If you’ve landed on this page because you intend to be the next Steven Spielberg or Alex Gibney—you might want to click elsewhere.
If you would like an opportunity to hone your skills, increase your education, understanding and compassion through listening to the stories and the wisdom of an older generation and/or experts in certain fields of study and business—then this is for you.
What we are offering is a way to supplement—or even provide a substantial proportion of—your income as a professional, competent filmmaker. We will require CVs (résumés) and references certifying you as such, of course.
For each booked appointment, we will guarantee a starting flat rate of £400 (approx. $520 US) for a two person crew capable of delivering a basic fifteen minute piece-to-camera interview. No need to edit, just capture. These will generally take place within the interviewee's home or office. One person will perform as interviewer and general line producer, to include responsibility of delivering data to us for edit via provided hard drive. The second crew member will be responsible for sound, minimal natural-style lighting and camera. You will also be responsible for carrying your own liability and equipment insurance. However, a £25 (approx. $35 US) supplement for insurance per appointment will be part of the compensation, as will a reasonable per mile rate for travel expenses. We will cover return postage for the hard drive as well.
Please know you must maintain backup files until we have acknowledged receipt of assets as per standard practice for digital delivery and storage. We realise there are reliable methods of online delivery (DropBox, We Transfer, etc), but we do not expect you to have the broadband necessary to utilise these within any reasonable time frame. Last time I used We Transfer to send a 3 minute iPhone video it took 4 hours...
Also, we ourselves travel a great deal and might not have broadband capability at our end either.
If you have your own equipment, it will be rented from you at the going rate for your area. If not, we will negotiate and pay for the appropriate gear package. You will be responsible for its pickup and return, as well as the aforementioned insurance. We will also provide via PDF a manual regarding our interview techniques and specific queries that you are welcome to supplement with your own gained experience and knowledge.
Additional compensation:
| 30 minute film | — £200 (approx. $270 US) | 45 minute film | — £300 (approx. $400 US) | 60 minute film | — £400 (approx. $530 US) |
All work is paid via PayPal (make sure your account accepts GBP as a currency) in three equal tranches; contract, day of photography and upon our receipt of assets. We will issue 1099s and observe HMRC compliance rules for independent contractors.
Obviously, in denser population areas there might even be the possibility of booking more than one appointment in the same day, depending on how well our niche consumer responds to our business model.
We would respectfully request workable coverage of the location (exteriors, wide shots, etc.) and cutaway options for edit, as per standard practice.
Also, please note that this is not a shoot-and-run job. You will be spending a minimum of an hour-and-a-half getting to know your subject—though the families will be providing a dossier—and breaking the ice before filming commences.
Please know that we will be vigorously promoting Your Tales worldwide to make this happen, through various NGOs, community organisations, support groups and other, more traditional methods of outreach and advertising. However, it might behoove you to share our product and website locally. We will provide you with a flyer/poster design (coded to you so the jobs go to you) in PDF and social media links for your use, as well as local placement suggestions.
Trust us—we have researched this model extensively. Your team will, of course, be booked for any appointments you generate.
At this juncture, you might be thinking you could just nick our business model and methods and do it all yourself. You are welcome to try that.
Apart from the dreadfully bad karma such actions would attract, if you want to assign yourself the mind-bending responsibility and expense of editing and mastering the material, contracting the clients, advertising, client interface, legal and accounting fees and all the other ancillary challenges associated with running this business—you go right ahead! ;-)
All joking (sort of) aside, please know that you will find yourself touched and amazed by what our clients will share with you. They have had many years of walking around on this earth. They have seen and done things that will never be available to us as we pass from that Time of Man to this. Listen well and listen deeply. You will never regret it.
Thank you for reading our website!
Page composed by GBGG Productions LLC