Are you making money?

I agree with you Dan and Chris. Multiple skill sets are important and excelling at one or two to differentiate is key.

Mark, I am sure that you have been thought a lot about how to generate income from your passions. I really think you are on your way. I have found that seeing openings in the market and creating opportunities where there weren't any works for me. I wonder if there is more opportunities in the music thing than you currently see. Tell us more about your areas of passion.

Operating costs are a huge factor in running a successful business. I am by no means an expert, but have seen clearly that high overhead can sink a business very quickly. Jim has the right idea. You can make great money on old equipment. Great productions don't take brand new gear.


Jason
 
All this time, I thought that being a wearer of multiple hats and not being a recognized specialist as 'best in field' in one area was my problem. In reality, I can do everything from building recording studios and large-scale sound system, to web site design, to typography, to graphic design, photo restoration, color prepress, 3D animation, DVD menu design, DVD authoring in Scenarist, compression of video for DVD, basic Blu-ray authoring, video shooting, sound recording, sound mixing, video editing, title design and some music production via MIDI. Despite all that, perhaps people avoid me because they think I'm no good at any one service?
 
Jason,

I keep my overhead costs to the bone. My single biggest cost is real estate taxes. They're humungous, and electricity is coming in a close second at $516/month on average, but my equipment is paid for (I liquidated a lot of my vintage audio gear and sold my earlier cameras and got up to date with tech on the video tools, which enables me to be confident that I can deliver the quality that any client might need.) I work out of the lower level of my home, a renovated studio that I remodeled in 1983-84. No downtown office space rentals here!
The problem I'm having is the same one I had when I did insurance selling: I've run out of people I know and I'm getting the cold shoulder from people I don't know. The people I know throw me about $350 worth of business each year. The people I don't know never return my calls.

My passion? Music. Recording it, performing it (for relaxation--I'm no virtuoso pianist!) designing the best audio systems for reproducing it faithfully. I said MUSIC. Unfortunately, today's counterculture no longer appreciates music, but gets obsessed with connecting patterns of samples together in rythmic forms.

It took me 2 years of courting one particular symphony orchestra and a lot of recommendations from other influential people in the music industry before I was given the chance to make an 'archival' recording not for resale of one of their concerts. The orchestra world is unionized and very difficult to work with. I've had a couple of gigs where a soloist would hire me to record/make video of the concert, after putting the request to a vote of the orchestra committee.

I'm about to approach two other orchestras in the state, with a mailing consisting of a cover letter, a DVD and a CD of the final product that I've made for past concerts. If I could do a concert or two a month, I could make a better living than I did in broadcast engineering.

Working with the GBSO has been a pleasant experience. The Klein has one of the best stage crews I've ever worked with, fast, efficient, minimal BS rules, sensible professionals. I have little physical work to do, so I can do this right up to my dying day, as the crew fly the microphone cluster for me--I just park the mikes into their respective shockmounts, check connections, filters and angles and up it goes on the wire. I keep the setup efficient and streamlined, carrying only the mics, a laptop and mutitrack mic preamps/fire wire interface and the necessary cables, in addition to the cameras and tripods. I have two volunteers who love the symphony (one is a cellist and owner of a company that makes acoustic treatments for studios), the other is an avid photographer and longtime friend. I buy them dinner and they're happy to run the cameras. Tear down goes pretty efficiently and we're usually packed and out of there in thirty minutes.

After a concert, I dump all the audio and video to the editor in less than an hour and I'm already busy synching four camera channels and 7 channels of audio on the timeline, in preparation for a multicam edit. That's the part of post production that I enjoy the most. Hearing that audio for the first time... familiarizing myself with the look of each camera angle and how the operators played upon the performers... making the rough cut and watching it in review... adjusting the timing of cuts.. deciding where to dissolve..

Once the video is edited, I send the client and the orchestra a window dub and wait for approval. While I'm waiting, I begin working on the theme for the menu design and the packaging and get to work in AE and Quark on separate workstations--often simultaneously. The DVD authoring is pretty de rigueur nowadays, as I have templetized much my most-used scenarios, and the rest is pretty much a well-oiled process. The final pleasure is holding the finished DVD and CD in my hands and admiring the package art, the typographical work and the copy. Very much a satifying milestone in each project.

What more is there to say?
 
"The only real source of stress for me is that $15K annual property tax bill for my home. Other than that, I would live pretty comfortably on what we make. "

Mark,

This may not be your dream home or area. I have my own home, three rental single family homes and some property in another state and the total property tax bill is well under 10K . My county has the highest property values in the state. Maybe your stress could be reduced by a relocation easier than a job change!
 
basspig said:
Despite all that, perhaps people avoid me because they think I'm no good at any one service?
Click to expand...

To be bluntly honest, yes. All of that was almost overwhelming just to read, so I can only imagine what someone would think if you told them that when you met them. It's great that you can do all that, but I would focus on finding the biggest need of a potential client and focus on that.

If they need graphic design, tell them how you can increase their business with your graphic design skills. If they need DVD menu design, show them how you can improve their DVD's presentation with your skills. Don't sell them on EVERYTHING you can do.

Services and products are all about solving problems.

If I hurt my back I want to go to a chiropractor, not the person that does interior design, advertising, hypnosis, massage therapy, piano lessons, and chiropractor work. I want someone who is an expert at solving my problem and so do your clients. Find their problems and focus on them, not your skill sets.
 
