Lockwood Mediaroom Lockwood Media Group Did not pay freelance videographer, said would mail check, then pay pal, then did not pay. DO NOT FREELANCE FOR THEM Waterford, Michigan

Don't ever freelance for lockwood media group/room. They hire freelance videographers to save money After they have already been paid to send out a crew to record. They put ads on craigslist for what sounds like a sweet video gig, and then they want you to do more and more and won't pay you.I should have probably looked up the company before hand, or got a document saying what the terms of the gig were and the intent of the video, but I was sent a converter box express mail to hdmi to the computer (worth about $100), so I figured this company is just trying to find a videographer. 

Here's what happened:

I responded to a craigslist add to shoot an event for "Lockwood media group/room." It was a 12 hour event with two 45 minute breaks for $250. I recorded more than 10 hours of footage which I was told was so the judges could review teams and watch play back immediately for judging. Simple enough. 

After the event I was to upload the videos to a server, which took more than 8 hours to send. After sending, I was told I was supposed to send each individual teams footage on separate files and that I did not do the job right, and the footage was horrible (which it was not, I mean it wasn't professional quality or anything, I'm just a person with a video camera that was perfect for judges review).

I was never told that individual clips of the teams were what he wanted, I was just told to record video to be streamed to a lap top for judges review, and I thought the only reason I was sending him the video was so he would know I was there all day.

Despite the communication error (on his part, trust me I've reread the e mails over and over), he still said he would pay me for my work.  

I was confused why he wanted me to go back through and separate 86 different teams footage into individual clips.  Curious, I looked up what Lockwood media sold. They were going to use the footage I sent them to mass produce on DVD and sell for $25 each, and they were already selling the footage I sent them as a "fully chaptered dvd," which was impossible. Who knows how many they already sold? 

Upon realizing they wanted me to edit a "fully chaptered dvd" for them, that they were going to use my footage for more than just a judges review, I told him I could spit the video up for them for $50 more dollars.

I'm up to about 20 hours of work on this now, and doing that would take around 6 hours to split and export from computer...possibly more, that's a lot of editing and exporting... and then another 8 hours to send through the server, so I'm looking at a project that is going to end up being at least 34 hours of work for $250)

Then, he told me the footage is too bad to use (after saying he would pay me $250 for it), and that he could pay me $150 for my time, and that he would not send me a check, but paypal me as soon as he saw the shipping number on the hdmi converter box...umm, hell no. 

Don't waste your time freelancing for this company...unless you just want a crappy converter box with a 5 second delay.