
Dear Spike Lee - sakai
http://juanluisgarcia.com/dear-spike-lee/
======
callmeed
Seriously, what is it with "Agencies" lately? Who the F--k are these people?

I have heard/experienced a dozen similar stories recently. I have a friend who
left a huge agency to freelance–only to have another small agency work him to
the bone and take advantage of him almost exactly like the story here.

YES I ABSOLUTELY GET THAT THE ONUS IS ON THE FREELANCER/SUB TO GET THEIR
CONTRACTS IN PLACE ...

But, seriously, these people are ridiculous. A bunch of salespeople in suits
tossing around buzzwords so they can land a job taking advantage of a big
company's big budget. Everything is a pitch or a comp or a big lead.

My advice to all freelance hackers and designers: if you meet someone who says
they work at an agency, (a) tell them you're a janitor and (b) run away.

~~~
bigiain
Wrong wrong wrong! Even if you don't want to participate in their way of doing
business - there's an _enormous_ amount of very high value skills you can
learn from them.

"A bunch of salespeople in suits tossing around buzzwords so they can land a
job taking advantage of a big company's big budget. Everything is a pitch or a
comp or a big lead."

That is indeed exactly the difference between most "agencies" and most small
design firms/freelancers.

The agency has salespeople who know how to value and sell the work a
freelancer can do, for an order of magnitude or so more money that that
freelance will negotiate for themselves. You might think "I could give that
company what they want in a few days with WordPress, a great theme I'm already
very familiar with, and a solid day's worth of graphic design and css futzing
- I'd do it for a friend for a few grand, but they're a big company so I'll
see if I can get away with charging them $8 or $10 grand…". And you'd quite
likely lose the job to the agency who comes in talking about Business Goals
and Website Goals, Audience Demographics, Conversions, SMART metrics,
Information Architecture, User Interface and User Experience design, Content
Inventories, Conversion focused and SEO focused copywriting, Social Media
integration, broader alignment with current marketing activity, leveraging
existing business relationships and co-branding key messages - they'll spend
two weeks (billing by the hour) talking to key stakeholders and decision
makers at the client (while dressed, as you point out, in smart suits), then
submit a proposal for a $280,000 project and, in case the budget doesn't
stretch that far, a simpler $150,000 version. And they'll also have the known-
effective "sales closer" tactics, probably something like "we've got a few
slots open in out pipeline next quarter, I'm pretty sure if we could get this
approved and signed before the end of the month I could talk finance into a
12% discount on a full upfront payment…"

The _good_ agencies will actually deliver a lot more business value that a
freelancer with a good design eye, a folderful of WordPress themes, and a
GoDaddy hosting reseller account.

A _bad_ agency will just have search/replaced the company name in their
previous pitch powerpoint decks and web project proposal docs - and deliver a
not-very-varefully-planned canned-theme WordPress site anyway, probably farmed
out for $8k to some freelancer with the promise of heaps of future work and
some great exposure…

Knowing which clients are going to get $100k+ value out of a project, then
pitching a proposal based on value delivered, rather than hours worked.
_That's_ what a successful agency does. (And what most freelancers have very
little idea how to do.)

~~~
dsirijus
No, not really. From my anecdotal experience, which does include many a
project exceeding the amounts you cited, it usually goes like this
(paraphrased):

Agency's army of spineless sales people [1] spends a lot of time ass licking
many people, one of them happens to love his anus tickled in that manner, then
he dumps a bag of money to them, they spend 90% of that money pumping ads, and
10% on development of what's supposed to masquerade as a 'marketing campaign'.
Anus-tickle-lover still gets a nice spreadsheet at the end of the month ('Yay,
profits!') and they all live happily ever after.

Well, not all. In-house developers crook their spine to the will of their
masters and get an occassional team-building event paid for, and outsourced
developers get eaten alive in the witch's cabin.

