This is Why You Pay the Creative Who Shot Your Content

If you’re a photographer or videographer who has ever had a client who refused to pay up after a project was shot, here’s a humorous story of revenge that may tickle your funny bone. Ridge Production claims that American rapper Sheck Wes didn’t pay up for the music video they shot, so they turned the footage they own into this absolutely ridiculous 4-minute parody (warning: there’s strong language).

Ridge founder and director Pat Ridge tells Highsnobiety that after shooting the music video a few months ago, his company was told that Sheck Wes didn’t like what they had created. He says they were then ignored by both the rapper and Universal Music after asking to be paid for their work.

After several weeks of not receiving the courtesy of a response, Ridge decided to publish their finished music video anyway. Leaking the not-yet-released music, however, understandably resulted in a cease-and-desist letter from Universal’s lawyers. Ridge responded by taking that real music video down and creating a new version that combines the footage it owns with absurd mouth sounds and words.

“I did what I did because the management and label fully ghosted us as soon as they found out he didn’t like the video which is all good, don’t post the video, but at least give us the small amount of money that we’re requesting,” Ridge tells Highsnobiety. “We agreed to do the video for four grand which is crazy. The last video we did was 50 grand.”

“It’s a David and Goliath scenario where Universal can do whatever the f**k they want and Sheck can do whatever the f**k he wants, but people should get paid for their work. […] I’m not trying to be vindictive, I’m really not.”

The dubbed video, titled “Sheck Wes Didn’t Like Our Music Video, So We Made This,” has racked up over 1.5 million views already in the few days it has been online.

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