This year’s recession?

[Shane Ross]

[Bob Zelin] “Michael Horton at LAFCPUG said that all freelances are constantly unemployed, hence immune to the recession. I guess this is true”

Well, as a freelancer, that is NOT the case. I know more freelancers who are out of work than ever. Constantly unemployed, yes…for short periods. We’ll work 3 months here, 6 months there. A week here, two weeks there. But then might only have a week off. Or a few days. At most a month. I was out of work for 2 months straight before I was lucky enough to land a 10 month gig. I know one guy who worked 9 days last year. NINE. Another who was unemployed more often than they were employed… which is not the case with us freelancers.

Plus the biggest thing is that we are faced with having to take jobs that pay far below our going rate. If we don’t, they’ll give it to some hungry kid. And the thinking that “oh, after that kids messes things up they’ll come crawling back to me to fix it and pay my rate”…well, that didn’t work last year, at least not here in L.A. They were able to find someone else who was desperate and hired them to fix it. Other editors had to take rate cuts just to be employed. Which is better than NOT being employed for sure, but now companies expect that they can get the talent they have been for a lower rate, even when things start looking better.

But so far things aren’t in many sectors. Major shakeups at Discovery/Nat Geo/History are causing people who made their staple programming now searching for networks to give shows to. Because the line between these networks (in the types of programming they do) is now blurry…VERY blurry. They all do the same thing…there is no destinction now. And they all want reality reality reality. So reality companies are doing well. But documentary companies? Process companies? Even narrative companies? All need to learn how to do reality I suppose. Even then, times are tough.

I wish I was in Atlanta with Walter now, if he is expanding…

Shane

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[Bob Zelin]

Walter writes –
“but fear is an awesome motivator”

This says it all.

Bob Zelin

[Grinner Hester]

Of course the economy will get worse before better. It’d help if people started seeing it for what it is… which is a depression, not a recession. Broke folks still don’t even turn the freakin’ light off when they elave a room and continue to plan vacations they can’t afford. The overall amercan mentality will change before recovery will be possible. Even when that happens… things will have changed never to go back to how they were when we were a society of fat kids buying candy on a whim. Freedoms will be lost, attitudes will bitter, and the way people approch their video needs will not go back to calling a crew of 5 for a shoot that requires a dude with a camera.
I feel good about this year. Having readjusted my approach, workflow, and services, I am booked through May and that is something that has never happened all the years I’ve been in business for myself. Change is required. Simple as that. The world is changing regardles of habitual behavior by individuals.

[Grinner Hester]

It does and it’s true. So is positive reinforcement though. More so, in my opinion.
For example, the common religion in our society uses fear as the motivator. Offer some horny virgins though and a brother will freakin off himself for the cause.
I’m just sayin’.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[grinner hester] “It’d help if people started seeing it for what it is… which is a depression, not a recession.”

I joke with my friends, that if a recession is a battle, and a depression is a war, then what is happening today could be likened to an apocalypse.

It isn’t easy to rearrange nation-centric economies into a world-adjusted model; one in which longtime rivalries and indigenous areas of expertise are revamped, reshuffled, and set into new patterns that inevitably include times and areas of deflation.

Hopefully, it will one day balance out but I don’t think human nature is going to change all that much, all that quickly, and so the reshuffling of the deck is going to be very painful for many for quite some time to come.

But those that learn to “surf a business like waves on the ocean” will bounce back far more quickly than those that wait for the big seas to settle down.

I am glad to hear that you are very busy. Congratulations.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom