To be hurt and annoyed at being dropped by the BBC?

People keep saying this, but not always.

In the last couple of weeks (I'm not going to be more specific), I filmed with a production company making a prime time BBC1 show for 3 hours. I was not paid, although I got coffee, lunch and they offered me expenses for my train fare.

Why did I do it for free? Well because in my case the exposure is well worth it. I am freelance/self-employed too, and when the programme goes out I will be name checked. So if it was a cooking show (it wasn't), and I was a freelance private chef, the voiceover will say "Snoozing Fox, a freelance chef from Bristol". Given that my name is unusual, this is a free primetime ad for me on the beeb, watched by just the sort of people who are my customers. Then I can also put on my website "as seen on BBC X Programme".

We filmed the same piece about 4 times, from various angles and wide shots, close ups etc. I have also worked as an extra on TV/film in the past and these things do take forever although the smaller TV crew make things a lot more relaxed and quicker. Extras get paid a pittance too, often it's not even minimum wage. Yet there are thousands of people who want to do it, because it's fun (usually).

As per usual though on MN there are lots of people who know exactly how "these things" work despite never having been on a TV or film set either in front of the camera or behind the scenes.

That’s entirely untrue.

Very few documentary contributors are paid beyond disruption expenses. This is, imo, a good thing - because the alternative is that vulnerable people may agree to do a show that otherwise they wouldn’t, because they need the money.

Some experts get a small fee but quite often people try to find someone free.

I don’t agree with people working for free, in general, but there can be ways it works - like for example it’s part of their expected role as a university professor etc so they are paid by the institution to be there.

Presenters, of course, get paid.

For the PP talking about using an agent etc - as a presenter that would be the norm, but I’m not sure I’ve ever dealt with an agent for a talking head in a doc. To be honest, knowing the fee we had in the budget is unlikely to appease an agent (couple of hundred max), any mention of an agent would have us back to the list of experts.

Thanks!

All of this.

I’d add that the transience means people fear being branded a troublemaker or ‘not a team player’ if they call out bad behaviour.

Reputation is everything to a freelancer. All the usual sexist bullshit women face (eg ‘assertive’ v ‘bossy’) is exacerbated and it leaves people feeling unable to speak up.

That is not in any way to deny that dealing with contributors should be done with care.

As well as specialist factual shows, I make sensitive access docs, and my role includes writing duty of care protocols - basically how contributors should be looked after throughout the process, how to contact them, when they should be contacted in the time around transmission etc.

Specialist factual contribs don’t require this level of detail, but at the very least, there should be a list of all contribs, including contact info, and they should be contacted ahead of TX to be told about the show by whoever is still there.

But for all the reasons you have so clearly explained @PinkArt , this doesn’t always happen - or is done by someone junior or non-editorial who doesn’t have the nuanced understanding of why the contribution was dropped.

To be honest, the culture in tv needs a drastic overhaul - currently around 70% of freelancers are unemployed. The Film & TV Charity have released their latest ‘Looking Glass’ survey on mental health and the stats are frightening.

None of that is to excuse how @Ladyof2025 was treated. Whatever happened and whatever the reasons, she deserved the respect of being given a proper explanation before the show aired.

I'd email the producer & say that you realise now that you got that research wrong & if they're ever going to consider using the information in your interview it would need revising.
Utter bastards doing that to you

Utterly bizarre that you are getting a hard time on this thread. I’m really sorry. I am appalled by this and would definitely seek advice. It’s the definition of plagiarism.

Maybe not every single word was the same but she mentioned a string of details that I had said in my speech that the programme makers did not know.
Specifically, I named some people (ie historical figures) who I had discovered were associated with the house;

One big doco I was involved with as an academic was fascinating in the way they used my words & research. A producer contacted me out of the blue about some research I was doing, and we had a couple of long telephone conversations.

I didn't hear anything until about 6 months later, when he'd got the film commissioned by the BBC. We had another conversation and I had my own comments & ideas repeated back to me! Not verbatim of course.

