A production I worked on is $250k in the hole and owes a bunch of crew members money including myself. Looks like they just missed a big deadline to keep from going belly up. What should we do?

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No, the film should have a completion bond ProducerOP. Is this your first film? Unless the EP has access to deep pockets, there is likely a completion bond. You should get paid. And the film should get finished. If there is already distribution, it would have been stupid not to get one.

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Should have gotten a completion bond.

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I’ve seen it happen with commercial prod cos and VFX houses as well. Nothing except get in line and hope you see some money. The big fish will see money first if ever. The only repercussions are getting the word out about those that did it. Oh, and competition bonds.

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Is this an agency production or in house?

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No sarcasm. And I’m certainly not trying to be a dick. What have the producers said? Honestly, there’s not much you can do. This happens. It sucks. I’ve seen it before and if you guys are out dough, I guarantee there is a line of people waiting for money.

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Neither. Feature Doc with decent size distributor (Giant Screen Films) and production company (BBC) involved.

Cause you get completion bonds when your hired as freelance @director1?

#helpful

Sorry for the sarcasm but what do either of your responses do to help? How many people, when brought onto a project as freelance for a few weeks, confirm whether there is a completion bond or not? Past that, nothing you are putting out is helpful in the least bit or honestly even pertinent to my question at this point.

I realize there is not a whole lot we can do now except take collective action or small claims action under $10k, but im posting here in hopes of some creativity ideas or people with similar experience. Just dont feel like you need to belittle me in addition to the frustrating experience we are having on this project.

@director1 is right there is not much you can do. Maybe a collections agency could help get some of your money back. Be prepared to give them a decent percent of the money they secure for you.

You’re screwed. Sorry. It’s the risks of the trade. Maybe you can get a lawyer and try to sue but you’ll them more than you will get in back pay

Seems there should be some repercussions to keep people from doing this.

I’m wondering if the crew not being paid put’s the film’s chain of title at risk. Maybe there’s leverage there?

You’re screwed. Cost of doing biz. Hope you took some good BTS pix for your insta!

Movies and commercials work very differently. This happens all the time. It just sucks when you’re a line producer or Upm who hired the crew because they associate you with the producers mess ups. I once PMd a feature where the financiers were unhappy with how fast the money was being spent. Turns out the producers never signed the financing agreement so the financiers were able to stop the cash flow, and none of the crew, including myself, were paid for a long time.

There aren’t any issues with chain of title. If the money doesn’t exist it doesn’t exist

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