u/Electric-Friz-Bee

I've recorded footage in 32-bit float. A boom mic is going to channel 1 and has come out as expected, but it's the DJI wireless mic I have going into channel 3/4. I know I was checking the levels on the mic receiver and they were not clipping, and I had had headphones in so would've been able to hear clipping. But when I import the footage into Davinci Resolve the audio is boosted and bringing the audio down doesn't change anything. I've checked the footage from my camera using the same headphones that I use on my PC and the audio is definitely different.

SOLVED

When I need help on an obscure thing, I usually come here. But every so often the sub says I'm not allowed to ask for tech support questions and they send me to a mega thread... that nobody ever responds to because of course not because nobody is browsing through the support thread. What's the point of having these dedicated spaces for topics if you can't talk about troubleshooting.

What has the biggest impact on getting rid of noise in recording?

I wanted to share my experience to warn others, and because I'm bitter about my time being utterly wasted.

The first red flag was doing an unpaid test edit. I know these suck but it’s been tricky enough to land a job anyway, and this job was advertising $48,000 - $80,000 for a lead editor role which I thought would be worth trying. I don’t have a long list of clients I’ve worked for but I knew I was good enough to get noticed. After a week of working on a 4-minute video, I manged to get through to the interviews but sadly I placed 2^(nd) out of everyone. But a couple months later, the person who got the job was let go because they weren’t reliable and supposedly got their laptop stolen. However, with hindsight I’m starting to doubt that was what really happened.

I’m then assigned my first video and am told that they wanted me to do that without signing the contract because they wanted to see how well I worked. Stupid I know but that’s what happens when you get a bit desperate for a job. But they sent over a draft of a contract for me to look over- $3,500 a month plus 10% split of ad revenue which is $42,000 a year so maybe the split of revenue will get me to the $48,000 advertised. The only thing I questioned was holiday pay of 2 weeks. I said because I’m a UK employee, I’m entitled to UK worker rights, but I treated this as an FYI. I raised the issue and left it up to them to work it out.

I started the first video and was given complete creative control. It was literally just here’s the footage, go make the video which I thought that’s excellent. After a couple of rounds of amendments I was finally given a deadline… of two days which was doable, then they decided to give me the amendments which consisted of several minutes of voice over that I had to fit into the scenes I had spent the time making flow without any voice over (as requested which in hindsight seemed a waste of time). I did two back-to-back 12-14 hour days to hit the deadline, finished the video with all changes and sent it over. Video did not get posted. That’s fine, if something came up I.E got a new sponsor for the video, then I totally get the video not going out. Just would have appreciated a heads up so I did have to burn myself out. Also bear in mind I was still working my part time job throughout all of this because I couldn’t just drop it. Video was done and I received $2,500 for a 30-minute video that took a month to make.

I was finally given my real contract. $3,120 a month and a 10% ad revenue split and 0 paid leave. Turns out the monthly retainer was reduced on accident. He told me he increased the retainer to account for the reduced holiday, but he accidentally used the wrong figure ($3,000 which was apparently for another editor). On top of this they introduced a pro rata of wages. I had to reach 45 ACCEPTED edited minutes to receive full pay. So, a 30-minute video would only entitle me to 2/3 of my salary. But it gets worse because it’s accepted edited minutes. If I reach the end of the month and they keep giving me more and more amendments, well then that means the work hasn’t been accepted. In theory they would have to pay me at all for that month’s work. The fate of my pay was entirely up to them because also in the contract there was no limit to amendments. It also still went against UK law because I was still labelled an employee. I raised my issues and refused to sign so we hopped on a call where I recommended that I work under a freelancer contract.

I started the second video again not under a contract. First draft is delivered in 2 weeks and takes a week to receive all required changes (but this round of amendments comes from the second in command of sorts who’s really nice and he had a problem with his dog, so I understand). I completed the changes and at this point I was getting a bit antsy since I still haven’t got my new contract that is likely awful, so I chase it up with the main guy.

The new contract offered $80 per edited minute with no share of ad revenue, and obviously no holiday pay. I did the maths and this was the lowest valued contract, but it was okay because “It means you can easily hit 60 mins or 20 depending on your availability”. There was no limit to amendments so again my pay was completely dependent on their planning of which there wasn’t any. When I completed draft 2 I had to wait another full week to receive the changes that I could see only took them 3 hours to do. I understand they were busy, but there was zero communication and this was time that I wasn’t being paid for. Despite waiting so long they still gave me an arbitrary deadline of less than week to hit. I did the changes, but I was still waiting for the main guy to send over his voice overs. Then the deadline arrived and I still hadn’t received the voice overs nor did I get told anything. I was just left to wait and this was time that was eating away at my pay.

Instead of a limit to amendments the contract instead said, “substantial changes in scope or creative direction may be treated as a new project at the client’s discretion”. I explained how that’s vague as who can really decide what counts as substantial. So, I was left to guess. During the making of the video, I was given voice over for an intro. I fully edited the video to that intro and put extra effort into it because the intro is the most important part. I was then given new voice overs including a completely new intro making what I made pointless. I consider that substantial, so I added it to the invoice. Christian LeBlanc refused to pay this. I would send him a message… he would ignore it… I’d send another… and he’d ignore it… I sent over the section from the contact and again he ignored it. After a week I took the amendment of $160 off the invoice because I needed the money.

I spent roughly 28 days working on the video that because I spent so long waiting for notes, took almost 2 months to finish. And for that I was paid $3,040 which comes to half the lowest advertised salary and less than minimum wage in the UK… and I’m working freelance.

I raised these issues to him and he said messaging me has been “fatiguing”, but I’m literally just asking for the bare minimum of what he offered. Then when talking about future videos he had the cheek to say that “the slower pace of these videos and the frequent long style unedited monologue scenes do not lend themselves to our current billing structure and would lead to cost over runs”. Bruh, you’re already paying me in penny’s. He wanted the quality of a BBC production but wasn’t willing to pay nor was willing to lower the scope of production.

We parted ways after this, but I still wanted to him to verify me on YTJobs after all I still did the videos. He ignored me for over a month. Why? Because the contract said I needed to ask for his permission to put the work on my portfolio. Yes, I complained about that when I got the contract saying that’s a weird thing to do for a freelancer but he refused to change it.

So now I’m here, after months of being underpaid and over worked for an unplanned YouTuber whose job is to go on holiday yet doesn’t have the money to pay editors but can afford custom carved wooden doors. Capitalism am I right. He was my highest profile client ever, and I’m not allowed to use that work as reference, so I thought there should be at least some sort of record of what I’ve done.

 

TLDR- was offered a job where they kept witling down my pay from the advertised minimum of $48,000 to less than minimum wage, and I can’t get more work because I’m not allowed to put the videos in my portfolio (because of the god-awful contract.