While odd at first, I was quickly sold on their business model for films/projects and how their money structure worked with their employees and clients. They were like a hybrid staffing and studio company.
Their proposition was this: extremely low base pay of ~32-37k/yr from the company, accommodated for by the promise of additional pay that came from a fixed % of client money they secured throughout the year, adding up to an overall gross income that better aligned with the employee's education level, intelligence, flexibility, on-call demand, travel abilities, equipment skillsets, and creativity required by the company. Quite the demand! They insisted on having plenty of projects around the clock all year long, working with them, operating in small teams they arranged, including you, going to client projects wherever in the NE.
This insinuated a reasonable pay in total, feeling like a healthy balance for mutual commitment, a way to make sure I was always working my best and paid proportionally to that. Cool! Knowing what they wanted me to do, I was speculating to earn 60-75k a year from what they were saying and I knew about this type of job.
Where it went south...
In principle, the idea works, so we went further into the assimilation process, and then they revealed their contract.
In short, it's a terrible deal that is incredibly one-sided, inflexible, has holes ALL over the place, isn't legally sound, may even be illegal, and is so unclear and unfair, especially for a 5 year contract that gave them all the power and listed tons of problematic "punishments" of fees.
And they know it's terrible, throwing this huge curveball at me. I proposed fair changes, asked questions regarding the contract and how they did financially in their recent history. Nothing was answered to my satisfaction - neither the coworkers I would've partnered with or the higher ups wanted to tell me what they actually had made in client money recently or had in plans for in the near future, so I could get a realistic range of the true $$$ coming in on top of the base pay, which alone was absolutely not enough to get by, cost of living etc. Base pay would severely underpay for what they were asking of me, and was too low to afford living in the areas they wanted me to be in.
They didn't want to change anything to my request; it was the way it was, "nonnegotiable". You make more working in fast food!! In their contract, it stated clearly that I should only count on the base pay for your budgeting...
MASSIVE. RED. FLAG. This is in contraction with their ENTIRE PROPOSITION that they sold me on in the first place! I am extremely disappointed with how they operate and try to take advantage of younger adults who would be heavily pressured and desperate for a media opportunity in this job market. Disgusting, it's damn near exploitative. Fun fact, as you progressed in their company, your base pay actually went DOWN -10k. Yikes. Why on earth would you want to make less for doing more, having more responsibility, better operating in the company, gaining experience, and staying loyal???
PS: When they shared the contract for me to read, I found it manipulative when they said I can't share it anywhere besides family since it has an NDA. That is not how that works! It doesn't mean anything until you've actually signed it, which I didn't agree to and haven't signed, obviously.
In the end, I walked away. Tread carefully, and ask questions.