ATK not paying some of their shooters...

I'm going to park here.

Communication skills have never been their strong hand. Good luck to you.

http://www.mikesouth.com/reader-mail...for-them-8577/

Signs of the times

Sorry to hear this - hope you get it sorted out and are paid what are you are due.

Saw this comment on MS. While there is some truth in it, it still kind of stings/sucks when someone you have done business with for over 10 years suddenly bails on you:





ADG

Hope things work out. I trust they'll do the right thing, but communication is key.

Oh I remember him. Parking my ass right here.

porn is dead man. time to start shooting weddings or something

if you and your BBF get married I'll shoot it

Is net 120 typical? You get 4 months to pay and you still manage to fuck it up?

They blew it all on a 4 month coke binge.

Bump. Hope you get paid.

Agreed, we shall see.

Makes me sad to read this

ATK quality photography

ATK not paying

Yes, very sad.

Sad is one adjective...I can think of quite a few others.
Particularly with the content being used...and not paying yet...
Disgusting.

I was wondering when this debacle would make it to GFY. What the original poster describes is just the tip of the iceberg. Kim Nielsen owes deep into the tens and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of dollars to producers around the world that he can not or will not pay. He owes me a balance of nearly $16,000 for shoots from as far back as March 2013- seven months! That amount is reduced from close to $20,000 he owed due to the single thousand dollar or fifteen hundred dollar pittances he's paid every so often this year when I hound him via email.

The guy is a habitual liar and textbook sociopath who is jerking producers around all over the globe to fund his business ventures and his international jet setting lifestyle. From what I hear- and believe me producers and talent talk- he has ran up bills with many producers until they cannot extend him any longer terms and then hires some lesser known or newer producers in certain areas to run up a bill on those poor saps too.

Kim gave me a forty-five minute long sob story in person back in May at Xbiz Miami full of a dozen preposterous excuses about why his business was doing so poorly and his sites were losing members and how he couldn't get paid by his DVD distributors and more woe is me bullshit about the acrimonious divorce he is going through. He flat out told me that he could not pay his bills in a timely manner in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, he's still purchasing more new content updates than ever before to update his various sites including relatively newly purchased or licensed sites like Aunt Judy's. The ATK updates for some time now have been almost all shot in the same house in "Montana" (LOL) because I guess he has to be current with at least one local producer. No wonder the sites are floundering. According to Kim, ATK doesn't make a profit online anymore and depends on DVD to sustain itself, such as it is. Can you imagine how ridiculous that sounds?

In the same breath in our personal conversation he told me that he couldn't pay what he owed me, he also told me that he had just purchased long successful adult DVD studio Kickass Pictures for their offline distribution- a deal that has to be worth over a million dollars with their deep library! On top of that I hear he's well into production on his third big budget vanity project, a feature R-rated & X-rated movie, the follow-up to his overblown "Revenge of the Petites" movie and sequel that he probably lost his shirt on each time based on the over budget clusterfuck he told me the shoots were.

The guy has no shame, even going so far as to tell me he didn't even want his company to show that it was making money this year in case it would affect the settlement terms with his ex or soon-to-be-ex wife. Why that means he can't pay his bills when he clearly has money I don't understand. I have half a mind to contact his wife's attorney to make trouble for him if he's going to fuck me over this hard.

I don't like drama and wouldn't normally reveal personal business like this, but con artist Kim Nielsen has a special kind of arrogance that I have never dealt with in over twenty years in the adult industry. All interested parties be warned- his business is either a house of cards ready to collapse owing who knows how many people who knows how much money; or he's just a total shitheel who's laughing all the way to the bank with other people's money.

Speechless!!!

i just read Jim's post again. OMFG.

Sinclair, nothing against you in any way at all but as i read the thread i thought, no way ATK..??

Then we didn't see Brian refute it but then Jim came in.

Shooters go through hell delivering quality product only to get fucked over in the end. If ATK - A legend in this business - is doing this then damn.