[1] It helps if you're a handsome woman. A fact, sir. No citation needed.
Desired even.

~~~
bigiain
Heh - I suspect the main difference between your description of the process
and mine is that I'm in a "third cup of coffee, should be on my way to the
office" timezone, and I'm guessing your in a "finished at the office,
savouring the third beer" timezone, and hence we've got slightly different
sates of mind and social inhibitions. But I'm sure we both know exactly what
each other is describing.

(Surely you have seen the occasional great non-literal-ass-licking salespeople
working for genuinely great marketing agencies? And agencies that deliver
_spectacular_ word and achive magnificent results for clients? I'm quite proud
to have been told I came in second with pitches against a few agencies I'm
particularly impressed by in my small space here… But I will beat them one
day, Oh yes…)

~~~
dsirijus
Upvote for not taking this seriously.

But no, I don't have office, don't usually drink (can't, destroyed a bunch of
parts of digestive system).

 _occasional great non-literal-ass-licking salespeople_ No. To be perfectly
honest, no. Not once. They're pretty disgusting to me.

 _genuinely great marketing agencies_ Sure. Rarely, but yes. They don't do FB
Ads and AdWords tho.

 _I 'm quite proud to have been told I came in second with pitches against a
few agencies I'm particularly impressed by in my small space here… But I will
beat them one day, Oh yes…)_ I'm happy for you being happy and enthusiastic. I
was once too. But, I'll take the liberty to advise you - leave the space.
Immediately. It's a sulphuric pit. You don't age well there.

Well, all that doesn't hold water unless you're on of _them_. Are you?

------
gkoberger
Seems weird he mentioned Spike Lee (who did nothing wrong, as far as I can
tell) so many times, but didn't name the agency. Seems to hurt the wrong
party's reputation.

Additionally, he has no apparent way to contact him.

EDIT: I _really_ don't want to point fingers with 0 proof, but Spike Lee
happens to be CEO of an ad agency named Spike DDB.
[https://twitter.com/SpikeDDB](https://twitter.com/SpikeDDB)

~~~
binarysolo
Presumably his contract prevents him from discussing internal issues with any
outside party.

(Knowledge source: Got totally screwed by a business partner via legalese and
had all my work stolen, ended up doing half a year of work uncompensated,
can't legally talk about it or the partner, and loss < cost of litigation. Ah
well, water under bridge.)

~~~
georgemcbay
Well a big part of this whole problem is that he had no contract to begin with
("We never signed any contracts or work-for-hire agreements").

That aside, he works as a freelancer in an industry where naming and shaming
specific agencies could very well hinder his ability to get future work, so I
don't blame him for not doing it.

------
redler
An unfortunate but common sequence of events, where this:

 _We never signed any contracts or work-for-hire agreements_

...leads to these:

 _The agency told me that I could publish the work as my own for the
"exposure"_

 _I never even got paid the peanuts they owed me_

 _The agency responded by threatening me with legal action and worse_

Whenever a client states or implies that "the exposure" will be payment
enough, alarm bells should be ringing.

------
herge
This is why you should always have your contracts reviewed by a lawyer. See
Mike Monteiro's Fuck You, Pay Me:
[http://vimeo.com/22053820](http://vimeo.com/22053820)

~~~
dkrich
True, but if he can prove he created them, he has a copyright on the work just
by creating it.

