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What are your thoughts on being a Preditor?
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“Mark Suszko – Now, do I get paid as if I’m three or more distinct people? No, not here; I’m salaried, and I get paid the same no matter what I’m doing or not doing. It would be very hard to put every function I do on it’s own time clock and punch-in and out as I change functions. I don’t live like that.”
I don’t really expect to be paid twice as much. It’s more a time thing. You can’t expect the producing and editing to get done in 1/2 the time. It’s impossible.
Here’s my world. I get a bunch of stuff handed to me on a hard drive. Maybe a five minute overview of what they want, a “Go get em’ Tiger” speech, followed by “Thanks so much, you’re amazing.” I’m expected to produce, cut and online a finished piece, with let’s say 3-5 hours of media for a polished 10 minute piece within 3 days. No transcripts, no script, no direction, you get the idea. Sometimes, I even have to add in research time to acquire stock footage.
Because I’m not involved in the front end, I’m not there to see to it that I get what I need for post, so I have to make due with what’s there, which is probably more time consuming then if I had been involved in pre-prod in the first place.
A large part of this is my fault for underbidding and acting like an over eager puppy dog in the first place. I established a very bad precedence working 80 hours a week with a smile on my face to get a steady client in a rough economy, and am pretty much burnt out. By the time I started speaking out it was too late. I can’t tell them they can’t have what they want. They don’t see why not, they got it before, they know I”m capable.
I don’t really think there’s anything I can do, but suck it up till something better comes along and NEVER put myself in a lousy position for peanuts again.
Basically the point of this post and what I’m getting at, is that if you’re wearing multiple hats, you have to budget accordingly based on what it takes to complete each task. Even if it’s the same person doing several of them.
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Howdy, Rebecca.
As budgets tighten, we really are only hurting ourselves as editors if we allow revenue to be waisted. I see that a lot when introducing a freelance producer to the mix. I still make the show. They bill by the day for running errands or updating their facebook page. If I can save hiring intities money, that is in my best intrest in the long run.
For many years, it was always more profitable to be a specialist than a jack of all trades. That has changed becuase a preditor IS a specialist. Truth is, if I couldn’t do one-man-band turn-key productions, I’d be stuck in a salary cap. I can tell you, I’d not hire me as a staff editor because I require too much money, have a life and too much of an opinion. I WOULD, however, hire me to handle a project A-Z for one flat price. That’s my strength. If it’s yours, girl ride that wave like a stoner in a storm.
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I’ve always believed the more skills you learn, the better you’re going to get and eventually be at video/film production.
Like Walter said, the more you understand about the various roles involved in production, the better equipped you are to build projects. Whether you’re doing rough cuts, writing rough scripts or finishing everything yourself, I believe you can never have too many skills. You might be underpaid now, but what you’re learning will eventually pay off.
I’ll preface this by saying I am NOT trying to toot my own horn but am making a point. Over the last 25 years I’ve worked professionally as a writer/producer, shooter/editor, Creative Cirector (where I taught myself Photoshop and 3D animation), Graphic Artist (where I taught myself After Effects and Digital Fusion), Promotions Director, and Director.
Just this month I had to design and edit a spot for a bank completely in After Effects. I hadn’t worked in AE for literally months. But I dove in again and got it done. Here’s the spot, which matched the clients overall campaign in terms of the graphic design.
https://www.videomi.com/clients/Integra%20Bank/Reward_Me/RewardMe_HD_Final_H264_640x360.mp4
I also edit a LOT of narration, dialogue and music and have become a pretty good sound editor, primarily because I felt like it was an area where our company needed improvement. All I did was subscibe to Sound Editing forums, read “how to” articles online (Jay Rose has a ton of great ones https://www.dplay.com/tutorial/column.html ), ask a lot of questions, and most importantly, experiment in sound editing programs and in our NLE.
I’ve even taught myself web design and recently gotten into building Flash Video players and controlling them with javascript programming. Again…I’m NOT trying to toot my own horn or say how great I am (cause I’m not), just pointing out that learning all this stuff is invaluable when I meet with clients or potential clients. I understand some of their problems much better because I’ve actually done so many different things. It gives me tremendous perspective and allows me to make better decisions and do better overall work. Now am I great at any of these things? Nope. But I’m pretty good at a lot of them and beleive me, clients appreciate it.
So learn all you can, become good at all the things you can. It will help you somewhere, somehow in your professional career.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Editors have always really been Preditors. Remember the old want ad’s for an editor “We don’t just want a button pusher”. The best editors have always been preditors.
As technology has gotten cheaper it is the industry that has changed. Good enough has become the norm. If you can run the software you are an editor, but I need graphics and a script to. Yea can you do that great. Ohhhhh we can’t afford to pay you more there is no money in the budget for that. Everyone wants more for less. The more we let ourselves get into that the worse the industry will get.
It is rare we find someone that can really do more than one job well. If you are that person make sure you get compensated for it. It is hard to get an employer to see your real value, but it is your job to sell it to them.
RoyRoy Schneider
Long Live Da Cow! -
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Where I work I acted as a “preditor” for a about a year on my own volition; I wanted to produce so I just satrted doing it. After about a year I was officially changed to a Producer/Editor and was put into a different pay scale because of that.
I like doing both and I like editing my own projects; it goes a lot quicker and I can get out of the edit suite and into the field for a shoot once in a while.
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“There was a study released a couple of weeks ago which said that people who habitually multitask are not good at any of the things they do, that they do everything poorly. ”
That study was reffering to real multi-tasking; talking on the phone while doing homework with the TV on. That’s not the same as sometimes wearing the editor hot and sometimes wearing a producer hat.
I find that doing both (I also shoot) makes me better at both.
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Let’s look at it from a Union perspective for a moment. As a union editor, if I don’t have a producer to produce the piece, then I also get paid a producer fee. On the other hand the producer’s union allows them to produce and edit, but they only get paid for their producer job. Plus in most cases, not all but most as a network producer how much time do you have to edit when you are setting up live shots/interviews, writing scripts and trying to get approval from NY? On top of that dealing with your correspondent to?
I am an editor, that produces in conjunction with the producer, but I also do after effects, photoshop, audio mixing, and oh by the way make sure that the levels are correct before my piece hits the air.
There was a job posting not to long ago for a medical school that dealt strictly with the heart and they wanted a shooter, editor, writer, maintenance tech and PR person for one job. Let me get this straight, you want one person to do how many jobs? Oh, but wait your college deals with the heart, not the brain or the feet or the GI tract, but the heart. Many of these companies don’t have a clue of what they are asking for, all they have is a salary number and a job description that someone handed them.
So, more power to the people that want to be all things to all people and not get paid.
J. Grote, Jr.
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