I think that's something that's forgotten all too frequently on here. So many people tend to assume that great technology=great films.

I know a production companies who regularly produce content, some award-winning, for CNN/BBC using Sony Z1s and even A1s. They won the awards for the stories they told, not because they were using the best equipment known to man.

With undercover docs, the most exhilarating moments are usually caught on tiny cameras that produce dodgy visuals, and the sound usually requires sub-titles.

There is never any real job security for anyone anywhere. The guys who worked for Railroad Express Agency (REA)thought they had some of the most secure jobs on the planet. Odds are no one on this board under 40 has ever even HEARD of REA other than classic train buffs. Once you can accept that security is always an illusion, you can relax and do what you really love in life.

Keep the faith....
 

Hi Brandon,

From my experience the current credit crunch is putting pressure on budgets and I am finding that even multi-national companies are offering pitifully small budgets for productions. Find your niche, build your network and above all keep making really good videos. The margins are tight, but good quality work will endure. I can't tell you whether you should make the leap or not, but I wouldn't be in any other field of work.

Good luck! Kevin

I don't disagree at all Vinny but I AM getting tired of kids straight out of media college tainting people with the perception that technology equals smaller cameras and that they and their $1000 palmcorder can deliver the same end product as my 2 $10k cameras with $15k in lighting instruments and $4k in audio gear and $3k in camera support and...

I ACTUALLY had a client this summer who looked at me with suspicion when I showed up with my tricked out JVC GY-HD200 with oncamera light, wireless receiver et al and said "oh that must be old! It's so big, I thought you had good gear..." ARGH! Good thing I didn't buy the new Sony F700 XDCam 422! That would OBVIOUSLY be worse because it's even BIGGER <tongue planted so firmly in cheek I can taste blood>

Agreed, a natural HONED AND REFINED storytelling talent is more important than gear but good visuals certainly help to tell a compelling story (and sorry parents, your 14 year old little Jimmy hasn't been telling stories as long as I have but I'd love to mentor him...)

Oh, and to stay on topic: I've worked for myself for 10 years and couldn't see myself going back to working for "the man". However, learn to budget and keep a reserve of cash because there are feasts and there are famines in the world of video.

I'm 9 years, 9 months behind you, but already I know I'll never work as an employee again for the rest of my life.

In just three months being full-time self-employed, I've gone through so many ups and downs already. One week I've nothing to do, the other I'm turning down jobs I don't have the time to. I don't know what the next few years are going to bring in the current climate, but take comfort in the fact that I'm in control of my own future, rather than sending off CVs praying someone in an HR office somewhere is going to throw me a bone.

I agree with you on that the equipment does of course count to a huge degree. To be perfectly honest it's the newcomers (and I count myself as one) who I find more likely to forget the importance of good storytelling.

I come from a print journalism background (another industry plagued by kids with trust funds who are willing to work for free or next to nothing), so I'm probably more story-obsessed than the average DoP, some of whom might be within his rights to focus more on the kit and technology he needs to get results.

My ambition is to establish a company that provides a reasonably regular income, giving me the resources to direct documentaries, while also enabling me to learn a bit about sound and the DoP's craft along the way by doing it myself. I love doing it, but don't see a day where I'll have sufficient interest in the tiniest of technical minutiae to be exceptionally great at it.

However, I do plan to hand over anything I can't handle (and believe me, I know my limits) to more experienced DoPs with better kit.

Vinny

It has always helped me to have a set of friends in the same business.

Some of them have told me that I've saved their incomes over the years by consistently passing them my excess work, and they've more than returned the favor.

Plus I pool some of my more exotic gear with them (primes, crane, dolly, Magiqcam, HMIs, audio, etc) on a borrow-and-lend or much reduced rental fee, and of course we work together on multi camera gigs.

In one instance I actually helped set up a pooled co-op between ten freelancers - 20% of everything you do goes into a pot, which gets split up and distributed per month, every month, regardless. Which allowed a few freelancers to relax and if not actually take a holiday (which they were allowed to, after a big job) then at least approach each day with slight less anxiety than a lot of us do. Of course, there were agreed upon safeguards and the membership was very exclusive and qualified. As far as I know, that co-op, or a descendant of it, is still in existence, 20+ members as of a few years ago.

YMMV certainly in this case, and obviously it really does depend on mutual trust and admiration in the face of competition and hard times, but over the years I've built up a trusted few and it's been way much more of a help than a hinderance.

Thanks Chris, that's fantastic and timely advice. It's little gems like that that make this forum so useful. I've been building up my professional network steadily, mainly as I want to have good people to hand to take on anything I can't handle or lack experience in. I also have good friends working in different parts of the industry (though I'm finding the ones working in other industries are equally useful in finding me work!).

The equipment pool is definitely something I'll be trying to get going with friends or even friendly competitors.

I'm really impressed with the co-op idea and that it worked at all. That must have been a wonderful thing to be part of and it's a shame people usually don't have the same faith and trust in one another. But understandable too I suppose.

Apologies for steering the thread off course a little, but I think all the advice is still relevant to the original question.

You're very welcome, Vinny.

One other thing - as you meet and get to know others in your area, even though they be competition and so will be by and large bidding on the same jobs as you will be, it's useful to find out a little more about each of them so you can eventually set up a kind of divide-and-conquer system going on, with each person more or less specializing in certain aspects of product or production that the others don't really get into.

For instance, I refer nearly all my pack shot and tabletop stuff to a friend of mine, green screen teleprompter work to another, etc. That way we don't all have to invest in duplicates of the same gear (apart from the basics, like cameras, support, lighting, audio, etc, that we all of course have to own). and in that way a classic co-op, even if it turns out only to be an occasional sub-contract, is feasible.

So personally, as you may be aware, my own niche has been in post production, so I tend to get a few references from that but many more midnight calls for technical advice, etc., than the others, which I'm glad to give for free, as long as they realize (and they do) that there may well come a point when they'll have to truck their job over to my facility so I can pull their bacon out of the frying pan. Which has happened. And in reverse, many a time.

That extends to clients, of course, producers and facility owners who have sort of fallen into the same habits as the rest of us, because, in the end, production is production and deadlines are they same as they've always been. Budgets too.

In that respect, I don't think I've worked for clients I don't know, or that one of my own circle doesn't know, in, oh, two years, at least. Can't truly say, don't really recall.

I think that's really the only kind of long term security I've ever experienced in this business.