The Pitfalls of Gig Work
I specialize in working with folks with fluctuating income. That means business owners with fluctuating business revenue (and therefore often fluctuating take home income), folks who work with commission based salaries, freelancers, and gig workers. Today I want to focus on the gig workers, specifically the gig workers in the film industry, but the takeaways can apply to other industries as well.
I’ve worked with folks in front of the camera (the “talent”) and those behind the camera (the crew and post production team), and the overarching financial narrative is complex and often painful.
First off, there’s a vernacular in the industry that I think muddies how folks think about their work. My film industry clients talk about their work as if the industry is their employer. On the other hand, other freelancers I work with never talk that way. My freelance graphic designers don’t say the Graphic Design industry employs them -- they say individual clients employ them. By saying it is the industry as a whole, my clients unknowingly take the individual humanity out of the equation. When something is wrong and you say it is caused by “the industry” that is vague and often not actionable, but when something is wrong and you say it is caused by Steve, that is actionable.
In general, folks who work in the film industry feel like they have been sold a bill of goods -- the industry, and what the industry makes, is cool. It is pop culture. Unlike most work, the finished product actually gets seen by millions of people. You can tell someone you worked on Barbie and they are going to think you are cool. Most of my clients in the industry would never say that that matters to them. They typically say that they love the functionality of their work - they love working on creative projects and they love the teamwork that is inherent to the job. That is all very legitimate! Those are great reasons to love the work and, I think for some, they outweigh the drawbacks. But, the cool factor is there too -- and it muddies the waters. It makes it hard to recognize the problems and makes it difficult to explain the problems to outsiders.
Over the course of the last 7 years I’ve also come to more fully understand the drawbacks of the work and, therefore, who is the most likely to “make it” in the industry.
Drawbacks:
Lack of control over pay
Requirement to come with your own equipment/upkeep
Either no benefits or it is challenging to qualify for benefits
No control over schedule
Tied to location
Let’s talk more specifically about a couple of these drawbacks.
The norm in the industry is to talk about pay in terms of your day rate - which, depending on the role you have, can be pretty high. For example, a PA (Production Assistant) makes about $200 a day and a camera operator makes about $600 a day. A Director might make $4,000 or more a day.
This makes people feel like they make a ton of money when they are working on set, or at least have the potential to make a lot of money. The problem is that very few people in the industry actually work enough days to have the math work. It is not abnormal to go entire months without working -- or, depending on your role, to even go years without working.
These ups and downs mean you don’t know when you’ll work again and therefore most people feel forced to take the next thing that comes up no matter what -- thus taking on things that aren’t good fits or overworking and burning out. This happens for creative freelancers in other industries as well, but in most other career paths you can work up to turning your freelance work into a (relatively) stable business and can run that business like any other small business. But, if you are a Grip in the film industry you will almost definitely never be able to run your work like it is a standalone business.
And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the expectations of what each individual employee comes to the table with. If you are on the crew, you likely are expected to own a fair amount of your own equipment -- often thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. You need to take care of this equipment, fix it when it needs repairs and keep it up to date to industry standards (i.e. replace items, buy new items regularly).
If you are talent, you are expected to invest significantly into your skills and appearance. This means regularly hiring acting coaches, participating in expensive acting classes and spending a lot of money on appearance related activities (personal trainers, fitness classes, facials, makeup, etc). These things add up and are not covered in any way by your employers. These are the pay to play costs and, for the most part, are non negotiable.
Some of you reading I bet are thinking, “why would anyone agree to this?!”
I think a huge part is the day rate vernacular.
When you are talking in day rate terms it is really hard for our brains to compute this in a helpful way. People typically think of money needs in terms of months -- how much we need to make in a month in order to cover our monthly expenses (i.e. I need to make at least $5,000 to cover my base expenses). So, when doing the day rate math you end up thinking -- I need to work X days/month to hit my minimum revenue needs. And, quite frequently the number of days you need isn’t outrageous so it feels doable, but, again, the lack of control that individual workers have means that hitting that number is a roll of the dice.
Honestly, working with so many people in the industry over the years has made me think of the industry as pretty toxic. In fact, for some of my clients it almost feels like an abusive partner -- it pulls you in, gives you presents (day rate), makes you feel special (cool factor) and then turns around and cheats on you (don’t get hired) or expects too much from you (equipment investments).
It really doesn’t have to be this way. I’m thrilled that the strikes seem to be making some progress in the right direction and I hope there is more of that in the future. While the work may not be saving lives, it is something that touches most of us most days and it would be nice if we (actually, not we -- the industry!) treated the people on the ground with more respect and kindness.
As always, I’m rooting for you.
XOXO,
