Do I have to Move to Los Angeles?

[Grinner Hester]

If your question is “do I have to?” no. no you don’t.
It will help your chances infinatly though.
See, if you wait for big projects to come to you, you’ll spend much time waiting. Go where the projects are and you can scurry for em in real time.
Every editor is gonna have to move at some point. May as well get it done with early on, man.

[Ian Johnson]

If you don’t have a girlfriend, wife, kids, dependents, deep roots or responsibilities, go now! The longer you wait the more reasons you will accumulate for not being able to move and eat ramen while living on someone’s couch. It can be a hard beginning, but there is the potential to earn $65/hr and more. If someone else depends on your income or has an established local career of their own, it will be very hard to make the transition.

Ian

[Grinner Hester]

and when ya get there, Tyler, please dont work for 65 bucks an hour.
That’s the kind of stuff that’s messin’ it up for the rest of us.
lol

[Tyler Groom]

What do you mean? Are you referring to people that have no idea what they are doing but are making 65 dollars an hour just because they know people?

[Bob Bonniol]

Ummm… What Grinner means is that $65 an hour to edit a broadcast TV thing or feature film is CHUMP CHANGE. The only people you’d ‘know’ who would pay you $65 an hour in LA are the one’s looking for an extreme deal… And if you don’t know what you’re doing in that market, than you never got the gig to begin with. People who get jobs because they ‘know’ people get gigs that include Production Assistant, or “Assistant To (fill in name of somebody important here who warrants a glam squad)”, or the ubiquitous (and meaningless) Associate Producer credit.

$65 an hour outside LA or NYC for middle of the road editing is not a terrible rate. BUT, (and please go check out the forum on Business for more good guidance), if you were to total up the $$ you spent on your gear, your software, your portable media, your insurance, your space rental, power, phone, ISP, etc… Amortize that out over a year… Add in what you think you’re worth: I bet you’d be surprised to see it comes out to more than $65 an hour. Maybe even way more. The killer editors I know in LA, working on features or broadcast, rarely make less than $125 an hour. Some of them make A LOT more than that. I really don’t know any that make less. Let me be clear: That’s working on feature film and broadcast. There’s plenty of editorial work (corporate, non-broadcast branding, music video, EPK stuff, etc) that pays less than that in LA or NY. Those gigs are also more easy to find. For many features, you can forget editing unless you are a member of the ACE (American Cinema Editors… The Editors Union). Getting into the ACE demands a lot of focus, dedication, getting the coffee, and late, late nights of logging and notating.

One of the doors that’s really open in LA and NY right now is working in the music industry for labels and artist management. Budgets are totally demolished right now for media produced by the music industry, so a bunch of that work has migrated in house, or is being tossed to the lowest bid possible. It is NOT a way to make money, or even to survive for long, BUT it does get you into the scene, adds legit cred to your reel, and exposes you to the pool of people who are trying to climb the directorial ladder. Latching on to a director who’s upwardly mobile is always good.

So much to say on this topic, and so much that’s already been said… You should search for other posts on this, there’s been a bunch. One final bottom line: You CANNOT get a gig in NYC or LA without being there… You can send reels and make cold calls until you are blue in the face. First question from anybody will be “Are you here in town ?” If the answer is no, then the next thing you’ll hear is either “call me when you move here” or dial tone. To play the game you have to be IN the game (I said this on another thread recently).

So save your money, as much as you can, pack your stuff, and GO. You’ll never know if you can do it unless you go and try.

Good luck,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Tyler Groom]

Okay, so it looks like I would have to move. Are there any other places that have a decent amount of work? I am not really big into the big cities. I noticed your studio is in Washington, is there much work up there?

[Bob Bonniol]

Any semi major market is going to have some gig flow… Seattle’s really tight right now. There are the big guns in town: Digital Kitchen, Flying Spot… a few others… Lots of dudes hanging desperately on to jobs. Used to be TONS of corporate up here, but it’s really dried up.

If you don’t mind mid size cities, Nashville’s got a ton of music industry work… Both Carolinas have a fairly active production scene… Vegas of course. Depends on what kind of work you want to do

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Tyler Groom]

Well I really want to do editing for Television shows or feature films… What areas do you suggest? Thanks for all the help everyone, I really appreciate it.

[Tim Kolb]

[Tyler Groom] “Well I really want to do editing for Television shows or feature films… What areas do you suggest? Thanks for all the help everyone, I really appreciate it.”

Not to be curt…but check your subject line and your first two responses.

Los Angeles

New York

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tyler Groom]

Well I know that there would be more opportunities in LA but are there any other places that have decent amounts of television show or feature film editing?