Freelance Outlook Accross the USofA

[Thomas]

Boys. How's it going? Funny how this site ebbs and flows. What the hell happened to Michael Rosenblum? One day he was the king, now he's gone. And Ivan, are you still alive?

I just wanted to check in and get the pulse on the freelance market. In the world of network freelancing, things are tight. The supply simply outstrips the demand and the days of the constantly ringing cellphone are over. We're working on a consistent basis. But the volume of potential work is way down. Other crews are complaining of the same thing.

Audio techs certainly have to be worried if they are tied into the network freelance market. The bean counters would love to see that position reduced radically if not eliminated. Then they can whittle away at our rates. I think the networks don't believe they can negotiate with freelancers and would like to lower their production costs by destabilizing the standard way freelance crews have operated for the past twenty years or so.

If Doug reads this bard anymore, I'd love to know how your market is treating you. I know that you eschewed network clients largely over worries of professional dependance on union work. Is the independent world doing any better?

All other input would be greatly appreciated, even if its only an update on how you're doing and any ideas you're having about how to adapt to anticipated changes in the industry. Anyone getting their real estate license? Ivan???

Tom

 

[Douglas]

Hi Tom,

I do check in once in awhile, but time is too short to get caught up in some of the discussions here anymore. Usually not much is accomplished by it all. Therefore I have tried to resist the strong temptation to jump in a couple of times -- especially on the General Discussion board. It's like the blind leading the blind over there sometimes. I used to believe that there wasn't that much difference between a successful freelancer and a staff photog, but after evasedropping on their conversations over the last couple of years, I'm not so sure that is true. It would be nice to contribute and feel like you did any good, but I swear that if you wrote that you should always focus your lens, some jackass would disagree and claim he never focuses his lens and people love his video! Why bother?

"Ebb and flow" is about right. Just when you think things are picking up, and you are once again turning down work and even picking up the occassional doube-dip, the bottom drops out again. The damn Red Sox ended up costing me at least 6 days of work -- of which two of the game days I had already turned down other shoots -- betting that they'd make it to the world series. I placed my bets and crapped out. Oh well, at least they were good for a few extra days during the ALCS.

We are still getting about 10-15 days (or 1/2 days) per month, but that's down considerably from the 18-22 days per month before the big slow down. My second camera package, which used to be kept by another shooter and averaged 8-10 days per month, has now been semi-retired and mostly only gets used for two-camera shoots. It might be heading to Ebay soon.

Did I gave the impression that I didn't want network gigs? That is untrue. I just have never seeked them out, but I don't mind when they fall into my lap. In fact, I just did a network shoot in New Hamphire today. Having only been in the New England market for only about 4 years, it just seemed like a waste of time to try and unseat established shooters like yourself that have those happy clients all locked up.

Fortunately, I have had the good luck to branch off into some other enterprises over the last couple of years and shooting isn't really even my main source of income anymore. If the phone rings -- great! If the phone doesn't ring -- I don't lay awake at night worrying about it anymore. I still worry that the other enterprises will collapse someday, but I guess "worry" is just a part of our lives. So, while shooting has slowed I'm actually working more hours per week than ever before. One of these other enterprises involves still photography, and I gotta tell you that if I could make the same income doing stills as I make doing video, I'd dump video entirely. I've become somewhat bored with the types of shooting jobs I've been getting and I don't get much satisfaction out of it anymore. Rediscovering the joy of still photography after having ignored it for 20 years has been quite fun.

My problem right now is that I have too many pans on the fire already, and a few other promising business ideas that I'd like to pursue, but I just don't have enough time in the day to get everything done.

What about you? Do you feel like you are learning anything new? Challenging yourself out there? Being appeciated for delivering good video and going the extra mile on a shoot? When it comes to shooting, all too often, my answer is no.

Anybody else got any "moonlighting" enterprises besides TV?

