Rants From A Film Students – Artists Do Not Work For Free |

This Topic has been on my mind many times but what inspired my to finally write about it was reading a hilarious site called http://clientsfromhell.net/ It’s full of anecdotes from graphic designers and web designers about funny and crazy requests from clients. At least 50% of the posts involve clients trying to scam their way out of paying the designer. The film industry has similar situations. The film industry tries to get as much as they can for free. A lot of the problem is young designers or young people aspiring to go into film don’t realize that they are supposed to be paid for their work. People are spoiled by young people’s ignorance and expect the same from established professionals. I myself am just entering the film industry and it is true that early in your career there are a lot of things you have to do for free in order to get your name out there, for example I was a PA for a Billy Talent video about a month ago. The problem comes when you get into real skilled work, anyone can be a PA but not everyone has the training and skill to be, for example, a camera assistant.

This especially applies to anything that involves computers. So many people think that the software does it for you, many don’t realize that it still takes skill training and artistry do design something in photoshop or to edit something in Final Cut and yes editing is art. My brother is a musician and he writes a lot of his music in a program called Cubase. He was talking about it one day to someone and they actually asked him this “So you just push a button and it randomly generates a beat you?” He was extremely angry because it takes many hours of work to write music and pick the right instruments and it is not done automatically. Same with photoshop, it’s an amazing program and a lot can be done with it but it takes hours of work. Many people don’t understand that pictures are not three dimensional objects you cannot remove a person to see what’s behind them. It sounds kind of ridicules but I’ve met people like that.

I don’t know what ever gave people the idea that designers or film crew should work for free or less than what they’re worth. The reason it costs $400 for a logo design and not $50 is because it takes a designer years and lots of money to:

a) Develop their creativity to come with great ideas for your logo

b) Training in many different programs including photoshop, illustrator, indesign, etc. etc.

c) Develop their artistic talent to actually be able to draw your logo, which isn’t limited to the computer but doing sketches, painting, life drawing and so on.

d) Develop their business skills and to get their name known so people will hire them.

All of this doesn’t even include the time and effort it take to just develop a good logo for you. You are paying for their time, experience, knowledge and creativity and if you think all of that is worth $50 there is something wrong. These things also apply to roll in the film industry. People have accepted that they need to pay for everything except when it comes to art or creative jobs. I wish there was a way to get people to respect the efforts of artists and pay them what they are worth.

Just remember this; Executives don’t work for free and neither do you.

- Geeks Only

http://www.nerdnexus.com/members/havelock/ Your Lord and Master

As a photographer/graphic designer it is infuriating when people think I can magic work up from no where. To fix the colours and contrast on a normal photograph properly can take an hour as different objects in the photo may be suffering different problems. It has just gotten to the point where I charge a 20 euro an hour flat fee for any kind of work I do for people. Kind of sad really, because I would rather work for barter or favours.
http://www.nerdnexus.com/members/gryphon/ Stephie

I hear ya…People don’t appreciate the amount of works (and costs related) to creating art. They just figure “Well, you enjoy it, so it shouldn’t matter what you’re paid”. No. Not exactly. Yes, I enjoy it, but I do need to make some money to keep doing what I enjoy. Paint, canvas, hell…even pencil crayons aren’t necessarily cheap.

Two stories that I’ve learned from:

1. A lady in my neighbourhood requested a mural for her grandchild’s room (spanning 2 walls). I did some sketches, she approved of them and said it was a go. I bought the supplies then told her how much it would cost her. $250 – and that was being extremely generous. She thought it was ridiculous! Considering the supplies alone cost about $100 – I thought it was fair, considering the amount of time it was going to take me. Being young and eager to please, I knocked the price down to $200. Still no go. I gave up. Lesson: Quote price BEFORE you buy any supplies or do any excessive work (luckily I got a refund, but still).

2. An old friend, who I hadn’t seen in a long while, asked me to create a monogram for her wedding. I said sure (and being the nice girl that I am) told her it was free of charge, as a gift. I put a lot of effort and time into giving her a lot of options and then fine tuning her choice into something that she loved. Nary a ‘thank you’ to be found. Just a ‘if I need something else, I’ll let you know’. Lesson: People suck and will take advantage of your kindness.