All I Ever Wanted

I went on vacation last week. Pleasant time was had by all. I still sent out resumes when there wasn't much else to do, and it paid off. I got a good, solid shoot out of it, and I'm glad I continued to apply for stuff when I was technically supposed to be laying back and doing all of jack and shit.

A pack of wild vacationers, hunting in packs. Clever girls.

There was one potential client who I responded to a listing for, and he called me almost immediately. This was Friday, my sweet, beautiful vacation ended Sunday. It seemed like a good sign. He needed someone to shoot for a girl's volleyball game, three days of shooting total and editing. He followed this by, "how much would you charge, because I'm just not going to pay, like, $300 or something crazy for it." At this point, I knew pretty well I wasn't interested. $300 for three days of shooting, and then editing all that material and producing the number of DVDs he wanted, would be considerably less than minimum wage when dividing the hours of work into the compensation offered, and three days of travel alone would almost reduce that very low offer to half... And that's what he thought was TOO MUCH.

So I told him, plainly, I'd have to ask considerably more than that, more than twice that. Even that, for three days or work and editing, is low for a freelance videographer, but I figured that would send him hanging up quicker than Takeru Kobayashi could eat five hotdogs.

Allow me to assure you, that's fast.

That's when he said something incredibly explanatory of his intentions: "well, alright, we need someone, so whatever." His low offer was just in hopes of getting someone for insanely, mind-numbingly, nipple-chafingly cheap. Well, whatever. So I said sure. He told me, "alright, well, you'll need to be there at 10am tomorrow..."

 "Wait, wait, hold up..." - Dolf

He needed someone for THE NEXT DAY? The next three days? For that cheap? No wonder he called me so promptly.

I told him I wouldn't be available. He quickly hung up. An hour or so later, he asked me via email if I knew anyone else who was available last minute.

This prompted me to write something new. I'll take some time on it, but look for the Guide For Clients, a do and don't list of ways to approach getting freelance artists involved in your projects. This is one of the main points: Do expect things to take time, and allot it. Don't hire the day before, or the day of. You'd be astounded by how many listings I see looking for people the SAME DAY, and sometimes for several day, or week, commitments. This is a prime example.

Others include "Do have cake; Don't eat the cake you've offered me."

Speaking of cake, it's Bruce Campbell's birthday. Hail to the king.