Complaint Review: Adam Nelson Photography - Santa Ana California

I really liked Adam and I
thought that we worked well together to pull together ideas that were
beneficial for the growth of his company. 
He is a talented and creative photographer and has had a long passion
for his work.  Aside from his attractive
personality and professional talent his choice to lead me on for months and not
pay me promised money for work completed is a very poor reflection on his
character as a person.

It is unfortunate for Adam
Nelson, owner of Adam Nelson Photography, adamselsopnphtography.com, that he
responded to my Ripoff Report the way he did.  
I wish no one ill and have put aside my bad experience with Adam,
however, his attack against my professionalism and good will require a
response. 

Unfortunately, his comments
are further proof that Adam hasnt matured yet to take personal responsibility
for his words and actions.  Then to
falsely accuse me for his own fails is an aggregated grievance.

I am required to defend
myself against his false accusations.  
In my defense I will lay out an unbiased account of the complaint, as unbiased
as I can, and let the Internet public make up their own mind about the truth.  

For my defense I will use
Adams own words in dated emails and which proves beyond any doubt the Adam was
wrong then and again knowingly and intentionally lied in his account of the
event to Ripoff Report.

To begin this account I have
to confess a lack of my own personal responsibility.  When Adam hired me to edit the
MySpace/Wendys Get Close event, I didnt ask him how much he was going to pay
me for what he said would be a full time three day edit.  We had no verbal or written agreement.

However, Adam did say he
would have to defer payment for thirty days and I would be paid when he was
paid for the job.  Other than this there
was no written or verbal agreement at any time regarding the amount of
financial compensation. 

That is just bad business,
first on Adams part as a business owner, and second on my part as an
employee.   I accept responsibility for any problems that
have come out of not having a contract with Adam first before starting work or
finding out how much I was to be paid when the job was finished.

Please note that I use the
term employee instead of independent contractor.  We had no independent contractor agreement.  By definition of law I was Adams employee
because he told me when to work, where to work and what to do.

After the editing job was
finished I finally asked him how much I was to be paid for the editing and he
never gave me a direct answer.  His
answer was that Steve, the photographers helper, and myself would be paid a
percentage of the job and the shop would have the rest to pay for operating
expenses.  Neither Steve nor myself had
time cards or anything to keep track of our hours.

Editing was done at Adams
shop on a very old computer, the Apple G5. 
It was slow but did basic editing. 
However, Adam shot footage with a Canon 5D which makes H264 files on a
memory card. 

H264 files wouldnt play or
be edited with Final Cut Pro 6 (an old version of FCP).  All the footage had to be re-encoded before
editing to Apple ProRes 422.  Adam had to
spend a whole day, the Thursday before, to convert them.

My first days work was
Friday.  After a long orientation I
started editing the files Adam uploaded to FCP. 
Adam gave me the keys to the shop and I stayed up until about 11:00 pm
editing and returned by about 9:00 am Saturday to continue editing.  Adam came into the shop around 12:00
noon. 

My first task was
sub-clipping.  I spent considerable time
editing the project, but I had a huge problem. 
The footage wouldnt play.  It
jumped and froze so as a work-around I jumped the play-head to various
positions to find my in and out points. 
This was a long, slow process. 

To my error I assumed that
this problem was just caused by his old computer.  However, the real problem is that Adam made a
mistake when he tried to re-encode the H264 footage to Apple Pro Res.  His settings were wrong, a day was lost and the
entire footage had to be re-encoded.  I
continued to work at a snails pace on his G5 while he re-encoded the footage
on his Apple notebook. 

After eating up a second day
of re-encoding the footage is still didnt play.  Finally we discovered the problem.  For the second time Adam incorrectly
re-encoded the footage because of wrong settings.   To re-encode the same footage required a
good part of the day but the job was due on Monday and it was already late on
Saturday.  There was no time left to
re-encode the footage and meet Adams promised deadline.

 

As a possible solution I told
Adam I had a state of the art top of the line Apple desktop computer.  My computer was fast.  It could play and edit native H264 on Final
Cut Pro 7, the current version, without re-encoding it. 

Adam agreed to take me up on
my offer to use my computer so we could get the job done faster.  However, because of his encoding mistakes it
was still unlikely we were not going to finish on time so he got an extension
from his client.

