I agree with your sentiment that Pluraleyes is crappy. I've used it to sync unsynced/unslated/unlabeled clips but thank goodness that was a corporate shoot with only about 50 separate clips, all shot on one day. I originally tried to sync the entire sequence, which failed miserable. I ended up going back and syncing all the independent raw clips from camera with boom and lav, while treating myself to a very nice bottle of scotch on the producers dime.

Then I had all the raw video clips with 6 audio tracks - 2 camera, 2 lav, 2 boom and reconnected the media using the new stuff. Once that was was in place I went through and made sure the audio from boom/lav matched the video and then chose the best of the two. Thank goodness it was all voiceover and some sound like doors opening and closing. There were a couple that didn't sync properly so I had to go and find that section by hand which was miserable. But not as miserable as it could've been.

I think it would take a massive amount of adderall and an intern or 5 to wade through all the clips and sync them like I managed to do on the hot mess shoot.

As for placing your name on the film, blah. That's always the worst. We've burned a couple DPs on hot mess shoots because the final output was so terrible that they didn't want to be associated with it in any way. Even though they were paid a fairly reasonable sum, for a 1 day, 1 location, corporate video.

The execs at my company fail to realize how important reputation is in the industry, or how to properly manage a shoot, or how important a DP is. In fact I got called in a couple months ago to be asked if I wanted to be on set for an upcoming shoot and only 30 minutes later realized they wanted me to DP. Yeah. I don't DP. But because I can take photographs and videos with a 5 year old DSLR in a lightbox on occasion, apparently they assume I can DP. Hahahhaha.

Good luck, KB. Not to stroke your ego too much, but you're fucking brilliant and seem to be a phenomenal problem solver and people person so I have no doubt that you can get through and come out on top with whatever shitstorm flies your way.