Interesting story Indigo,
Sorta depressing.. Id hope to bring it about $500 a month working one weekend a month (shooting) and another week of evenings doing post. Might be impractical. Maybe I should just stick to new media and forget the old?
It's certainly not my intention to depress anyone even tough I do get here a lot ...
I am just trying to break it down for you in a sense of been able to see the catch through the "obvious" expenses...
I mean nobody can tell how much it cost to work on a weekend while your budies go having fun.
Few people talks about how much does it cost "you time" outside of "time you put in". Networking, shmoozing, biz cards, rendering footage....when you put in all of this together, that you realize that to justify your "work on a side", 500$ is just not feesable income on a side, given all other investments and hastle.
Employees have a weekend rate!
Employers Dont! Working on weekend is the state of their biz so they can not really charge weekend rate exept when charging for the whole job when they know that it will be working weekends involved so tey account that in.
I can be a part-time waiter.
But I can not be a part time owner of the restaurant!
My struggling actor friend realized that he is tired of random "dayjobs" (ofice, waiter, temp, construction...) in order to make a living so he can pursue his acting dreams!
So in order to earn the necceseery minimum for a living, he figured he should open a bar with a few frineds of his ("because bar never looses money and all bar owners are very well off"), hoping that as a bar owner, he's gonna have MORE TIME for casting calls, auditions, studying Sheakspeare at home ,improving his accents, and actualy been able to accept non paying work that ultimatly he would really benefit great deal from, such as non pay supporting roll in an indie theater play (rehearsalls and performances do take time).
His concept was:
I just need to put in investment money, hire people who work for me, dedicate myself full time to acting and money just dripps in on a side.
Little that he knew is that bar owner is a full time job!
Very often, you can not trust people you hire, that dealing with bearocracy and meeting officials is time consuming, that every month he has at least one hip costumer who disputes the credit card charges in his bar (meaning he has to show up in court or city hall to discuss it), not to mention that penalty for varios custumers mischief is 10K ,that daling with racquet blackmails of local mafiosis is not very pleasant nor cheap experience (it does insipres him on a acting part though
....
In other words, he still has no time for studying Sheakspere thouroughly because now he is not occupied with part time "dayjob" for others, but with responsability of been bizniss man full time for himself.
Seems to my that your best bet is to position yourself on your local market as a good, efficient, always available gun-for-hire cameraman/editor/animator with a hourly/project fee!
The subcontractor for local cable/production/airtime TV company rather than a separate entity (and potentialy a new competitor for those mentioned).
All these other guys probably already are ahead of the curve compared to you, and have what you didn't even started to build: Rolodex full of relevant names in order to make things happen. The only way you can compete with them in this phase of your career is by been "better but cheaper" than them
And don't get be put down by my numbers. They are true but the market that they relate too is maybe completely different than yours.
Numbers I gave you, are fom my friend's biz in nyc. I mean there are thousands of film students in NYC who will be more than happy to be payed a 1/3 of a real price to do the job just becase -they can! Their ovehead and investments are low.
They can use school infrastructure, cameras, computeers, studios for - free!
They are still living off of their parents generosity or scholarships.
Add to that all other aspiring pros, occasional hobbists (any lawyer I know has better photo camera than me who make a living with my photo equipment
, full time pros who don't mind collect peanut fees during reccession times...My friend has to acctualy BUY /OWN / MAINTAIN equipment or pay overprices rental fees in rental houses.
I mean how do you compete with them?
Well, by making a web commercial for 250$ all service included! Faster, cheaper, better....
That's why I asked you, about your main goal what is it?
Yuo said this would be your "on the side" adventure....well what is the main goal?
