Big Pay For Minimal Work [Ep196]

Podcast

Oct 19

On today's episode we're talking about working high paying jobs with little work. What our reactions were when stepping into them and how much of a treat they can be. Especially when working the usual 10 to 12 hour days. What are the ethical dilemmas with these sorts or jobs. Are we telling the client that they’re overpaying us or do we simply take the payment? The complexity of quoting a production job plays a big role in these situations and often times the answer is not very clear cut.

Mike Hernandez (00:00):
This is such a people industry, you think, oh, I'm just gonna perfect my craft and I'm just gonna get the science of it. Right. I'm just gonna understand how to do this. I'm gonna create the best products. If you can't handle people, you're not gonna get a callback. I've had people that they're phenomenal no way more than I do. And most of the people on the set, but they didn't get the callback because they were absolutely rude. They I'm professional. Didn't show up on time, all these different things.
Ariel Martinez (00:27):
Welcome back to another episode of the Ifilmmaker podcast. My name's Ariel Martinez, big Mike with us over here. You've graduated from being Harry with the wax and all. So congratulations on that, sir. We have a fun one today. We do. I like this topic because it's, these are kinds of the jobs that make us sort of happy in a sense. So let's jump right into it. All right. All right. Um, totally move the mouse on that, but it's all good. Um, So we wanna talk today about high pay for minimum effort, right? High
Mike Hernandez (01:11):
Pay high pay for minimum effort. I like these
Ariel Martinez (01:14):
When they come. Yeah. So high pay for minimum effort, basically when you get a job, right. They have a great, great budget and it, it's not so much that cuz you're not, it feels weird, right? Because you're, you're, you're barely doing anything, but you're getting a very good budget, a budget where normally you'd be hiring more people, you'd be renting out more gear. So the, at the end, the profit is, um, uh, is pretty normal. But on jobs like these, the client comes to us and says, Hey, this is our budget and this is what we need. And we're like, is that it? You don't need anything else. Right. And, um, it's nice. It's nice. It's probably you well above budget and, and you know, you don't have to hire anybody. You don't have to like have all these expenses overhead. Has that ever happened to you?
Mike Hernandez (02:17):
Yeah, plenty of times. Um, it's fortunate when it does. Um, so I've, I've worked with a few people that I've worked consistently with and we've had gigs in studio, um, many times where we'll get jobs where we're busting our butts, right. We're killing ourselves. Right. And it's, you know, 12 hours lunch is included all that good stuff. And uh, we kind of feel like we're getting abused and all that good stuff. And then they'll come around another job working with the same people where we don't have to do pretty much anything short day, we're getting full rate. And that was one, um, one example where we all agreed, Hey, you gotta take the bad with the good, you know, you gotta be able to take, um, know that there's, there's gonna be highs. There's gonna be lows. But man, that it's time to definitely appreciate when you do get those really good paying jobs or really low hours.
Mike Hernandez (03:04):
Right, right. To just take it, don't feel bad about it because there's so many days and so many projects where it just takes, it takes life outta you with, with the request that are made. Um, and I'll, I'll never forget. There was a European company that hired me and when they contacted me, I said, okay, this is what you need. Okay, great. Um, do you have a budget in mind? Yeah. We have this XX number and I, I, I immediately thought, okay, so I gotta full fully crew this thing out. Um, all right. So again, tell me what it is that you wanna achieve. And they said this and this and I was like, okay, so one man band and really there's no necessity. I don't even need to hire an audio guy. Like it's literally the simplest thing. And I
couldn't, I felt guilty to be honest. Yeah. Cuz I was like, well, we could do it for less, but I'm like, no, I've done things for so much less that this will balance that out. That's
Ariel Martinez (03:57):
So funny. That's so funny. And
Mike Hernandez (03:59): Uh, you, yeah, it was
Ariel Martinez (04:00):
Good. Yeah. I think that what, it, it rubs our character the wrong way because you, you don't want to take advantage of anybody. You want to give fair pricing, but at the same time. Yeah. Like that's actually a good point. I never thought about that. We, uh, we do, we have done work for a lot less money where we, we Don take necessarily take a loss cuz there's more money than we would've had if we didn't do the job, but it's not at our normal rate. But at the same time, you're not scamming your client because that's their budget. Right.
