Major Project: Issues with paying actors



Paying actors with the use of Invoices + issues with pay agreements

So, I will start off by saying that this was the first time using the document of an invoice. This was the first time where I became an employer who had to pay their "client". The whole experience was very odd because everything felt very official and serious. 

Out of all the actors and cast, although everyone was paid, only 3 people preferred to send me an invoice after the 4 days of shooting. The rest chose either cash or simple bank transfer. Sam, Colette and Sigourney sent me invoices. Below I have attached an example one that was sent by colette. 

Colette's invoice
I ended up giving colette £50 for the whole day because I felt bad for having her wait around.

Sam's invoice




Sigourney's invoice - The issue


Here I have outlined some things that initially kind of annoyed me. First of all, upon meeting Sigourney for the first time I expressed I could only afford to pay her £30 a day. I had not completed any schedules at the time of the listing but I very naively stated "shoot should not go over 5 hours". It had obviously been such a long time since I filmed anything and during that time I didn't think about how long the film would take. However, Sigourney stated that she loved the script so much that she would've actually done it for free but its good that I was paying. These were her exact words and we agreed that fee would be fine. We met up really early on before the production really got moving so I did not have a contract drawn up at the time. I thought a verbal agreement was enough. It was not...

Not only did she make up her own rules regarding my shoot times (who on earth would have a 4 hour shoot day for a short film? ) but she sent me a charge for a £62 overtime and she did not listen to the instructions when I said book the train tickets in advance because it would save over £10. The train ticket from London was £25 when it should have been 14 maximum.  What annoys me about this is I sent her the schedule 2 weeks before the shoot days and she did not say a word regarding the times. I feel as though she tried to take advantage of a situation just because I didn't sign a contract with her at the start. When I politely challenged these invoices, she stated that she did say that she charges minimum wage.. (she did not) she also stated that "£30 a day doesn't exactly pay the bills and because the shoot went over, she was not able to schedule anything else on or do any other work".... if that was an issue why not say that when I gave the schedules? that alone tells me what her intentions were because if you desperately have other stuff to book then why not say? needless to say this is all my fault anyway because I should've made her sign the contract sooner. I wasn't really thinking that she would do that because I trust people to value your transparency about the project but actually, I realise that some people don't care and just want money. During the shoot she actually broke my friend's irreplaceable statue. I could've been petty and deducted that from pay etc but I chose not to. Her attitude towards payment seemed very entitled in following emails.  If I'm being honest, forking out £220 for 1 person doing basic acting over 3 days is extortionate. My main actor didn't even get that and he was SO immersed within the film. Its not about the money, I would happily pay because I value people and their time, its the dishonesty that really disappoints me. My mum advised me to just pay her the money to avoid any issues with footage so I did that. I would honestly never work with her again, its not worth it. None of the other classmates seemed to be paying their actors and they used them for much longer, just wish some actors would appreciate that too as it is a student production and not a lot of students pay. This experience has really taught me a lot about myself, about the differences in people.. and the importance of contracts.






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