Filmmaking / Directing : Working filmmakers yes or no (kind of) by Vital Butinar

Great share, Vital Butinar. I’ve heard a lot of filmmakers say they’re struggling even though they had movies come out/their movies are coming out. Some of them have day jobs and side gigs. Have you thought about doing things like filming weddings and local events? Or teaching filmmaking classes?

I think most people equate working in/for Hollywood with money and it doesn't always work out that way. If you are not the face of the movie (the actor), then you should always budget and ALWAYS negotiate for a bigger paycheck next time around.

Hey Maurice Vaughan thanks. Oh yeah exactly and to answer your question, of course I do gig work all the time, the problem is that it's not valued well and whenever it's scares the same problem applies. I've of course shot events and weddings and everything in between. Currently the most promising is editing and shooting social media e-commerce ads and doing commercial videos, both fluctuate unfortunately and when the waves are too far between then you have financial struggle on your hands.

But my main focus stays on films, which has been and still is my main goal since the beginning and why I in this business in the first place. :)

Vikki Harris not to be impolite, but what your saying doesn't make sense at all. If you need to get paid, negotiate a contract that has money in it for you. If your working for free, that's your own choice. I worked with a great cinematographer for very little money, but his wife had a major job at microsoft, so he could actually afford to be broke. don't work for free if you can't afford it. or don't take the risk if your in need of an immediate return.

Vikki Harris you're right and it's funny because very few people even know how much any kind of production costs anyway and how long things take. Which is logical but still proven when someone asks you after you're done shooting a commercial video on the 5th production day, "if they can see the rough cut by Friday" and it's Wednesday. :)

In either case even if I want to make films I still have to produce other stuff as well, which I honestly don't mind.

Willem Elzenga 2 oh that's interesting. That's a good saying, I have to remember it.

I've worked on non paid projects before and I have no problem with that, usually my work friends come and help out if I'm doing a film too. But at the same time I will probably not work on a commercial project that adds value to someone unless it's paid.

You're welcome, Vital Butinar. That's great that you do gig work all the time. I hope it happens more frequently for you!

It's a business Vital Butinar, that's all I am saying.

Maurice Vaughan the problem is not the gig work, it's actually fine, the problem is that film stuff doesn't happen frequently enough. :D

I think he's right, I've known for a long time (since about high school) that it's extremely difficult to make money as an artist in any medium, and so you have to seriously consider a backup career or at least a day job, which is also why so many artists eventually sell out.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh I would tend to agree with you, but in the other hand it's also wrong because art is kind of what makes a civilization worth existing if you think about it. It's literally all around us, maybe not everything is great but then again nothing is.

Well I'm fortunate to live with an artist that hasn't sold out yet she still sells a lot of her sculptures and is able to make a living. It might take some time in between but she needs time to create in between. Interesting is art a business or is business something that happens parallel to art. :)

Vital Butinar oh 100%, we as humans need art in order to survive. It's just unfortunately kind of a paradox when it comes to making business out of art; you can be an absolute genius and everyone loves your work but for one reason or another, you're not making money. On the other hand, you can create slop that everyone hates but it gets you money.

I think it's safe to say none of us like this but that's just reality. Art kinda gets the short end of the stick a lot of times even though it's incredibly important.

You are fortunate and I'm glad she's doing well, and hope she continues to flourish. I think art and business are two separate things but not mutually exclusive; it just happens that not everyone can have a happy union of both and we all want to be the ones who do.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh oh you put that really nicely and I agree. It's really interesting how in most businesses if people like what you make then you're successful on many levels, one of which is financial. But not with art, like you said and it's funny because I know a camera tech that we work with, that makes a lot of money working on creative projects but hasn't got a creative bone in his body.

Anyway for myself I honestly don't care, as long as I get to live normally pay the bills and do what I love doing that's enough for me. But getting there is a bigger problem. Well at least we got rid of rent now, even though my car just turned 25 years old. I asked I cop a couple of years back when it turned 21 if it could drink alcohol now. :)

Funny, I call myself a filmmaker not because I head up many personal projects, but because I do so many film-work jobs. Screenwriting, animation, editing, mixing, color, sound recording, directing, producing, assistant-director. I'm a jack-of-all trades, but I don't want to have a hyphenate a mile long.

Having never made over $35,000/year working a regular job (9to5), when I try and create films to make, I try and put myself into the budget for what I'm worth from the beginning. Screenwriter's used to get 4% of the budget until they became fish in a barrel. As a director/ screenwriter, I'll put myself in for about 6% of the budget. If I were working for someone for hire, depending on the budget and length of the shoot, I would ask for what is appropriate with $35,000 as a goal. Anything less than that and I'm looking for the next job while I'm shooting the current one. That's my philosophy anyway. It's all about how you structure deals and what you spend during the downtime.

This video is still talking about the old way of doing things and as long as they stick to the old way of doing things, they will fail. Were these films actually entertaining? There was nothing in the trailers that made me want to watch either The Brutalist or Anora. I never even heard of them until they were announced as Oscar nominees. Even after I did research on them, I still had no desire to leave the house to see them on the big screen nor do I care about seeing them on streaming. I guess the promotional tours didn't do much to get me excited about these movies. Who's failure is that? Is it the director's fault? I've never heard of him so it can't all be put on him. The distribution company makes no promises to as how much of an impact they will have influencing the general public to go see a film, but they'll squeeze every last penny out of their P&A spending to almost insure a film loses money. Are Adrien Brody, Guy Pierce A-List actors? The film reportedly only cost $10M dollars and those two couldn't pull in crowds. Worldwide it made $45M but after the theaters get their cut and the distribution company pays off their P&A bill and takes their cut and after the investors get their initial ROI percentage back, what's anybody left with? How many minutes are people spending on streaming this film?

Maybe it's just time for a different approach to promoting a film..

He's not broke now. Anora's BO has surged by $10m since the Oscars putting the project in the black with lots of streaming revenue still to come. He's going to be fine.