Mike Hernandez (04:33):
That's and that's what they would pay someone else. That's
Ariel Martinez (04:34):
What they would exactly. That's what they would totally pay somebody else. So basically you're bring,
you're bringing,
Mike Hernandez (04:39):
Well also at the same, I, at the same time though, if they were to hire someone and I don't wanna knock people coming outta school, but let's just say like someone with just less experience that can't even handle it. Sure. Then there's, there's a problem there. And because we, you and I, and, and many people we work with, we can handle these kind of gigs, one man band. If you know, that's not really the style I like to, to work with. Yeah. But when it comes, we have the skillset to be able to meet the requirements or meet the expectations too. So it's not just like, you know, anybody could just do it either. Sure. So
Ariel Martinez (05:08):
Understood. And listen, the reason why they have such a high budget is because that's what the expectation is. That's what the price for that was. Right. So, but I have, I have another example here. Um, uh, I had a job where it was quoted. I, it was back when I was shooting with the Fs seven and I quoted the client. They asked me for three days to shoot, they needed the FX seven, et cetera, cetera. And uh, I brought my lighting kit. I brought, you know, they said they, they needed me to be, be a B cam on this production. And I said, sure, no problem. 1500 bucks, the flat rate, not flat rate cuz everything was atomized. But that was, you know, that was their quote, 1500 bucks a day for three days. Not a problem. Sure. We'll do it. Let's let's, you know, let's, let's get to work. I go in on day one and I arrive at the location, which ends up being a, a, a hotel. And they have me sit down in this meeting, this big meeting where there's like 15 people, 15 to 20 people roughly, uh, conversing about the project and what's going to happen. And they introduced me as the second camera operator. Uh, great. Hello
everybody. They talk about the game plan, yada yada for about an hour and then all right, great guys. I'll see you tomorrow. Like
Mike Hernandez (06:40):
What's going, you didn't do anything
Ariel Martinez (06:41):
What's going on here. And then I was, I was concerned to ask people, somebody I was concerned to ask somebody, um, when are we shooting? Because like, I, I would seem so unprepared. Right? I'm I'm thinking we're, we're shooting three days. So I ended up
Mike Hernandez (07:01):
And you don't wanna look like you're just don't understand what the project is about. I identified lose
confidence in you.
Ariel Martinez (07:06):
Yeah. I identified the person. That was probably from what I could tell the lowest ranked person in the room, I'm thinking, uh, an assistant or somebody, a, a small producer or whatever. So I walk up to them and said, Hey, uh, are we doing anything today or is they still prepping or um, are we shooting tomorrow? It's like, no, no we're done for today. Um, the prep day is the, I mean the shoot day is on, uh, I wanna say Friday or something like that, basically. Not the next day, but the following day after that, I said, okay, so tomorrow we're doing a, a
Mike Hernandez (07:39): Practice pre light or something
Ariel Martinez (07:40):
Or something. Yeah. Yeah. We're having another meeting. Same time tomorrow. I'm like, all right, great. Not a problem. So I go, I bring again, I bring my gear, I bring everything And it's another one hour meeting. Oh my gosh. Another one hour meeting. And I quoted this at 1500 bucks a day. I'm going there for one hour. Oh
Mike Hernandez (07:58): Yes. Like
Ariel Martinez (08:00):
I, and I started feeling bad and listen. And then I go across the street. These people are prepping his big tennis court. This is with Venus Williams, like the sister of Serena Williams. And they're doing this big time commercial. There was literally like 40 people, 40 people on set, grips, big generator, huge catering. Like they had money for all this stuff and I'm like, what's going on here? So that second day I'm like, okay, hold on. I gotta chill for a bit. Like I gotta do something. So I, I, I stuck around after the meeting, they said, you don't have to. And I'm like, eh, I feel like I kind of have to like, I'm here, you know? Yeah. Mind you. It's not a short drive. It was about an hour drive from where I was. So I stuck around after for the pre light, but the DPS there coordinating all that stuff. Like they got this guy from Italy or something like, I don't know. And I just stuck around to see what they were, you know, lighting
and how they were lighting it. And I basically felt useless, you know, like I'm just a second camera operator. It was uh, very interesting, very interesting. And I felt weird just I was there. I stuck around for like two hours after the meeting. Yeah. So I was there for like three hours total at,
Mike Hernandez (09:11):
So essentially you were just, you were basically B cam for that shoot though, right?
