When To Stop Working For Free

FULL DISCLOSURE: I still do a ton of work for free, so I don’t have a real answer to the title of this post… But I sure do got some thoughts on the matter! 

As freelancers and creative-types, it can be a challenge finding the right kind of work – or often, any kind of work.  Cold calls and emails, networking, perfecting your reel, making business cards, changing your instagram to a business account… all great ways to turn your hobby into a lucrative side hustle (gag).  But it takes a lot of time to get consistent work that actually pays the bills. Often times, you’ll feel obligated to take work that doesn’t pay or pays significantly less than what you deserve because it looks good on your reel or the client has a larger reach than you – i.e. “exposure”.  

There’s nothing wrong with working for free.  It’s not going to kill the industry or make you look bad.  Maybe you need more experience before you feel comfortable charging money.  Maybe you really want to work on the project.  Whatever your reason is, try not to get taken advantage of.  If you’re working for free, you get to call the shots.  You don’t have to do things you don’t want to do.  You get a certain amount of creative control that you wouldn’t get if you were expecting a paycheck.  The client isn’t your boss is what I’m saying, so have some fun with it.

When I began my freelancing journey, I did several jobs for free until I was comfortable working with clients and producing some work I was proud of. And after that, I charged a tiny fee.  Like $200 for my first several gigs.  It was nothing.  I was making some cool videos too!  The next step was asking for $500.  I got a lot of rejections and I thought I had made a mistake asking for that amount of money.  But then I got some clients that were happy to pay my fee and allowed me to make the video I thought was best.  It was awesome.  I did this for a while, barely scraping by.  Most of these gigs were nightmares.  I hated the client, I hated the project, and I wasn’t making enough money to justify my misery.  At this point, I had two options… Ask for more money, or start working on projects I was passionate about.  I didn’t think anyone wanted to pay me more than they currently were, so I stopped freelancing all together, got a big person job, and focused on my own creative work.

On the rare occasion that someone reached out to me for work, I was happy to accept.  I didn’t need the money, but it was definitely helpful and every project is a good opportunity to learn something new.  But still, I made some things for free.  Most of the music videos I’ve done were for nothing.  I’ve helped friends make personal projects without charging them or sometimes even taking credit.  The ball is always in your court.  Either you’re searching for client work and making what you deserve or you’re taking a financial hit with the hope of bringing it all together in the future.

Don’t lose hope.  Keep making your art and eventually the money will come.  Or it won’t, but make your art nonetheless.

On Taking a Break (for the artist)

Creative work can be exhausting. More so than I think non-creative people realize. It really sucks it out of you; being funny, making movies, writing blogs… Sometimes you just gotta step back and do nothing for a while. Sink into the couch. Take a nap on the porch. Mindlessly browse a used bookstore when you know you can’t afford a used book right now. You have to reset yourself every now and then. And while it may feel bad – like you’re being “lazy” or “unproductive” – just know that it’s totally okay to indulge in some me(you)-time from time to time.

            There’s a lot of talk in the filmmaking and entrepreneurial communities about maximizing productivity. Using all of your free time to grow your side-hustle into your main-hustle. Eating shit and rolling in the dirt, according to many influencers, is the only sure-fire way to succeed in this world. There’s likely a lot of truth to that. I’m fairly certain I’d be in a more prominent place amongst Pittsburgh indie filmmakers if I spent more time making movies and less time watching them with the audio commentary on. You have to make sacrifices in order to get what you want, but at what cost? Burn out is real and can be a career killer. If you dedicate every part of yourself to a specific task, you’ll eventually lose your passion and hate doing the work you once loved. It happens to all of us and it can be debilitating. The only way to avoid burn out is to slow down and do nothing for a while! Here are some tips to help get you started.

