I Stopped Doing This and Doubled My Income

I learned a really important lesson from one of my mentors that completely changed my life and how I approached my filmmaking career. I wanted to share it with you and hopefully, it will have a similar impact.

When I was first starting out, I would say to everything. If I was available, I would do the job. It didn’t matter if it was a wedding shoot, short film, or high school hockey game. I would go shoot it.

I would even say yes if they wanted me as a grip to help with lighting or as a production assistant. For a couple of years, you didn’t hear no out of my mouth.

I also didn’t much care how much they were paying.

Then, I got a call from one of my mentors that was a pretty successful DP at the time.
He call and said “hey I gotta bone to pick with you”

I didn’t even really know that expression but it didn’t sound good.

He said, " I heard you just did a shoot for $300 bucks. Now I wasn’t saying no to anything and that’s what they said they had.

So I said yea that was the rate they had.

Then he said something I’d never forget. “If we are taking on any project, at any rate, it will destroy our industry.”

Looking back now, it has moved in that direction every single year.

So I asked him, well what should I do. He said, “say no”. Again, that was so foreign to me. I only said no if I was booked on something else. I never asked what the job was or what the rate was.

He said it’s wonderful to do that for a couple of years and see what you like and what you don’t like. But after that, you gotta know what direction you want to go and what the minimum rate should be for your skillset.

I asked him what he thought I would charge. He said the minimum shoot be $500 as a shooter. And remember, this is over 10 years ago.

And he said “stop taking other gigs where you are not shooting”

I remember thinking well I can’t do that. I’ll lose my current clients and make way less money. But he was so much more successful than me and I wasn’t doing all that well anyway.

So I figured I should give it a shot.

And for the next few months, I started saying no a lot more than I said yes. And I worked less. But I knew I didn’t want to grip, I didn’t want to PA and I wanted to be a DP. So if the job didn’t put me behind a camera, I didn’t take it.
And if it didn’t pay at least a $ 500-day rate, I didn’t take it either. I started to realize what my skills were worth.

This set me up to make a normal living without working a crazy number of days and it set me up to be a much better DP. And later, I think because of that transition, I was able to create my own successful video production company.

So the lesson I learned was to say yes to everything for a little while, gain skills, see what you like and what you don’t like, and then start saying no and go down a path that you design for yourself.

Learn the exact blueprint I used to go from a struggling videographer, to running a profitable video production business, in this one-hour free training.

[AZ-Drone]

Great advice. I’m not a film maker. I’m a drone operator who specializes in construction progression work. And I say no to jobs regularly as potential clients want everything for very little pay. Saying no has helped me with my business as well. Just recently subscribed to your channel. Thanks for the great information.

[seecraig]

One might use a formula to find out what your "survivable" base rate is. Below this rate is an automatic no.
Total all your expenses whether personal or business (rent, food, transportation, equipment, utilities, etc.) for a year. Divide that by 52 (or a lower number to assume vacation time). That's what you need to make a week to survive. Divide that by 20 or 25 hours. That's the number of hours of paid work you need to do to cover surviving for the week. This gives you time for all the "unpaid" time needed to run your business (marketing, speaking to potential clients, training on new gear, getting paperwork done, etc.).
With this, you know what you need per week and budget 20-25 hours of working to make that money.
Of course, you want to make more than a survivable base over time, so you can adjust accordingly and upwardly as your skills and client base grow but at least you've come up with a threshold as to what base number you're willing to work for and pay your bills and put food on the table.

[MojoPapiFPV]

I worked less days this year than any other year, and I've made more than any other year. 100% agree. Also the importance of perception in the industry! If someone sees you on a set as a gaffer, or pa, they will NEVER hire you as a shooter. It doesn't matter if you're the most capable person for a job, if they know you as a focus-puller or whatever, you're not getting that gig as a dp or director.

[ChadtheFilipino]

Hey man, I super feel this. Love your content as it's been super helpful and inspiring as I've recently started freelancing for the last year and a half and am trying to figure out how to be a better businessman/make more money smarter. I find it really difficult at the moment with people undercutting to get the job in my area, especially with how difficult the job market is and an abundance of other freelancers trying to make their own living. It's tough though still when you lose gigs to others who have a "better deal/value" in the eyes of a lead/client.

[parschwenk]

Awesome lesson from you there bud! Thanks.

[adnan_velic]

This is great advice. I started doing this very early on in my career. As a matter of fact I have conditions that need to be met before I can work with someone.

[wchorski]

Wordage really saved me in these scenarios. things like 'soft / hard hold' can still show a client you'd commit to a date, and will wait for a reply with further details. Also pay is variable. Any contractor should be conscious of the market and might have to take a price cut if the market is trending downwards.

[boahandarrowsproductions]

Wow, I'm at that point now and trying to find my niche so I'm not all over the place. Thank you for your insight and sharing.

[DanielIkpeama]

Watching your other videos really helped me better solidify what my rate should be and how to break things down as I've been going through the process of starting my own production company. Walking away from low paying gigs is definitely hard at first, but I 100% agree that there's a huge sense of relief when you realize that doing so actually opens up the possibility for more better paying jobs.

[seecraig]

One very important reason not to charge too low a rate is that the best kind of marketing is word-of-mouth recommendations. If clients paying low rates recommend you, you're likely to get more low-rate work. That's a sure way to be overworked and underpaid to the point you may not even be able to break even with your expenses.

[lemmystop]

I just found your channel a few days ago. Great content! Your content is helping me tremendously!

[theDanDeleon]

6:40 this is hard to figure out for myself. How would I (or anyone) know when it's time? What certain skills would someone need to have before starting the conversation about pay...?

[DCTRON]

I feel this so much. Do you charge a flat rate? Or do you charge a labor rate and add your gear? I’m having a tough time deciding on charging for my gear plus labor how do you divide that? Do you have a percentage that you charge based off of the gear that you own? Or rent?

[bdflew]

Great video like always!! I do have a question! Should instart my business 1st, as in get the legal side out the way before i start trying to film commercial for companies?

[curtiswindover]

When taking a DP job are you expected to show up with all the lighting and camera equipment? I've never understood who is responsible to make sure the correct gear is present. And do you ever get told to use a camera you're not familiar with?