War of the Worlds, Old Fogies vs. Young Idiots

[Gary Alan]

Hello John,

At first I thought you were just defending the original poster. But now I do see you trying to expand on the subject and possibly learn something more on the subject. I do feel that you are only seeing things from just your view, and being 33, limits your experience to the real world on this issue. I mean no offense to you, but maybe having to walk a mile in one’s shoes is required to really understand the whole picture. In other words, it is probably not affecting you at this point in your life.

On the other hand, I am speaking about facts that concerns everybody of all ages. It is not about me. It is becoming a social problem in large volumes. The occasional ad posted was fine. But I assure you that the facts are that most employers are now posting jobs as lo/no/deferred, interns, assistants, opportunity to build reels, acquire a credit and work with an award winning person. All excuses to get free labor and higher personal profits. And they ask you to own the gear with higher skills. Bottom line… employers are exploiting people to work for free or low pay. The COW only gets a few ads per week and most are pro and legit. Take any weekday and look at Craiglist, Mandy, Production Hub, Monster, etc. For example, Craigslist LA ha an average of 60 ads each day. Many are pervs looking for models. They have model agencies who supply pro models if you need a model. Las Vegas and Atlanta now have a large amount of ads flagged an pulled because of spams and pervs.

Another fact I have seen is employers showing up in the forums every few months, posting again to fill a position because they took the cheap route with a kyoung newbie. Employers have told me in interviews that the some young people were fabricating demo reels and then not being able to handle the job after being hired. I have reports on how they always have eyes on greener pastures while working at their cuurent job for little pay. This translates to not working at being focused 100% each day on their current job. One employer told me how his young editor quit midstream on a major project so he could hitchhike around Europe with his friend. The employer was missing deadlines from an employer who did not understand loyalty or care about his reputation. They lack responsibility. An older pro would never do this. He usually has a family to provide for. The employer usually finds out it costs them more in the long run because of the lack of experience and the slower speed of finishing a job on time.

I could go on with hundreds of examples. I am not against young workers or interns. I was one jsut as you were in the past. I am only pointing out from seven years of daily experience on reading a dozen pro forums each day that this social problem is escalating.

My research and doc is not about me or editors. It’s about all ages because it will affect everyone in some way, eventually. There are areas I have not spoken of, such as the lack of government concern and help. Laws on age discrimination are not being enforced. Lawyers are not accepting age discrimination cases indicating the government will not back them and it’s hard to prove and win a case.

I do not for second believe the original poster meant anything different than what he said. He is one of thousands on a daily basis doing this same scam for lo/no deferred. His subject line says FCP editor, good pay, but then it gets down to an assistant and a credit. If someone cannot spend the money and pay people for the hard earned skills and experience, then they should not be in business. I can’t tell you how many job ads have said “work with an award winning director”. If he/she is that successful, let them work for free and pay your workers today. I know, there are exceptions where all the crew works for free. But usually one person receives the profit and benefits from free labor.

The problem is not young idiots or old farts. It’s the vast majority of people jumping into the business and behaving like video pimps. Treating skilled professionals like whores and while they pocket all the benefits. Greed.

Let’s assume this all is acceptable. Now imagine your clients asking you to do work for them for free or minimum wage. Maybe you will accept that because you are hungry. Imagine all businesses in the world behaving in this manner. The grocery store will not give you food on a deferred basis. The landlord doesn’t want you demo reel or care about a credit in a movie you have earned.

I suggest the COW open another Calf forum for people to beg for jobs and people to ask for interns, lo/no/deferred and keep the original forum as professional and paid fairly. I suggest everyone boycott these employers who are exploiting everyone. An intern has to get “credits at their school” in return for their labor and on the job training. Not just be free labor at the benefit of an employer.

Most of us were brought up with the teachings to study hard, work hard, work your way up, retire at “65” and live off of pensions, savings and social security. Now it seems they want people to retire at 50 and struggle to live because you will not be allowed back in the workplace, social security is almost gone and pensions were cut short from being forced into a buyout at 50 so your employer can avoid, higher salaries, health care, paid vacations and lower your pension benefits. Most people build up their pension in the last fifiteen years of working. Watch the news and se how all the auto companies are bailing out and forcing people to retire early.

In the past, people usually died when they reached 50. In this modern worldvwe live to 90 and 100. What will most people do to survive for the next 40 years or so if they are not allowed to be employed? Government won’t help. The medical system will not help in America. Social Security has been robbed by other agencies and will not be there in the near future. If you are 20 or 33 today, do not be surprised as to how your future turns out. At least give me credit for saying I warned you.

Best regards,
Gary

[John Davidson]

That all makes sense. It’s more about the folks wanting free work than age disparities. The byproduct is that working for free decreases the overall wages of the entire industry, resulting in those with more experience (and age) being outmoded and/or considered irrelevant.

I think that by saying I’m only 33 and could never understand your logic is flawed. How do you know that the original poster is not 33 as well? If that’s the case, how you can get annoyed with him? By your own logic he could never understand. Furthermore, isn’t that the kind of mindset that you’re trying to work against? It’s the same philosophy that says “oh, don’t hire anybody over 50, they won’t understand the newest programs, design trends, etc”.

So how does one prevent themselves from being one of the 8 million middle aged “kids” without work? We don’t all have Nick Griffin’s amazing pipes to keep us employed (I’m not saying you’re old Nick, I’m saying you have a great voice that will always make you money no matter where you are 🙂

Perhaps, unless you’re in management, no one should take this industry on for more than 20 years. I was at Turner/CNN when the big bad layoffs came. I watched people who had stayed with the company for 20 years get fired because they were making 90k for beta news package editing. The landscape had changed – ratings were down, heads rolled. In came the new kids with Avid Newscutter experience getting paid 24k a year. Out went the guys who had built the network in 1980. It was a sad time and many of my friends were suddenly thrust into a world that didn’t want them. I saw the writing on the wall and changed tracks. I did not want that to happen to me. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve seen producers get meteoric promotions so fast that within 10 years they had promoted themselves into obscurity. Where exactly do you go once you’re been a SVP at a major network? There aren’t that many jobs out there like that, so unless the position is tenured, it won’t last and then where will you be?

In the end, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. That is why I went into business for myself. I will ALWAYS be a writer/producer/director and will not assume a title greater than that, even for my own company. I want more money, raise my rates. A new title is irrelevant, I can’t be promoted into obscurity, and I won’t get fired.

So the lesson is for media pros, don’t get complacent. Don’t assume you’ll have work forever. Constantly learn and expand your education. Invest. Save. Skip the rims. Buy property. Diversify your income and make smart decisions for your life. If you make 30k a year, maybe a lexus is out.

Ultimately, there may not be an adequate resolution to the problem. There will always be kids willing to work for free, jerks willing to let them, and good people feeling like leftovers. This industry is volitile. Heads roll, ratings plummet, turnover is high. It is the side effect for working with such great people and having (in many cases) what everyone considers to be dream jobs.

Dude, I watched cartoons for a living for 4 years. There’s gotta be a downside somewhere.

Cheers,
John (a producer who plans on retiring at 40).

[Steve Kownacki]

“Hi Guys”… “Dudes”… I hope we’re not discriminating against our female counterparts with these references. 😉

Hmmm…. so much to comment on in this whole thread.

John: “So the lesson is for media pros, don’t get complacent. Don’t assume you’ll have work forever. Constantly learn and expand your education. Invest. Save. Skip the rims. Buy property. Diversify your income and make smart decisions for your life. If you make 30k a year, maybe a lexus is out.”

This is all good advice, but you’re insulting the “pros” because they already know this. It’s the upcoming workforce that might need this direction. I look at the way bigger picture and even buy fairly-traded, organic coffee so as not to exploit workers in other countries. As you age (and more precisely mature which happens at different times for all of us), so should your responsibilities to everything – family, job, world.

This is not a dig at you John, but business is business, not a hobby, that ended way long ago.

More later.

Steve

[Dean Sensui]

I turned 50 last year so here’s my two cents.