Give Yourself Time Off

            Sometimes you have no choice but to keep working. You’re on a strict deadline with an already agitated client. No time for breaks… Wrong! There’s always time for breaks. Set an alarm to work for an hour or 90 minutes and then take half an hour for yourself. Do this all day, or all week. It helps keep me productive without driving me insane. People often say this is a good technique to make yourself work for longer than you anticipated. The theory is that the alarm will go off after 90 minutes, but you’ll be in the zone and won’t want to stop. This has never been true for me. I generally look forward to taking my short breaks. Gives me time to brew more tea!

 Give Yourself Days Off

            I have a rule that I often struggle to live by, in which I partake in no (or very few) Zero Days. A Zero Day is a day in which you take no steps to achieving your goals. You do nothing. Zero. For me to avoid having a zero day, I just have to write or edit or take a photo or do anything semi-creative. It’s pretty easy… except for when it isn’t.

            Some days are meant to be zero days. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with that and find peace in it. Even doing the smallest amount of creative work can feel like torture on these days. Everything is okay! Take a zero and try again tomorrow. Time might be your most valuable asset, but you’ve got a lot of it, so take advantage of that when you need to. If you’re a more disciplined person – I’m not – you can schedule your zero day every week. “On Tuesday, I will do nothing,” again, might feel lazy, but as long as you hold yourself to working towards your goals on the other 6 days of the week, you’re only doing yourself a favor by taking a break.

 Give Yourself Weeks Off

            Let’s say you’ve been going too hard for too long. This blog came too late in your life and now you’re experiencing burn out. Everything is still okay! This is just your body telling you to back off and mind your own business for a bit. You’re probably stressed or facing anxiety. Maybe you feel like your work is garbage and so are you. It’s not true! But you’ve over-exerted yourself and now you need a cool down phase. Start with 2 weeks. Or however long it takes, but 2 weeks seems to work for me.

            Be comfortable in allowing yourself to think about other things. Work on a new hobby or start exercising more regularly, but do not try to get back to work too quickly. You need this time to reset yourself. Stepping further away is the only way back, I promise. After 2 weeks of binging Netflix shows and reading Calvin and Hobbes, you’ll likely feel more energized to get back to it. But if you’re still feeling burned out, it’s okay to take more time. There’s no point in being miserable just because you feel like you have to.

 Get New Experiences

            The best thing you can do while “taking a break” is to try something new. Travel somewhere, pick up a new hobby, make new friends (I have no advice for this one), get out of your ordinary routine. Broadening your mind and developing new skills is the best way to stay motivated and evolve as an artist. You can’t expect yourself to make meaningful work if you’ve been using the same material for your entire life. If you’re burned out, it’s possible your body is simply telling you to restock ideas. You need to find new sources of inspiration. Getting out of your usual habitat is a good place to start.

Most importantly, we need to change our attitudes on relaxing. If you have ambitions and are willing to work towards them for a long time, it’s okay to take breaks. It’s necessary to take breaks. Your mental health will thank you and your work will be better because of it. It’s all about knowing what works for you and how you do your best work. I can’t focus on one thing for too long. I need several projects going and I need a lot of time to work on them. I tend to create things a lot more slowly than other people. Likely, because I take a lot of breaks, but I know what works for me and with time you’ll know what works for you too. But please don’t get down on yourself for not being as productive as you could be. Be as productive as you want to be and everything will come together in the end.

The Buskers + Lou or: On Just Making The Damn Thing

We all make movies for different reasons. For some, film may be the only way to express how they feel about a certain idea. Others may just be so in love with the medium that they can’t help but to try it out for themselves. All filmmakers, however, make films because they have to. There’s something in each of us that won’t allow us to rest until we’ve told our story. But making a movie is difficult and expensive and these barriers are often what stops aspiring artists from creating. Fear holds them back. The fear of failure, of rejection, embarrassment, disappointment… These are all valid reasons not to make a film. Luckily, you only need one reason to make a film. In the case of The Buskers + Lou, Alex Cassun’s one reason was “Why not?”

The year is 2011. The place is Portland Oregon. Alex has just raised $3,500 on Kickstarter for his film. The actors are cast, the crew has been hired, the script is nonexistent. These are perfect conditions for an independent film – but wait… No Script?!

