Freelance Protocol

[Richard Dee]

I would suggest trashing all your preferences, and see if your clients show up on your desktop.

Seriously though – this topic is better suited for the Jobs board.

There are just so many FCP editors today that it’s heard to tell what is going on when you interview or send your resume.

In the old days – I would probably book 25%-30% if the jobs I applied for, and did develop some good repeat clients that way.

But today is is not uncommon for a job posting to get 200 replies, and hard for potential clients to even go through all the responses. You can try contacting them again in 2 months or so – maybe their last editor didn’t work out so well.

What I did was just start raising my rates, to seperate out clients just looking for schlock anyone who knows FCP could do. You dont want to be competing in the low to mid and arena anyway. Get the best work you can on your reel and charge alot. You’re asking top dollar- you must be good, right.

[Will Macneil]

In my experience the good editing jobs always go by word of mouth. Even the ones you’ve had interviews for may have gone to someone the producers already knew. They just felt it was necessary to do a few interviews. This has happened to me before.

So what does this mean for you?

For one thing make sure the clients who like your work are telling their friends. If I look back at my work for the last several years, I can trace all the jobs back to the one client who suggested me for a job. Also make sure that any editors who know your work are doing the same.

When you do start a job for a new client, remember that it may lead on to other jobs – so turn up sober for a week or two.

Get involved with an agency. Where I work (in London) there are several agencies placing editors on various jobs. If you have these in your area, learn about them. They may not place you on the most interesting jobs, but they can be very handy when the phone stops ringing.

One agency in London also runs fairly cheap training courses. I suspect these would be a good way to pick up some contacts (and maybe learn some set of FCP features you never knew about.)

You asked how you could follow up on jobs you didn’t get. We editors can be a shy bunch and we don’t like to push too much. The fact that you worry about this suggests that you’re one of the gang. You can probably afford to be a little more aggressive. And also, there’s nothing wrong with calling up a company who didn’t hire you and aking why they didn’t. They’ll probably give you a straight answer that might put your mind at ease. And after that be sure to politely ask if they’d keep you in mind for future work. Then just send them a new resume/CV every few months.

If all else fails, move to London! There are more FCP suites here then editors who can use them.

Good luck,

Will

[Chip Hess]

Thanks for the responses, truly.
And I did post this to Jobs, better idea!

Move to London – I love that town!
Hhhhmmmmm …