Fuzzy Footage was hired on Tuesday, September 8 to record an interview for a documentary. Per the job description (posted on freelancing site PeoplePerHour.com), we specifically asked for unedited footage as the director of the project knows how to shape the storyline better than anyone else.
This company, which has a bogus 5-star review on PeoplePerHour.com, arrived to the shoot with memory cards that had little-to-no free space to record the interview.
As such, the interviewee was interrupted SIX times -- costing her an additional two hours for a shoot that should've lasted 90-120 minutes -- so that the videographer could delete previous footage stored on the memory cards.
Then, upon completing the interview, the videographer sent us an email alleging the footage had been wiped off of his hard drive due to power failure. It is presumed that the true issue with the footage is that the company realized there were far too many interruptions during the interview and didn't want to send the footage to us as we'd requested it -- unedited.
The owner of the "company" (which isn't a legitimate business as it does not exist in the UK's business registry database), Garry John Wood, apologized for the botched performance and offered to re-record the interview or reimburse us the money we'd paid the interviewee for her time.
After our executive producers spoke with the interviewee about the disastrous shoot, it was clear that she no longer wished to move forward with another shoot for our film.
As such, we decided the latter option because we'd spent several months building a rapport with the interviewee -- an esteemed expert of the subject matter discussed in the film -- and it was clear that Fuzzy Footage had destroy our reputation and film in one day.
There was no way we could convince her to interview for the film again, especially if Fuzzy Footage had anything to do with it.
When we informed Garry of our decision, he asked for an agreement preventing us from writing unfavorable reviews about his company in exchange for a reimbursement of the interviewee's fee. We asked him to send the agreement to us for our attorney's review, and we'd make a final decision from there.
A day or two after we'd asked for the agreement, Garry mysteriously revived the footage that was allegedly deleted in a power outage. We explained to him that we were not interested in edited footage that he and his team had patched together for the sake of getting paid. We also told him that the interviewee shared her feelings of frustration and agitation with us due to the constant interruptions, thereby creating an uncomfortable environment that would surely reflect in the footage.
Instead of offering to allow us to preview the footage so that we could develop our own conclusion of its quality, Garry told us the footage was "top notch" and accused our team of extortion, quickly issuing us a refund on the deposit made for the job and calling for our profile to be barred from PeoplePerHour.com.
His reason? He simply didn't like the straight-forward, frustrated tone of the emails one of our executive producers sent him.
If you've spent several months building a rapport with a respected figure in your industry, and in one day, an unprofessional and bogus film company destroys your reputation and film, wouldn't you be upset?
FuzzyFootage.com Reviews
Fuzzy Footage was hired on Tuesday, September 8 to record an interview for a documentary. Per the job description (posted on freelancing site PeoplePerHour.com), we specifically asked for unedited footage as the director of the project knows how to shape the storyline better than anyone else.
This company, which has a bogus 5-star review on PeoplePerHour.com, arrived to the shoot with memory cards that had little-to-no free space to record the interview.
As such, the interviewee was interrupted SIX times -- costing her an additional two hours for a shoot that should've lasted 90-120 minutes -- so that the videographer could delete previous footage stored on the memory cards.
Then, upon completing the interview, the videographer sent us an email alleging the footage had been wiped off of his hard drive due to power failure. It is presumed that the true issue with the footage is that the company realized there were far too many interruptions during the interview and didn't want to send the footage to us as we'd requested it -- unedited.
The owner of the "company" (which isn't a legitimate business as it does not exist in the UK's business registry database), Garry John Wood, apologized for the botched performance and offered to re-record the interview or reimburse us the money we'd paid the interviewee for her time.
After our executive producers spoke with the interviewee about the disastrous shoot, it was clear that she no longer wished to move forward with another shoot for our film.
As such, we decided the latter option because we'd spent several months building a rapport with the interviewee -- an esteemed expert of the subject matter discussed in the film -- and it was clear that Fuzzy Footage had destroy our reputation and film in one day.
There was no way we could convince her to interview for the film again, especially if Fuzzy Footage had anything to do with it.
When we informed Garry of our decision, he asked for an agreement preventing us from writing unfavorable reviews about his company in exchange for a reimbursement of the interviewee's fee. We asked him to send the agreement to us for our attorney's review, and we'd make a final decision from there.
A day or two after we'd asked for the agreement, Garry mysteriously revived the footage that was allegedly deleted in a power outage. We explained to him that we were not interested in edited footage that he and his team had patched together for the sake of getting paid. We also told him that the interviewee shared her feelings of frustration and agitation with us due to the constant interruptions, thereby creating an uncomfortable environment that would surely reflect in the footage.
Instead of offering to allow us to preview the footage so that we could develop our own conclusion of its quality, Garry told us the footage was "top notch" and accused our team of extortion, quickly issuing us a refund on the deposit made for the job and calling for our profile to be barred from PeoplePerHour.com.
His reason? He simply didn't like the straight-forward, frustrated tone of the emails one of our executive producers sent him.
If you've spent several months building a rapport with a respected figure in your industry, and in one day, an unprofessional and bogus film company destroys your reputation and film, wouldn't you be upset?