When freebies suddenly pay off.

paulears

paulears

Veteran
I've always been a bit reluctant to do freebies - and good causes rarely got any action from me, but my old boss from years ago when I worked for a larger company is heavily involved with a church, and I promised I'd help if anything in my line came up. Should have known better because a week later a classical music event popped up and would I help with some material for the website. Diary was a bit thin, so I thought I'd do it. Took a lot of time and effort but it was done. A week later the person who organised the opera singers asked if I was free to record a choir somewhere else. So that was pretty nice - a proper job, off the freebie. THEN - I get another call from somebody who was at that one, and I'm doing another one. Somebody else saw the first one and asked me to pop in to their workplace to chat about making a video for them. I figured a private job, but no - a corporate product to be shown on the monitors all over their site. Numerous shooting days. All because I did one freebie!
 
paulears said:
All because I did one freebie!
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Kind of sums up my entire career. (Except it was a few for the right people.)

If it's not too much trouble, I'll always offer free work here and there.

You can usually tell when it could be worth it (although in this case you may not have).
 
When I moved to Vancouver, Canada many years ago, I did one Freebie for a new young director and never stopped working until I left Vancouver 2 years later....sometimes one can get lucky, and in a way it's a good handshake with a new community, but not if you're just beginning...I worked in a key position on the freebie and that may make the difference....
 
To believe one freebee led to good paying work by chance is not giving yourself enough credit and failing to recognize the experience and skills you have gained from a career of work. Many who start out in this industry take on free or low pay work in order to carft their talent and build their portfolio. It often takes years to get high paying work. Someone already skilled can take on a free project and get work from it, however, they wouldn't have directly gotten that additional high paying work if they didn't already know what they were doing, how to engage a client, and didn't have a body of work to back up their abilities.
 
Agreed. Glad it worked out for you Paul. I have done a mix of pay levels over the years. In the end, all of your work is branding and no matter what the pay, the level of professionalism is what gets folks to call. I did try a non-profit pro bono job once and did not have a great experience. People are so finicky that it was impossible to please even though the time was donated. I sense that creeping into paid work over recent years as well. We are kind of spoiled with riches when it comes to media these days.
 
Pro bono is one thing but I see no reason to work for free. If someone asks for services for free how much or little can be expected? It's just not worth it.
 
J.Brown said:
Pro bono is one thing but I see no reason to work for free. If someone asks for services for free how much or little can be expected? It's just not worth it.
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No reason to work for free? You put that very well - starting with [...]I see[...]. That's what's true for you. But I in turn can see reasons. I don't think there are blanket rules here where it's 100% "yea" or "nay". Depends on the situation, right? I mean first of all, if you are just starting out, you might think it worthwhile to work for free so that you can hone your skills and gain experience, get a credit, or network. Because think of it from the other side - if you have 0 credits and experience, but demand payment, a producer would say, well, I'd rather spend that money for a pro, why should I take a chance on you? You're free? OK, that's a reason to take a chance. So if you are getting no offers and are not booked up super busy, why not do free work for experience, skill development, credit and networking? Gotta start somewhere.

Does it mean that you should just accept doing any old free work? Of course not. It depends on the project and what else you got going on. If the script/project is sh|t, the director/person in charge is a dunce, there is no networking because it's just a bunch of backward amateurs, and you wouldn't want to put your name to this pile of doo-doo - then why would you agree to it?? That's a hard pass... even if they paid you - unless they're paying you silly money and you can work under a pseudonym.

So work for free might make sense, but the choice is yours - you get to choose as much as they get to choose. Which means that even if you are an established pro, you might want to do work for free or near free, or just guild/union minimum if the project is absolutely outstanding - because you do want to put your name to this project, or work with that person, or it's just something so different that you want to stretch your muscles a bit. That tells you that even an experienced pro might have very good reasons to want to do work for free/ish.

That said, speaking just from personal experience - and I'm by no means a pro - I have rarely... ok, never (oops!)... come across such a "worthy" project that I'd feel compelled to do it just for the priviledge of being involved - whatever work I've done for free, which is a ton, it was always on projects for friends, as a favor to someone, stepping in because of an emergency, or just because I was the only one available in that particular situation. It was never because I thought "wow, what a masterpiece project - I just gotta do it by hook or by crook, sign me up!".

And if a pro has a hard and fast rule - no "discounts", I can totally respect that and I completely see their point... when they asked Harrison Ford why he said he'd never do a film for less than his customary fee, never mind "indy", or "this director" or "prestige", he said simply "because I'm worth it, and there's no reason why I shouldn't get what I'm worth". Totally valid, 100%. Bottom line: to each his/her own, there are no blanket black and white rules, everyone has a different situation, and therefore makes different choices. YMMV.
 