Ariel Martinez (09:15): It was just the beat cam.
Mike Hernandez (09:16):
They just, they just didn't need you on set yet or anything like
Ariel Martinez (09:19): That at all.
Mike Hernandez (09:20): Wow.
Ariel Martinez (09:20):
So then day three comes in and that was a heck of a shooting day. Like that was like a 12, I imagine 13, it got up to like 13 hours. I think it was. Yeah. And it was so crazy because every shot that was taken was literally you a few seconds cuz the, a cam was the Phantom. So everything about this, hello, everything about this was going to be all slow motion and it actually looked really, really nice. Um, wow. And I was just getting a ton of shots, uh, wherever the a cam was. I was there actually. No it wasn't only the Phantom. They did some shots with, uh, I, I wanna say Alexa min or something like that. It was interesting. But anyways, as tired as I was tired, as I was on the third day, like the shooting day, obviously I reminded myself, listen, you just got two really good free days. So you better chill. Yep. Um,
Mike Hernandez (10:15): No complaining don't
Ariel Martinez (10:15):
Complain, man. So that was definitely one of those that I felt I didn't feel icky. It was like, how did this happen? Is this on purpose? Like, uh, one of those deals, uh, but I don't know. I was like, I don't think anybody's gonna be crying about this.
Mike Hernandez (10:36):
No, no, I doubt it. No. And you gotta take 'em, you know, cuz there's a lot of jobs where you bust your butt, so that's good. So I just recently had a job on Monday, actually. Okay. Where I had, I had, uh, a budget for 1200 for the day to shoot with, uh, with my gear and um, I had quoted to have PAs and sound and all this stuff and they just brought, brought me down to just one, just myself. So I did a super simple job, so I get there and I'm think, okay, so 1200 is what I got for this. Okay, cool. No problem. I come in, come in early, just make sure everything's good. And we start shooting at, um, nine o'clock
came 11:00 AM. They said, all right. I think we got it all. And I was like, what? Yes. I mean, I'm looking at all the stuff we gotta get done and yeah, we got it all done.
Mike Hernandez (11:24):
But then I said, can we, I felt guilty. And like, can we shoot anything else just to give us some more options in post? And they're like, well, I think we've got it. Um, if you want, it was one of those things, like if you wanna around and get some stuff, but we've got everything we need. And so I, I did that anyway, just cause I felt so guilty. Sure, sure. And spent like an extra hour just to, they weren't even there, they left and I'm like, I just feel bad. Yeah. And uh, it was nice, man. It was, it was nice. That pleasant surprise. My wife was like, wait, you're coming home now. Yeah.