Buying Kickass was a stupid move. I always wondered how those features they did. I guess now we know. Hope you both get paid.

No itsa not dead Im making money. You just gotta have a brain and adapt

Not personally familiar with Kim Neilsen or his business, so I was surprised after reading all of the above to see this:



Something ain't quite right...



Hope ATK gets squared away and everyone eventually gets paid.



ADG

Agreed, no affiliate support at all

interesting...

we used to shoot for ATK and never had any problems back then - but we quit when the dollar/euro exchange rate was so bad that shooting for what they were paying made no sense anymore

guys...

the MS post is the first I've heard of this situation, AND I have no insight into, or information about the situation... I'm not and never have been involved in the ATK movies or the acquisition of Kickass or any content production for Kickass, so I'm not able to comment on any of this.

my personal opinion is freelance content production will move 'in house' within the next few years, for the most part, to lower production cost. my personal experience with Kim and ATK, is there have been times when the invoices dragged and other times that invoices are promptly paid.

as an independent producer since 2000 I can certainly understand the financial pressure this causes and hope that the issue can be resolved quickly to everyone's benefit.

Another Kick Ass success story - lol

Hope you get paid ...

when did producers shooting exclusive stuff not get paid upfront, is that a new thing?

I think many of the shooters for ATK had an ongoing relationship w/ them and WERE getting paid regularly so it was not a big deal. This is a more recent situation that is really shitty to see.

There are very few clients that pay up front for exclusive content any more. It was standard practice back in the days to put together a budget and get wired funds in advance when I shot feature movies for adult studios for VHS & DVD and commonplace about ten years ago in the early days of custom content production for adult web companies to get paid either half or full payment up front, but it's rare nowadays.

It's usually not a problem if a well known producer is selling content to an established company and they have a long business relationship. I don't even care of a client takes 30 days plus to pay as long as it's consistent and reliable. Hell, I even have one client that takes a year or so to pay but it's okay since they're paying me a lot of money for a single photoset that costs me essentially nothing to produce and the first year has long passed, so I get steady checks from them almost every month.

Jim I'm not sure if you're aware of this however mainstream companies i.e. features are paying their venders net 180 now in Hollywood...

Sure, there'll be some that do, but potentially just as many others that will move exactly the opposite direction for specific reasons. For many companies moving production in-house would be neither feasible nor cost-saving.

Firstly, many companies like ATK and others have photographers all over the world to shoot the brand new talent in different regions, so it's not realistic to have more than one set of producers, crew and support staff on the payroll all over the world in a half a dozen or more locations.

Secondly, doing production in-house is no guarantee of cost savings. I have one client that has been shooting a lot of their own stuff lately. By the time they pay the model's rate (which ironically I've heard is more than I would have paid the exact same model for the exact same job since the agent jacks the rate up for the model's traveling) plus the same agency fee plus the cost of flying the model in from out of town on a fairly expensive flight plus her hotel and feeding her and all that, plus the cost of their own producer, crew, makeup and location they end up paying more than it would cost to have me shoot the same content! Not to mention now the company owner himself is now personally involved in the miasma that is content production dealing with problems like the male talent can't keep his erection on set that day instead of running the big picture of his business.

Thirdly, there's something to be said for hiring talented and creative people who are experts at what they do. Having some eager person who's a friend of the owner or a producer who is willing to work for a finite salary shooting doesn't actually mean the content is going to be any good. The fans notice when they see a change and notice the same locations, same outfits or lack thereof, the same style. Not to mention other factors like the amount of investment veteran producers have in gear,outfits and props before. It's not just about a videocamera, still camera and lighting. Just the ancillary stuff like outfits, bedspreads, pillows and such costs thousands and thousands of dollars that would take companies a long time to acquire or simply just do without.

Fourthly, there's often a lack of variety when production gets concentrated in one place. I personally try to bring a different look in my photography and videography with different style of not only photography but even just the backgrounds like architecture, trees, foliage, yards, and pools than you would see from the work of a producer in LA for example. The physical world just looks different from one place to another. I'm big on natural light and even the quality of the light is different on one coast from another. People notice subtle things like that even if they don't consciously know why.

