Complaint Review: Andrea Sastoque & Sherif Alabede - Pasadena, CA

Anyone with real legitimate experience in the industry knows that most budgets for animations run in the millions, a typical scene design runs about 100K to 500K depending on complexity, and a few minutes of animation can cost 50K at the very least (quora.com/What-is-the-average-budget-of-an-animated-movie)

According to public records, HollywoodVideo.TV and Ace Cruz are not legitimate companies, and there is no official reference to Dr Lee ever being an employee of the company (https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/).

According to court records, Ace Cruz failed to appear, and according to reports online he has fled the country. You can look this up under court records in case (16AHSC02883).

The judge did award for the other plaintiff, Dr Lee, but so far there has been no official resolution of the case.

Dr Lee is well known in the OSS software development community and is the only one with confirmed credientials for dozens of film, CG, and software projects (linuxfoundation.org/, keyserver.pgp.com/vkd/GetWelcomeScreen.event (look up her e-mail), blender.org/get-involved/developers/).

According to the court, she (and her claimed team, according to transcripts) completed the project but was listed as a "technician", not a director, who was Dir Sherif Alabade.

Looks like the director, a confirmed student, wanted to blame the results on the company they hired "to follow his directions" as stated in the transcripts. That's a big no no in entertainment and I have no idea why they would agree to that.

I will reserve judgement from this point on since I don't know anything personal about the people involved beyond this point, but I feel that the real scammer is Ace Cruz based on what it appears on official papers.

But in the end it all comes down to the client asking for "40 scenes of VFX" animation for a music video that according to the courts was made for them, along with the source files as well, according to court records and it was ordered and delivered in court. Though according to the case records it's still not resolved or paid.

It's laughable that someone would work in the industry for this much and not get paid.

I don't see any of what you described in that complaint. In fact I found their report very reasonable.

Maybe this producer is overly priviledged and thnks she can get everything for free, personally I don't see how an animated short can be done in under that little amount.

If you look at other films for reference, you can see how much things usually cost

Gross    Total Budget    VFX Budget    # VFX Shots    Cost Per Shot

Alice in Wonderland    $1025m    $200m    $78m    1700    $46k

The Amazing Spider-Man 2    $709m    $255m    $60m    1600    $38k

Men in Black 3    $624m    $215m    $64m    1,200    $53k

Oz The Great and Powerful    $493m    $215m    $90m     1,500    $60k

Edge of Tomorrow    $369m    $178m    $46m    1200    $38k

Smurfs 2    $347m    $105m    $43m    1200    $36k

Green Lantern    $220m    $200m    $54m    1315    $41k

The Monuments Men    $155m    $70m    $6.2m    200    $31k

Pixels    $64m    $110m    $23m    650    $35k

http://getwrightonit.com/how-much-does-3d-animation-cost/

You get what you pay for a few thousand, I don't know how much was actually spent, because everyone here is posting all sorts of numbers. But none of the figures mentioned in these reports comes even close to industry standards.

The producer describes herself as "Unlike most of the people in the film industry I did not grow up dreaming about movies or making them. I'm from a business background. I went to college for finance and International Relations. I worked as an accountant for a few years. My path to filmmaking came similarly from being bit by the film bug, and developing a natural passion. I like to think I am the perfect combination of creativity and commerce. My aim is to get all size budgets - Minuscule or large - to translate onto the screen by never compromising the quality."

http://www.filmandtvpro.com/us/crew/profile/andrea-sastoque

LOL and the pictures in the profile of Andrea Sastoque look poorly doctored for some reason. ROTFL

I don't know how "professional" these people are complaining they can't do basic research.

The only solid piece of evidence here that there was an actual court case that does show up in public records (16AHSC02883) but it was dismissed without prejudice citing the plaintiff failed to show up.

Looks much of the stuff here was doctored when you compared to what was mentioned in the court case, totally different stories.

On May 7th 2016, Vanessa Lee of Hollywood Video responded to an ad posted on a Facebook VFX Forum. The job required heavy visual effects and composites for a music video. It had a total VFX budget of $6,900.00. The attachment below is proof of the conversation Vanessa Lee had with the producer (Andrea Sastoque) in acquiring the job.