I've been in my home since 1966. I built it, though I ran out of money in the 1970s and it is still not completed, I know every system in it, can maintain all the systems, I am the senior in the neighborhood, the first resident on the mountain, as it were and I bought the property cheap back before the boom of 'New Yawkers' came in and turned this former farming community into an upscale town for the likes of numerous movie stars and singer/songwriters. But when my property taxes quadrupled in 2000, I tried to put the house on the market. Could not find an agent that would list an unfinished house that is built quite literally on top of wetlands. So on and off for ten years, I tried to sell. I'd even been advised to walk away from it and abandon the property, but oddly enough, the land values in the surrounding area are in the millions, and the appraisers informed me that my land valuation (for tax purposes) is weighed against the surrounding properties. And I'm getting off 'cheap'--my neighbors pay $25-30K and more for the houses along the lake, which are valued at around $2.5M each. They built some 'affordable housing' across from me and those homes were on the market for $435-800K a piece. Affordable, my arse! But they used that clause to break the 4-acre zoning laws legally by state override.
At this point, I could not even think about relocating. I have too much stuff, the locale has excellent water, we never had a lightning strike (though our neighbors continue to have serious damage every other year from lightning strikes) cause any damage to electronics, probably due to our location between two transformers and a big coil of wire that is at the end of our feeder. The area is hilltop, so never a flood, house was built with the lower level as a bomb shelter (cold war had that effect on my thinking) so concrete walls up to 3' thick down here and is very secure. I can enjoy fifteen kilowatts of bass down here without having the house collapse on top of me. That's the #1 reason I stay here. And having been here so long, I'm acclimated to the area. I've looked down south for property. Didn't like any place along the eastern seaboard. Lived in CA for a short time. Had to go on oxygen while in Stockton, the air was so bad! I spent time in the PI and looked at land in Baguio, but it was too steep, too crowded and too expensive. And I'm not sure I could do any better in a foreign third world country than I am already doing in the US.
In short, I have no intention of leaving. I like the area, geographically, not politically. It is "home" to me on an almost genetic level, if you catch my meaning.

As for jack of all trades issues, that was my concern, though it's been said in this thread that you have to wear many hats because one or two specialties isn't going to make a living. I'm an excellent sound editor, but there is zilch for work in this field. I'm good at authoring DVDs, but there is no freelance work in the field. I don't want to go work for a mastering plant in NJ either. In fact it is diversity of work tasks that keeps me from getting stale and bored with this profession. That's one of the things that killed me about my years as an employee--I just did one task, repeatedly all day long. Factory work has got to be the most mind-numbing, mind-destroying occupation in the world.
Working as a freelancer, I may be designing a DVD package one day, and another, out shooting a concert. It's never the same thing and not all that predictable. It's fresh--each client has a fresh new job and it never seems to get old on me.

I think the problem is that I'm just hopelessly an old curmugeon and I don't get along well with strangers. Eg, I have the wrong personality type for sales.
 
Everything Dan is saying in here is pure gold. To a lot of people (including myself a couple years ago) you'd think a million dollars in revenue would make everything okay! That's when you've "made it". But there's a saying, "mo' money, mo' problems", and it's certainly true. The more you have, the more you have to protect, and the more it costs to do that.

There's another saying, too: "the bigger they are, the harder they fall", and like Dan has said, putting all your eggs in one basket is an easy way to do that. Our clients fall into two main categories: government and entertainment. Our biggest entertainment client fell on some hard times when their investors bailed out, and that's trickled down to us. Now they owe us a couple hundred thousand dollars. They might bail out and be able to pay up, but for now we're stuck going after them for it (with potential to ruin the relationship) and waiting to see what happens.

In contrast, government work is nice, financially: the government is unlikely to go out of business. But it's not impossible. Programs dry up, policies change, what was doctrine one year is heresy the next. So even though we do a variety of projects, they're all vulnerable from one year to the next. And one of the worst things is that we can rarely talk about them or show them off. That leaves you stuck in the ghetto of more government jobs, because you can't show the cool thing you did for the military to an entertainment client to land new work. And the point of every job is not just to get paid, but to lead you to the next thing.

All of this is to say that no matter what level you're at, you're still not in charge of your own destiny. There are still factors beyond your control that can have enormous impact on how much money you can make and how. The best way to mitigate that risk is to diversify. As many clients in as many industries as you can sustain.
 
All governments eventually go out of business.
My first year out on my own, uncle sam pimped my to the tune of 60k. It's not hard to see they'd much rather I get in line and pay income taxes, not venture out on my own. I had to take out a second mortage just for taxes that year and will be paying on it the next 20 years. Add the 30k they have gotten me for every year since then sprinkle on top the recessions they create and you can easily see how much "freedom" they really want us to seek and have.
Nevertheless, we all know how to go out and get real jobs. We do this because we love it and there is nothing else we can do better. I don't look at it as a penalty for chasing dreams. It's just an element of the dream chase we should all know and understand before beginning the chase.
 
reading some of the stories here make me more appreciative of how I'm living.
i rent with my partner which is where I work and I've got enough savings to buffer me from no work for months which during these times, aint surprising. I own my gear, live in a very supportive relationship, no kids, no debts, and no stress apart from any work deadlines that have to be met.
Sure owning a house is something I want to aspire to one day but the idea of going into debt and all the extra taxes and bills that goes towards a house just doesn't make it seem worthwhile.
Heck I'm still young and I'm going to enjoy my youth while it lasts.
 
grinner said:
All governments eventually go out of business.
Click to expand...

I figure when that happens we're gonna have slightly bigger problems than marketing or hunting down our next post-production gig. Luckily in our case, we've got a little stockpile of military hardware going now from these shoots, so we might have an edge! ;)
 
For those of you interested in filmmaking and selling your independent films, I would recommend CreateSpace.com and IndieFlix.com , those are 2 DVD and Streaming video services that give you a percentage of their sales of your film. I did that with my feature "Low Budget" and have been steadily selling DVDs and now starting to sell streams of the film for the past month.
 
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