“We had a loose script,” Alex told me as we sat in the back corner of Biddle’s Escape (The year is 2019 now). “…loosely inspired by my own life.” Alex wrote the over-arching story of a man returning to his hometown looking for a change, but left it up to the creativity of his cast and crew to fill in the missing pieces. He wanted the film to be a collaborative effort where he put most of his focus on the characters, performances, and maintaining a consistent story, leaving the visuals up to the cinematographers (and the 6 camera operators!) and the dialogue up to the actors. This might not be the easiest way to make a movie, but it’s effective in making everyone involved feel like they’re making serious contributions.

“[I had to] make compromises for the people who wanted to be there.” That meant putting the ego aside and letting the artists do their thing.  And in a city like Portland, I’m not sure making this film would have been possible any other way.

The people of Portland are skeptical of outsiders. Especially the film-types that fly up from LAX. Which was unfortunate for Alex, because he moved to Portland directly from LA with almost no connections to the film community of the Pacific North West. He wanted to get the city involved in his project and now views it as a time capsule for his experiences there. Portland itself plays an important role in the film, but nothing about it feels exaggerated or forced. It’s easy to believe the buskers live there, because they actually do. They’re the last of a dying breed, yet they seem to thrive in the simple and happy lifestyle 2011’s Portland could provide them.

When we first meet Lou, we learn he’s returned to Portland after some time away at “Suit Camp” and has decided to turn his life around. He wants a job and to make some money so he can move out of his friend’s van and grow up a little bit. The busking life style of the people he used to know is beneath him now and their attempts to bring Lou back into their carefree lifestyle are met with contempt and stifled anger. Lou wants society to accept him, but won’t accept the acceptance of his friends.  He hates his new job counting inventory at the mall for a slimy boss while everyone he knows has found happiness in playing music on the street, selling old clothes out of a bus, and living together in a house they’ve appropriately named “Free Pile”. The Buskers + Lou is a story about a person trying to figure out who they are and what they want out of life. And upon second viewing, the movie feels like Alex figuring out who he is and what he wants as a filmmaker.

“This was the best film school I could have had,” Alex told me. He learned from his mistakes: “We spent way too much money on coffee and food.” He learned the importance of thinking about the theme of your story and the potential audience it may reach from Day One. Having this in mind helps influence every decision you make on set and in the cutting room. He learned to keep his expectations in check, to not make promises he can’t keep, and the value of limiting locations. But most importantly, he learned everything it takes to get a film distributed, which brings us to today!

The Buskers + Lou is a true indie feature. From its production – 23 shooting days over the course of 2 ½ years (with pick-ups) – to its distribution – which only took an additional 4 years after the 2015 premiere – this film was made with enthusiasm, patience, and a ton of hard work, proving that all it takes to make a film is the desire to do so. Alex lived in the van used in the film, he stole locations, doubled extras, shot footage with a cell phone… whatever it took to finish it. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the production of The Buskers + Lou, but first you gotta watch it!

Watch The Buskers + Lou!

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Filmmaking in the Internet Era

Written by Justin Andrus, The Dashing Intern

September 4, 1998.
February 19, 1999.
February 14, 2005.

These are the dates of Google’s founding, my birth, and YouTube’s founding, respectively. By the time I was born, most information (or at least a lot of it, I don’t remember) was just a computer away. By the time I finished first grade, the first YouTube video to do so had hit a million views. Point is, the internet’s always been available to me. While editing the first Dashing Agent vlog last week, I realized that without the internet, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into filmmaking at all. After mulling it over some more, I came up with four of what I consider the most important-to-understand impacts the internet has on filmmakers. Let’s start with the positives:

Easier Learning

The internet lets us share knowledge across the globe, so of course it’s made filmmaking easier to pick up; it’s done the same for every skill. But aside from maybe foreign languages, I can’t think of any skill the internet has made as dramatic a difference in learnability for than filmmaking. The technical instruments combined with the art form’s visual nature can make it extremely difficult to learn by word alone. Many film textbooks try to make up for this by filling half the pages with pictures, but in my experience, nothing beats YouTube tutorials such as this helpful (if a little long) video on three-point lighting. Of course, simple practice can sometimes be a better way of learning cinematography skills, but the internet is especially useful when it comes to post-production. Every editing software invariably has a complex and intimidating layout, so if you’re at all interested in this side of filmmaking, just know that Google is your friend. Seriously, remember that it’s just a friend, or you might develop romantic feelings.

