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When Production doesn’t rent your kit


KGraham045

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Today I’m day playing on a show that refused to rent my kit. There was no coordintaion on gear so I just showed up with no gear. Production has a fully loaded 788 with CL8 and Lectros. Production seemed to think it was strange that I didn’t show up with a harness. I told them. You didn’t rent my kit, so I did t bring accessories. 

 

I generally dont don’t work without providing kit. But did for this just because. Out of curiosity how many other mixers bring accessories with them when Production doesn’t rent your kit?

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Today I’m day playing on a show that refused to rent my kit. There was no coordintaion on gear so I just showed up with no gear. Production has a fully loaded 788 with CL8 and Lectros. Production seemed to think it was strange that I didn’t show up with a harness. I told them. You didn’t rent my kit, so I did t bring accessories. 
 
I generally dont don’t work without providing kit. But did for this just because. Out of curiosity how many other mixers bring accessories with them when Production doesn’t rent your kit?

Never
Ever
Because my kit has all the little things that makes a kit efficient the cords the straps the etc that the rental houses do not offer
You know the etc
The things you have wished you had at four in the morning on some set far far away ......


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Lol, yes they provided headphones. I generally never work without providing my kit. But on this specific production  figured if they want to be cheap I’ll let them.

 

I told them that’s like them saying they’ll provide a TV and then expecting me to have the remote and batteries...

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For me, it depends :-) - 1 way to look at it is to consider what you are 'saying' by how you manage the situation.

I was booked on a live satellite broadcast last week. The week before I try to discuss some technical details with the client -  not much by way of reply except to say they'd provide kit. Fair enough. In the end, I elected to bring a few bits and pieces I thought would make my life easier - most of them stayed in the bag. There were some technical matters which I had hoped to preempt when I first made contact the week before. End of the day, I supplied a bit more than asked for despite their lack of engagement and the technicals were resolved by me despite not having right equipment to do so (which I would have supplied given the chance). Early days for me and them, maybe I'll get bored with their 'lack', maybe I become their 'go to guy' because i was credible and showed willing. I do understand being 'generous' with gear invested in as part of a business plan can be counter productive but sometimes a 'loss leader' has it's place.

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The joke is that in every case where I have used provided kit the "kit" was incomplete and in a "semi-maintained" state.  This situation is how I came by my hardened stance on gear: like AFMY it's me and my gear or no deal.  The exceptions are fully-truck, or big multitrack etc jobs where they are using stuff I don't have.  In ALL cases, incl jobs where you are getting zero kit rental, producers always expect a certain amount of AKS for free: headphones, AC tester, etc...whether that's right or not.

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While I don't do jobs without my kit, I see this a bit differently.  Headphones and harnesses are items I consider fairly personal.  I don't want to wear someone else's sweat soaked harness, or hair grease covered headphones, so I would always bring my own if I chose to do that type of work.  When I boom I always bring my own headphones, and while I'm happy to provide them, everyone who booms for me brings their own hp too.

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27 minutes ago, Wandering Ear said:

While I don't do jobs without my kit, I see this a bit differently.  Headphones and harnesses are items I consider fairly personal.  I don't want to wear someone else's sweat soaked harness, or hair grease covered headphones, so I would always bring my own if I chose to do that type of work.  When I boom I always bring my own headphones, and while I'm happy to provide them, everyone who booms for me brings their own hp too.

 

While I agree with you. If Production wants to save money by providing the kit (thanks VER...) then production needs to be responsible for providing the entire kit and accessories for said kit.

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I’m the same as AFMY. If you don’t want to rent my kit then I’m not the man for the job. That’s usually the first sign of this job is going to be a headache because they are cheap. Usually means they are going to cut corners elsewhere and I don’t want to deal with that. 

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1 hour ago, KGraham045 said:

 

While I agree with you. If Production wants to save money by providing the kit (thanks VER...) then production needs to be responsible for providing the entire kit and accessories for said kit.

Agreed.  I think production should supply everything necessary if they are supplying.  I also think it's become common place to consider a harness and HP as personal items.  While I think production should have them, any time I've been asked to work without kit, I have been expected to bring a harness and HP.  Never had to because I always either say no or quote a labor rate that would be the same as my usual labor plus kit and that has not been excepted to date.

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I can see them as both needing to be provided and as personal items. I also think that without any kit rental that the provided equipment should have everything included that would be needed, harness and HP. If you want to use your own for personal or hygiene reasons then that is your option but it should be included with the rental. When I bring my kit I don't expect headphones and harness to be provided by someone else. I bring them because they are part of a kit rental.

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8 hours ago, afewmoreyears said:

When production doesn't rent my kit then they don't rent me either...    I can't get into that potential can of worms 20 ways...

Probably best to pass on the show...  But this is up to people to decide for themselves..

+ 1     100%  

But if you do, know that this serves no-one well other than these people hiring.

CrewC

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I agree that headphones and harness should have been included in VER kit. They don't supply camera without giving the DP or the 1st AC the rental list for approval, so they should have supplied you with the sound equipment list, and you could have added to it all the extra things they should (and you would) include. That might be back-ups, etc. On the day, bring your own headphones and harness, because as your wrote... ick!

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Draw a line. Say to the production - it's ok to not rent my gear, but you have to rent A recorder, A wireless, A accessories bla bla (aka your "gear" from different provider). Because you are familiar with that kit, because you produce X quality with that gear and because the project require that gear. At the final stage, you can negotiate the price between your kit and X provider.

 

Always bring your headphones.

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19 hours ago, jason porter said:

I rent my harness for $300/day.

