Recover. Restore. Revive.
“Whenever you get offered something, just say yes and figure it out.” This advice was given to me earlier this year at one of the meet ups hosted by the Central Texas Post Production Group (of which I am a co-administrator of) by a fellow editor in the trenches. He told me that last year was his slowest in some time. When he had an opportunity to jump on a reality show, he took it without hesitation. When another offered him work at exactly the same time as the first show, he also took that without hesitation. The fear of saying no was greater than not sleeping for eight weeks.
Reality shows are fast paced and demanding. Some dump as much footage as a feature film on your desk, while others undershoot and expect you to create drama in post. All have unforgivingly tight deadlines.
The way this worked out for him was when he received notes on a Friday for one show, he’d work through them over the weekend so a new cut could be delivered on Monday. Not first thing Monday - because show A was expecting him to work through the notes that day - but closer to the end of the day. Meanwhile, he already had a head start on show B’s needs which were less taxing than Show A (but still needed his attention). While he worked on Show B, he waited on notes to come back for Show A. By the time he sent off Show B for feedback, Show A notes arrived. Rinse and repeat for 8 weeks.
This is the scenario a lot of freelancers in post production find themselves in. The fortunate ones, anyway, who have been able to find work on a well-funded reality. For myself, the past eighteen months or so has seen me swing from part time editing on a public broadcast TV show, an indie doc on a flat rate and the occasional corporate gig in between. Sometimes all three at once. Each project demands something different from my time/attention/energy, so it’s manageable… up to a point.
Add it together (actually, please don’t add it together) and I know I’m not making my full rate.
Larger studio projects that are shot in Texas have slowed down or been cancelled entirely. In the spring, the long running Rooster Teeth was shuttered by its parent company. Numerous Open To Work statuses were activated all at once. Some people had worked within Rooster Teeth’s unique culture their entire careers. Suddenly, they’re thrust into a freelancer environment that’s already a-swirl with chaos and uncertainty. Well, more so than usual.
For many Texas freelancers we rely on corporate projects so we can create art in between. Those corporate gigs came to a hard stop at the beginning of 2023. It felt like the impacts of Covid other industries felt finally hit us 2-3 years later. During Covid, I was Story Producer on the last season of Small Business Revolution followed by several projects for Indeed which turned to online content to better serve employees working from home. But SBR came to an end… and Indeed eventually returned to in person company events… and the effects of a tech industry contraction contributed to a contraction in video production.
You don’t have to look too hard to see the signs of re-branding, re-invention, re-birth. New LLCs are formed, new websites are launched or long neglected sites are re-designed. Reels appear.
I know this because this is what I did. Last spring I worked on a reel. I had never felt compelled to create a reel. All my work came from word of mouth. (This isn’t a humble brag - apologies if it sounds like one. I just started my professional time at a particular moment in independent film. Work may not have been lucrative, but it felt interesting and bountiful, endless possibilities for decades to come.)
I created an LLC. I had never felt the need to incorporate, but it felt like it was time to function as a legit business seeing as how I may have had to branch past my Austin network in which contracts are sealed over beer, tacos and handshakes.
I finally caved and moved my website to Squarespace. Historically, I looked for the cheapest way to have a digital storefront, opting for the free plan of whichever web building site I was experimenting with in a given year. But sporting the web builder’s logo in the footer doesn’t have quite that polished look, nor does it look good on mobile. I even moved this blog so that for these entries I wouldn’t send a reader to an external site (like blogger, which is what I used to do).
Have these moves - admittedly, relatively minor - created value? In the case of my reel, it did help land at least one gig so far. For a consulting job, the company would not have hired me if I had been a sole proprietor. Another win there. As for my website, I don’t know yet. You tell me!
I told someone recently that for so many of us it feels like Iron Man 3: We’ve been shot down and left for dead in the middle of nowhere. There was a time when we felt like Iron Man - we had already built our suit once, found success, and now we’ve been shot down out of the sky. We find ourselves in the cave again, building a suit from scratch, this time with the knowledge of what worked and didn’t about the first one. Sometimes its re-invigorating to build a new suit.
…Sure would be nice to get my rate again, though.
Photo by Aman Jakhar on Unsplash