I completed the project by
the revised date except for adding the background music which Adam decided he
wanted to do himself.  After showing Adam
my final edit the only change Adam asked me to make was for length: to make it
shorter.  After I made the changes, I showed
it to him again and he said it was good. 
He added the background music and submitted it to the client.

As typical the client
suggested some revisions from my edit. MySpace/Wendys wanted some elses brand
name removed from their video.  They also
wanted an extended version of the photo shoot that would show Ciara directing
the shoot.  Adding that footage required
something else to be cut for the proper length. 
Adam didnt ask me to do the re-edited the clients request. Adam used my
computer that I left at his shop after I finished to do the re-edit.

I performed an addition
service for Adam that without he would have never edited the video on for
several days after the extended submission date.   Adams footage was on memory cards.  But one of the cards wouldnt play because
the files were corrupted: the last third of the whole shoot and the most
crucial part of the contestant going to Ciaras concert, walking the red carpet
and final comments about winning. 

On the Friday I started he
told me he was unable to open the files to re-encode them.  The only hope was to have a profession data
recover service save the files.  I told
him I had special software to recover the files and could do it on my computer.  Adam gave me the memory card and asked me to
try to recover the data.  After work that
ended at 11pm I went home and tried several methods until five hours later I
was able to recover all the data. 

Without my data recovery
service it would have been impossible for anyone to edit the video on
time.  Maybe Adam might have found
someone open on Saturday who did data recovery, and maybe they could have done
the same work I did.  If Adam did find a
company to recover his data it would have cost him hundreds of dollars.  I was never paid even a penny for my services
that saved the project deadline and Adams bacon.

After Adam re-editing the
video to his clients requirements Adam asked Steve and myself to come to
work.  We had a meeting about and our
roles in building the company.  Adam said
he was interested in using me as a salesperson and to get video accounts.  I laid out an outline of proposed priorities
and Adam posted that outline on his white board. 

One of my assignments was to
review local competition for video production in Orange County and suggest
possible directions for Adams company. 
I did the work and sent him an email of my report.  We had another meeting at his office. 

Steve had brought in his
personal Apple desktop computer to Adams shop for him to also use.  However, it had hardware and software
problems that I spent about 10 hours the day fixing.  Also at my request Adam went out and bought
two hard drives and Adam had me install them in Steves computer. 

Adam also had me install all
new software on his new drives.  The
software was mine, not Adams, including the current operating system, FCP,
Adobe Creative Master Suite, Window 2011 and Maya, plus more.  I have no reason to believe that his deleted
mine but continues to use it.

After I did all these
computer repairs and installs I asked Adam if he could pay my phone and Internet
bill, which was about $275.  He did so
immediately and I was very grateful for his help in keeping my utilities
on.  All credit goes to Adam for his help
in this case when I needed it.

After that I decided to take
my computer home with me because I had several of my own projects on it I
needed to work on.   Since Adam was now using
Steves computer that I repaired, Adam had no use for mine anymore.

Soon after I took my computer
Adam asked me for the keys back for his shop. 
I said fine and gave them to him. 
I asked him when I was to be paid the balance for my editing work and he
said he would pay me when the invoice was paid for the video, or in about 30
days.

Adam hired me for the
MySpace/Wendys job on Valentines weekend 2011. We both worked late on Valentines
day. 

Although Adam promised to pay
me the balance after 30 days it never happened. 
I talked to him on the phone about it but almost 90 days later Adam
still didnt pay me as promised.  My
claim is verified by the following.

Email Correspondence of Adams
intent to pay the balance owed to me was sent on Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 9:37
PM:

 I
will let you know when I have the rest of your payment. I look forward to
speaking to you later this week.  Regards, Adam

 

Almost a week after this email from Adam stating he would pay me the
balance he owed me he contacted me again stating that he usually pays $500 to
his editors.  This is the very first time
Adam disclosed how much he was willing to pay. 


From Adams email to me dated Wednesday, 
May 11, 2011, 6:11 PM:

I pay $500 dollars to an editor who edits my pieces. They take days 3
total 

This letter was sent to me after I asked Adam for the original work I
did before he re-edited the spot.  In my
letter to him I complained that I couldnt use his re-edit for my demo reel
because his re-edit of my work introduced many jump cuts that were distinct and
obvious and unacceptable.  Actually the
complains originated from my girlfriend who owned a post-production house in
Orange County, Shelter Post that did over a million dollars in international
edits for their clients.  She had met
Adam at the studio several time when I was working.  She complained to me about Adams cuts and I
pass that criticism onto Adam. 