I wasn’t at all offended by the “young and hungry” comment. I took it for what it was worth. And, regardless of what federal laws might state, I certainly can appreciate what a particular producer might want in terms of someone they could relate to or work with.

The same might be said of someone who is looking for a female lead for a show. Gender discrimination? Technically yes. But how much sense would it make to hire Bob Smith for a show called “Women’s issues”?

As I get older I began to realize that age might become a factor in getting jobs. But in reality, the only time age actually affected my employability was when I was 28, and I could’t qualify to train as a helicopter pilot for the Army National Guard.

Regarding working, I recently took a couple jobs as a PA which was at fraction of my usual day rate as a cameraman. Because that’s what PA’s usually get paid. But because I’m relatively new to the business of independent production I thought that seeing another producer at work would help expand my knowledge of the business. It did. And, as it happened, the producer was half my age. The DP was a couple years older than I was. So here were two “old fogies” working for a young kid on her documentary — yes, a female employer.

I was absolutely overqualified, considering what I could do as a cameraman and editor, not to mention that I was a staffer and chief photographer for a major daily newspaper for 25 years. But seeing how others work — and especially working alongside this particular DP — turned out to be an eye opener and a good educational opportunity.

Recently I also spent almost a month working for free on an independent film project. We all worked gratis on that one. But, again, it was an experience that proved invaluable. It also led to other paying jobs and good business contacts. For me it was the first time ever working on a project of that type and something I had wanted to do for a long time.

One of the crew members from that project (who happens to be 15 years younger than me) recently agreed when we were discussing employability, especially in the very small production community we have here in Hawaii. It seems that there are a lot of very talented folks available for a wide variety of jobs. And a lot of them are already taken up, working with “Lost” and other productions.

When it comes to who gets picked, quite often it’s who-knows-who and the compatability factor that wins. Networking counts. And given two equally talented people, the one who is known for working well with others often gets the nod. After all, even though a particular individual exhibits more talent, they’re not likely to get a call back if they’re known to be an absolute pain in the a** to deal with.

Of course there are employers who will hire young because young usually equals “cheap”. Older, experienced people demand higher salaries or rates.

But consider this: if a company is willing to hire cheap, inexperienced people who provide low-quality work, do you really want to be a part of that? I know of at least one producer who hires only those who will work at cut rates and that’s how it looks in the end product. The producer couldn’t care less, as long as the bottom line works out in his favor.

Dean Sensui — Imagination Media Hawaii

[Mark Suszko]

It is not just our industry, and it’s not new.

Let me tell you a quick story about my dad.
He was an engineer, worked for a couple very large corporations, Quaker Oats for about 15 years, Brown & Root for ten or so… Had the kind of job where the description was: “The raw jungle goes in at this end, the finished cardboard boxes need to come out that end, you design and spec out the part in the middle, GO!” He designed a heating system for the largest United hangar at O’Hare, he did pollution control systems for a refinery in Joliet, he even had a small role in designing a production line in Huntsville working on Saturn 5 parts. Showed me leftover blueprints one time, blew my mind.

In the 80’s he was having a hard time due to the many mergers and changes in the paper industry he served. He’d get a job at a place, work really well, thanks to all his hard-earned OTJ experience and training, but always got laid off or let go just before he had enough time in to qualify for the major benefits. Lather, rinse, repeat for a decade, while the companies always replaced him with younger single guys who could afford to work for less, but had much less practical experience. As the employment periods got shorter and he got older, health benefits became hard to come by, and he got less and less regular care. Didn’t help he was an old world stoic about never seeing doctors of course. They found him on a Saturday, he’d had a stroke or heart attack at his desk working overtime, had been down an unknown amount of time before the paramedics were even called. They restarted his heart, but he was already gone and we lost him the second time about 4 days later. About twenty years earlier than anybody should have expected.

So I definitely have an emotional context for this debate.

When I got the job I’ve held now for 20 years, I was the young guy and I had to work with and direct folks who were mostly senior to me. I had to work hard with some to get their respect, but I always gave them mine, and tried hard to never create a situation where they would lose face. I would go out of my way to ask them their opinions and advice where I knew they were strong on knowledge. Eventually, they all came around, because we stressed the teamwork and shared contributions. As I get older, I like working with the interns we get: they question things we take for granted, and in the explaining and training, I get to reconsider the issues being asked about, and sometimes I recognize that some things can be looked at in new ways.

