Understanding Creative Careers

About a week ago I stopped by a Circle K to grab a soda on my way to work. (See my post about how important Caffeine is for my late night job.) If you don't know, my truck is emblazoned with my company's logo and contact information. I put the information on there so that potential customers could contact me. Pretty good thought as a small business owner, right? I thought so.

As I pull up and jump out to head to the Circle K door, I'm stopped by a guy who sees the logos on my truck and asks if I'm a movie producer. I tell him I'm not, but my company makes videos and web content for companies. Apparently in the mind of this guy that means that I am a movie producer! He talks to me about how he has a great idea for a TV show and a movie and a documentary and a web series and a lot more ideas saved up. I politely make conversation and then head into store to get my drink.

The next day I get a call from my new best friend from the day before. I didn't answer because I was sleeping, but I got an 'Urgent Voicemail'. Apparently he had taken my contact information from my car and decided that the best thing to do would be to chat up his new 'movie producer'. His message was something about wanting to meet up and talk about making these many, many movie ideas of his. I think I rolled my eyes as hard as I could.

I've had a lot of similar experiences because of my truck's advertising. I've had people try and sell me their first movie scripts, their ideas for a children's shows based on a set of children's books that have never been published or completely written yet, and even that they wanted me to work for free because "We'll get rich!".

That is what I would like to have you consider tonight. Just because I am somehow related to the video or 'film' industry, do not believe that this means:

• I will make your movie for free because "it will go to festivals and we'll make tons of money".
• I am going to pay you for 'movie ideas' or 'your first feature length script' or any script.
• I am your new best friend.
• I am a super rich producer with millions of dollars to throw at your 'passion project'.
• I'm not going to 'hook you up' with a 'sweet deal' or a 'friendly discount'.

I want you to realize that I am a professional that is trained to perform a particular set of functions and I will be compensated accordingly. Do you get what I mean? You would never ask a lawyer to pay you while working on your case. Its the exact opposite! I believe I deserve the same consideration as any working creative professional.

Here's something my wife showed me one day. I thought it was funny, but also very true!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy meeting people and talking to them about their movie ideas, but peoples expectations about creative professionals are extremely skewed sometimes. I think people always assume that we are all 'starving artists'. Sometimes we are, but don't assume that because we provide for our families in ways that are not the 'norm', it doesn't mean we should be paid less than if we had been sitting at 'regular' job. Art in all forms takes time, strenuous brain power and a lot of hard work. Just like a desk job.

Speaking of time, we featured this video on our show today. I thought it was pretty clever. Customers really do expect miracles in very limited or unrealistic deadlines.



Time is always a precious thing, but the process sometimes just limits you to the speed of which you can produce a final piece.

Example: I was taught in film school that for every hour of shooting time you can expect to get 15-20 minutes of footage, and from that 15-20 minutes of footage you can expect to get 7-9 minutes of usable footage for editing. Basically in the end, out of every 60 minutes you get maybe 5 minutes in the actual final movie. But that's not all! For every hour of shoot video you can expect to edit for 10 hours! You can see how things can pile up quite quickly.

I just thought I would open your eyes a little bit into the world of creative professional and some of the silly things we have to deal with sometimes.

Have you ever had this sort of thing happen to you? Do you feel under appreciated when it comes to being compensated for your efforts creative or other wise? Tell me all the juicy details in the comments below!

-The Everyday All Nighter