In response to my complaint of his re-editing he complain about my
editing and blamed me for the project being late.  He then said that my editing wasnt worth the
$500 he usually pays as quoted here from:

From Adams email to me dated Wednesday, 
May 11, 2011, 6:11 PM:

260 is really all you earned with the project, you took 5 days, you
were late, had to reedit the whole thing plus I fulfilled MySpaces changes and
delivered the project. I was going to pay you the extra $240 on my own time,
for all the work that you did to help out the company with the computers.
Consider the Ciara project paid off in full early. The money that will give you
is out of the kindness of my heart and that was for helping out. David I dont
have time to go back and forth over two hundreds dollars. I understand that you
are under money problems but dont drag me in to your personal issues. I will
contact you when I have a check for you to pickup. Regards, Adam

 

From the
above again Adam promises to pay me.  I
really didnt dispute why he said he was going to pay me or for what as long as
he paid me.  After two more weeks and during
which time in a phone conversation he said he would pay me with money after
another client paid him.

To me this
meant he had cash flow problems.  Later
wrote him again and asked to be paid. 
However, I took a more aggressive stance after he sent me the following
email dated Saturday, May 28, 2011, 4:43 PM:

David, 



Look what I promised you I paid.. I was going to
give you some extra money for you helping out. You shouldn't have even been paid
for what you did. One it was a test to see if you would qualify to be editing
for me and two I was left to re-edited the whole thing and turned in a
acceptable version. The day after you wanted to me pay your bills and I did. I
am sorry you didnt qualify to be one of my editors. I wish you luck. 
Regards, Adam

 

Regarding
his subjective opinion about my editing, which by the way was only mentioned
three months after I submitted the final cut, I prefer the approval of the
former owner of Shelter Post who hired top editors for amounts up to $750 to
$1000 per hour. The owner visited me at Adams studio and saw my final
cut.  She would so testify in court as an
expert witness to the quality of my edit if I ever choose to pursue legal
recourse against Adam.

 

On Sunday,
May 29, 2011, 3:14 AM, I demanded that he pay me $350 to clear his debt with me
or I would charge him regular editor rates for an entry level editor of $350 per
day for only three days work.  This day
rate is standard in the post-production industry. It did not include my data
recovery, my computer repair, nor the two days work Adam request of me after he
submitted his revised edit to his client.  

 About Adams comment when he said he thought I
was incapable of editing when he saw my NEON DANCING GIRL TRANSITIONS!!  I used about three blow-out transitions,
which have now become quite popular in a lot of TV series or even the News
reports.  Personally I think they are
over-used and too distracting a transition edit but for use in a rock concert
they are totally appropriate, in my opinion.

Adam
never asked my to change those three blow-out transitions nor said anything
negative about them when I showed them to him. 
Is that bad management if you dont tell your employees to make needed
changes?

Adam
said he made a bad hire.  If Adam
believes he made a bad hire when is he going to take personal responsibility
for his actions?  He hired me.  If he didnt like me or my editing thats OK,
but he should take responsibility for his own actions and decisions.  Rather he decided not to pay me what he
promised.

Adam
saw my demo reel online.  Adam had an
extensive interview with me.  Adam hired
me.  If he later decided he didnt like
my cuts, style, transitions then it was his personable responsibility to speak
up and take responsibility.

I
saved the project by recovering his data from a damaged unreadable memory card.  I using my personal computer at his business
to speed up production and make his deadline by editing files that didnt need
to be encoded before they could be used in FCP7.  He continued to use my personal computer at
his business for further edits. 

He
collaborated with me on art design for his open house. He took my suggestions
on many topics including buying needed upgrades for his computer.  He asked me back to work after his re-edit.
He would have accepted my work as a salesperson if I had stayed on, but he only
offered deferred wages based on future work.

When
is Adam going to take responsibility for his own mistakes, mistakes that cost 2
days extra editing because he made an encoding mistake?

When
is Adam going to take responsibility for his own decisions?  The result is that Adam responded to RipOff
Report with lies saying that a week later after the edit I blackmailed him for
$225, stole footage, that my computer was completely useless.  I have proved that all this is a lie and
cover-up for his own lack of character in this area.

