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Shady guy Herb Lindsy


pshap

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I answered an ad regarding "audio for low budget feature" and in my attempt to find out about the project was invited to meet with a man named Herb Lindsy at his office in Burbank on Magnolia blvd... This was after a telephone call from him inviting me to come and discuss the project. Herb and I sat down and we started talking about his project. While talking I gave him one of my Audio business cards. He had mentioned it was a low budget feature and that he was offering $100 "flat flee" for a 12 hour rate. 18 days of shooting. Herb did not seem to know much about sound or production for that matter and kept mentioning the need for a back up disc of the audio.  I asked him who the DP was and he mentioned somebody I had never heard of before. I asked him what type of camera they would be shooting on and he did not know. I asked him if we would be in a studio or on location and he said possibly but that nothing had been locked in as of yet....I asked him how many people would be in front of camera talking and he mentioned that there may be up to 8 people in a scene all talking at once.... I mentioned that I was not willing to spend my money helping him make his project at such a low audio day rate.

Upon sensing that this guy was out of his mind, I became curious and asked him what films he had completed in the past to see if I would recognize any of them. That is when he lost it. In a split second he became hostile and stood up from his seat and said "WE ARE INTERVIEWING YOU, YOU ARE NOT INTERVIEWING US.  At that point, I stood up, grabbed my audio card back from him and said "Thank you but no thank you. Good luck to you and left his depressing office space.... Mind you, It was just me and him talking...

Now I knew going into this that this time spent was going to be interesting..... Interesting it was. The guy was a serious kook... He actually thought I should be grateful capturing audio for 8 dollars an hour.... Anybody know of him?

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Herb has been around making very low budget films for decades. Generally I don't think they're his projects; he usually works as a UPM or line producer. But, I haven't seen or spoken with Herb in more than ten years.

You have his name slightly misspelt or you would have found him in IMDB right away:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0513149/

As I recall, Herb would never lie to you; you could count on him to tell the truth if asked a direct question. However, sometimes the truth he told was a bit, uhm, evasive. To get the whole truth, one had to ask multiple questions and creative follow-up questions. (Actually, that advice could serve for many UPMs.)

David

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He is not the only one doing this.. Sadly, these types of interviews are becoming more and more common.  Usally though, producers prefer to ask you over email for these jobs, that way they don't have to sit though an interview and look at your face when you give them that, your f#$*'ng crazy look that I like to give them.

Oh.. but it gets even better too.. I'm getting producers also asking me to "find" a boom op, and have ME ask them to work for free too..  I always make sure to have the producer repeat that request, so that I can make it even more uncomfortable for them when they are asking such insane questions..  Then I say something like, "I'm not going to ask someone to work for free, none of my boom ops work for free, nor would I ever expect them too.. "  

This of course, gets me bumped from the interview, and throw out..  oh well..

-Richard

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Herb Linsey (this is how his name is spelled) was a UPM teacher at an LA-area film school in 2007. They are my current employer, so I must keep the name of school confidential, but he was not invited back.

The man was an egotistical, arrogant S.O.B. He had a very confrontational attitude; always acting like it should be an honor that we had him around. In the end, he was not asked back for another quarter. That's really rare for a UPM instructor. As many of you may know, it is NOT easy to convince a Unit Production Manager to teach for a pay far less than they would get in the field. But we couldn't get rid of this guy fast enough.

Good move not taking the job. I wouldn't  be surprised if he didn't pay you. Tip to all J.W. Sound folks: if you get a job offer from this guy, turn it down (regardless of the rate). It's simply not worth it.

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the email and phone are for eliminating these jerks from the tedium of an interview.

and at the rate you were discussing, it would be completely appropriate for you to be interviewing "them" (him!).

but this discussion goes with the one about low budget "indie" movies, and in this case you have what I call a "serial abuser"...

these folks know what real costs are, but they keep on hacking; this is an example of why no one should ever believe the industry lie: "I'll hire you on the next one when I have $$"

usually there is no "next one", and in the rare cases when there is, they turn out to be sleazeballs like this Herb guy.

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  • 12 years later...

It’s July 2021 and I just discovered this thread. I post this as a warning to anybody who might Google his name. I phone interviewed for a 1st AD position with “Herb Linsey”. He told me initially this was a passion project being made at minimum wage with an experienced director. I told him I’d consider it if the team was fun and the project interesting and doable. I have over 30 years experience in the business as an AD as well as UPM.

 

He sent me the script which was decent but definitely not a simple project. There were too many red flags for me to buy on to this minimum wage bullshit. His phone number had no caller ID, he wouldn’t tell me anything about the rest of the team especially the name of the Director. Admitted that he was having challenges hiring an art director to work for a minimum wage. (The monster genre script needs an experienced art team). In this time of Covid and other safety concerns, he didn’t mention any precautions whatsoever until I brought it to his attention.
 

There was so little information provided this thing reeked of inappropriateness behaviors specifically taking advantage of crew looking for their first feature gigs or those trying to build credits. Take the above comments as well as my own into account as you meet with this man. 

David J

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