Should i start a new business for peanut payers?

Lumiere

Lumiere

Well-known member
Ok. I'll try to summarize my plan but first i need to explain my situation for you guys so you can help me better. 2 years ago i moved to London and of course after some difficulties i must say i just settled down. First months was financially difficult(still bad) but now i'm working for a charity and try to live with peanuts. First year I've done a low budget feature with EX3 and it pissed me off enough cause we shot the movie in 11 months on weekends and bank holidays. I thought i must do this because i need to know people and get into sector somehow. Not bad, we became very good friends with the gaffer guy who owned the hole equipment for the movie. In this time i start to work for a charity and now i'm responsible for the all visual content. It took 1,5 year to convince the guys to get 7D so i can shoot both video and stills or something! As i'm working under the minimum wage which is £5.8/hour in UK so my salary is lot less then a SxS card price here:) I'm so fed up and looking for jobs, but all i can find over internet is, people looking for someone with their equipment and just offering sandwiches! So while keep applying to possible positions i thought maybe i should invest my own equipment and start a small business. Not company wise but at least getting some corporate videos or music videos etc(self-employed). My budget is around $25K and i've nothing in my hands as a equipment. I'm planning to get an F3 and the basic kit with some basic lighting. But here in UK things are quite interesting, you can find a corporate video for £15.000, or you may stuck into peanut payers. The sector is very competitive, even you can find a a RED1 package for £200 a day. How much should be my rate for a basic f3 kit? Should i make a web page and a brochure and start to knock the doors? Do you think promoting my self and equipment over internet will work, even if i do this aggressively? I can't sleep well while i've this questions in my mind. Because i don't want to shoot test videos in the parks after a 25k investment. I was a partner of a production company 3 years ago, we owned hvx and the camera paid itself in 6 months. But in this country i'm quite suspicious. What people advise me is to pretend that i have all the equipment and if something comes over i can rent anyway, and if the things go well then i can invest? What would you do? I just get so bored of this charity work, and I'm shooting movies in my dreams. Film making is the only job i've done in my entire life..What you think?

Cheers
 
Starting a new business should always begin with the preparation of a business plan. Business plans when done properly will tell you whether or not your business concept is in fact viable or not. I've walked away from a number of business ideas when their corresponding business plans demonstrated critical faults.
 
If so far you've only been able to get a job that pays you under minimum wage, how can you be confident that you'll be able to pull in enough work to pay off the $25k+ that it would cost you to purchase the F3 (and you're probably low-balling the actual cost of that, which you'll discover once you try to put together a package that works for you).
 
Buying gear without having a business plan, and/or any business cliental is foolish to say the least.
Just because you build it, does not mean they will come.

Good Luck!
 
Cheers guys, i appreciate to all responses.
Yeah i earn under minimum wage that's right, but it's a business that i'm totaly a stranger, i've never worked except filmaking industry, i've start filmmaking business as a AC, 10 years ago, and even in those days i was earning more money than today. Just because of i moved to a new country and a bills and my rent is standing there waiting to be paid, i didn't have any choice. But i'm so fed up, and i don't see any light in the future. I'm totally aware of business plan is a must, but sometimes you know even plans do not work, because this is not a Kebap shop or a production company idea!! Buying a gear somehow, is not problem, but if i will go to £50 a day jobs than what is the point of investing 25K, i'm not sayin i'm looking for a best feature jobs in the city but life is not black&white in't, there is also different colors in life, all i want is that different colors to survive. But in this county a corporate video for a £10k is nothing if you can find right customer, so if everything goes well i can pay everything back easily in a year which's sounds great. AAARRR i guess i'm just a technical guy not a business man, all i need is a producer to bring me some job to deliver, that's my main problem:(
 
To be honest, if your planning on working for penny pinchers, why do you feel obligated to show up with high end gear. Im not saying shoot VHS, But im saying, if they dont want to pay then they dont deserve an f3 kit thats for sure. It sounds like you can get away with a used camcorder and tripod. Then after a few jobs put together a light kit. Because franky, your not going to all the sudden have people knocking down your door to have you shoot with an f3. You will need to work to find clients. How are you going to cover the monthly loan for an f3 until you develop a client base, and while making minimun wage? This doesn't make a bit of sense to me. Are you drunk?
 
If you want to start a business here are the three main questions you have to ask yourself.

1.) Am I any good at this? do I have a quantifiable skill I can monetize right now?
2.) Do I Love this? Will you be willing to work non stop to get this off the ground
3.) Can I attract a client base? Not 6 months from now 6 days from now. Can you get someone on board?
4.) Do I have a reel or reputation to stand on?


If you can answer yes to these questions then do this.

1.) Develop Plan, business identity, print business cards and put up website with demo reel.
2.) Don't buy gear rent it per gig
3.) Don't quit your day job until you can.