Ariel Martinez (11:55):
That's nice. Those are really nice. Uh, what are the things I think, as I think about all these jobs and things that happen, that I'm sort of thinking about what happens when it's the other way around in a sense that, um, the amount of work that you do for the amount of money that you're being paid, do you ever like going to a job they're not paying much, it's not a high paying job. How's your demeanor, how are we supposed to approach jobs like that? Do we give them what they're expecting? Do we do our best? Always
Ariel Martinez (12:29):
That I, I feel like some people, and I'm not, I putting my opinion in this yet. I, I, I do see that happening in some people, right? Like I've seen people in, especially people that I hire, it's the budget that we just had. Unfortunately. Um, the demeanor is, is like they don't care about the job, you know, or not even people that I've hired the client brought in, you know? And you know, there was an audio guy at one time that seems like they didn't care about the job. Like I don't know what they were paying him, but I'm like, man, I wonder if he's doesn't care about it because they're not paying him much. What, what, what do we do at that time? You know, do you give the same level of service and attention to detail regardless of the pay or should we
Mike Hernandez (13:10):
Absolutely not. I I'm miserable the entire time and make everybody knows you just kidding. Just kidding. No, um, to me, there's, there's a few things, a few ways to look at this and I actually have, I actually have a story. Um, that recently happened to me. Uh, my thing is all about integrity. Okay. Um, it's all about integrity. So when you're building integrity, it connects to your character. When someone hires you a lot of times, there are many other competitors who can do exactly what you do, but what makes you stand out from the rest is how you conduct your business. How are you, how do you talk? I mean, simple things. Like I had a client didn't wanna hire a PA that I had brought them on board just because they didn't like the, they called it aura an energy, but they didn't like the personality of the person.
Mike Hernandez (14:00):
And I was like, that's interesting when I'm on set. I think a lot of people don't realize this. If you're a freelancer, you work in this industry and you have the perception that this is not a people industry. You're, you're totally mistaken. This is such a people industry. You think, oh, I'm just gonna perfect my craft and I'm just gonna get the science of it. Right. I'm just gonna understand how to do this. I'm gonna create the best products. If you can't handle people, you're not gonna get a callback. I've had people that they're phenomenal no way more than I do. And most of the people on the set, but they didn't get
the callback because they were absolutely rude. They're unprofessional. Didn't show up on time, all these different. So for me, when it comes to dealing with the client, there's a few different factors.
Mike Hernandez (14:41):
This is a client that's a one time and a gone, or is this a client that, um, is gonna possib be recurring? And you know, we've heard that a million times, but this, this recent one that I had, it was a recurring client. And they started off with a good budget, um, fair, fair budget. And it was a long term project. And I found myself in a sense, like some people would say, I got, I got screwed over. Right, right. So I started off with an agreement, no contract, which is always never fun, but started off at a good pay. Next thing you know, they said, this is what's happening. This is what's happening. We still need to get all this work done, cuz it's a long term project, but it's uh, it's gonna have to drop your rate down. I mean, significantly like significantly, I'm talking about one of those drops that makes you question whether to continue makes you question, how are you gonna show up?
Mike Hernandez (15:38):
How are you gonna be present? And I decided my character is more important. It's who I am. It's what it's, what's long lasting, right? This is a recurring client. And so my integrity decided I'm going to still give the same effort if not more. So they could see that first off I'm responsible at the end of the day I was DPing, I'm responsible for the whole thing. Sure. And if I don't show up and I don't give him everything they want, they're gonna go, oh, this guy is affected by just money. He's just money driven. Sure. And so what happened is I accepted to get this thing done. I
Ariel Martinez (16:11): Got it done, but yeah,
Mike Hernandez (16:14):
Exactly. And then I got it done and you know what, they came back to me and they thanked me profusely. Yeah. For dealing with this professionally dealing with great character. And they already gave me two other jobs at full rate again. Right. So it came right back to me. Uh, but it was like going through the fire, you find, as someone is made of, they are fully committed to continue working with me because they saw what I was willing to do for them. That's
Ariel Martinez (16:38):
