35 Likes
I only hope that when a movie is made about the life of Oliver North, the title role is played by Michele Bachmann. That is what he deserves.
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The filing itself reads at times as if it were written by a lovelorn Wayne LaPierre, recounting the NRAās 40-year relationship with the firm and how allegations of self-dealing that appear to revolve around Oliver North may have led it to ruin.
Karma
23 Likes
a little perspective from a long-time veteran of the production businessā¦ sounds a lot like 1) the NRA trusted AMc waaay too much, and 2) Ollie North also cut a self-serving deal with AMc (North, grifty? SHOCKING).
Yes, thatās all obvious to all of you I am sure. But about point #1ā¦ thereās all sorts of ways we video people can take advantage of a too-trusting or naive client. For instance, itās pretty common to mark up the services of freelancers. A ānormalā markup is 50% to 100%. But if youāre grifty, itās 200%. Iāve run into producers who will mark up the services of their freelancers by 200%, and every last one of them was a grifty motherfucker. Thereās NO FUCKING GOOD REASON to mark up that much; if you hire someone for $500 and bill your client $1500, then you think your client is stupid (and you might be correct). As an asideā¦ itās also true that every single one of these grifty motherfucker producers will simultaneously bend their freelancers over the barrel on their rates (including busting your balls over $20 here or $50 there) at the same time they are adding an insane markup for being the middleman. I am very curious whether the NRA folks had any idea what reasonable going rates are for on-camera and crew talent. If they were truly shooting all of this in Oklahoma, the crew talent is surely dirt cheap compared to that of a major media market.
Another way to screw a client is with the media rights. If you hire me to make a video for you, unless the contract explicitly says otherwise then all I owe you is the finished video. Everything else - scripts, raw footage, etc - is all considered working materials and you as a client have no right to any of that unless you convince me to give it to you or show it to you (meaning usually, pay me extra for that), or unless the contract says otherwise. I could literally hand you an MP4 file and say āthere ya go, nice doing business with ya!ā MP4 is great for YouTube or whatever but if down the road you want to update the video or repurpose the contentā¦ youāre fucked, your MP4 is not suitable as something to edit with, if you try to bring it into Final Cut or whatever and re-edit it and then output it to MP4 again the new MP4 is going to look awful.
Iāve had big clients (BIG clients) who paid NO attention to any of this. One of them, their so-called media director just handed me a boilerplate contract that they use with their typical vendors, who were construction companies of one sort or another. Of course there was not one word in there about media rights, including whether there were any restrictions on my using the video I made for them to promote my business. Unless a client is hiring a production company with the specific intention of acquiring raw footage for future use, a shocking number of clients pay no attention to ensuring they have the rights to acquire and use the raw footage as they see fit (including with other production companies or by their internal media people).
(and FWIW, no I donāt take advantage of my clients in these ways. Even if I wanted to be an ass, I am a little guy with a reputation to protect and I surely canāt afford to hire attorneys to battle pissed-off clients with attorneys on staff!)
Thatās just the tip of the iceberg, there could well be more going on that I couldnāt possibly speculate about. For instance, I could tell you āoh weāre going to shoot all of this with RED cameras and we need this many people on our field crews to do audio and lights properlyā etc etcā¦ but then I send out in the field a cameraman with an FS-5 or even a GH5 (not bad cameras but not a RED either) with just the on-camera talent, no audio guy, no lighting guy, no make-up artist. IOW plenty of ways to pad a budget and all it takes is someone slick to sell it all to the client, unless the client sends someone out on location, thereās usually no fucking way they will ever know you didnāt use the gear and crew you said you would. The production business is nowhere near as expensive as it once was, but there is still plenty of room for cynical production people to make a lot of easy money off un-savvy clients.
It sounds very much like NRA thought AMc was their friends. This is so awesome, I canāt wait to hear more about how AMc purposely took advantage of the NRA.
103 Likes
And that the Gateway has been suitably disciplined and wonāt be Bad! again either. 
5 Likes
Just remember:
Ropes donāt kill people. People kill people.
6 Likes
Ripped from the pages of āSelf-dealing 101āā¦ āprobing whether a separate deal that AMc signed with NRA president Oliver North allowed the advertising firm to lay Northās fees on the gun lobby that he runs.ā
6 Likes
I went home with the waitress
the way I always do
How was I to know
she was with the
Russians too?
I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this, hah!
Iām the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
between the rock
and a hard place
and Iām down on my luck
Yes Iām down on my luck
Well Iām down on my luck
Iām hiding in Honduras
Iām a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
the shit has hit the fan
All right
Send lawyers, guns and money
Huh!
Uhh!
Send lawyers, guns and money
Uhh!
Send lawyers, guns and money
Hyah!
Send lawyers, guns and money
Ooh!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Yeah!
Uh!
41 Likes
Iām shocked, shocked!, to hear that third-parties closely associated with NRA personages might have been stealing the NRA blind through advertising and fund-raising deals !
17 Likes
Good news that three families are able to amass such massive fortunes that they can shake out a collective $700 million from their pocket change on a moments notice?..
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The firm handles both the NRA and North. I wonder if they also handle Mr. Hanky?
6 Likes
Would somebody explain why sometimes comments are open and why other times they are turned off?
Thanks for this contextual information.
I too, think this is the tip of a bigger iceberg. Or perhaps that is just me wishfully projecting.
7 Likes
It sounds like thereās an idle shredder at NRA Headquarters.
As a lean, mean 501Ā©3 it surely wants to make the best use of its operating budget.
āā¦ like a well-oiled machine.ā
ā Toadglans der Hamberdlar, proprietor of Trump Diatribes, Lubes and Fries.
8 Likes
G-d, grant me the serenity not to hyperventilate from Schadenfreude.
Courage to wait patiently for Oliver Northās bail hearing.
And wisdom to pace myself on the popcorn and Everclear.
(h/t Reinhold Niebuhr)
63 Likes
Iām just gonna be over here saying āAckerman McQueenā over and over, then laughing like a crazed reefer-smoker.
13 Likes
But if the NRA goes bankrupt, who will teach me how to hunt quail with a submachine gun?
40 Likes
I read that the rose windows were also safe. I was so happy to hear about that!
12 Likes
Wish he was still alive.
5 Likes