The owner of
the Post Production house, Shelter Post, met Adam several times with me while I
was working at his business.  She warned
me about him, that she didnt trust him, that she knows lots of people like him
in the business.  I didnt listen to her
and told her I trust Adam that everything would be OK.  It wasnt OK.

In summary,
its my profession view that Adam does good work.  If you like his style then I think you will
be happy with it.  However, in business
there is more than charming personality and creative talent.  Personal integrity and character are
paramount.  Everyone and every business
makes mistakes.  Its what you do to
correct the mistakes that speak of real quality and dependability.  If you do business with anyone, get a
contract that specifies all parties responsibilities.

When there
were problems I work long and hard for Adam. 
I doubt that has worked for him has had my work ethics.  That is where I put my personal pride.  I was patient with his promise to pay
me.  When my utilities where about to be
turned off, I only asked him to pay me only the amount he promised me.  Would anyone do less?  The answer I leave to you. 

I have moved
on from this unfortunate problem, but here had cause to defend the truth.  I still reserve the right to sue MySpace, Wendys
and/or Adam Nelson, Adam Nelson
Photography as he was their agent that used my editing without proper
compensation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   This is not even from one from my clients this is from a gentle man by the name of David Stacy of StacyFX Productions. I was attempting to contract David Stacy for a quick editing gig that I had at the time. I put an add on craigslist got a few response and decided to give him a interview. I tried him out on a cut that I needed turned around in a matter of 3 days for a high profile client. As David Stacy claimed to be capable of completing due to his resume and what he told me he has done in the passed.

   David Stacy dragged out the edit and told me he needed more time. Claimed that he had a faster way of editing the project. Well in the end he waisted 2 days bringing his computer in which was completely useless where he stole my clients footage. Then on the 3rd day gave me really ruff embarrassing edit with NEON DANCING GIRL TRANSITIONS!! At this point I deemed David Stacy incapable of editing for me and took the project on myself with 2 days lost and had to deliver the project 2 days past our deadline with client's OK. 

  My line of work deadlines are everything. I never miss a deadline it is prudent to have the project in on time that is just how I do business. Since David Stacy didn't complete the project at hand he then asks to be paid for a project that he didn't even complete. He begged me to pay $275 for his cell phone, power, cable and internt bill as I agreed for his time spend. I am real, I am trust worthy and I am about the most honest guy you will meet. I take every client projects with respect. I have high profile clients only can take on 4 clients a year because the complexity of each clients are so high. I aim to deliver and give each client the same amount of attention. 

A week later David Stacy send me a few Emails trying to Blackmail me for $225. He knew and I knew he didn't finish the job as stated in our agreement. I had to edit the whole cut over again because what he tried to complete was amateur. I told him over and over in his threatening emails to slander my company that we were square and by me paying his bills our deal was finished. He gave me till the morning of June 02, 2011 to pay him $1,250 or he would slander my company and he would slander my clients Ciara, MySpace and Wendy's all over the internet. This is the result of what David Stacy of Stacy FX Productions did in his malicious attempts to destroy my company and my clients at 2am in the morning.

I have cataloged all the urls that he tried to slander my company at and here they are:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/photography/adam-nelson-photogra/adam-nelson-photography-adamne-6e8de.htm

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/ciara/articles/110906/title/myspace-close-with-ciara

http://www.myspace.com/video/big-jon/ciara-wendy-39-s-contest/107381087

http://vodpod.com/watch/5639831-ciara-meets-wendys-get-close-winner-dominique-steele (this one was talked down due to my request)

starpulse.com/member/activity.html (this one was talked down due to my request)

therundown.tv/live-performances/trey-songz-ciara-get-up-close-personal-in-atl-freaks/ (comments removed to a letter I sent the site admin)

sosudiddy.com/?p=1364 (page was suspended due to a letter that I sent to the site admin, He also used unauthorized images from the footage that he stole from me to use screen shots in his post)

http://www.myspace.com/music/blog/2011/1/10/get-close-with-ciara-win-a-free-makeover-shopping-spree-and-more

http://www.scaminformer.com/scam-report/adam-nelson-photography-adam-nelson-photography-c30656.html

These allegations are completely false and the result of a horrible Craigslist hire.

-Adam Nelson
[email protected]




I have been running my company for 7 years by myself.