Client: “I hear some secret whispers at the beginning of this video. Take them out.”

Me: “I’ve watched and listened to the video about a dozen times. I even shot it. There’s no whisper. There’s an audio watermark to denote that we didn’t purchase the music I used as is proper practice when sending videos out for client approval. Could it be the watermark?”

Client: “Nope, it’s still there.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll re-export and re-upload the file.”

I lied; I don’t re-upload at all. The client checks and gets back to me.

Client: “Much better. All I hear is the music and the watermark. Thanks.”

Client: “It was my mum’s sixtieth at the weekend, and I filmed two hours of party footage and vox pops of my family sending her best wishes. I want you to turn that into a ten- to fifteen-minute video. I’ll give you £30.”

Me: “That’s nowhere near enough for my time.”

I usually do two or three nightclub promos for £100.

Client: “Yeah, but it’s a present for my mum, so I can’t afford to pay as much.”

Me: “I’ve never met your mum, and I’m not willing to give her £70 worth of my time, especially if you’re only putting up £30 of your own money for it.”

Client: “I’m not asking you to give my mum £70; just do her video. I’m paying £30 of my own money. And I’m thinking of starting a business filming birthdays, so this’ll definitely lead to more work, I promise.”

Years ago, I was working on a movie set. Every Friday, after we finished filming for the week, our Craft Service team would head to the down-on-their-luck part of town and hand out the perishable food that would not make it through the weekend. It wasn’t a lot of food, but it would help twenty to thirty people a week.

One Monday, our production office got a call from a man who’d received food from the truck the week before, complaining that what he got was moldy (I very much doubt that it was) and he “wanted his money back”. When his demand was refused (what he’d gotten was free) he started to threaten to sue the company for endangering his life.

This went all the way up to our parent company through various legal departments to our huge American movie studio and they freaked out about the threat of legal action.

Craft Service was forbidden from handing out food ever again, and they had to throw out the leftovers from then on.

Some years ago, I managed and operated a recording studio in a larger corporate team for one of the big four consulting firms. At the time, our management team had very little experience in media production, but they also constantly wanted to tell everyone how to do their jobs.

One of our voice artists phoned in, saying she could not make a scheduled session. This was a slight problem as we were chasing a deadline.

Me: “[Boss], we’ll have to manage the deadline with the client as the voice artist will not be able to make the recording session.”

Boss: “This is a problem. We really can’t afford to move the deadline. Do you have any suggestions?”

Me: “Well, not really. If it’s her voice the client wants, they will have to be a little flexible in this instance. It is unfortunately outside of our control.”

Boss: “I have an idea! Phone her, then switch your phone to ‘speaker’ mode, and have her read her lines while you just hold your phone close to the microphone and record her. It’s basically the same as her coming into the studio, right?!”

Me: *Blinks*

A friend of mine used to work in a film crew and did all kinds of odd jobs. He sometimes had to do the most absurd tasks, like going all the way to the hotel to get a foreign actor’s flip-flops.

Despite his flexibility on set, he didn’t own a personal car, so he used public transport to get to the set and back. Since he is far from shy, he also makes friends easily. One day, one of the actors actually offered him a ride home.

The next day, however, his boss took him aside.

Boss: *Almost insulted* “Is it true that you let one of the actors give you a ride?!”

The actor barged in angrily.

Actor: “I want to make very, very clear that I offered [Friend] the ride on my own initiative.”

Thank god, not every star expects to be treated like a demigod.