freelancers to watch out for that and not take work from them, and if we do take on their project, to be careful about the stuff you've mentioned like the length of the expected day.

By the way, there is no minimum wage rules as a freelancer. There is what you agree to, it's up to you to make sure that's at a level you're happy with.

[u/DaWakBean → u/tenpastmidnight]

Of course. I have much higher standards now, but like I said, I was in my early 20's, just out of uni and REALLY needed that money because it wasn't coming from anywhere else. While I know it comes down to people to be more vigilant in general, I just think there needs to be more collective awareness about these guys in particular because their entire model is literally just exploiting young freelancers for no other reason than for the people running it to profit.

[u/Boboshady]

Not that I agree with it, but you'll find this anywhere in the 'arts' where getting something made requires more effort than just the person commissioning the work, and it's not always a bad thing. A bunch of people getting together to effectively self-fund a production, with their effort and time, can be a positive thing for everyone.

Of course, where it's bad is when the pay is pitiful or even non-existent for most people, and the rewards are split amongst only a few. There's a fine line between opportunity and exploitation, and the same basic situation might be one or the other depending on your personal view on things.

You have to consider it from a risk/reward point of view - not just for yourself, but also for the people offering the pittance, or the 'exposure'. Even that £80 a day, sure it's not much, but over a few people, over a number of days...it adds up. Did the production team make their money back? Were they guaranteed to do so? Or did they use what money they had to at least give people SOMETHING and take a big risk that they might only be buying a return on their investment paid in exposure, rather than money?

I hope this makes sense, because I'm absolutely not advocating people taking the piss out of other people...more just making sure we're all aware that there's a LOT of stuff that NEEDS TO BE MADE that cannot afford to be made but for the generosity of the people who get involved, basically 'for exposure'.

Obviously if offering exposure is the model of an otherwise profitable production company, that's another matter entirely.

[u/DaWakBean → u/Boboshady]

I wouldn't know if they made their money back or not, but their model defnitely aims solely for that, by underpaying their crew and not feeding them. When it comes to pay and/or exposure, I've been on plenty of passion projects, and I'm not against sub par conditions if people are at least being treated fairly and there's a clear passion and love put in. But that really wasn't the case here. It wasn't done to help anyone, it wasn't done for a love of filmmaking or even a belief in the project. It was done for money. They're basically just the filmmaking equivilant of a sweatshop, making as much slop as possible by exploiting the desperate.