Doug

 

[Thomas]

Doug:

The unfortunate answer to your question is no. No I am not learning much anymore. The format I work in just doesn't push me like it used to. Oh, it pushes in one manner -- they try to work us into the ground to maximize the return on their cost. But in an aesthetic or technical was I would have to say I am stagnating a bit.

This year I probably average 15 to 16 days a month. They are usually long days and rarely do we get involved in peoples' lives the way we used to. A lot of the human aspect of the work has been squeezed away.

I still enjoy what I do but I'm also getting older and it wears me down faster. The handheld jobs that ran for a week straight have taken their toll on my joints.

I am always optimistic that I will find something in every job I do to interest me and that something interesting may always be around the corner. However, I need to find something to moonlight with, myself. So far I have come up short on ideas. Let me know if you have discarded any good ones for lack of time.

 

[imported_blank]

Were is "NINO"????
I really miss that man's wealth of knowledge.

Anyway Tom, I don't share in "public" things like "amount of days worked" "monthly income" or any of that kind of stuff, you ever hear of the IRS doing audits? --- however if you have a specific inquiry about 4:2:2 , please don't hesitate to ask, no need to be shy.

As to relying on other things, yes, I always have.That is the beauty of not owning your own $200,000 gear package. It gives me freedom to do other things as well, like computer generated cartoons. Besides, I get to sample all kinds of different cameras , still haven't shot anything on HD.

Chalk one up for Dinosaur and his HDTV talk. Along with Discovery channel Canada -- Two of our Canadian Sports Networks are now broadcasting their signal in HD

1) SPORTNET HD (as of Sept 1st.}
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2003/13/c0300.html

2) TSN HD (as of Aug 1st)
http://www.tsn.ca/shows/feature.asp?fid=7805

The CBC will do a NHL game from Edmonton in HD this Saturday. (a first)
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/hdtv/

-----------------------
Now for my beef with Douglas (this time)

I used to believe that there wasn't that much difference between a successful freelancer and a staff photog, but after evasedropping on their conversations over the last couple of years, I'm not so sure that is true.

I don't think it's fair to group all staffers into one lump. There are plenty of brilliant staffers giving a wealth of their knowledge & experience at B-ROLL general. Take Busse or Jumpcut or the GIGMAN. Just three guys out of many, many more giving great advise.

My advise is to just ignore the "stupids" and you Douglas should "NOT" resist the strong temptation to jump in. You should indeed contribute your knowledge. I strongly believe that most of the newbies will be able to filter out the real advise from the crap. And if you help just one or two newbies then in my opinion it is worth the effort...

When some jack-ass claims that he never focuses his lens and people love his video -- I believe that most newbies will not buy into the stupidity. either that or they will become the perfect candidates for a network sideletter eleven job.

What do you think, my sub-tropical friend, Mr. Nino???

 

[Thomas]

Ivan, I don't worry about the IRS because I do my tax returns in an honest fashion. As for sharing the average number of days worked per month, I don't consider that a big deal either. For the past 10 years I have worked about 190 days per year. A while back I was over the 200 day mark consistently. But that kind of pace gets difficult to keep up. You get older. I'd like to do 180 days a year. That's 15 days a month. I'll probably do a little bit better than that this year. 15 days a month is a nice schedule. It gives you time off. And time off is a valuable commodity these days. If you can make a decent living and have time off, you can make inroads such as Doug is talking about in other entrepreneurial areas or persuing personal interests.

What I'd really like, though, is to win the lottery. Five million bucks. That's all I ask....

Glad to see you Ivan. Stay warm.

 

[imported_blank]

Ivan, I don't worry about the IRS because I do my tax returns in an honest fashion.

Yeah, but you don't live in Canada were the Government bean counters "steal" every last penny from your pay cheuqe....

In BOSS-TUNE, are you freezing your pee pee off yet Tommy baby????

 

[Mike]

Hi Tom, Doug and Ivan!