But I was very impressed at the way he'd absorbed and processed the heaps of information I'd given him, to get to the nub of the story he wanted to tell. Then he sent me the narrator's script (the anchor of the film was a famous celebrity whom I never met although it looks like we did!), and we set a day for filming. I was taught on the spot a really great technique for doing this sort of thing - he would ask me a question, and I'd repeat it as a statement and then elaborate. It keeps your piece to camera fresh. In the final edit his question disappeared, so it looked like my spontaneous speech. There was a fair bit of me in the final edit, which means I've only ever watched the whole thing once, through half-closed eyes.

It was a fascinating insight into the speed and intelligence of people who make documentaries & non-fiction programmes. They really have admirable skills in absorbing interesting research from us eggheads & then getting the best out of it for a general public audience.

If they didn’t use your actual words then with respect you are being a bit over sensitive. They will have sent several local experts the exact same questions so it’s not surprising in that case that her answers were the same content. If the names out there were available to be found then others may well have found them too if they are also interested in the same topic, and facts are not proprietary - you don’t own historical information. As to the names being in the same order - there will be a right way that a list of names sound. Often with historical names this is unconsciously chronological. You wouldn’t order “chips and fish” or “cake and tea”. Equally if you were going to say a house had been stayed in by Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe, you’d likely put them in that order as Elizabeth would have been there first?

This being the case, it seems to me they are clearly in the wrong, but not really for dropping your interview.

The fact is that many people are not great at coming across on camera. It's not even mainly down to looks, and it's not necessarily to do with things like lack of confidence. Some people just don't have an effective television manner. Some people might be perfectly nice looking but look weird on t v(and the opposite is also true.) These aren't things to take personally.

And you haven't mentioned if you signed a release for use of your material? If so, that means they could use the information separate from your interview, if that makes sense.

However - if it's your own original research, that should have been acknowledged, if not by the person they filmed speaking instead, than it should have been noted in the credits. The thing about original material is that although you can sign away the right of use, you can't sign away attribution - others can't say they created the material, nor change it and then attribute it to you without noting the change.

So that is what I would complain to them very clearly about - they used your original research without proper attribution. And really the nicest most respectful approach IMO would be to just have the presenter say something like, "Local historian Jane Doe has recently found that Lord Muck was also a frequent visitor to this home.."

As a general comment, I find documentary and historical programs are becoming more and more fake, I rarely watch them these days because it all seems to be cheap re-enactments, very light on information.

doesnt sound real unless you are a contestant the BBC pays you. 🙄

Really hope you contact them and ask for an explanation.

I think it’s quite clear @Producethis is a producer.

and I’m not sure how you’re managing to argue the toss about this. she isn’t denying it doesn’t happen all the time for a myriad of reasons.

you have no idea what the OP might find more comforting any more than anyone else.

and being open and transparent with contributors is
a good place to start.

Actually, I must correct myself - it was 2020, very late autumn 2020. The program was then aired 12 months later in 2021. I don't know how I got that wrong. Thankfully the program in question did not require me to be filmed with anyone else, so at least I wasn't shown booming at someone from two meters away.

Thanks. Payment seems to have improved, so that's good. Filming during COVID sounds like a nightmare though.

The last time I did television was in 2014 or so, although I still do radio from time to time and newspaper/magazine commentary. I even used to freelance myself...wrote magazine articles which used to pay rather well, but the bottom fell out big time. Not as much demand for the longer piece anymore...all part of National Geographic getting Disneyfied.

Sure, I know budgets are tight and can vary as well from production to production. I know the media often works last minute. I can understand that. I've freely given email interviews to newspapers, etc, as I knew the person at the other end was under time pressure. But yes, things do need improving. People generally want to help, but they don't want their good nature abused either. And, if someone is not familiar with the industry, the cut can be deeper. That's why at least a kind email is important.