~~~
altoz
could have used
[http://www.proofofexistence.com/](http://www.proofofexistence.com/)

~~~
kronholm
Nice one, thanks!

------
zaidf
It's actually _good_ that you didn't have a contract. If you did, you would
probably be sworn to secrecy and not be able to share this story. Sure, with a
contract you could take them to court, but you can do that anyway if someone
stole your work.

I did work through an agency for a San Francisco interior designer. The
agency's Founder paid me with multiple bad checks. Meanwhile, two years later,
my work continues to be used and I remain unpaid for a month of full time
work.

I ended up launching a site exposing the guy behind the agency who has a
history of writing bad checks. I've received many emails from others he
scammed or tried to scam so I find some peace in the fact that when people
google his name, a site exposing the guy come up.

------
cokernel_hacker
So the agency played hardball but the guy didn't budge, then tried to rip him
off? Their bad faith effort seems to deserve punitive damages, I hope he takes
them to court.

------
schainks
From the comments so far, these lessons seem relevant:

1) Get a contract signed up front. If possible, make sure you're allowed to
discuss your experience with the firm publicly along the way, so you're
allowed to talk about it (good or bad).

2) watch "fuck you, pay me"
([http://vimeo.com/22053820](http://vimeo.com/22053820))

3) Spike Lee hires a firm that brings him top talent and work, but that firm
treats that talent like shit. We (all the netizens!) are giving Spike Lee the
benefit of the doubt, as he appears to be unaware of this practice.

4) These agencies need to be called out more often for unfair business
practices, no matter how reputable they are. They don't have to like their
talent as people, but they must respect their talent and the skills of the
community they serve.

As long as you're not publicly mentioning this firm's name, I hope you are
privately notifying ALL the designers you know to never work with this agency
and mention the firm by name.

Sorry you got shafted like this, but you're clearly making the most of it.
Your artwork is great, by the way, keep it up - I suspect this bad egg won't
poison your future livelihood ;)

Edit: formatting

------
MrZongle2
If Mr. Garcia wants to work long hours in a stressful environment but at least
get paid _something_ for it.... perhaps he should apply for a job at Penny
Arcade.

Sounds like a move up.

------
nhebb
For anyone curious about the agency, Garcia told the Hollywood Reporter that
he didn't name them because "Spike knows exactly who I am referring to."

[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/designer-
claims...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/designer-claims-
oldboy-poster-designs-660599)

------
ary
Are there any reasonable escrow services out there for designers? It seems
that a third party with a list of conditions for both sides could hang on to a
predetermined amount of money and the digital assets until both parties agree
to release.

There are perhaps caveats that I've not considered, but this idea comes to me
again and again when I hear this kind of story (again).

Edit: Guess I also have to throw in here that I am continually amazed at the
number of people who are afraid to do the dirty work of being in business
(drawing up contacts, negotiating, calculating margin, saying NO, etc).

~~~
paulftw
"list of conditions for both sides ... predetermined amount of money" \- that
is what contract is. If they had it - no need for escrow.

~~~
markdown
You're assuming that:

1\. The contract will be honoured and

2\. The cost of litigation is lower than the unpaid $.

~~~
paulftw
well, yes. I am assuming a lawyer call is enough to make 95% of people shut up
and pay. at least in western world. So existence of contract reduces your risk
10-20 fold

------
gallerytungsten
Sadly, this story is all too typical of how advertising agencies work. Having
worked with a number of agencies in the past, I found that nearly all of them
were more than willing to steal work, not pay, break contracts, and engage in
other unsavory hardball tactics.

This situation certainly looks like a blatant ripoff to me. I hope Juan Luis
Garcia gets a great attorney and hefty amount of money.

------
danso
Whew...I thought this was going to be an indictment of the Oldboy remake.
Sure, the original was great, but I was interested in how an American director
would handle the material.

That said, this was probably not the kind of controversy Spike Lee needs
attached to this project.

side note: Roger Ebert's raving review of Oldboy was what got me to watch the
original Oldboy and that spurred a whole new appreciation of independent
foreign films for me:

[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2005](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2005)

Would've loved to see what he thought about this one, though Ebert's successor
only gave the remake 3 stars

[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2013](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2013)
[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2013](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oldboy-2013)

~~~
batbomb
The entire vengeance trio is amazing, but I actually like Sympathy for Lady
Vengeance the most. Park Chan-Wook's I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is good too.
You should check out Battle Royale if you liked Oldboy.

~~~
devindotcom
Funny, I preferred Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, much more grounded and less
stylized.

I don't really see any parallels between Battle Royale and Oldboy. You might
check out The Chaser and Yellow Sea, though.