 

You crack me up! 

 

14 minutes ago, John Blankenship said:

Simply quote them more to do the gig with their gear than to do it with yours. 

 

When asked why, my response is that it's for the additional stress of using gear that may not be up to par or include everything that it needs.

 

And that you may require on-the-clock time to reconfigure and reset the kit so it works as needed and expected.

 

And you're still likely to be blamed when something out of your control goes wrong...

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It used to be the case - and probably still is; I don't know - that work for Warner Bros. required use of equipment from the Warner Sound Department. A number of mixers refused work assignments there because of the restriction. After all, a production mixer needs to have an equipment kit for most assignments. But Warners is major studio with a lot of work, especially TV series work, and they pay wages per the union contract. Not many can afford to shun those assignments.

 

On the few occasions when I was asked to work for Warners, I would always clarify the equipment issue by saying that I would show up with a ball point pen to fill out the report form and nothing else. That provided clarity and an opportunity if the UPM wished to request anything.

 

And they always did provide every necessary component and it all worked or could be exchanged at the WB shop. it wasn't always what I might have selected for, say, plant mike situations but it was always serviceable. 

 

David 

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1 hour ago, David Waelder said:

It used to be the case - and probably still is; I don't know - that work for Warner Bros. required use of equipment from the Warner Sound Department. A number of mixers refused work assignments there because of the restriction. After all, a production mixer needs to have an equipment kit for most assignments. But Warners is major studio with a lot of work, especially TV series work, and they pay wages per the union contract. Not many can afford to shun those assignments.

 

On the few occasions when I was asked to work for Warners, I would always clarify the equipment issue by saying that I would show up with a ball point pen to fill out the report form and nothing else. That provided clarity and an opportunity if the UPM wished to request anything.

 

And they always did provide every necessary component and it all worked or could be exchanged at the WB shop. it wasn't always what I might have selected for, say, plant mike situations but it was always serviceable. 

 

David 

 

Yes. WB requires use of their equipment for WB produced TV shows shot on the WB lot, but that's it. They used to offer the mixer the higher daily rate, sometimes a 12 hour guarantee, and often little "kit rental" as compensation. No more, however. If you are on a WB TV show, you're on a weekly rate with no kit rental or guarantee. But for someone without a lot of gear, just moving up, or looking to simplify their career a bit, it's a very good opportunity.

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On 3/18/2018 at 11:11 PM, RPSharman said:

They don't supply camera without giving the DP or the 1st AC the rental list for approval, so they should have supplied you with the sound equipment list, and you could have added to it all the extra things they should (and you would) include.

Never taken a job without my equipment, just a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong with that.

 

That said, and I don't know how common this is, but I did go so far as to add a clause into my contract for indies, that essentially says if production is providing equipment then I get a build day with the kit, just like camera gets, and I have to sign off on it being up to the job I was hired to do. Then I'll let the UPM know if something is missing or there's an issue and go from there. Even if you look over a gear list ahead of time and it looks like everything you need, there could be operational issues that you could only tell by testing and setting things up, and I don't want to deal with those issues on day 1, nor would production I imagine. 

 

And yea, own headphones and harness are always with me.

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If a cameraman has the kit and is just hiring me as labor I bring my harness and headphones, toolbelt. I view them all as personal tools. No my toolbelt is not like a 1st AC bag kit. Keeping a few things in my bag of tricks like a Shure A15AS Switchable Attenuator XLR, a couple XLR turnaround & BNC barrels are lifesavers, and as an A2 a Whirlwind QBOX Audio Line Tester 
I live in NYC and on a labor-only day take public transportation and it's not like I am bringing my full kit and leaving it in my car parked at location "just in case" for À la carte item rental. Just as Wandering Ear mentioned it's also not my preference to have someone else's sweat-stained smelly harness I am expected to wear.
If I have used their kit before & know and they have absolutely no clip-on velcro straps for cables, snake, headphones I may bring a few to make my life easy if it is a run & gun day.

If it is a production /crew company it's also pretty similar but not too often do I come across these gigs.
If anything is not working in their kit I do the gig with what I have, label the items as NG, and label the case as well, and usually email them listing the items that are not working and then it is up to them to fix it as I have informed them.

 

Quote

when I was asked to work for Warners, I would always clarify the equipment issue by saying that I would show up with a ball point pen to fill out the report form and nothing else. That provided clarity and an opportunity if the UPM wished to request anything.


David Waelder I love this!

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On 3/19/2018 at 9:02 AM, Glen Deakin said:

I hope they provided batteries as well. 


I did a couple of years ago a short film on which production provided gear, including of course batteries. 

Such rubbish batteries, I burned through I think over 50 AA batteries in a single day just simply to power a Sound Devices 302, 702, and G3 wireless.

Seemed at times like I was doing nothing else but changing batteries all day! Oh how I longed for my Eneloops....

On 3/19/2018 at 4:43 PM, ryanpeds said:

I can see them as both needing to be provided and as personal items. I also think that without any kit rental that the provided equipment should have everything included that would be needed, harness and HP. If you want to use your own for personal or hygiene reasons then that is your option but it should be included with the rental. When I bring my kit I don't expect headphones and harness to be provided by someone else. I bring them because they are part of a kit rental.


It is a bit like with the keyboard/mouse example for a PC, I know some programmers who can be a bit pedantic about the keyboard/mouse they're using all day, and might have their own custom one. So I could very easily imagine a few freelance programmers bringing in their own to a contract job, but on the flip side you'd never ever EVER see a company supply a PC without at least a basic keyboard and mouse!

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