What CameraPlanet are you from?: from the Observer & a reply
New York Observer’s Jake Brooks untangles one more spatty, bitter, litigious Manhattan indie collapse: “It must feel like déjà vu for Stephen Carlis. His former company, the Shooting Gallery, which he co-founded with Larry Meistrich, met its ignominious—and litigious—demise in the wake of the dot-com bust. Now Mr. Carlis finds himself on the brink of another legal struggle as his former employer, Steven Rosenbaum, the head of CameraPlanet—which closed its doors in December 2004—readies a civil lawsuit against him… Mr. Rosenbaum is also pursuing criminal action through the D.A.’s office. Among other financial improprieties, Mr. Rosenbaum alleges… Mr. Carlis… was using his relationships with filmmakers and producers to divert potential production projections… into third-party companies.. In legal terms, he was a faithless employee who breached his fiduciary duty… To say the least, Mr. Carlis sees matters differently… “This is probably one the sickest things anybody’s ever done. I really did a lot of wonderful things for this man. I befriended him. He told dozens of people that I saved his business after 9/11. Without me, he would have been out of business.” [Peter Gilbert, who directed one of the company’s visible results, With All Deliberate Speed (with the Discovery Channel’s “Discovery Doc” series), says a thing or two, including that he’s not been paid for making that doc.] [Mr. Brooks’ article states that “Mr. Gilbert was never paid by CameraPlanet for Speed.” In Comments, “steve@cameraplanet.com” offers this in turn: Peter Gilbert was paid his fees, his expenses, and in fact in some cases his expenses were paid twice. This is easily documented [by] cancelled checks. The issue was that Carlis had said—in writing—that Gilbert was ‘foregoing his fees’ to help cover the production[‘]s enormous overages. And Peter claimed that his emails with Discovery had given him permission to spend these overages. In the end, the only party not paid on With All Deliberate Speed was CameraPlanet (because Discovery paid Gilbert out of fees earned by other on-budget, well managed projects). This is call[ed] cross-collateralizing expenses. If anyone wants to check with Discovery, they’ll find that Mr. Gilbert has been paid the entirety of his fees and expenses.“]
Peter Gilbert was paid his fees, his expenses, and in fact in some cases his expenses were paid twice. This is easily documented i cancelled checks. The issue was that Carlis had said – in writing – that Gilbert was ‘foregoing his fees’ to help cover the productions enormous overages. And Peter claimed that his emails with Discovery had given him permission to spend these overages. In the end, the only party not paid on With All Deliberate Speed was CameraPlanet (because Discovery paid Gilbert out of fees earned by other on-budget, well managed projects). This is call cross-collateralizing expenses. If anyone wants to check with Discovery, they’ll find that Mr. Gilbert has been paid the entirety of his fees and expenses.