Friends taking advantage

[donsolo]

So I wouldn't call him a friend, he's a neighbor. But our mutual friend, a director is making a film with him. This guy is producing. Let's call him X. We'll call the director Y.

Now, I was about to start producing a film with Y but I had to go into surgery in September and was off my feet for a couple weeks. In this time, X asks Y to direct HIS film. It was supposed to take 2 weeks to shoot (I was skeptical about that) Y thinks that X is the greatest thing since sliced bread because X uses adobe after effects and makes bad digital film look semi-watchable.

In the process of making this film, which has no chance of being distributed due to copyright issues, it's clearly just a big "fun" project for them, they need to use equipment. Y and I own some equipment that we split the cost of. They use that equipment. All of a sudden, $6 photoflood lightbulbs are disappearing from inventory because "oh yea, we burnt out a couple on set on Tuesday" Please, don't go to the store and buy more, just feel free, it's not like I wasn't continually buying bulbs anyway...One of the lights gets a bit dinged up. Fine. A piece to our really really good tripod breaks...

Never so much as a thank you from X for getting to use all of this equipment that he, himself does not own. Never so much as a "Sorry" for tearing through my expensive ass lightbulbs that have a very short lifespan (rated at like 20 hours). I don't even care about the money, it's just like dealing with some ungrateful teenager who doesn't even understand what their parents are doing for them. This guy is in his late 20s. He should at least be a bit gracious. No, too much to ask for.

Now, they needed help in finding sets. Great. I, being a (film) producer that takes my job seriously knows exactly where to go, when to go and how to do it for free. I've spent a long time making connections so that I have access to a myriad of locations. This one happened to be a property belonging to my landlord of my studio.

Now, the maintenance guy comes by my studio yesterday going "hey were you filming this weekend?" nope. I was at home sleeping for a change. "Cause your friends broke some glass in the parking lot." Sorry, doesn't sound like them, they would have cleaned up after themselves "no, they mentioned you when I talked to them." Let me make a call. Hey, were you filming here this weekend? yes? Were you messing with flourescent lights while you were here? Oh you were? Did one of them break? When were you planning on taking care of that? Why wasn't it done before you left set?

I'm not even pissed at Y, Y is 21, been out of the house for all of 18 months, he's not much better than a teenager when it comes to having good grace. They weren't mad about the light breaking, they were mad about them leaving broken glass all over the freaking parking garage where someone could have gotten hurt. I don't blame them. Y is the director, X is the producer. The producer's job is to make sure that the set is in good condition when you leave. You don't leave trash, you close doors that were closed when you arrived, you turn off lights that were off etc. So now, I've got egg all over MY face to my landlord because this low-rent schmuck can't be bothered to sweep up some broken glass? Now, it's going to be a headache when *I* want to film there because I'm associated with this debacle. They filmed on Saturday, and Y was like "oh were were going to take care of that" on Tuesday? You need to take care of that before you leave, pay for the bulb you broke first thing Monday-freaking-morning and apologize for any inconvenience.

What really irks me is that this guy was in the Navy for a while. You'd think that a military background would leave you with some common sense, maturity and decency.

I'm just glad that the clusterf*ck of a production is over so we can get back to my film.