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Bad Hiring Experience: IMDb Actress Malinda Money & The Sundance Film Festival Fiasco – Part 2 [Case Study]

Malinda Money Instagram

Bad Hiring Experience Case Study Part 2

This segment of the case study details our continuing positive efforts on behalf of IMDb actress Malinda Money: trying to build a strong working relationship with her, the behind-the-scenes work of getting her 2018 Sundance Film Festival press accreditation, and her continued questionable behavior.

Appealing Press Accreditation Denial On Malinda Money’s Behalf

FilmBook surmised the reason why Malinda Money had been denied Press Accreditation to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. This reason extended to the previous times that FilmBook had applied to the Sundance Film Festival on Malinda’s behalf. For the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, FilmBook submitted Malinda Money’s application on November 13, 2017:

Malinda Money 2018 Sundance Film Festival Press Accreditation Acknowledgement

Her application was denied on November 27, 2017:

Malinda Money 2018 Sundance Film Festival Press Accreditation Denial

FilmBook researched, found the correct contact person at Sundance, pleaded their case, and cited examples as to why Malinda Money should receive press accreditation to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. FilmBook was told that Sundance would consider their words, the cited examples, and get back to them about their appeal decision.

On December 4, 2017, FilmBook received an email from Sundance telling them that their appeal had been successful:

Malinda Money 2018 Sundance Film Festival Press Accreditation Approval

FilmBook put in a great deal of back-end work to fulfill their promises to Malinda Money. All FilmBook expected, all FilmBook wanted, was for her to fulfill hers. That is not what FilmBook received. Instead, what FilmBook received was a nightmare.

Why Malinda Money

After reading up to this point, some of you are probably wondering why FilmBook persisted with Malinda Money? Why FilmBook kept giving her chance after chance? Why FilmBook put in so much work on her behalf? There are two reasons: 1.) optimism and 2.) writing ability.

Answer for Point 1. FilmBook has been able to turn bad situations into good ones in the past multiple times and they believed that they could do the same with Malinda Money. That was hubris on their part.

Answer for Point 2. Malinda Money can put a sentence together and express her thoughts in a cogent and organized manner. Those are valuable tools for a writer and for the organization fortunate enough to have that writer creating content for them.

Point 2 is not enough, however, to make anyone a good employee. For that, a person requires an entire host of other personal and personality attributes. Some can be acquired, like leadership skills. Officers go to a special school in the military to build and enhance those skills so that they can lead in a optimal way. Other personal qualities are innate, you are born with them.

With Malinda Money, FilmBook had already begun to see the type of person that it was dealing with but they relied on Point 1, the past, and thought that Point 2 would be their reward. FilmBook was wrong.

After gaining admission for Malinda into the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, FilmBook decided that a change in approach with her was best.

Continuing Harbingers of Malfeasance

In the email entitled “SXSW, Sundance, & Writing for FilmBook in 2018 Queries” that FilmBook sent to Malinda Money on December 18, 2017, they informed her:

  1. That they wanted video reviews from her instead of written reviews. Since she is an actress, FilmBook thought this would be much easier for her than outlining and drafting a written review.
  2. That Malinda Money could write the weekly column that she wanted instead of the writing news articles. Since rejoining FilmBook in October 2017, though she said she would, Malinda had not written a single news article for FilmBook.
  3. About the available opportunity to create a weekly comic book movie and TV show podcast. FilmBook had noted that geek culture was all over the Malinda Money Twitter, Malinda Money Facebook, and Malinda Money Instagram social profiles. They thought she would jump at the opportunity.
  4. That FilmBook’s appeal was successful and that her press accreditation for the 2018 Sundance Film Festival had been approved.

On December 19, 2017, Malinda Money sent back this response:

1.) Were I to create a video, is there an example or format you’d like me to follow? And what level of professional equipment are you looking for?

2.) Yes. I think [deleted] is going to be much more realistic of a commitment for me as my week tends to fluctuate with commitments. (I was in San Fran and NYC this week for auditions so it made daily news reporting rather difficult).

3.) I’m open to this, however I would need clarity on what level of professionalism you are looking for as well as an example format.

4.) Got it. Thank you for the update! I have made myself available for both Sundance and SXSW.

On same day (December 19, 2017), FilmBook replied to Malinda and asked if she could begin the podcast that Saturday (December 23, 2017).

FilmBook never received a response to that query.

On December 22, 2017, FilmBook emailed Malinda:

Malinda:

Will you be setting to Pending Review your first edition of [the weekly column] this Saturday?

On December 23, 2017, Malinda responded that she would.

What Malinda Money eventually set to ‘Pending Review’ on the back-end of FilmBook was highly dubious.

On January 2, 2018, FilmBook responded to the questionable article that Malinda Money set to ‘Pending Review’ near the end of December 2017:

Lets put Sundance on pause for this year and instead focus on SXSW 2018 (plus other upcoming events like the LA Film Festival) and creating original content between now and then.

To those ends, we would like to concentrate on the podcast we suggested, the [weekly] column, and video reviews.

If you are amiable to this and would like to proceed, please let us know.

The article that Malinda Money set to ‘Pending Review’, about Amazon acquiring the TV rights to Lord of the Rings, wasn’t an editorial. It was a old news article from two weeks beforehand with zero opinion of her own in it. It was a reshuffled, copy and paste job, nothing more.

By that point, FilmBook knew who and what they were dealing with. The subterranean individual was fully revealed. With that knowledge, FilmBook took appropriate action (above). The problem is that FilmBook was not steadfast in their resolve. That lack of resolve would eventually cost FilmBook dearly.

Previous segments of this case study:

The next segments of this case study:

Disclaimer: This case study is not meant to denigrate, defame, or to assassinate the character of any person or company. The words or statements that could be characterized as such (and not substantiated with facts and/or proof) have either been deleted or are behind stars (*****). This case study is for educational purposes and only represents facts.

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About the author

Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook, ProMovieBlogger, and TrendingAwards.

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