More Inspiration

The internet’s wealth of knowledge made filmmaking easier to learn, but it’s not what got me into the hobby. That was the other aspect of the web—the endless entertainment. My interest originated with Reese’s early videos (which I watched because my older brother appeared in) and grew steadily until l discovered YouTuber Gus Johnson, a comedian who makes low-production-value, yet hilarious sketches. This style seemed extremely approachable, so I finally decided to try it out. I’m sure most filmmakers my age got into this for similar reasons, but it’s easy to forget that the internet can still inspire us as we make our own projects. Whether it be writer’s block or trouble finding the right visual style for a scene, there’s always a short film on YouTube or Vimeo that can lead you in the right direction.

But the infinite entertainment does have a downside, so let’s look at the first of the internet’s negative impacts on filmmakers:

Boredom Shortage

At the end of the first lecture in my intro to film history class at Penn State, the professor showed us a short film about the dangers of constant cell phone use. At the time I thought it was just old man syndrome, but now I realize there may have been some merit in showing it to a bunch of film students. Of course, I don’t think it’s cellphones that are the problem, but it is something they can access—the internet. Making our own amusement via film or any other art form is much more work than enjoying that which is already so easily accessible, so getting motivated can be tough.

If you do find yourself on an unproductive streak, don’t blame it on your ability. As soon as you start thinking you’re not creative or a good artist, two things will likely happen: It will gradually become true, and you’ll place impossible standards on yourself in an attempt to prove that it’s not true. So rather than blaming it on your ability, blame it on how funny The Office is or how great the soundtrack was in the new season of Stranger Things. Then say today’s the day and get to work, even if it means sitting down with nothing but a notebook and a pencil until the idea for your next project hits, even if it means purposefully getting bored.

Popularity Contest

When you do make a film, the internet provides a great place to put it where it will be easily accessible. So accessible, in fact, that you might think a large number of people will access it. I mean, why not? Maybe you’ve already got a few loyal subscribers in your close friends; if they could just tell their friends and those friends could tell other friends, suddenly BAM! You’ve gone viral! Right?

Well, probably not.

Sure, it can happen, and that possibility is a beautiful thing, but I don’t need to look up the ratio of YouTubers with more than a thousand subscribers to those with fewer to know that it’s incredibly lopsided. In addition to getting your hopes up, this popularity contest format can make you give up your individual creative vision, convincing you to cater to mainstream taste before your own. While one of the best parts of being an artist is definitely entertaining others, you should still make films that you like. If you really enjoy it, someone else will too.

On Giving it a Shot (from the Dashing Intern)

I still remember the first idea I had for a YouTube video.

Many summers ago, some relatives came to my family’s house with souvenirs from some trip they had just returned from. The gifts were pretty ordinary: beach towels, sweatshirts, baseball hats, a green anole. Oh right, that last one was a little shocking. For the unaware, a green anole is a small type of lizard that, as it turns out, makes for a generally boring pet. But even though Kiwi spent ninety percent of his life just lying there, basking in the sun or relaxing in his little pool of water, he would scurry faster than the human eye could see when we placed his food, a cricket from the backyard, inside his terrarium. Little me, funny guy that I was, realized the humor in this starkly contrasting behavior and decided it could make for a hilarious Planet Earth-style video with the right narration. I tested the idea on a live studio audience when my little cousin came over one day, and it proved to be a hit. So, I opened up the camera app on my iPod Touch, practiced a couple words in my British accent, dropped a new cricket in Kiwi’s cage, and hit record. Afterwards, I couldn’t help but notice the differences between my video and others I had seen. By comparison, my camerawork was awful, the audio was terribly distorted, and the concept really wasn’t very funny. I knew nobody would want to watch it, so nobody would get the chance. I deleted it.