Good to hear it worked out for you.
If I added up the value of my free work through the years, it far, far outweighs my paid work. Other than having footage and gaining experience, I can't remember any of it working to my benefit long or short term, nor anyone being very appreciative, but rather instead just wanting more. So unless it's a genuine good cause I now try hard to charge a healthy, fair rate.
 
I once got a request shooting a music video travelling between two cities and working a long day for like 50 bucks. I said I was already busy and I would the same again. After 25 years in this business I have no need to promote myself like that.

But thats just how I roll it.

What I sometimes do is making things with friends just for fun or as I like to do short documentaries sponsored by myself.
 
I’m very glad for you, Paul. For those who didn’t get paid job directly following a freebie – good actions, like kind words, are never lost, even if one doesn’t see a direct monetary benefit (at least to my view).
 
Free to fee can be a good strategy in select circumstances...

- when your work is seen and directly credited to you by a large group of people, especially those likely to own businesses
- when your work is impressive or stands out in some way (ie being much better than what people were prior accustom to, or just generally being impressive or moving)

I don’t think it’s a great strategy if you work for free on something where you sort of blend into a crew and only a few people will recognize your work (doesn’t mean it won’t turn out well, if it’s the right people - just less of a sure thing), or if you are doing free work that simply meets the status quo and won’t stand out in someway.

Stand out, be seen. That’s when it tends to be worth it.

As well, I always try and define free as “at cost” and still charge something. This way I can get a written record of working with the person in the system, along with an invoice and rate card showing the generous discount provided, and still get some minimal compensation. It’s just easier to work off of next steps after having it be “almost free” with expectations defined - rather than going from free handshake to then invoices, contracts, and rates.

Glad it worked out for ya! It’s also essentially how my business was initially built. Nowadays I tend to just offer tiny snippets of free stuff here and there as a hook, if I think it will be beneficial.
 
I’ll also add to the above, I tend to do these only when I’m the one offering it - not vice versa.

I get red flags when someone approaches for payment in “exposure”.
 
I don't ever do freebies. If it's for a commercial project, "free" is insulting. I don't ever ask people to do freebies. Unless I get together with a group of friends to make a short film or something fun. Even on my documentary films, which are self-financed with essentially no budget, we did an IndieGoGo and raised $12k so we could pay crew.
 
Built my career on freebies. You just have to be smart and opportunistic enough to turn the good ones into career advancement and forget the bad ones.

Agreed that not all of them will pay off financially. You always get better with experience though. Always.
 
Thanks folks - interesting viewpoints on this one. This was for me tricky as these people all know me in the main. However the South African Opera singer is a useful contact and she's put another job my way in the past couple of days. In the past three weeks I've now been in four churches recording all kinds of things, so worried I'm being christianised.
 
I get the people that say no reason for freebies , but how much money do you donate a year? I see my freebies as a donation. I'll help any person or group that is doing good work with free services and I see it as a donation from my side. A day of filming and editing for a good cause is worth a lot to a non-profit and I'm happy to do it. I don't work full time, I don't know any camera person that film 5 days a week 52 weeks out of the year.
Have I got paying gigs from it? Tonnes over the years but that not why I do it and the free gigs have been some of my best days in my career.
 
There can be charity work for sure, and I used to do a bunch of crew work on PSAs for women’s shelters, LGBTQ+ Groups and other organizations that I considered worthwhile. But that’s a different activity than giving your time to help someone build their career. Far too often a lot of free work would just be a form of exploitation as someone who didn’t have much money just wanted to make a movie. In cases like that, I consider whether I’m interested in building the relationship. Is this someone I would like to work with for artistic/craft purposes or is this someone I would like to work with to possibly build a business relationship with in the future. Either one is valid, but if I can’t see one of those two clear benefits then I’m hard pressed to work for free. I used to do a ton of student films but that was the equation of me learning my craft, building up a Rolodex and amassing a list of IOUs when my turn to ask came around. And I always was on the lookout for someone with some real talent onto whom I could grab a coattail to take me into a bigger project. It helped me build my career.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Far too often a lot of free work would just be a form of exploitation as someone who didn’t have much money just wanted to make a movie. .
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Still happens by companies that know they need to spend money on crew and materials, but still try to pull the wool over on us stupid hicks on the far coast from movieland. We are constantly getting requests from one company asking for "interns" and free artwork printing to decorate sets, etc. They know better and bought a building because it would be a cheap way to get a studio set up. Can't go into more details, they probably already know I'm talking about them, or will after reading this (if they read this).
 
In fact to be asked to provide services for free is an insult. It's like walking in a store and ask to get free products.
 
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