Awesome. Yeah. I've definitely had positive experiences continuing to work with clients at a lower price than I normally charge. And it's not really because of this, but it's because, um, they're great people to work with. They really are. And I prefer to work with somebody that's better to work with for a little bit less money. Mine said a little bit, a little bit less money than somebody that's willing to pay my normal rate. And they're just impossible to work with because at the end of the day, your attitude, your man, if somebody affects you that much, that you hate working with them. I do not wanna work with them, man. And, and I've honestly I've rejected work because of that specific reason. I really have, I've referred 'em to different people, you know, or I just say I'm busy. You know, I, I, it really comes,
Mike Hernandez (17:30): I've done the same thing. It
Ariel Martinez (17:32):
Comes down to that and I just don't wanna work with them. But when I've continued to work with the people that, and, and one example of this is, um, one of my clients I've been working with them for like, I think seven years at this point, they're still trying to pay me the same thing that they were paying me seven years ago, which is not the same, but you know what, they're such fun people to work with. You know, that's just kind of the level of, of content that they're putting out there and that's sort of what they're willing to pay, but more than anything, uh, it's fun to work with them. However, they've referred me, the people that I've directly worked with, right. It's been a couple of them now have actually given me big clients have pointed me in the direction or referred other clients to me, but I'm talking big clients where,
Mike Hernandez (18:21): So it's paid off. I'm
Ariel Martinez (18:22):
Like, man, it was beneficial in the long term to keep this small client. And I'm not saying this is the same thing for everybody, but it was just fun to work with them. It wasn't a hassle. I didn't lose money. It wasn't my normal rate. And I'm not rejecting work that at my normal price, but they were just genuinely fun people to work with. You know, again, the way I always see it is it's more money than you will have made if you don't take the job. Right. I'm not saying go out there, go one, $200 job. Right. That's not what I'm saying either. If you're at that level, you're at that level, it's fine do it, but it's just not where I'm at. You know? So anyways, you have to evaluate the work and the, the work, the payment and all that stuff, but also think of that other factor that other variable, where they can potentially bring in work depending on how you deal with them, you know?
Ariel Martinez (19:15):
And it's been fantastic for me. So you have to look at that end of the spectrum as well. And then, you know, at some point you're, you're getting much more money than what you're than work, you're putting into it. So, um, yeah, I think it goes full circle. It really does. It, it really does pay off people don't see that first, but like you said, um, the whole character thing, like it's not fair to your client, if you're going to take a job and you're just going to go, you're literally gonna put half the effort that you normally do just because the pay is not the same. Um, that's not fair to your, your client. The, the responsible thing to do there is to refer them to somebody else. Uh, and somebody that, you know, would probably could use the money somebody could, that could use the experience. And I think that that also, um, inherently betters the industry, it betters the community. You're helping build people that are not at your level. And I think it's good for everybody. Your client's happy. They're happy. You, it's not a hassle for you. Just send 'em to somebody else. Um, yeah, I think that's good. Overall outcome did what I think this one was a great one. It was a fun one. Yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did. Did you enjoy this one?
Mike Hernandez (20:35):
Yeah, man, I love, I love kind of rehashing some of the cool experiences we've had of making a lot of money, little time or little effort and knowing that there's other jobs that, that, you know might be reversed. Um, but it's a give and take
Ariel Martinez (20:46):
Well anyways, dude, thanks so much for coming on once again. Thank you guys for listening. And remember, you could always catch these episodes over on YouTube. We have a second YouTube channel now where it's just highlights and nice snippets from the full episodes. You can check all that out over at iPhone maker, podcast.com. We're on all the platforms. Follow us on social media. Follow Mike. What's your handle once again,
Mike Hernandez (21:12): T in studios, Inc,
Ariel Martinez (21:14): D N T T T TN
Mike Hernandez (21:17):
Top notch, top notch, TN studios, Inc
Ariel Martinez (21:20): T N T as in it's
Mike Hernandez (21:22):
Gonna be right there in the lower third as in top notch, cuz that's the service I
Ariel Martinez (21:27):
Listening to this it'll be in the show notes, whoever DN studios is just got a free handle, a free shout out. All right, dude. Thanks for coming on. See you on the next one.