Our Commission Policy
We are keen to clarify the company’s position and official policy on commission payments made to our members.
The Collective is made up of 165 members (October 2011) who work as location managers, assistant location managers, locations scouts, unit managers and location assistants in the film and television industries.
Our library of locations is made up uniquely of properties and venues that have been personally sourced or recommended by our members. This is a crucial factor as to why our library is continually evolving and expanding and most importantly – what sets us apart from other libraries. Being so vital to our business we offer all of our members a financial incentive to continue to bring these new and interesting locations to us.
For each and every hire that The Collective administer, we charge a standard commission based on the nature of the service we provide.
25% of which we then pay directly to the member that originally recommended the location to the company. For more info on payment click here
At the beginning of the company, when submissions were made simultaneously, some locations were recommended by more than one member in which instance the 25% is shared equally between all the members within that group.
‘The Collective Fund’
There is however a portfolio of locations that have not introduced to The Collective by any of its members. These locations have found their way on to our database by the location owners finding our website through a search engine and then sending in images and information directly to the company.
We do still give away 25% of our commission for hires administered into these locations but, because these have not been introduced to us by an individual member we cannot give the 25% to any one person and so the money is then put into something called ‘The Collective Fund’.
Over the course of a year The Collective Fund accumulates and at the end of each financial year (July) the members are all asked what they would like to do with the money. They can either:
• Be paid their share which is the total amount divided by the number of members
• Put their share into a prize draw where the money is pooled together and one winner is drawn out at random to ‘win’ the total sum
• Donate their share of money to charity.
'Charity Donations'
2009
In 2009 the members donated a total of £2,627.00 to charity from an overall amassed Fund of just over £7,000. A member is drawn out at random who then selects a charity of their choosing to donate the money to. This year the charity Clic Sargent was chosen, who provide care for children and young people with cancer: clicsargent
Antony Iredale, Managing Director of The Collective, also decided to donate £873 to make a round figure of £3,500
And then in a further act of generosity the Collective staff also put in £500 to create a grand total of £4,000 - which we are certain will help what is a very worthwhile cause.
2010
In 2010, the Collective Fund generated even more than in 2009. Through members choosing to donate their individual dividend of The Collective Fund the total sum donated to chariy was £4110, an increase on the 2009 total of £4,000.
The member that won the ballot to decide who the beneficieries should be was Linzi Baltrunas. Linzi left the location industry in 2010 to work in Amsterdam.
Linzi decided to split the donation into two and so donated £2055 to Great Ormond Street Hospital and also to Maggie's a Glasgow based charity which sets up care centres for cancer sufferers.
2011
2011 saw another fantastic year for the Collective Fund. Members contributing to the Charity Draw prize pot meant that we arrived at a grand total of a whopping £5041,50. This was another record breaking year, and one we hope to surpass in 2012.
The lucky winner was location manager Johnny Ludlow, who split the money across two very worthy charities - the Action Community Forum and Clic Sergent.
To hear form Johnny, and the charities he donated to, please click here to view our Collective Fund Charity Draw blog post.
'Members hiring their own properties'
The key issue to clarify is that a member can never financially benefit from hiring one of their own properties through The Collective.
All members have signed a member’s agreement that explicitly states,
''5.4 You understand and accept that you are not permitted to financially benefit in any way from properties in your Portfolio hired by a Production Company with whom you are also in paid employment. Such restriction is only limited to the specific production you are engaged upon with the Production Company"
We are also keen to ensure that in addition to a contractual obligation, we are proactively seen to enforce this policy. Every quarter one member is elected to visit our office to review our invoice payments and allocated commission.
The member then reports in writing the the rest of the membership that the accounts for the quarter have been checked and cross-referenced and that each member has been allocated the right amount of commission.
All future quarterly checks will also validate clause 5.4 in addition to the allocation of commission from the invoices we raise, and all future comments will be noted on this page for full transparency.
I am also happy to answer any further questions you may have in relation to commission or any further aspect of The Collective and the service we offer both our members and the location industry in general.
Kindest regards,
Antony Iredale
Managing Director
The Collective