Hi all, first post here, long time lurker on this sub. I've waited a long time to get this off my chest and am only now posting because I can't let him get away with using me again many years on, so please excuse the lengthy post.
For context I am a cameraman in the UK and have been for a few years now.
A few years ago when I was fresh out of media college I got regular work from a company that specialised in luxury hotels around the world. Lots of travel and I had little no other work so I said yes to pretty much everything without question (I know, I've learned a lot since then). The company director seemed decent enough at first, but little did I know he was going to turn into something like a villain out of a Netflix doc.
He was in in his early fifties, had a real chip on his shoulder, and was the embodiment of the term 'the great pretender'. No judgement for where people have started out in life, but the facade would quickly fall apart whenever he tried to schmooze with hotel managers and talk about the finer things in life. His lies always tended to unsettle them, but he was oblivious to this because he thought he'd convinced them at every turn that he was the real deal. Incidentally I always got on well with these hotel managers and he was deeply jealous of this, chastising me about talking with them (when they had struck up conversations with me first), telling me about how I have to learn how to engage in dialogue with them using himself as an example. That didn't stop him from asking me to write his emails for him on behalf of the company, negotiating prices for his next shoots. Again, how naive I was to see those figures and not demand an extra zero on my rate.
He was also a raging alcoholic in denial. I don't drink that much, and not at all when I'm on a job because I need to be in top condition the next day, especially because I fly drones. At any meals we had on a shoot together the routine was explained to me in hushed tones and gestures – he would order a bottle of wine and I was to split it with him. He would then finish one glass and swap it with mine whenever hotel staff weren't looking, rinse and repeat until the bottle was finished. This was typically lunch and dinner; he moderated himself to beer from his minibar during breakfasts. Bear in mind all our meals and accommodation were comp'd by the hotels we shot in, they would see what we were ordering on our bills/tabs, so he wanted to make it seem as if this alcohol was spread across both of us.
There was one job in particular, and I kid you not, he full on fell asleep face-first in his bolognese in front of the entire crew, agency, and hotel staff because of how smashed he was. It was like something out of a cartoon, and while everyone laughed it off it was a wake up call to me about this guy. I could go on and on with examples of his relationship with alcohol but it makes me feel more foolish for not seeing it sooner.
In terms of payment, my rate was laughable compared to market value at the time, and I make more in a day today with ground cameras only than I would do in over a week with him filming from the ground and drone. Payment was always late by about 2-3 months, and when I started to demand payment be fulfilled before I take on any more work, he tried to negotiate the pitiful rate down further after the fact, stating he was “just looking for some flexibility, my other freelancers do it all the time”.
I even did him a huge favour by flying out to the Caribbean to work for a week for free, with him promising me any future work arising from this speculative trip would all be mine. Much like London buses, once I had accepted this I was offered another week's paid work also in the Caribbean by a big/reputable production company at the same time. I should add that while it may sound glamorous, this line of work can be backbreaking hard labour, especially when time is money and you have a set shot list to achieve. I tried to take that better job but he said he'd already booked my flight and I'd have to pay him back the cost of my flight plus booking somebody else (which he would deduct from me at his calculation from wages already owed from overdue invoices). I did a calculation and realised even if I took the paid job I'd basically be breaking even. I really hated myself that entire week.
Another trick he would pull on his crew would be to offer a week's stay at one of these resorts, but only with three days being paid because that's all he'd need us for, and “it's a free holiday, I'm not paying you for days you're not working after all…don't take me for a fool!”. The reality of course is that he underbid for these contracts so much, screwing his freelancers was a nice way for him to maintain a profit margin, and plane tickets (especially long haul) were cheaper with a week's gap between outbound/inbound. Of course those 'days off' were never really off, because you were either exhausted, trapped in a resort without the money or will to go and do anything, or the more likely scenario of things running over due to poor planning, and having to work the next day too. So you'd sit around in your room just waiting to be told you're needed. Who am I kidding though, he was mainly screwing us just because he was greedy.
The reason I didn't pipe up and stand my ground sooner is mostly because his other regular crew were in their late 40's and all seemed to take these practices on the chin. There was a real laddish, working mens' club culture whenever it was a larger shoot with the extended crew, and those tended to be for the cheaper resorts that already had a clientele of all-inclusive 'Brits abroad' style appeal. On shoots where the resort manager was of a similar age and mindset (i.e drinking with us), they would be rude to staff, not tip, and gaslight servers into thinking they had got their orders wrong, all just for a laugh. Hilarious.
