Sorry for the excessive negativity there on that last post, folks.

I’ve just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Hocus Pocus”. The main character, Eugene Hartke Debs, does not curse. He says that cursing is a way for judgemental people to choose not to listen to what you’ve got to say. This character prefers to say “when the excrement hit the air conditioning” and I like this thought process. But I think I enjoy f-bombs more . . .

Anyway, since in my last post, I publicly smeared my former employer, I feel an update is in order. Some good news. Capitol Films has come up with enough money to pay the crew for their final week of shooting. It’s still very wrong that they paid those crew members late. It’s still very wrong that they, (at least to my knowledge) have not paid their vendors - this includes huge outstanding hotel and rental car accounts. This is a classic display of excrement hitting the air conditioning. For sure, for sure.

But, paying the crew is a huge step forward.

Ok, now I’m on to the more positive aspects of life . . . and there are many.

And so it goes.

I can neither confirm nor deny that my superiors encouraged me to post this.

I wrote this a couple of days ago after working my 14th day in a row with no days off. I needed to let out some steam. Here’s an email I circulated within my department.

Dear David Bergstein and everyone at Capitol Films.

The short of it. Fuck you.

The long of it -
How can you people live with yourselves knowing the hardships that you have caused our crew and our vendors? I am a proud accountant. And having to dodge the bank and having to deal with stop payments from the studio on checks that we have cut for items that we owe is a complete outrage. You constantly ask for reports and itemized lists that we would never be able to create. The reason why we cannot deliver your necessary projections directly stems from Capitol Films’ absolute resistance to deliver funding that is absolutely required for things we absolutely need in order to get this film going.

Surprise . . . all of the necessary expenditures to get your film going have to come by way of credit and promises to pay. Promises that your company consistently denies us. Then you have the audacity to suggest that it is our accounting department’s fault and problem.

My typical day is filled with making promises that I cannot keep to little ma and pa vendors who have extended services to our company on good faith. These are real people with families to provide for and bills to pay. Your constant promises of “tomorrow the loan will go through” is ludicrous. And you’ve all made a liar out of me.

I suppose you justify your late and slow pays with the fact that you’ve so generously given the crew large pay bumps as bribes in order to stay on and work, but in the end, the hoops to jump through to deal with your company is just not worth it for any of us. You all have set accounting up to fail. I suppose it’s a good practice for you. Make the paper trail as messy as possible so that any attempts to clean up the aftermath will be nearly impossible. Later on down the line, I can just surmise what justifications you all will have for not delivering the final necessary funds of nearly two million dollars that I have processed through accounts payable. . . “Hmmm . . . journal entries? What journal entries? No, we never got those. Sorry, we cannot release any funds.”

Again. Fuck you.

I’ve told every single vendor this week to NEVER do business with any Capitol sanctioned show ever again. And good luck getting a crew to work for you. This crew was not a pool of hungry fresh-out-of-film-school crew members that you have collectively and repeatedly shat upon. We are an amalgamation of professionals, many of us have worked in this business for over a decade. None of us have ever seen nor experienced anything like this.

Obviously none of you have ever had to work hard for anything. Obviously none of you care about good, honest business practices. Obviously all of you are liars and cheats.

–
Anna Metcalf
Second Asst Acct
Nailed Productions LLC
1022 Senate Street
Columbia SC 29201
ph - 803/779-3847
fx - 803/779-3825

*And I wrote this letter three days ago . . . before they decided to close the bank account.

And then the adventure whisks you away.

One minute you’ve got plans and schedules and the next . . . well, the next . . . you walk into work and they tell you there’s no money.

That’s what happened yesterday. Yep, after three months of starts, stops, promises and excuses, Capitol Films finally conceded - they essentially gave us 24 hours to pack up the accounting office and get out of town. They’ve got a roughly 30 million dollar mess on their hands - a movie that’s 95% in the can and 100% in the toilet.

I’m pissed. We all are. Capitol Films is splitting town with no intention to pay the shooting crew’s last week of pay that they worked so hard for. And they have no intention to pay the vendors who extended support and services for the making of the famously troubled film I’ve been working on for two months called “Nailed.”

Flown in as an emergency assistant accountant, I knew what I was getting myself into when I took this job with Capitol Films. I knew that they are very slow to give up the money. It’s like the ’studio’ heads over there are in some fantasy world where they think that filmmaking doesn’t require funding. David Bergstein, the owner of Capitol Films has a ga-jillion bucks in his bank account. And doesn’t care that he’s fucking over hundreds of people.

If I’d have known that they were going to skip town owing millions of dollars, I would not have come here.

So, with 24 hours notice, I’m jetting town. Today. This afternoon, heading to Nashville, Tennessee for a little recuperation . . . one day I had Fourth of July plans with new local friends in Columbia, South Carolina . . . and the next thing I know . . . I’m hopping a plane without even time for a proper good-bye. I had my travel plans switched after they dropped the bomb on us because it’ll just be too depressing to stay, knowing the swath of monetary destruction that this horrible company is leaving in their wake.

Plus, if I don’t leave today . . . who knows if the ticket will be good later?

So, here I am in my hotel room this morning . . . tired, a bit hung-over and bleary-eyed. I’ve got about an hour to pack, but I’ve been on stand-by mode for weeks now, ready to jet literally at a moment’s notice. But I thought I’d have some sort of warning . . . nope . . . whoosh.

Here one minute, gone the next. On the road again. Ahh, the open road.