Pay others, just not the Runner.

It says a lot about some producers who, when assembling a team for a feature film, manage to find money in their budget to pay the cast and crew but decide that the only ones who need not be paid are the Runners. Such behaviour clearly demonstrates that the (usually) youngest and most junior members of the crew are regarded as simply expendable/worthless/lack any kind of value.

That seems to be the case when it comes to a film called “Splash” which is currently being made in Nottingham by Director/writer Joe Abraham. He has advertised numerous roles on various sites for which he is prepared to pay a token sum of money, but also for Runner/Drivers (“a vehicle would be greatly appreciated too”) for which he is prepared to pay absolutely nothing at all. The only “reward apparently being a vague promise of “BECTU rates” for some vaguely promised “second or third block of filming” at some vague point in the future.

When asked how or why this could be considered to be fair, Joe Abraham had nothing at all to say on the subject, happy to allow the facts to speak for themselves.

And they do - Production Runners clearly have no value at all to him. Nice. Worth remembering if he strolls up looking for more workers in the future.