Things are going well for me with work. With politics heating up in nearby Iowa, I have found myself on the road quite a bit lately. One thing that I've been lucky with in the recent past is that I'm doing more magazine work, which not only has given me more hours/days per assignment, but it also gives me a higher (and understandably so) level of satisfaction than doing, say, a telephone interview to insert in a national news piece fronted out of New York or Washington, DC. I even have a new appreciation for "The (Grateful) Dead" after working on a magazine story on them!

I've also been lucky and have done some corporate shoots that stem from referrals from network contacts--former producers, correspondents, etc. There are a lot of corporate clients that like that polished network or news mag look to their videos, so I'm capitalizing on it. One thing that has been proving itself over and over to me lately is how small this business is. Time after time I find myself getting new work that stems from producers and correspondents saying good things about me...I just keep in mind that the reverse can happen, as well.

As for this board, I have to admit to being disappointed in it the last several months. I am always happy to contribute, however, I just cannot see the value in investing my time to join arguments that repeat the supposed virtues of the cheapened way of doing our work. I embrace and use new technology, but what is a joke is that the people who try to evangelize about these cameras are the ones who usually don't embrace quality of work. I've seen some of the mini-dv stuff that has been touted here and frankly I think some of it insults the work that people like my friends here do. I've done plenty of National Geographic assignments, in fact in 2001, it accounted for almost 60 percent of all my work, but not one was done solely on one of the weenie-cams. It boils down to being tired of constantly hearing the "throw lots of crap at the wall and some will stick" theory of "videojournalism"--which, incidentally, I think that term actually undermines the integrity of the base word "journalism." Let's talk about making great pictures, controlling light, business practices that can safeguard our profits or finding resources that can improve or enhance our livelihood as much as we do about how great shooting on a PD-150 (and I own one) is and then I think there will be more value here. That being said, I still appreciate nuts-and-bolts or info posts, as well as the occasional humorous jab.

So, what's going on with our clients and has anyone heard substantiated rumblings of new formats being used in the near future? For one, NBA Productions now wants everything shot in Hi-Def, even if with the little Panasonic "weenie-cam" hi-def camera. Has anyone else heard of similar things happening elsewhere?

Best,
Mike

 

[Nino]

Hi gang, I’m still here. I check this board regularly but I haven’t been able to find the time to participate. It’s been a busy ride in the world of sport. Now that my beloved Buccaneers went from champs to chumps and with the Orlando Magic in the NBA’s basement I should be able to relax a bit. The Tampa Bay Lighting are on top of their division but NHL doesn’t do well on TV ratings so there’s not much work there. Ooops, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention the Devil Rays, I know we also have a professional MLB team somewhere around here.

In spite of all the ups and downs in the world of sport, 2003 will end as my best year ever.

With today’s news of controversial superstar Keyshawn Johnson being deactivated from the Bucs roster, and Monday Night Football coming back to Tampa, I’ll have a busy week ahead of me, but I promise that next week I will give my humble opinion on how to get ahead in this business, or at least what is working for me.

Ivan, this morning I did a small two hours job for a British production company. I used their PAL PD150. Although I have successfully used my 150 on many occasions, mainly for some secondary B-roll footage when the Betacam was just too bulky, I have never used it as a primary camera. Now I can sincerely state with some authority that the PD150 as a professional camera really really sucks.

 

[Lensmith]

A comment from the Central American peanut gallery.

In the last year several of the long term freelancers based here have gone out of business or traded down to PD-150 cameras. I have not.

The war really hit everyone hard. No one outside of the regular news clients wanted anything.

In the last month and a half I've finally seen a change. US corporate clients are starting to call again. They are also NOT wanting the little cameras. The first question out of their mouths is what camera will be used. My old Sony 400 is still prefered over the newer little cams by these people.

I think we've gone through one of those never ending business cycles. This one deeper than most but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Part of the reason I was able to survive while others did not was I have all my gear paid off. It helped me make ends meet during the really tough times. Less money and working one man band, but I was still able to make ends meet since I didn't have a big camera payment to cover.

