mr_Goodbomb
Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WV
This is somewhat related to another post about our previous assistant director on a low-budget film causing trouble.
We had been shooting in this person's rented house for months, probably 3 weeks worth of days over the course of 6 months. We left all of the equipment we needed for shooting in a spare basement room, which the tenants never use (there are items from the tenants that lived there years ago), as per the tenant's request. She started complaining about utility bills that the production was costing her. When we asked how much she wanted, and to put her request in writing along with a copy of her utility bills so we could pay it, she told us no. Before we could pick up our equipment, she threw away a considerable amount of equipment. A few hundred bucks worth of film equipment, props, makeup, etc, belonging to myself, the producers, the effects people, some of the actors, etc.
I brought a police officer over when I went to pick up my things, because I had heard rumors that some items were thrown away, and some were sold (illegally, of course). Luckily, the parties she sold them to realized what had happened and quickly made it right and gave us that equipment back. However, many items were thrown away, and the officer said there was nothing he could do about it. Most were props and makeup, a few hundred bucks worth of stuff, but not enough to bother with small claims court.
However, the other was a light kit that I, as a film student, had borrowed from the school. She told me, and the police officer, that she had personally returned these lights.
A few weeks later, it appears she contacted my film instructors and told them, on one day, she had the light kit, and on the next, it went missing. This was weeks after she had told me that she personally returned them. She did so to cause trouble, to get me into hot water with the school. She lied to me and the officer so that I wasn't able to pick the kit up, and then lied to the school and told the school that she had them, and then that they went missing. Since, the campus police have gotten involved. It appears she has either put the kit somewhere not in her home and won't tell anyone where they've went, or has thrown them away. Either way, she's made it so that I cannot return them, and the school is talking about holding me responsible for the cost, $800, if she does not produce them.
What can be done to make her give them over? What can be done about the other thrown away items?
This is somewhat related to another post about our previous assistant director on a low-budget film causing trouble.
We had been shooting in this person's rented house for months, probably 3 weeks worth of days over the course of 6 months. We left all of the equipment we needed for shooting in a spare basement room, which the tenants never use (there are items from the tenants that lived there years ago), as per the tenant's request. She started complaining about utility bills that the production was costing her. When we asked how much she wanted, and to put her request in writing along with a copy of her utility bills so we could pay it, she told us no. Before we could pick up our equipment, she threw away a considerable amount of equipment. A few hundred bucks worth of film equipment, props, makeup, etc, belonging to myself, the producers, the effects people, some of the actors, etc.
I brought a police officer over when I went to pick up my things, because I had heard rumors that some items were thrown away, and some were sold (illegally, of course). Luckily, the parties she sold them to realized what had happened and quickly made it right and gave us that equipment back. However, many items were thrown away, and the officer said there was nothing he could do about it. Most were props and makeup, a few hundred bucks worth of stuff, but not enough to bother with small claims court.
However, the other was a light kit that I, as a film student, had borrowed from the school. She told me, and the police officer, that she had personally returned these lights.
A few weeks later, it appears she contacted my film instructors and told them, on one day, she had the light kit, and on the next, it went missing. This was weeks after she had told me that she personally returned them. She did so to cause trouble, to get me into hot water with the school. She lied to me and the officer so that I wasn't able to pick the kit up, and then lied to the school and told the school that she had them, and then that they went missing. Since, the campus police have gotten involved. It appears she has either put the kit somewhere not in her home and won't tell anyone where they've went, or has thrown them away. Either way, she's made it so that I cannot return them, and the school is talking about holding me responsible for the cost, $800, if she does not produce them.
What can be done to make her give them over? What can be done about the other thrown away items?
