Your car and the movies

[Guest]

Around NYC they are alwalys looking for cars for movies or print ads. The questions is what is it worth?

Below are some general guide lines, see if your experances are different:

1. You have to drive your car, and blow the whole day with it. Shoots are not fast, and only you will take care of your car.

2. Your paying for Gas, parking, and tolls. You are paying for any damage or wear and tear from the "talent".

3. The car broker is taking 50% or better on the gig.

4. In NYC, you are lucky to get $400 bucks for the day. so, subtract your $2.50 a gallon, and time and your making min. wage. Plus all the risk.

5. So when I tell these people who want an old car that $1,000 a day min., or the car will not leave the garage.

6. You will still get a 1099 tax form, and have to report it as income... another 23% off the gross.

7. You might be tempted to do it to gauk at the "stars", but most of the time it's the "second unit" that shoots the background shots, and all the bikini girls are not in the car wash shot.

[Shop Rat]

A member of our region, who has since passed away, let his car be used in the film "Matewan" about the coal mine wars in W. Va. He thought he had an ironclad contract where only he was going to drive the car. Not!! They put an actor behind the wheel and let him drive it sliding around up a mud/gravel road during a rain storm. It was not planned for it to be raining but the director liked it better that way with the gloomy weather. Needless to say Dean was not happy about the damage done. None of it major, but they did not honor the contract they had with him.

Renting it out to just sit in the shot or be driven down the road by the owner in the background would probably be okay. But after what happened to Dean we would never consider letting someone rent it for a movie for an actor to drive it.

[ex98thdrill]

One of my dad's former bosses had a restored Mack dump truck that was gorgeous. The truck got sold, and the new owner allowed the truck to be used in a movie, and the production company that used the truck painted it a different color. The guy gets his truck back, they destroyed a beautifull paint job, and there's nothing that he could do about it because of the way the contract was.