Transitioning my Workflow

So at the heart of who I am is a guy who likes to make films, but because of an injury I'm not able to do some of the things I used to do, so I'm rethinking things, and in rethinking things I'm starting to draw again. So this blog is basically going to be about that.

It's going to be drawings I make as I work on honing my skills to what they used to be, and hopefully better than what they used to be. I also have a script I wrote that was well received a couple of years ago. This has led me to start storyboarding for it and possibly turning it into a graphic novel. Look for more updates, not sure if they'll be certain drawings or what, but I need an outlet and this might be a great place to post things as well.

Thoughts on the year

This is going to be a short post as the holidays is calling my name,but given the fact that I have a few moments to write as I am riding up to the family events I should take the opportunity to do it. This year has been a good but hard year for the film business, at least it has been hard for me. People are still feeling the hardship of the economy and because of that they are choosing to either cut back on their filming needs or expecting them done at a very reduced budget. That has been both good and bad for me because I am generally considered somewhat low in costs in comparison to my competitors. This has meant that the people I have been doing work for in the past have either expected me to reduce my costs which are already low and if I can't then I lose them as clients. So because I believe my costs are fair for me I often can not/will not lower my prices and have thus lost some of these clients, but because of this same principle I have gained some new clients that I normally wouldn't have gotten in the past as well, which has also been a blessing. So as you think of your past year I hope you think of both the good things in life as well as the bad things in life that have happened but be encouraged by the good things. Merry Christmas

Fundraising

Raising funds for any project can be a pain. I mean, unless you are a rich child or know someone with a lot of money raising the funds to create your video project this can be a difficult task.

Now, in the past I have always just scrimped and saved and used the almighty credit card to pay for my film projects, and I've always done my films on the cheap, and when I say cheap I mean the sub 500 dollar cheap for everything. I generally would shoot, direct, write, edit, and any other rolls that needed to be filled.

And I know that by saying this, I might have just scared a lot of the people who might read this, because shooting films for under 500 dollars seems almost imposible, but on an almost anual basis I shoot a film for my own enjoyment in this range, and almost all of that money goes to craft services aka feeding the entire crew, and I aint just talking about cheese sandwiches, though if that's your thing you might want to try and join up with Lloyd Kaufman, and work on one of his films, because according to his book Make your own Damn Movie that is what he feeds his crew.

There are some alternatives though than just using the credit card method to make your money. You could ask your family and friends for money, they might just give it you. You can go around and try to find one of those rich people that I was talking about above, and though I've never done this, everything I've read about financing says that dentists have a lot of money laying around to invest in film projects, which means the next time you are in the dentist seat being freaked out by the cleaning, grinding, scraping, injecting those cavities with metal, you could maybe try to mumble something about that film idea you have.

If this doesn't seem like your thing or desire, I was recently introduced to this idea of community donating/funding platforms by a couple of friends who were raising funds for their individual video projects and I think the idea is pretty cool. The two sites that they turned me onto were Kickstarter and indiegogo.

Both of these website rely on the community of the world to support your project and through supporting your project, you generally give them something at different price points, things like posters, CDs, DVDs, meeting the cast and crew, T-Shirts, a smile. The item/object is really up to you, but there are differences between the two websites.

Now Kickstarter, is a website that deals exclusively with art based projects, and the raising of money through those art based projects. They have a set up that says that you have to raise a certain amount of money for your project, whatever that amount is and if you do not raise that amount then you don't get any of the money and it gets returned to the owners. This can be a good thing especially if say you need a thousand dollars to make your movie and if you don't get a thousand dollars you don't have to worry about half creating your film. The downside to this is that if you could in theory make the movie for 750 dollars and you get that 750 dollars, but not the thousand, then you are out of luck.

Indiegogo, on the the other hand is a community fundraising program that can include anyone for anything. There are people on there who just want to have fun and thus try to raise money to try and have fun. This is a website that is for anyone that has an idea and is seeking funding for whatever their lifestyle is. Indiegogo is different from Kickstarter because you can set it up so that even if you do not reach your goals you can still get the money that was donated through the program and put that towards whatever your project that you are creating. The downside though is that if you didn't get enough money to make the project you were selling to all of your supporters you could be in a very bad place, because you have other people's money and you are expected to try and produce a piece of work for them. So be aware of that.

Personally, after looking at the two choices that my friends suggested, I decided that I was going to try and raise some real serious funds for an upcoming webseries I wrote that I would like to see produced. I thought it over and decided that I was going to go with Indiegogo, because I could set a goal for finances that I would like to reach, as well as being able to look at the money aspect and say that if I didn't reach that amount I would still be able to produce this show, but with a lot less frills. Again, I am someone who generally has created movies for 500 dollars or less in the past.

If you would like to check out my Indiegogo account and see how the fundraising aspect works, I would encourage you to click on my link below, give it a look over and possibly donate to help this project become a reality.

This is a business not just an artform

As with any job, you have to think of working in film as a business and not just an artform.

Now, I'm not saying that you can not work for free on a few projects, or that if you find a project you really want to be apart of to offer up your services and possible equipment to the project for discounted/free, but there is a point where you have to analyze not only what your time is worth, but also if you own your own equipment, what your equipment is worth too.

Because if you think about it, you could be busy everyday. It doesn't really matter at what level of skill you have, if you are honestly trying to get better people will always use you and the skills you have. The reality is though that they will use your skills and either pay you nothing or far little to what you are worth.

I mean think about it, do you have classic training in film like from a college or trade school, that cost you money, probably in the 10s of thousands of dollars.

Also do you have your own equipment, like a camera, microphone, audiorecorder, lights. That probably cost you probably at least 2k if it's professional. My equipment cost almost 5k with my computer.

That means that with your craft you need to try to recover at least that amount, and the question becomes how. True, you can work at a local coffee shop or a big box store to pay off your debts, but eventually and hopefully you will be charging money for your craft, and I would recommend at least 200 dollars a day for shooting and 25 dollars for editing to start out with. I know there are people who wont want to pay that, but you have costs too.

And if you are thinking to yourself at this point at least 200 dollars a day, that seems high, it really isn't, it's actually low if you factor everything into your cost and your return. If you own your equipment, good, but what if you didn't. Have you looked into what it costs to rent gear for a day. To give you an example here are the prices to a local Minneapolis company call Cinequipt, for an extremely basic set up.

Canon 7D w/ 28-135                  - $135.00
Manfrotto Tripod w/ Head           - $20.00
Zoom h4n                                 - $30.00
Sennheisser 66 Shotgun Mic      - $20.00
Mic Cable 25'                            - $3.00
Total                                        - $208.00

The above price is to just rent equipment for one day, not a week, or month, just one day. 208 dollars to rent equipment for a day.

So hopefully with this knowledge, I think that telling someone you are willing to work for at least 200 dollars is not a lot to ask for if you own your own equipment. Hopefully, if you break down the cost to rent equipment to the client they will see that you are essentially willing to work for what it would cost someone to just rent equipment, but it doesn't mean that they will.

People are always going to take advantage of whatever they can and because of that it means that as a professional you will need to stand firm on how you price yourselves out. This doesn't just benefit you, but also the rest of us professionals trying to get by on our crafts.