To give a short overview of the conversation attached above. Vanessa Lee claimed to have 25 plus years as a VFX artist and included a reel in the comments section of the thread. The reel was from a short film called "Tears of Steel". 

The first initial meeting was to go over a detailed storyboard of the music video and figure out how they will achieve the effects. We were two weeks away from shooting plates to be composited in post production and under the gun. Vanessa Lee expressed in full confidence, that everything could easily be completed in a month.

Vanessa's employer, Ace Cruz (owner of Hollywood Video), signed a contract with the producers and were paid half the budget upfront with the intention of paying the rest upon completion. Proof of this contract and invoice has been attached below.

Hollywood Video was paid $3450.00 upfront. A week away from the production, a series of startling realizations about Vanessa's VFX experience came under scrutiny. It was discovered by the director that Vanessa Lee had no single record or any proof of VFX credits. In fact, the reel she provided earlier never listed her name in the credits. There is nowhere on the internet proving she even works in the film industry. Proof of this is attached below: 

 Ace Cruz was contacted right away about this discovery and made several efforts to obtain credits from Vanessa. It ended up with Ace claiming he has worked with her in the past and to trust her. At this point in the production, we were 4 days away from shooting and had already paid half the VFX budget. Therefore, we proceeded on good faith and took Vanessa and Ace's word. Here is an email transcript of the exchange.

After a very uncomfortable shooting day with Vanessa supervising on set, we shot all the plates necessary for the video to be composited in post production. Our fears were confirmed when the first batch of shots that were composited by Vanessa came out looking like nothing we discussed or storyboarded in pre-production. For legal purposes and at the request of the music label, we've opted in not providing samples of the first batch of composited shots. 

Needlessly to say, the 3D elements and composited shots Vanessa completed were incomprehensible and terrible. In fact, people that the producers showed samples to were struck just how amateur the 3D elements of the music video looked. The director tried on countless occasions by meeting and discussing how the video should look. The director included reference videos and images as a way to help guide Vanessa in doing a good job to avoid any revisions.

Meanwhile, the deadline for the music label was rapidly approaching as we made no progress. Therefore, the director devised a change of course by eliminating all 3D elements out of the music video to focus on more doable 2D elements. The music label were shown a preview of the 2D elements to prevent them from shutting down the project and not paying the completion fee. The producers convinced the label in providing $1500 out of the completion fee to help in restarting the project and doing only 2D elements. Proof of this payment attached below. 

 Vanessa Lee was infuriated by the change of course and demanded $19000 instead. Her producer, Ace Cruz, reprimanded her because the change of course was the only way of completing the job and getting the rest of the completion fee from the label. Despite Vanessa creating fake invoices and being impossible to work with, she completed a botched job which was later shelved by the music label and written off as horrible. After much convincing, the music label paid the remaining balance several months later. However, Vanessa claimed we owed her $40,000 despite signing a contract for a job that cost $6900, and took us to court.

Ace Cruz deemed her actions as unstable and refused to press charges since we had a contract with him and not Vanessa. According to Ace Cruz, Vanessa coerced him into filing charges. As such, when the court date came up he purposely didn't show up to have the case thrown out of court. The judge gave a verdict in our favor to pay the completion fee and we won the case. Proof of what we had to pay is attached below.

In conclusion, after paying the completion fee, Vanessa Lee went on several websites and fabricated stuff about the case that never happened. Our attorney's issued a cease and desist letter ordering Vanessa to take down all her posts since it was illegal and considered defamation. She managed to get some of them down, but posted a ripoff report.

Vanessa Lee, according to the owners of Hollywood Video, is longer an employ at the company. They stated her unstable action coupled with her disturbing infatuation with guns made it uneasy to have her around. From time to time, the producers will receive anonymous letters in the mail coercing them to provide information on their assets. We have reason to believe that is it the work of Vanessa Lee using this address: 16388 Colima Rd, Ste 108, Hacienda Heights, CA 91745.