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How much should i be Making$$
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There is one big thing missing here. The original poster mentions he has been doing all this for 6 months, and also keeps mentioning ‘projects that he has worked on’ and not exactly that he is good at what he does.
Fact: It takes more than 6 months to be an accomplished editor, camera op, graphic designer, whatever. 6 months, whether or not there is an education behind the experience, is a very very short period of time.
As a freelancer, you have to be able to go out and find work. One client is not good enough. You need to be a good business person as people have already mentioned. If you are not sure you can do this, then being an employee is the way to go. Heck, if someone offered me an employee position early in my career I would have taken it. Being an employee provides more stability, more predictable income and also time, believe it or not. It gives you all this while becoming experienced.
I don’t think the question is what one is worth, as much as it is what is a good move in this particular economy. Experience is ‘worth’ more than anything else, including talent in my humble opinion.
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[denise quesnel] “Fact: It takes more than 6 months to be an accomplished editor, camera op, graphic designer, whatever. 6 months, whether or not there is an education behind the experience, is a very very short period of time.”
Denise,
Your message brings to mind a wonderful quote from former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (who thankfully has gone MIA since being fired by his boss, the former president of the United States). Mr. Rumsfeld said: “…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
The bottom line is, at six months out of the gate, everyone new to this business thinks they know everything there is to know, because they yet don’t know what they don’t know.David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Zach, take the gig, man. You need experience and they have a slot open. That’s a match, buddy. Don’t get hung up on the pay scale. You can work a second job if bills are the problem. We all did it. You need a foot in the door and that is what is being offered. Haggle for your own practice in negotiating but before ya leave, shake a hand and have a set time to report for work.
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[grinner hester] “Zach, take the gig, man.”
Yep!
Baseball season is April to October, right? 7 months for a year? What happens between November and March?
[grinner hester] “Zach, take the gig, man.”
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We do football when we are not working on baseball. Also right now i am working on a series of webisodes for a medical tech firm.
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Hi Zach,
There is a TON of great advice here from some really great minds in the industry. I thought I would add mine for whatever it is worth….. which is negotiable….
I can’t tell you what you should do but I can tell you about my path and if there is some useful information here, I am glad to help.
When I started in this business in ’99 it was a second career for me. I struggled and scraped for a few years and finally found a great position at a tourism company that wanted to bring their production “in house”. They offered me a shooter/editor position for $30,000/year and I jumped on it, happy to be working in the field doing what I loved. I worked for this company for over 5 years. I built up my skills with an enormous amount of hard work and dedication, and many many 100 hr work weeks (on salary no less). I became extremely valuable and was compensated accordingly, more than doubling my yearly salary over those five years. During this time I won a few Telly’s, a couple of Aurora’s and even an Emmy® and dreamed of owning my own company at some point. When the day finally came to make the jump and start my own company, I negotiated a day rate with this company and now they are one of my clients. I won’t kid you, at first they saw me as competition and freaked out a little…. but as they came to realize that I was not out to “steal” their clients but rather provide them with a valuable service, things really turned around. I don’t do everything for them any more, just the high end shooting when they have the budgets and it is a win win for us both. Now I have time to pursue other types of projects while having regular work that pays the bills and I am really enjoying my career.
I guess my point is that it is not a bad thing to take a salaried gig and gain experience while you are young. It will pay dividends later when you are ready to make the leap. You will know when that time comes, just listen to your gut and follow your dreams. Oh, and keep a positive attitude.
Good luck to you, Zach, I wish you the best!
Richard Cooper
FrostLine Productions, LLC
Anchorage, AlaskaEveryone has a story to tell.
https://www.FrostLineProductions.com -
That’s a fabulous quote.
A few years ago I thought I was “an editor” just because I had rudimentary knowledge of FCP, and about six months of editing work under my belt.
Hah.
Creative problem solving and speed take a lot longer to learn than applications. Not that I’ve mastered either, as a sampling of my posts may indicate. 😉
D
Dan Schanler
NYC -
Let’s define worth:
– Quality of work, in terms of the style, look and degree of professionalism of the finished product
– Quality of work, in terms of being able to match the requested specs
– Quality of work, in terms of organization and layout that allows quick changes rather than poorly planned “total overhauls” when one basic element changes
– Speed the work is completed
– Employee’s attitude – do you have to ride their butt to get anything done?
In the end, “worth” is very hard to define since it would require you to self-analyze all of the above points and put a dollar figure to them. In the end, the old saying is true – Everything is worth exactly what its purchaser will pay for it. $30k may sound low, but are there higher offers out there? Could you realistically make $35k with another company? You should probably shop yourself around if you think so. If it’s an option, you may want to just continue freelancing with them and hope for the best, but I’d take slightly lower GUARANTEED pay any day.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
$30k? That’s about $15 an hour. Minimum wage is about $15k now. Common laborers make anywhere from $15k to $20k. Who owns the equipment you shoot/edit with? Whose mics? Someone has to pay for repairs, new equipment, software, you name it. Whose pocket will that come out of.
$30k, in my book, is a joke – unless there’s things like full health/dental insurance…
IMHO
David
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