Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#291

Post by elteto » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #42

munk-a wrote: post #21

The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way. I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters. It'd be a good change to advocate for down there as well. And, honestly, internships aren't free for companies unless there is literally nothing of value be…

>I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. When I worked with interns they were all paid... but every one was more time and expense to work with than any value they provided. In weeks they accomplished what I could do in an afternoon, and we spent WAY more than an afternoon of work with them. Amazingly many seemed to have a very high opinion of their productivit…

If it took them weeks to do an afternoon’s worth of work then you either had a hiring quality problem, terrible mentoring and guidance, or both. Don’t blame it on the interns.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#292

Post by zhdc1 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #42

munk-a wrote: post #21

The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way. I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters. It'd be a good change to advocate for down there as well. And, honestly, internships aren't free for companies unless there is literally nothing of value be…

>I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. When I worked with interns they were all paid... but every one was more time and expense to work with than any value they provided. In weeks they accomplished what I could do in an afternoon, and we spent WAY more than an afternoon of work with them. Amazingly many seemed to have a very high opinion of their productivit…

I've had interns in both professional and an academic settings. I don't think I've every really run into a situation where a - good - intern wasn't at least as productive as their salary.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#293

Post by bigbillheck » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #21

The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way. I think unpaid internships being socially acceptable is one of the roots of this insidious habit. They've been illegal up here in Canada for a while and it hasn't really caused any economic disasters. It'd be a good change to advocate for down there as well. And, honestly, internships aren't free for companies unless there is literally nothing of value be…

> The US continues to support unpaid work in a pretty major way.

One of the founding pillars of the United States was the support of "unpaid work in a pretty major way".

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#294

Post by casefields » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #13

I feel like it should be noted in the title that this is the show's production company "Kinetic Content" making this request. They should name the folks actually making the request. Naming Netflix misses the people actually making the request to work for free here.

Naming the production company doesn't get the outrage and eyeballs that Netflix does. Which if you want to get this to stop, Netflix as the studio, could put in a call and get this changed. It all depends on how bad the press gets before important people are on the phone.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#295

Post by JackFr » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

To me the obvious conclusion is that the production company puts no value on the wedding photography.

I’m not sure how they could even structure a contract since there is no consideration given to photographer. The photographer gives labor and rights to the photographs and the production company gives what exactly? That they might use the pictures in promotional material? If they must the pictures in promotional material that is consideration like product placement. But ambiguous amorphous exposure is not consideration. So you know, take the deal and forget to put in your memory card. Oops. Maybe they’ll learn a lesson.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#296

Post by thelean12 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

EricE wrote: post #223

mcraiha wrote: post #10

There is a Twitter account dedicated to people that try to abuse the exposure thing. As you might expect, the most stories are from USA https://twitter.com/forexposure_txt

I love the assumption that exposure has zero value. Usually from people who have only ever taken a paycheck from someone else. Exposure has value. Otherwise these kinds of things wouldn’t exist. If you don’t agree, don’t do the gig. Pretty simple. But no! That’s not enough! Those other people are expressing wrongthing and must be corrected . Ugh - bunch of freaking busybodies. At least in the days before pervasive co…

It's not that exposure doesn't have value. It's that unpaid positions start to collapse the industry if it becomes too common.

SAG has minimum day rates for a reason. I imagine major studios could find plenty of people to do speaking roles "for exposure" to the point where no low level people have any real leverage to make any kind of living from MASSIVE corps. The massive corps would get free labor by exploiting the hopes and dreams of low level actors. The free market gets weird and fragile without unions here.

Photography doesn't have the same union powers, so we rely on public shaming as much as possible.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#297

Post by paxys » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #129

paxys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you are able to find someone desperate enough to take up your shitty offer doesn't mean it is the fair market at work. There's a reason labor laws, OSHA, minimum wage etc. exist. This is predatory, period. The irony here is that they wouldn't be able to do this if they just wanted people to act as photographers, not actually take any photos, because the various actors unions wouldn't allow it. Even namel…

Clever switchout of the word "free market" here for "fair market". This is certainly for better or worse free market. I have never heard of the concept of a "fair market" beyond what any given person considers fair on a case by case basis.

A market isn't free unless it is also fair. Have you never heard of terms like "fair market value" before? Why do governments worldwide spend time and money regulating markets? Why do antitrust laws exist?

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#298

Post by hinkley » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

young_unixer wrote: post #195

Ensorceled wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but abusive and predatory behaviour is STILL abusive and predatory in an oversupply situation.

They can just say "no". Problem solved. No abuse, no predation, everyone just goes on with their lives. And if someone wants to say "yes", who are we to tell them what to do with their own time?

Predation is the act, not the outcome.

If everyone says 'no', you're just an unsuccessful predator.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#299

Post by ben509 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

What's nuts is that the production company could have avoided this debate by contacting some photography studios and asking them to sponsor the show.

Perversely, they would have gotten better press if they asked the photographers to pay _them_ and had treated it as a product placement.

Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings

#300

Post by MarkusWandel » Wed, May 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

Suppose company A has a co-op job involving unglamorous but technically meaningful work and offers decent pay. Company B has a job involving glamorous work that may or may not be interesting, but expects you to work for free.

What motivates the available worker pool? Worker A has real skills to bring to the table and expects to be paid for them, so he/she goes for company A. Worker B's competence is lacking, but glamorous company B would really help his/her resume, so that's where they go (they probably wouldn't pass the interview at company A either).

I used to be a co-op student at the University of Waterloo. Back then, it was possible to pay your way through school on just co-op earnings. Companies did real interviews for co-op jobs - you had to earn those spots. Of course the students would also feel out the companies. Some were just dead end jobs doing maintenance on a long-obsolete piece of software, that sort of thing. Others were cool.

A significant oddity was a certain really big company with three letters and (then) 300K+ employees, that sent generic recruiters doing generic recruiting (but they were good at it). Here you really were just "generic co-op student, we'll assign you something suitable". I had a strange but ultimately very memorable first co-op job there (OK - doing APL programming in a marketing group - strange enough?) For second and later co-op jobs you could secure something interesting internally before going back to school.