It was 2019. The last time I did any TV work was in 2021, and it was really stressful with social distancing, face covers, changing clothes to film different scenes,and finding out the area I'd driven to was going into a mini lockdown at 6pm that evening so we all had to get a shuffle on. Again, I earned about 50% more than I do in my day job, but it was a right faff.

Which brings me back to my question - did the OP do this to take the glory, or did she do it for the benefit of her subject? Because if it's the latter, she's still a winner, as her contribution was used.

Out of curiosity was this recent, or a while ago? I'm trying to gauge if the payment has improved!

Lots of posters saying it's understandable that OP's segment wasn't needed in the final edit, but the fact remains that it DOES seem to have been needed, albeit with a totally different person presenting the identical information, for whatever reason. And that information wasn't readily available in the public domain, so could only have come from OP.
That is what has gone down like a cold cup of sick.

I'd love to say the culture has improved in that respect but I think I may have been lucky with the teams I've worked with. A lot of the shows I've made have quite sensitive content, which attracts teams not just with the experience to handle that but also the personality or temperament. If contributors are trusting us to tell the story of the worst thing that ever happened to them, then that and they will always be treated with the respect they deserve. Sadly it sounds like overall improvement is still required.
The freelancing also impacts on 'last minute' in telly meaning something very different to many other industries. Budgets are painfully tight, so everything needs to be done as fast as possible to keep the number of staffing weeks down. 2 or 3 days in TV production can be like 2 or 3 weeks in other industries.
Tangentially, it's also the reason the likes of Gregg Wallace get away with everything they do for so long. It's all so transient that patterns of bad behaviour can take longer to become apparent.

After all my expenses were paid, I earned about 50% more than I did in my day job, for the two days it took. At the time, I had no major commitments to stop me from doing it, but had it been a couple of years earlier when I was a part-time carer to my MIL, there's no way I'd have gone through the hassle of doing it for 50% more than two days work. It simply wouldn't have been worth it.

Sure, but a few hundred quid isn't a lot really for what you did? For me, I want a thank you.

Well, probably except for the time I helped script, hosted, and filmed for 14 hours, including on a boat on the Thames, and I was paid £100. I was admittedly young and naive and made another silly assumption that I would get a little more than that. They did pay for one night's hotel stay though, LOL.

It is extremely bad practice to steal someone else's ideas and work even if you can get away with it legally. This can happen in job interviews or when freelance journalists pitch feature ideas, told they aren't wanted, and then talk of the devil, they appear soon after in the publication by a staff writer. There is no doubt in my mind that in this instance they took OP's work and used a pretty face to read it without any acknowledgement. She should definitely complain in the strongest possible terms because the least she deserves is a grovelling apology.

Sure, I appreciate this. I did a show with a producer who was also filming with the camera on a strap on his rather rotund stomach, and a lighting guy. They were freelancing to get a series in the can, and I helped them out with contacts for locations and other interviewees. But I'd also think there might be some self-interest to make sure contributors are appreciated in some way...even if an emailed thank you? I would think you'd get better response from people if this was more of a norm? This is particularly the case when people contact you at the last minute...I had someone who wanted me to film in 2-3 days and wanted a lot of specialist information. I couldn't film because I wasn't free, but provided them with a list of three other people, and wrote a lengthy email to answer their questions. I didn't get a thanks or acknowledgement. It is when I started declining media requests unless it would do my local community some good.

I remember one gentleman who had been sent to film me in my home (he was utterly adorable, such a lovely man) saying that "our industry is embarrassingly freelance", a statement made as part & parcel of a sort-of upfront apology for not knowing much about what was going on, other than what he'd turned up to do that day.

On the back of that, it wasn't actually my home he filmed me in - I was in the throws of having a load of work done at home and it just wouldn't have been appropriate to have the place on camera, so a friend of mine allowed me to use her house...and just like with the OP, not a trace of that part of the filming made it to the final program - not because I'd done anything wrong, but because as the theme of the program have evolved during editing, the part filmed in my (friends) home just wasn't required.