There were two key incidents which made me realise this man was evil, the first of which happened on a very high value resort in the middle-east. Upon arrival and after some time chatting and getting to know the hotel manager, they happened to mention in passing that their brother is getting married to his long time boyfriend and that they have to travel back to Europe for the wedding. Without flinching, the director points towards me as I'm hauling my cases a few paces in front of them: “oh, XXX's gay too”. I just didn't know what to do or say, and furthermore realised that immediately correcting that in front of the HM would threaten the entire week's shoot. Not only was that statement not true (and he knew that), but because I didn't say anything, it was the beginnings of homophobic bullying towards me by himself and the crew in other shoots. Essentially I was then made to feel as if I was back in school with all these rumours flying around on future shoots, and they were the cool gang. Even my young graduate self knew how pathetic these people were back then, but it was nonetheless hard when you're broke and need the money, you're the butt of every joke, thousands of miles from home, and there's no-one else your age to relate to. Hell, I'd have settled for just one person not directly making 1980's gay jokes about me.
The second incident follows on from the first. On a different shoot, after a very long and arduous day hiking up a mountain to fly the drone and chase boats and jetskis etc, we were having dinner as a full crew along with the agency and hotel management team. The HM did not speak English as their first language, but was keen to see some of what I had captured. I showed them some of the shots and I said they were “showreel worthy”. This was actually intended to mean the hotel's own showreel, or at the very least that the shots were good. She was very happy and went to tell the rest of her team. Minutes later I am physically pulled away by my chair a few feet from the table whilst I am eating (everyone else had finished because I worked late to get the shots). The director gets in my face and pushes me into the chair to keep me from standing up. He decides to publicly berate me loudly so the whole room can hear, including the HM and staff: “HM says you're going to be putting these shots on your showreel. You are NOT allowed to do that, I've told you about this before.” He hadn't, and that wasn't what I had said.
Me: “I think there's been a misunderstanding, what I wa..” Director: “DO NOT lie to me, HM JUST TOLD ME. Are you calling HM a liar??”
Me: “I'm not calling anyone anything XXX, I'm just trying to have dinner after a long day, and I showed HM some shots when she asked me. I said they were showreel worthy.” Dir: “So you DO want to put these on your showreel! You are NOT allowed to do that, it's part of the NDA.”
Me (patience thinning): “what NDA?” (there was none, or he'd lied to the HM about having us sign one) Dir: “It's a security concern you see. You don't know who might view these images and learn about their property. It's private.”
Me: “We're filming for a marketing video for brand to advertise with, everyone is supposed to see it.” Dir: “You CANNOT put these on your showreel. I bought you out!”
Me (last straw): “No you didn't buy me out, and I didn't say I was going to put it on my showreel. I said the shots were good and could go on brand's reel. Even so, the reason you hired me in the first place is because you liked my reel, and half the value of doing good work is the ability to gain more clients via my reel. I don't claim to be a production company, it's just how I get work.”
Dir (really getting angry and about 3 inches from my face): “It's not in your contract, if you want to keep working for me you better not put those shots anywhere. I see everything, I'll know if you do.”
Me (knowing I just updated my reel with the best of past shoots and it's been visible for weeks): “I haven't signed anything.”
Dir: “BYE BYE!” chortling and waving in my face. “The flight's on Saturday!”
I finished my meal without flinching and then went to my room. The next morning he half-apologised to me in private, before asking me to fly more as he'd forgotten there were more drone shots to capture. Me being young and foolish, I did it. He never paid me for that shoot nor asked me to work for him again, not that I would have said yes at that point.
Turns out he was taking out loans in the company name whilst taking funds out of the company to furnish his house and buy cars. The company recently went into liquidation and his companies house profile is a litany of dissolved agencies doing the same thing over the years.
The reason I have written all of this is not because I haven't gotten over this or learned any lessons. I have done, and in a weird way it was probably one of the best things for my career to have encountered such an awful person so early on. I am writing this because I recently found he has started up a new website in a new name, repurposing all of the content from the past company as if it were original. He still lists the company number of the old (dissolved) agency, but that will soon change once he gets this thing up and running and fully registers it as a new entity with companies house. Or he'll kickstart this as a trading name of the old one, but to do that he'd have to pay off its debts I imagine, which he won't do.
I never signed a single contract with the old company, and so he has no license to use my content in this new sham he's constructing. I would appreciate suggestions for next steps from this esteemed group.
Thank you for your time.