You made a feature in your spare time. A couple clients should be easy.
 
maranfilms said:
To be honest, if your planning on working for penny pinchers, why do you feel obligated to show up with high end gear. Im not saying shoot VHS, But im saying, if they dont want to pay then they dont deserve an f3 kit thats for sure. It sounds like you can get away with a used camcorder and tripod. Then after a few jobs put together a light kit. Because franky, your not going to all the sudden have people knocking down your door to have you shoot with an f3. You will need to work to find clients. How are you going to cover the monthly loan for an f3 until you develop a client base, and while making minimun wage? This doesn't make a bit of sense to me. Are you drunk?
Click to expand...

maranfilms, i understand your point and i agree with you mostly, and unfortunately i'm not drunk! All i'm trying to do is loud brainstorming and sharing my ideas with fellas. BTW i'm not gonna get any loan, i'm not planning to deal any bank, cause that 25k is ready in my bank account anyway:) But like you said maybe f3 is an over investment for this situation, most of the jobs on the net are indicating their rates depending on gear, of course this does not mean just because of i get f3 people will knock my door, there is huge long hard road waiting for me in terms of finding client.Posting my gear and looking jobs on the internet sounds too risky though. Thats whu i said maybe i should find a producer or so.
 
Jason Adams said:
If you want to start a business here are the three main questions you have to ask yourself.

1.) Am I any good at this? do I have a quantifiable skill I can monetize right now?
2.) Do I Love this? Will you be willing to work non stop to get this off the ground
3.) Can I attract a client base? Not 6 months from now 6 days from now. Can you get someone on board?
4.) Do I have a reel or reputation to stand on?


If you can answer yes to these questions then do this.

1.) Develop Plan, business identity, print business cards and put up website with demo reel.
2.) Don't buy gear rent it per gig
3.) Don't quit your day job until you can.

You made a feature in your spare time. A couple clients should be easy.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate, this what i was asking myself these days, i don't wanna find myself shooting weddings with f3:(
 
Do you have to stay in London? Any chance you could re-locate to the USA, The inventors of "Free Enterprise"? Why not get a 7D and do a documentary in your spare time? You could do a documentary about the trials and tribulations of making an Indie film in London, this should get you entry to all the Indie people in London. Actually, if you do a Documentary, get a "real" movie camera such as a HPX-170.
 
Smart idea , my company already have a 7D, so it's always with me, actually i've an opportunity to make a good documentary. The charity i work for is working with excluded and mostly abused kids.We give lessons in the schools or youth centers for these kids and give them a chance to find out what they want to do in life, with creative arts. Most commonly courses are film making and dj'ing. This is the point they need me, in this course we shoot basic green screen stuff and try to amaze them about what they can do. So one of the schools we been actually was a real prove to show the education system in UK, and how these excluded kids dealing with life. I've 10 weeks of course footage, they are perfect in terms of content and there is so much footage that i'm sure something will defiantly come out. This topic is quite popular these days in UK, even Jamie Oliver done what we actually doing, but the school he is doing this program is quite posh and that is nothing comparing what i see everyday. As i lost my whole energy and passion about this business i even couldn't start editing. By the way i never lived in US :)
 
As someone who's relatively new to business, having owned a limited company for 2 years in the UK producing corporate films, but built up a reasonable turnover and client base in that time this is my advice.

Firstly know what you're selling, it's no use trying to say you're selling corporate films as there's probably a 100+ companies in a 20 mile radius of you doing exactly the same.

Corporate clients generally don't care what kit you have, they care about having a reliable, professional and competent freelancer who will portray a positive company image when freelancing for them, deliver a great piece of work on time and make any amendments required.

If a client is more concerned about your costings than the talent and quality of work you can bring to the table, it's easier to walk a way and find a client that is willing to pay a fair rate rather than haggling down to a couple of hundred quid a day and finding your profit margin is close enough to what you're getting paid by the charity.

In the same note, when you do start picking up clients no your value. All new businesses under sell themselves and it's a hard place to come back from.

Be clear to the client of your terms and conditions and always secure a Purchase Order before commencing any work otherwise you haven't got a leg to stand on if they decide not to pay you because the project didn't turn out how they expected.

This is more a personal view that some may disagree with, but in my experience you'll have very little success targeting bands to make music videos for unless you have some great connections with their labels. You'll end up producing projects that you'll be lucky to break even on and unless you're trying to gain some PR, certainly won't make a living from.

Hope that hasn't put you off to much, as mentioned before a good business starts with a good business plan.

Steve
 
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Steve; greatly appreciate your ideas, i must agree with ya, no other way anyway, after some calm thinking and more advices from fellas like you, in this country i can't dare to invest this much, at least in my situation at the moment:((( Cause that 25k is my last bullet in life..
 
The way you describe the situation and yourself, leads me to think that you do not have adequate sales and management skills to launch or run a successful business. So your options are :

1. Attract a good sales skilled person to become a business partner and both of you complement each other's skills. If you take this path, then make sure you invest in any equipment only after you get jobs and not before.
2. Do a deal with a small advertising/PR agency and become their in-house production partner who gets paid only when they bring in jobs. This is a win/win situation for them as they have existing clients and are constantly pitching for new clients with their salespeople. Your services will make them bigger than they currently are and so they can maybe pitch for bigger projects or new bigger clients.
3. Get a job with some other company.

I would NOT spend my last money on buying a F3 or any other equipment or think about relocating to U.S or any other country. There are plenty of opportunities where you are. You just are not seeing them.
 
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