It has come to my attention that a lie has been told about me and is currently circulating. (March 2024)
It concerns my payment to Ludovic Woerth, one of my best friends who is now almost 10 years deceased.
Ludo and I filmed a Casio G-shock watch commercial in 2011. It was a job that I secured on my own and I hired Ludo as my aerial cameraman, (obviously). I promised to pay Ludo half the money from this job as he was one of my best friends and I wanted to help him out. (I had secured the job via phone-call with the director of the commercial one afternoon just as I was about to jump the low ultimate exit point with Douggs. It was at that very same moment, after the phone-call, I told Douggs that I would pay Ludo half the money for the job.)
I was offered 4000 euros (2000 each) for what turned out to be 7 base-jumps and a 3.5 hour interview by Exposure Communications NYC. I refused this offer outright. The next day Exposure LLC doubled their offer to 8000 euros. I had told Ludo about the job as soon as I had received the offer and he had already organised time off from his new job at Adrenaline BASE. I told him that I wanted to refuse this offer as well, because I knew that the job had been passed around the jumping community and a lot of high profile jumpers had out-priced themselves. I was aware of the other jumpers quotes and knew that if Exposure doubled their offer that quickly, then it was possible that I could squeeze a little more money out of them. Ludo didn’t want me to refuse this offer because he didn’t want me to risk losing the job as he had already taken time off work and needed to be paid for those (5) days. So reluctantly, I accepted the offer of 8000 euros (4000 each). However, when I received the contract I sent it back to Exposure (twice), for them to review and restrict it to just this one-off internet video commercial and not for any future publication or print media.
When the time came, Ludo took the time off work and we did the commercial and interview with no issues. After a week or so I received 4000 euros from Exposure LLC and Ludo received his 4000 euros payment straight into his bank account. He was happy. I was happy. Job done.
Then 6 months went by. And Jeb Corliss famously jumped through that long thin crack in the mountain in China. At that time, I happened to be on a ten day Base-trip in Criou with Ludo and Ludo’s best friend Florian Springer amongst others…And it was then I received another call from Exposure. They told me that I had forgotten to sign a document. Now, the job we did for them was finished a long time ago….What document?…I told them “wait a minute!- not so fast. Tell me more”….After another phone call to the secretary, -and when I refused to sign any more documents, She reluctantly told me that Exposure wanted to use some of the footage for a DVD and various magazines in the Asian market (Thanks Jeb!!). I told them, “No problem!”- They just need to “give me another contract and more money!” We began to discuss how much they could get from Casio and this process took a few weeks because when they told me that they could only pay the person who’s face was visible, speaking and wearing the watch in the video (me) I refused to sign. I told them I would only sign if they could get extra money for Ludo as well. (I was helped through this negotiation process by my friend Joby Ogwyyn-Thanks Buddy!!). I managed to get an extra 12,000 euros in residuals for my face, voice and hand wearing the watch being used for publication in the Asian market and I also managed to secure another 5000 euros for Ludo – which was something that I fought for weeks to get for him. This extra money was money that was not entitled to be paid to Ludo at all -as he had already been paid for the camera work on the previous job. I have perhaps, a dozen or so emails between Exposure, Ludo and myself, backing-up what I am saying here.
– As do I also have at least multiple hundreds of emails backing up my claim (here right now), of trying (for many years) to get Ludo cut into my deal for the full feature length film project ‘Humilite’, (which, together with the director, is my personal project) and is still currently in production. I am not on good terms anymore with the director of this film as he is currently trying to screw me out of my deal and it is he that I have heard who is lying about my character. This is why I am writing all this now. -Over 13 years later, as I want everyone to know that I DID NOT! steal any money from one of my best friends – Ludo, who I miss dearly. I am not a thief!- And I am not a liar! – On the contrary! To date, up until his passing (It is my understanding that the 9000 euros I paid Ludo for 7 base-jumps and a 3.5 hour interview was the most money he ever made in a single time on any of his many free-lance jobs. If I am wrong here. Please let me know.)