Ed Gibbs. Smoking Bear Productions.

It is long undersatood that, when the BFI offers funding for a film production, that it is expected that the company in receipt of that funding pay at least the National Minimum Wage to everyone working on it.

Understood by all it seems, except Ed Gibbs, who has had BFI funding to make a film called “God’s promises mean everything”, based on a book by Mark Chapman, who is directing the film in question.

Gibbs, who runs Smoking Bear Productions, describes himself as a Producer whose films “use art and popular culture as a lens to explore universal themes of identity and belonging”. That’s as may be, but he clearly doesn’t seem to have grasped the basic theme of “if you employ a worker you must pay them” as he has, to date, failed to pay the invoices presented to him for the work of at least one freelancer.

It remains to be seen what the BFI will make of this (details to follow) but in the meantime it would be wise to take a wide berth around this particular producer and his company if he should come-a-calling for the services of freelancers in the future.

Ed Gibbs, Smoking Bear Productions: Freelancers Beware!