I agree that that same attitude my dad had to fight in the 80’s is behind this trend of treating the workforce shabbily when it comes to pay and working conditions. They want to skip the social contract. It has ever been thus, to one degree or another. They want to exploit your labor, and a fresh generation of inexperienced workers brought up with a sense of entitlement and solipsism seems to think this is okay, that everybody uses everybody and it’s all just a game of who can get the most use out of somebody and get away clean to the next resource. But it’s a zero-sum game, and while playing it can lead to rapid early advancement, it is not a sustainable way to live. When you get old enough to have a stake in things, to have something to lose, you’ll find this becomes an exceptionally harsh kind of life.

[John Davidson]

Great comments guys. Thank you.

I should note, my previous post on advice was meant for the under 30 crowd, not the over 30 crowd, hence the “skip the rims” comment :-). Although, grandpa’s caddie might look nice when pimped out with some 20″ low-profile razors….:-).

[John Davidson]

Thanks Dean. My fiance is a local girl (Kaneohe) and we’ll be in Oahu for a post wedding reception the week of August 15th. We should grab a cup of coffee as I’d love to hear about the production world, Aloha style.

Send me an email via my profile if you’re interested.
John (a stupid Haule)

[Dean Sensui]

John…

Congratulations in advance. I’ll drop you a line. I’m always willing to hear how others get it done in this business.

Mahalo!

Dean Sensui — Imagination Media Hawaii

[Dean Sensui]

In my case my dad set the example of making sure you were known by your reputation.

He was a heavy machinery mechanic and in the local indusrty was known as the guy who could fix anything. He worked for Henry Kaiser back in the early ’60s and got the company’s foundering concrete tile plant runing beyond the design engineers’ expectations.

If he got fed up somewhere he’d just quit. Within a few weeks another company would quickly pick him up. So he was never out of work.

Even in retirement people would call him to come out and get something running. One particular time, someone had totally dissassembled a D9 bulldozer and dad had to go out and put this mess back together. He did, and I got a lesson as a teenager on how to operate one.

Eventually age caught up with him and he couldn’t physically do the work. Perhaps it’s his example of always working until you’re unable to work that has me unconcerned about the fact that I’m 50. Perhaps it’s also because I’m capable of easily keeping up both physically and technically with those who are 20 years younger than me.

Hopefully all of us can be rewarded for what we know and can do regardless of age. However, as noted, sometimes others in the industry are just plain cutthroat, and disregard traditional values of loyalty, fairness and craftsmanship.

Dean Sensui — Imagination Media Hawaii

[David Roth weiss]

For the record, I’m the original guy who pointed out that the ad on both the Jobs Forum and the FCP Forum was discriminatory. I’m also a guy whose website says, “Crafting images, words and sounds for more than three decades.” So, unless I started in this business when I was an infant, it would be a pretty easy guess that I’m not a twentysomething like John. Oops, he’s a thirtysomething…

Also for the record, I mentioned the discrimination thing not because I wanted to inflame anyone or to start a heated debate, but because its illegal to post such things and the original poster should really know that if he/she didn’t already know it. Its simple, just like when newbies come to the Cow and ask about pirated software or things that violate copyright laws, we owe it to the entire group to speak out, because it ultimately reflects on the entire community.

In any case, at age 53, I’ve experienced times when it became fashionable to hire twenty somethings at one-tenth the normal rate. And, I’ve experienced better times when producers smartened-up and that fell out of favor.

The fact is, experience does count. Knowledge is crystaline — ideas and experiences branch out through the brain and grow over time into complex inconnnected neural networks that stimulate fresh ideas and new concepts through association. In younger people the priciple is often called “genius,” in those who are older, its referred to as “wisdom.” How many of us can honestly say we posess true genius? On the other hand, almost everyone of us over time will gain wisdom. Thankfully some people are still hiring those of us with wisdom, otherwise I’d be a dead duck.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY