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Various Interviews: Work Ethics

by Colin Ilsley on September 27th, 2006   Comments [2]

Whilst writing another article for the launch of After These Messages I became curious about ethics in other communication forms. Friends, family, and one “Bapi” were kind enough to answer some questions for me. Vroom.

Participants

Claire “wee” Mitchell is a Scottish freelance journalist who’s made New York her home for 5 years now. Her clients include Nylon, City, and the New York Post. She misses Glasgow and deep-fried Mars bars.

Aldo Rossi is a professional photographer who worked for Steve Hiett and Bruce Weber before he started out on his illustrious career working in fashion and travel. He’s currently working on a portrait campaign for Loreal’s Bitotherm and a project photographing children across the country. Aldo wanted to include this: “For the purpose of this study I am defining ethics as a code of values set by me. These values or morals define for me what is right and good and what is less than.”

Matthew Stuecken currently serves as Vice President of Development at The Sommers Company, a motion picture production company headed by Stephen Sommers, writer/director of "The Mummy," "The Mummy Returns" and "Van Helsing."

Patrick Miller is one of three designers at Faile located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Shows include: Baltic Center for Contemporary Arts – "Spank the Monkey" – Newcastle, EnglandFifty24 – "Faile Prints" – Portland, USA Shanghai Sculpture Space – "Translate" – Shanghai, China Irvine Contemporary – "Animalia" – Washington DC, USA Wieden+Kennedy – Mural Commision – Portland, USA WPAC – "Wall Snatchers" – Washington DC, USA Laz Inc. – "Group Show" – London, England. He’s a real decent bloke.

William Stuart is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Aurora Productions in LA, where he supervises the day-to-day operations of the company. Aurora Productions, under Stuart’s guidance, is currently developing several motion pictures, including STEALTH for New Line Cinema, ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE for Nic Cage’s Saturn Films and Intermedia, THE TRAVEL WRITER, and IMMORTALS for Universal Pictures.

Questions

Have you had any ethical conflicts in your career?

Writer: I once wrote a piece for the New York Post on a kidnapping company based in the city. Hilariously, they felt that the piece might encourage people to kidnap others, so I was asked to make sure that the piece was cautionary. I guess they didn’t think I made it cautionary enough, and they added a sidebar with scathing interviews from psychologists and policemen against the company’s activities. This was basically an art project, and they made it seem as if it were a terror threat. I guess scandal, and fear, sells more than art ever will.

Photographer: No.

Producer1: Working on documentaries that had tight budgets and schedules often created ethical conflicts. Without money or time for reshoots, I would cut together different bits of voiceover dialogue to make our subjects say things that they never really said. However, given that the result was within the "spirit" of the interview, this never really caused much concern, but I would find myself joking about disclaimers whenever we finished our latest "documentary."

This process is one of things that led me to feature films. Instead of piecing together words, why not pay someone to say the words you want them to say. Not only is it a less convoluted process, one could argue it's more real than documentary because it never claims to be anything other than fiction, whereas all documentary's have a point of view which keeps them from being objective and thus never truly unbiased. Now, as an executive in Hollywood, I find myself lying numerous times throughout the day. However, these are all white lies and since this is standard industry practice, it rarely causes any ethical concerns. The SOP is to tell people something nice about their client, their script, themselves, no matter how much of a stretch it actually is. No one wants to hear that you hated their client's script so you find one or two nice things to say about it (no matter how bad) and then make up an additional lie as to why the project is not right for your company. Everybody wins. The agent/manager then has something nice to say to his client and your company leaves the door open for the next bit of material that may actually be worthwhile.

Designer: There are certain projects we've turned down due to ethical concerns. This was really particular to cigarette work.

Producer2: Yes...I have had to base some employees corporate advancement.

Have you ever created or approved any work you wish you could pull back b/c of ethical issues?

Writer: Once when I was covering a photography show that was part of the Edinburgh Festival for an Edinburgh/Glasgow arts magazine, I was asked by my editor to change an unfavorable review into a favorable one because the owner of the gallery was a hard-hitter in the Scottish art world, and notoriously difficult. I was told it would make the magazine’s life easier. So really, I wasn’t asked to change it – I was told that it had to be changed. I have always had a bit of a problem with the huge commercialization of art and art as a commodity for the elite. I should have stuck by my guns!

Photogropher: No

Producer1: As mentioned above, these ethical concerns are within accepted industry practice so I've never regretted stepping into this gray ethical territory. In fact, starting out in development, I'd often be quite honest about the material that was submitted and the truth seemed to provide no value to either party. Looking back, I wish I would have learned to lie earlier in my career as a development executive.

Designer: No. We've been really tight about what we've put out there. And stand behind it, at least where ethics are concerned.

Producer2: Doesn't really happen in the motion picture business.

Have overly sensitive ethical considerations ever hampered creative?

Writer: See above! What should have been art criticism became purely business. And on top of that, what was published as my opinion wasn’t my opinion at all. I couldn’t be enthusiastic about something I thought was a pile of rubbish – and that half-heartedness killed any real life in the piece.

Photographer: I sometimes ask myself how something might construed in the mind of a viewer, but I remind myself that I cannot feel or react for another.

Producer1: When working in documentary, we had a Native American museum as a client for which we created content. Throughout the process, we had to tiptoe around their requests. Somewhat ironically, their biggest concern was often with how other Native American tribes perceived them and we'd often have to make find a way to tell their specific version of history that wasn't always the currently accepted version of history. Even though this did hamper some creative decisions, in the end, the client was paying for the project and it was up to us to deliver the product that they paid for (again, some of the documentary projects could have used a disclaimer).

Designer: Most of our clients are pretty liberal and are coming to us because they like the work and style we create. I think they are approaching us with an open mind; we do our best to only work with those clients.

Producer2: All the time...our business has become very PC (i.e., smoking in films) even thought it may be historically accurate.

Is there anything you absolutely won't do/say to get your concept across?

Writer: I admit, I will paraphrase sometimes, but I will never twist something someone said to conform to my own point of view.

Photographer: No.

Producer 1: While exaggerating a bit might be helpful in selling something, I would hesitate to outright lie when I'm attempting to sell a project. Eventually you'll get found out and then your credibility is damaged, which is a high price to pay for one project.

Designer: I guess I'd never say never. But I can imagine there are a lot of things that we wouldn't do to simply portray an idea. (I guess this is maybe a little too vague, or I don't fully understand the question. Like I would never beat people or animals or something to make a point, unless of course it was an extreme situation and I had a really good point. So maybe by that logic, there are very few things that I wouldn't do, bearing in mind extremes. But this sounds like it refers to a pitch or something. In which case the client may not appreciate being beaten).

Producer2: I would try not to insult anyone personally...other than that, No.

What do you hope to achieve with your form of communication?

Writer: Words that aren’t impenetrable – so many arts publications get caught up in themselves. And also, I want people to take from me, and then make up their own mind. I don’t want to proselytize – I hate when people do that to me, so I try hard not to do that to anyone else.

Photographer: To get a glimpse of it.

Producer1: Eyeballs. Making feature films within the studio system is an inherently commercial enterprise. The amount of money involved in mounting a film is so great that one should never lose sight of the goal, which is making a movie that enough people want to pay to see to justify its cost. Some might argue that this hampers creativity because you're attempting to attract a disparate audience with one story. owever, most directors have their vision of the story they want to tell and they are making the movie that they want to make. It's up to the studio to assess whether or not that vision lines up with the economics of the project. No one ever sets out to make a bad film.

Designer: Goosebumps.

Producer2: Mass audience appeal and sometimes a thought-provoking message.

Have you ever had a reaction to something you did that was completely unexpected? If so what?

Writer: Not yet. I look forward to it though!

Photographer: Sometimes I see pictures that I don’t even know that I took. They always come from my heart and not my head and they have a very powerful and long lasting effect on everybody who sees them. That’s good.

Producer1: The film business requires the type of schmoozing that goes against my Midwestern roots. I often find myself hugging people I've just met and telling them some version of how "fabulous" something they did is. I'm always surprised when I'm able to turn on this version of myself (so I guess you could say that I struggle with the ethical concerns of being friendly and supportive).

Designer: I think the work we've done on the street has been a surprise in the way people respond. We've always strived to create a dialogue through our work on the street. A place where people can step into a moment and have an emotional experience of sorts. I think the fact that people embrace the work, in a really positive way mostly, when it was initially just an experiment, was a pleasant surprise.

Producer2: Probably...but I don't remember.

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