By making it through...or almost through...the tough time, the herd has been thinned. It seems to be leaving me in a better position. Still, even though I quote a lower price than norm for those corporate jobs, I'm amused when other friends call up telling me they've been contacted by the same client looking for a crew in my area. The last gig a week ago was like that. The client called and I gave them a quote. For the next three days I was getting these tips about work and a client looking for other quotes for the same company. In the end they pleasantly called me up claiming there were delays by some higher ups before confirming the work.

I know they were shopping around for a cheaper price. It's hard not to take that personally but I know I'm the same way whether it's buying camera gear or getting quotes to put a new clutch in my truck.

It's all part of the fun of being your own boss, running your own business ;o)

 

[dinosaur]

For one, NBA Productions now wants everything shot in Hi-Def, even if with the little Panasonic "weenie-cam" hi-def camera.

Well, we went out and bought one of these 24p DVX100 DV Cameras for our NBA shoots.
Some random thoughts on the DVX100:
First off, its 24p SD, not HD. Generally, the camera makes fairly decent pictures for a prosumer DV camera at "30" fps. I think it really sucks in the 24p mode. The 24p mode needs much more light. The gain and auto focus are disabled in 24p mode. The rear VF is color, which besides having the 24p flicker, makes it very difficult to focus. Why didn't they just put a B&W VF on it when they already have a color LCD screen? It is not native 16x9, which makes that feature simply a letterbox. It has no adjustment for headset volume which comes factory preset very low. The camera is not structurally as sound as a PD150. The DVX100 is almost entirely plastic.

I guess the NBA was hoping to "match" what they shoot with their HD Varicams with these DVX 100s. How can you shoot games with a lens that wont even reach half-court with a decent focal length? Boy, Panasonic sold them a song and a dance. You basically get what you pay for....
a "weenie-cam".

 

[Baltimore Shooter]

Hi all. It's been a while since I last posted (maybe a year or more). I'll explain why soon.

I'd like to quickly respond with a comment on the rate issue, it's been pissing me off too. I have to be quick though, I had to leave, but I promise to expand my thoughts in the next day or so. Here's my beef on the rate issue. We're being constantly talked down on our rates. However, I recently found out that out still photog counterparts, who only invest $25,000 or so in gear, are making as much as $2,000 a day! For shooting stills! WTF is wrong with this picture (pardon the pun).

I think this problem has several causes. First and foremost, we have allowed ourselves to be talked down with our rates. Some people still think of it this way: "A day with low pay is better than no pay at all" or "I'll do it for anything! Just pay me enough to make my next payment." You get the idea. The reason still photogs get their rate is because they don't allow themselves to be talked down and they all stick together. Their response is "Well, this is my rate and that's what is is and I'm not reducing it. If you don't like it, call someone else". So they do and the 2nd guy has the same rate. So does the 3rd, 4th, etc. They all stuck together and had confidence in their rates and that's why they get $2,000 a day. If we all stuck together on our rates, we could be getting that kind of rate. Oh, I should also mention that the $2,000 was for the photog and his gear - one man band!

Another reason is that the still photog is regarded as an artist, where the television cameraman is thought of as something like Mike's "VJ". Maybe we as a group need to re-educate clients that television is an art form too. I've heard the argument that "everyone has a video camera at home". Well, yes this is true. But everyone also has a still camera at home and still photogs are getting $2,000 a day. By the way, did I mention that still photogs are getting $2,000 a day? lol

Corporate clients never seem to complain when a graphic designer charges $5,000 (or more) for a logo design or when a marketing co charges $20,000 (or more) to create a full color brochure, but they sure complain when we tell them that a promotional video (on tape or DVD) is $10,000. "Ten thousand dollars! Are you out of your mind?? We won't pay ten thousand dollars for a video, that's ridiculous"! (an actual reply from a prospective corporate client).

Okay, more on this later, I'm running late as it is. I'd like to hear your comments between mine. Thanks.