Now maybe some of you are wondering why you’ve never heard this story from Reese before. Truth is, I’m not Reese, I’m the new Dashing Agent intern (AKA the Dashing Intern), Justin, and about six months ago I finally decided that making dumb or low-quality videos was better than making none at all. Since becoming a filmmaker, I’ve realized that the perks of this hobby go way beyond the simple satisfaction of seeing your ideas come to life, and if anyone reading this is struggling with the same fear of high standards that took me years to overcome (or knows someone who is), I hope these benefits convince you to take the leap.

A New Level of Communication

Consider this hypothetical: You have two children, Bob and Sally. Bob asks you if he can have a certain toy, but you know the toy is very dangerous and could even result in his death, so you deny him of it. But Sally, feeling bad for her brother, secretly gives him the toy. Not long after, it causes his death. Do you punish Sally? Do you ever forgive her?

Maybe you spent some time debating, but you likely came to an answer fairly quickly. Or maybe you didn’t even take the question seriously. After all, what kind of toy could kill a kid? Does Bob have a knife obsession? The hypothetical situation may seem silly, but when you watched it occur in the opening scene of A Quiet Place, I’m guessing you didn’t laugh.

Sure, I left out some details that make it more believable, but the point remains: When ideas are presented to you through video, you’re bound to examine them more thoroughly and be more deeply impacted by them than if they were expressed in words alone. You probably already understood this from a viewer’s perspective, but if you’ve never watched someone else watch your own film, you haven’t experienced the full awesomeness of filmmaking as a means of communication. Every the most basic of plots can provoke a furrowed eyebrow or a sharp exhale out of the nose, and when more complex ideas are thrown in the mix, the audience inevitably spends some time reflecting. So whether there’s some burning truth you want to spread or you just want to see someone smile, try making a film.

Better Movies

Thus far in my filmmaking journey, I’ve made a few comedy sketch videos, a terribly boring music video for some friends in an amateur rap group, a somewhat-interesting, but ultimately incoherent short documentary, and I’ve helped with the shooting of Cobblestoned 4. Obviously none of the former projects could be described as anything other than amateur, but I thought the set of Cobblestoned seemed professional enough to be a legit movie set until Reese and Erick informed me that I was mistaken. But despite my lack of professional filmmaking experience, I’ve seen enough to understand many of the subtleties that go into filmmaking, and it’s made movies far more entertaining.

To me, the most entertaining of these subtleties is also perhaps the most obvious—for every angle of every scene in a movie, the camera itself had to have been placed in position to capture the scene from that angle. Obvious as it is, unless you’ve dealt with the struggle of camera positioning for your own films, you probably don’t think about it a whole lot. Some especially difficult shots—and therefore more appreciable—include those in tight spaces, such as cars or small bathrooms (*cough* Cobblestoned 4), long takes during which the camera moves, such as this jarring scene from Children of Men, and my personal favorite, long shots, in which the camera is lugged a great distance from the subject to reveal their surroundings.

Other interesting aspects of filmmaking to ponder while watching movies include the order the scenes were likely shot in for convenience’s sake, the methods used to light certain scenes, how a densely populated area was cleared of people, or alternatively, how a large number of background actors were treated, a subject so significant that Reese dedicated a previous blog post to it. There are countless other things you’ll begin to notice in movies as a filmmaker, but first you’ll have to, well, make a film!

Hanging with Friends

This one’s self-explanatory. Filmmaking can be challenging, tedious, and frustrating, but it can also be exciting, funny, and just generally enjoyable. In other words, it’s the perfect way to bond with friends, and don’t worry if your friends get tired of it—there’s a whole community of passionate filmmakers waiting to work with you.

Why are you still here? Go grab a camera and film something!

Justin Andrus - The Dashing Intern