------
donretag
So basically Spike Lee doesn't do the right thing?

~~~
natrius
This seems to be going over people's heads, so I'll leave this here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_Right_Thing)

~~~
enneff
I voted it down because these kind of dumb one-liner jokes are a waste of
space.

------
mildtrepidation
There's big money and fame in high-profile work, and that can be very
attractive... but stories like this, and the frequency with which they occur,
are important to pay attention to. You can do everything right, you can make
everyone happy, you can meet every demand, and you still stand a very real
chance of getting absolutely shafted.

I've experienced enough of this with much less prolific projects that I
happily keep pretty much everything small time now. Chasing billboards and
marquees is almost always a game for lucky people and the already-rich.

------
larrys
"But they said that the important thing wasn’t the money it was the exposure
and potential for more work. After thinking about it long and hard I had to
decline. "

Because the exposure was more important than the money. Would have of course
been nice if they stated this upfront but they didn't. That's water under the
dam at this point.

I have regularly done work for people at no charge.

This has not only led to a great amount of paid work but I've thrown around
the names that I've done work for quite liberally and use it the same way the
company that sold a treadmill to the White House used to scream in their ads
"only one chosen to be used by the President in the White House!!" (when in
fact it is a competitive bid almost certainly). So I use those names to book
more work. I've even used the names with success when cold emailing here and
there. Right on the subject line.

While it is not great that he was lied to, he did agree to put in the work
with no guarantee of getting anything.

Consequently the way I look at it even if he feels he was screwed he should
have sucked it up and let Spike use it, even for free, and then bragged and
gotten out of that what he could until the cows came home.

Instead he reacted emotionally and ends up with nothing. Understanding of
course that this is upsetting.

Separately, in looking at his site he does really nice work. So perhaps he
shouldn't have done the work on spec in the first place but then again he did
say that "the idea of working for you and having my design represent your film
blinded me."

In other words if anyone of us had approached him to do work on spec he most
likely would have declined very quickly or not treated the transaction the
same way.

~~~
Samizdata
The problem is, as I see it, is with the agency grabbing the copyright, is
that he has no way of proving it was his work, so that he arguably does not
even have bragging rights.

------
mystix24
This type of scam permeates throughout society. In web design, media
production companies. SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST WANT TO BELITTLE YOU AND MAKE YOU
FEEL LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR PRACTICE. THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE TO BE SMART WHEN
YOU ARE HIRED.

You have to be smart and not be lead on by advertisers.

------
Inetgate
There is no content on URL. So, I attach web archive link
[http://web.archive.org/web/20131127041019/http://juanluisgar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20131127041019/http://juanluisgarcia.com/dear-
spike-lee/)

------
AnotherDesigner
Agencies are giant corporations these days.

[http://vitamintalent.com/common/img/vitabites/vitamin-t-
agen...](http://vitamintalent.com/common/img/vitabites/vitamin-t-agency-
bloodline-full-size.jpg)

They will screw you every chance they get.

------
lintr0ller
You should tweet your address to him so he knows how to find you.

------
fooshero85
The real question is, who is this agency? Typical run of the mill untalented
agencies that steal other peoples work (even when they pay for it).

------
cinitriqs
I feel sick to my stomach as well, all about the artist's heart here, as well
as about the respect this one has for Spike Lee (which I admire a lot myself).
As an advocate for righteousness, this does come across rather harsh and
intimidating so I hope SL reconsiders the contract with the people responsible
for this mishap... All the best though, all the best.

------
jcromartie
Well, now he's going to get paid.

~~~
johnjlocke
No, he's not. Spike Lee's response on Twitter is that he never hired him,
doesn't know who he is, and if he has a beef, it's not with him.

------
theboss
Seems to me this guy is going about it all wrong. Why not keep your mouth shut
and sue. If he never got paid and never signed anything then it's a clear case
of copyright infringement since the images are being used in commerce. Lawyer
up and get off the internet.

------
pbreit
I usually have very little sympathy designer complaints around spec work, pay
and "borrowing" but this is totally messed up.

------
kaonashi
They didn't seem to use his comps… I'm assuming he had access to the same pool
of photography that the finals used, but that doesn't mean they ripped _him_
off. The work on top of the photos seems very different to me.

~~~
neeee
Read the entire article. They posted his comps on their facebook page.

~~~
kaonashi
Right that is true. I guess showing the official posters as a cheap sympathy
ploy rubbed me the wrong way.

------
chris_wot
Who was the agency?

------
bananacurve
Where are the internet hippies saying everything should be free?

~~~
crusso
My question as well. I'd love to hear from the advocates of "It's digital,
there is no cost to the content producer for others to make copies."

~~~
drcube
Even if they believe that, it doesn't make plagiarism and breech of contract
okay.

~~~
tptacek
Sophomoric semantic rationalization. Two different settings for copyright
violation, but sure, just use synonyms and related concepts to make one seem
bad and the other OK; gullible message board nerds ravenous for validation for
pirating movies, music, and software will lap it up.

~~~
subsystem
There's more than a semantic difference between moral and material interests.
In fact most "internet hippies" I know wants strong moral protection for
authors [0][1]. It's a fairly central concept in the copyright debate, not
least since it's part of the universal declaration of human rights.

[0] [http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/the-pirate-party-
on-c...](http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/the-pirate-party-on-copyright-
reform/) [1] [http://the1709blog.blogspot.se/2012/05/pirate-party-plans-
fo...](http://the1709blog.blogspot.se/2012/05/pirate-party-plans-for-
copyright-reform.html) [2] [http://daccess-dds-
ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G06/400/60/PDF/G0...](http://daccess-dds-
ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G06/400/60/PDF/G0640060.pdf)

------
lignuist
Fight the power

------
mavdi
shitty remake anyway

------
erikig
Spike, you have 5 days...

------
marincounty
Most movies don't make what they used to--that is before the Internet. I would
sue in small claims court. I'm surprised The Cricket didn't sub the job out to
Indian graphic designer--and get away with paying a few rupees.

~~~
greenyoda
Small Claims Courts are limited to claims of a certain amount, typically
something like $500. There's no way he could get back anywhere close to the
real value of his design by suing them there.

Besides, what the movie makes doesn't matter. He'd be suing the ad agency that
ripped off his design, not the producers of the movie.

~~~
anigbrowl
It's $10,000 in California and you don't need a lawyer. However, winning is no
sure thing; we're only getting one side of the story.

------
rurban
I always consider Spike Lee as technically worst filmmaker working today, and
wondered who on earth did he get to rights for the Oldboy remake. He cannot
even get the simpliest things right, and I wonder how often the DP needs to
help him adjusting the shooting plan, tell him that he crossed the line and
adjusted angles, and how much the editor has to fix. And we have to see the
results. But with the Oldboy remake you would need a master, not an amateur
with a hyper ego. Anyway, I decided to skip that desaster last year already.
And now we see that he is also in other departments one of the lowest.

------
Shinden
As Richard Pryor once said "don't be messing wit dem Jews if you ain't got no
money".

Welcome to the world of people who give you praise and acolades but give you
nothing in return. They are consumate smoke blowing up your ass thieves.

Contract in hand and no matter what you should own all intelectual property
rights. The reason they chose you was because they thought you would roll over
for a belly rub and instead all you got for your efforts was a kick in the
head.

Ever go see a movie and see all these companies that flash accross the screen
before the movie starts? You have no idea what they do? well those are the
companies subcontracted out to market, advertise, invest and promote the movie
and those adds are important because if you are somehow in the privy of
someone who promises 20% of your investment return if you fund a movie they
will mention those companies and your will say "OH! so thats who you are!" RUN
QUICK!

~~~
mystix24
I don't get the last bit you mentioned.

in the privy of someone who promises 20% of your investment return if you fund
a movie they will mention those companies and your will say "OH! so thats who
you are!" RUN QUICK!

Why would anyone wants a 20% return? I want 100%+ return on an investment.

Are you trying to say that 80% is to have my company name on that stupid
screen?

