“The Client reserves the right to reduce the agreed fee if you do not meet professional standards including: arriving unprepared… belligerence… or failure to bring agreed kit”.
What do we think?
This was in a contract I recently signed, and I think – fair enough! There is an exception (in the case of acting roles) for actors who receive their script less than 72 hours before the shoot – in which case the full rate is payable even if we’re not 100% au fait with the dialogue. This happened on a recent film shoot I did, when some actors were sent the script while they were DRIVING to the location. So, no chance to even look at it, and certainly not print it off (essential for us actors who like to work off paper, so we can mark up the script with our own notes, colour-coded squiggles and ‘stage instructions’.
I also love the fact that we might be paid less if we’re belligerent (or difficult). We all know some colleagues who sometimes have a sense of humour failure, or who are in a bad mood. I suppose this clause is for people who are behaving MUCH WORSE than just having an off-day: ie they’re obstructive, aggressive, argumentative, temperamental, prone to hissy fits, tantrums or ‘creative differences’. This might be a tendency that is particular to the creative industries. I can’t see many engineers ‘not feeling like’ putting the right reinforcements on a bridge, or not being in the mood for making sure windows and doors close properly in a new building. But hey, correct me if I am wrong.
It also probably wouldn’t work for staff members who come in day in, day out – and then put in an occasional substandard performance. You couldn’t pay them different amounts depending on how helpful, prepared or unprepared they were on each day. But for us freelancers – who the employer doesn’t know from Adam – perhaps it makes sense to pay us less if we are a liability on the day. If any other colleagues have to do twice the normal amount of work, twice the normal number of takes, because the new guy doesn’t know their lines (and yes, I have seen this) then maybe that makes sense. The producers could claw back some of the extra money they had to pay the crew in overtime by paying the star less, because they weren’t very starry on the day.
On a wider note, what do we feel about paying freelancers less than the agreed rate becuase they weren’t very good? And more than that, what if they weren’t ‘very good’ because the brief was incomplete, was changed at the last minute or just inaccurate? What if the clients were difficult, flaky, didn’t know what they wanted, didn’t have a clear picture of how YOU needed to work, what YOU needed to achieve the desired results effectively? What if it was miscommunication of what would be expected on the day?
With actors, of course, they are expected to turn up knowing their lines. So maybe this is something particular to the acting profession. Anyway, let me know your thoughts…
