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 would like to see some statistics on how many interneships are actually unpaid. Does it vary by industry? In the before times, when we worked on campus and had interns, ours were paid the same as full time employees and had paid for housing and benefits.
Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
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Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#332I might get downvoted for that, I still gonna say it: That might be due to the demand-supply situation in photography. They probably will find photographers doing this for the promotion effect described in the email.
Right, that means only wealthy photographers (from family, etc.) can do this. This is where the injustice comes from when ‘unpaid internships’ equals we only want rich kids to work for us. It’s how the situation propagates through time.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#333The 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 tipping as a cultural norm is another of the roots. Making it acceptable to move (a large portion of) staff payment from the employer to the customer should never have happened. The toxicity with which people defend tipping culture (in my experience in online forums) is astounding.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
So is it bad for developers to work on open source projects on GitHub in their free time? After all, by that logic doing so reduces the amount that other developers can earn. And should a consultant not be able to maintain a blog that people don't pay for because doing so competes with freelancers?
Working on open source does not create as much of an expectation that you work for free by request on other projects, nor does blogging. We may argue about why this is the case, but it's moot. Analogies are blunt tools that only result in back-and-forths about the differences between the original case and the proposed cases. If you think a tendency for creatives to work for free does not increase the tendency of busi…
I think it absolutely does increase that tendency.
When I write for online tech publications, at some level, my writing, for which I'm not paid, takes money out of some freelancer's pocket--all other things being equal (which of course they aren't).
And all the people who speak at events for free and even cover their own travel (or their companies do) definitely make it harder for qualified people who would prefer to be paid to do so.
But, to be blunt, I don't care. If it's in my personal interest to do those things for free, I'm not going to choose to abstain because of some microscopic impact on the labor market.
In this photographer case, I actually don't think there's much of an impact. Someone mentioned Super Bowl performers performing for free. I doubt anyone thinks Lady Gaga is going to start giving gratis concerts all over the place. There has been a major impact on photography as a profession but that's more about the proliferation of free, cheap, and easily obtained amateur photos.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#335The 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 exposure opportunity is priceless here.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#336I might get downvoted for that, I still gonna say it: That might be due to the demand-supply situation in photography. They probably will find photographers doing this for the promotion effect described in the email.
In fashion photography (and probably other genres), the editorial spreads in your fashion magazines, (Vogue, Harper's, etc) aren't paid much. They are for promotion. They do pay though. They are also selective on who they choose to photograph a specific story. Even though that gig is way below most professional fashion photographer's day rate, most pros will do anything to get that chance. You also get to work with world class peers like hair, makeup artists, models, stylists, etc. So it's a great deal for everyone.
In Netflix's case, it feels more like exploitation. They aren't paying. And even though they're "Netflix" they don't have that clout like Vogue or Harpers to have top wedding photographers to get at that chance. Also, they have to shoot 5 weddings! 1 wedding is a lot of work and stress, but to do 5 for free is a lot to ask a professional photographer. It's like asking a software engineer to build 5 different applications for free for a chance to pad their resume.
But this type of stuff is pretty common in the industry, although frowned upon by Photographers. A lot of celebrities, brands, agencies, etc. will try to get free shots from photographers all the time. And they will usually find some desperate person who will take the chance to do it. I've done it, and I had friends who did it. I'm sure Netflix will find someone to do it as well.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
With respect, that's a pretty asinine reading of the comment. Slavery was not a founding pillar of the United States, any more than monarchy is a founding pillar of the European Union just because some of its member states happen to be Constitutional monarchies. In fact, it should be quite clear from that comment that not only was slavery NOT a foundational pillar of the United States, it was the opposite of a founda…
Was monarchy essential to the socioeconomic system of the EU members? The point is not that slavery was a founding pillar simply because it existed at the time of founding.
Thought experiment: a state that actively uses the death penalty applies to join the EU...
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#338To all the folks who would do it "for the exposure": my partner volunteered as a graphic designer for a well-known European charity event that featured a former US president, known music groups and fashion designers as pro bono acts and had a live TV broadcast. She really liked to volunteer and we received free tickets for said event and definitely enjoyed it. She added the project to her CV, but unfortunately it had…
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
With respect, that's a pretty asinine reading of the comment. Slavery was not a founding pillar of the United States, any more than monarchy is a founding pillar of the European Union just because some of its member states happen to be Constitutional monarchies. In fact, it should be quite clear from that comment that not only was slavery NOT a foundational pillar of the United States, it was the opposite of a founda…
Was monarchy essential to the socioeconomic system of the EU members? The point is not that slavery was a founding pillar simply because it existed at the time of founding.
Similarly, slavery as an institution had no bearing on the socioeconomic systems of the Northern States, but it was quite essential to the Southern States. All the US was (at the time) was a Union of all of those States. The concept didn't really exist at the US level, and insofar as it did exist, it was in the form of an incentive to abolish slavery. The foundational pillars of the United States were simply a Federal union of States with a bicameral legislature, a set of enumerated powers, and a set of limitations on the Federal government. That's it. Just because it did nothing to abolish slavery at its founding does not mean that slavery was itself a foundational pillar of the institution. By that logic, is a foundational pillar of the United Nations. A totally unserious argument.
Re: Netflix's “Love Is Blind” Wants Unpaid Photographer for Five Weddings
#340FTA: While the series is funded by and will be aired on Netflix, it is unlikely that the streaming behemoth is aware of how the producers of the show are soliciting talent.
Nah, everyone who has been in the industry for more than 10 minutes knows this. So do the people at Petapixel because this is a longstanding industry norm - search for 'unpaid professional' and you'll see stories about the injustice of being asked to do professional work for free going back more than a decade. But you don't want to burn your personal reputation int he industry so you say nice things about the executive producers (who sign the checks that get the ball rolling) while calling out the production companies (who roll the ball while clinging to as much of the cash as possible).
The sad thing is that the line producers themselves are poorly paid, but success depends on their demonstrating the ability to coax free or cheap work out of others. Once someone is an established producer, they don't cold-call, they get people they've worked with before or who came recommended. In the meantime, they go through the ritual of trying to get something-for-nothing, and then either agreeing on a reasonable rate (if they are able to recognize a professional) or getting burnt (if they hire someone who has no idea how to behave on a set). They too are trying to get industry exposure; if they screw up by hiring the wrong person it seriously damages their career prospects.
For service providers, the tricks are as follows. First, ask how they got your contact details - if they got a recommendation you can ask for money, if they pulled you out of a directory or whatever they are probably winging it. Next, get the details of the time and location, so you know what the production is already locked into. Ask how much the budget is - not for the job, but for the whole production, because there are fairly well-established guidelines for how the budget should be divided up. Also, whether it's a union shoot or not, because if so there are established pay scales and contractual agreements in place (which why so much of this stuff is farmed out to production companies in the first place). Next you get the producer into a conversation about deliverables and put them on the defensive by burying them in technical detail from your specialized field. Then (if you are new in the industry) you agree to work free or cheap but beg for money to cover your expendables, charge a box rental (gear) fee, and moan about the necessity for two assistants so that you can get some money to pay one.
The line producer moans about how great the exposure is, the professional alternates between asking if they can pay rent with exposure bucks and describing horror stories about what will happen if the line producer cheaps out and hires someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Every pro has a fund of stories about shoots they were brought onto midway through after someone else had crashed and burned and jeopardized the production and the line producer's future in the industry. The line producer's bait is that this job will lead to more work, and the service provider's bait is that the line producer will come back when they're not poor and have decision-making ability. The first person to say no typically wins the negotiation; it's a bluffing game of who needs it more. It doesn't have to be an antagonistic bluffing game. The professional can decline the job but give some free advice on how to hire an (obviously inferior) competitor, thus creating a token debt with the line producer. When a line producer hires someone inferior and it goes badly, the money to hire a competent person magically appears, often with a gratuity for the rescue effort at short notice - ie can you leave now and be there in 3 hours, plus scenes X Y and Z will need to be re-shot and you're probably working a bunch of 18 hour shifts (because if they fucked up one thing they probably fucked up a bunch of others).
Other tricks: if the producer doesn't want to talk about the budget, ask about the catering. If it's a first time director or producer, everything will be 50% worse. Production genres in order of prestige and earning power are theatrical film, serial TV, episodic TV, documentary, news, daytime TV, reality TV, and internet only. You need to know which one you want to be in because they're not that interchangeable and if you get locked into one it's hard to move out of it. If you like movie work but need to take a cooking show gig to pay the rent then you do it under a pseudonym or nickname.