Lastly, when companies move production in-house, they aren't just moving away from their core competencies, but also now taking on all the inefficiencies and risk that comes with content production including wasted time, legal issues and governmental regulation. I am aware of a few companies in Southern California who specifically went back to hiring independent producers after a period of time with production in-house due to the massive overhead of their physical studios rent, electricity bill, water, bloated staff salaries and also the fact that they had problems and fines by OSHA so that they couldn't even risk being directly involved with production anymore.

Scumbags and thieves always win awards in this industry.

Would be nice if ATK Kim popped in and at least tried to explain what's up.

Has anyone currently working with ATK been in contact and mentioned/forwarded this thread to him?



ADG

I heard that Kim is in Europe as we speak with as many as ten employees spending many thousands of thousands of dollars of producer's money doing the convention circuit in style. I shockingly heard from someone out of the blue this afternoon who saw my post in this thread and who wishes to remain anonymous who used to be very close to Kim and was in a position to know about what went on at ATK. The reality is far worse than I described.

For what it's worth there are at least a couple of other producers who I know for a fact post on GFY and who are owed money who haven't chimed in yet, either because they're busy this weekend or more likely are afraid to speak up for fear of not getting paid. I'm told there are at least a half dozen of us in total.

Hmmm.
Just stumbled onto this thread....

I've been shooting for ATK for several years. As Brian previously stated, payments are usually on time (about 2 weeks from they week the shipment is received) but they do lag on occasion.

That being said, I too have had recently delayed payments as well as communication problems with Kim. Instead of being pissed, I was actually concerned for his health and safety because he has never left me hanging for more than a couple of days and usually that's due to his travels. I was relieved when I found out he was OK and then received a response from him shortly after.

Here's the real bitch of it for me....I've never known Kim to be anything but professional, polite, responsive, and giving. He even sent me a box of my favorite cigars a few years back because he was in the Cayman Islands and they don't export them. IMHO, Kim has been one of the best clients I've ever had. He even went out of his way to make a deposit directly into my account today.....Yeah, on a Saturday.

Reading this thread makes me sad.

I can't really defend what's going on because I truly don't know. What I can tell you is that based on our past several year relationship, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt that I will receive the balance of what I'm owed in a timely fashion. I wish him the best hope for recovery from whatever it is that he and/or ATK is going through.

It's hard for me to be pissed off at somebody I respect as much as I respect Kim. Hopefully the issues being brought forth in this thread will be resolved and that respect won't fade.

Good luck to those who are owed payments.

Some excellent jewels in this post. Thanks!

Hope things work out for the best!

Don't you guys think it's start knocking on some doors?

ADG

Atk not paying shooters

Bump to this, looking forward to more shooter's stories.

atk wouldnt be his first bankrupt company details coming monday am on mikesouth.com

Mike South will write about this, ATK is fucked

shocking info in this thread...

I did not start this post on a whim, I thought long and hard about bringing this to the boards. Even spoke at length with another established shooter that was very helpful at took time to provide some wise counsel. I knew full well making it public could hurt my chances of ever seeing money owed. I also knew there was a chance it could open up a huge can of worms for ATK, not my intention, but I was left with few options.

As a follow up I did (finally) receive an email from Kim on Friday apologizing and assuring me that a "payment" was hopefully forthcoming. I've heard this before and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I, and apparently others, have been down this road before.

Was busy over the weekend and am just getting a chance to catch up on this thread and I have to say it is a lot to digest. I too have always enjoyed good relations with Kim and enjoyed working for them over the past decade, but of late, there is a marked change in the way they do business. I am hoping Kim can turns things around, I never like to see anyone do bad in business.

I appreciate the support form those that have chimed in and thanks to BMB and Jim for sharing. Two shooters who I have always respected in this industry. I, like Jim, know of others and am hooping we all get what is owed to us.

Sinclair