Evil Scientists and Bloated Bellies

I shot a video a few weeks to a month ago for a plastic surgery office. Everyone in the office, from the doctors to the staff, short a few employees, had plastic surgery. It reminded me an awful lot of that scene from Escape From LA.

 LA's "surgeon general," GET IT?!

Anyway, I recently got a call from the office saying one of the doctors wanted his interview reshot because he disliked, in hindsight, that he was in a white coat in front of a white wall. This meant driving to DC for a 2-minute reshoot of an interview and driving home with those terrifying images renewed in my brain. I disliked this idea. They also were offering a compensation that basically meant I'd have made my gas money back and little else. I'd almost be doing it for free. Mind you, this isn't MY client, but a client of the company which I shoot for occasionally.

I offered to colorize the background, but they disliked that idea.

Really? Are you sure?

On the flip side, I had an excellent client yesterday who treated me entirely opposite of most of the people I've shot for through this company, by which I mean he treated me like a competent, intelligent individual rather than a meandering, drooling gruntworker. He even offered to take me to lunch for my efforts, which I can honestly say was one of the nicest things any client has ever done. In casual conversation, he mentioned the price he paid the company for the video. 

I won't name specifics, but I will say that the office does the initial contact and final revisions on the video, while I do the travel, shooting, in-person communication, editing, and submission. This takes, on average, about 10 hours per video. By my math, I make about 7% of what the company sees from each video. If I weren't so full of delicious lunch, still, I'd be agast and relentlessly angry.

The plus side to stomach distension is being full for days. Anger uses too many precious calories, so now I can't afford food OR fury.