Best paid creative jobs

[Ruairi Robinson]

a typical commercial takes 2 weeks to prep, 1 to 2 days to shoot, and a week to wrap, the prep and wrap is mostly the production team, the director can be working on two to four jobs at once. he/she only has to take the pre-pro meetings,the final casting, the shoot and a couple of days at the edit, director can work a minimum of 7 days on a spot, this includes casting. big time directors have their own production companies and can do at least 2 spots a month for themselves and then make the production fee 20-35% of the whole job on the other spots. skys the limit on the number of directors you can employ.

i worked for one of the top guys in the mid nineties, we did 6 nissan spots, 4 got milks, 3 polaroids, a coke, a mt dew in the first 4 -5 months of the year 1996. it was fast paced and he was printing money and we (production) were recycling staples for god sakes, so directors can sometimes get focused on the cash and their crew, the ones that are putting in 20 hour days, usually only last a few years before burnout.

Well this is certainly one model of directing, but there are very few people in the world that get to work like that at this stage... The business is changing, and not for the better. Ads that are post heavy means the director is hanging around a LOT longer for no extra pay, and it's not like it was in the 90's any more. Though in America I hear directors don't necessarily always have o hang out to oversee the post being finished. In the uk, or France, or elsewhere, the director has to be there for the whole process - to the bitter end.

If you work on ads that tend to be post heavy, the average commercial duration is more like 2 months!

R.

[edit] Just spoke to my UK ad producer and asked him the average time spent on an ad these days. His estimated - 10 weeks on a reasonably post-heavy job, 6 weeks on just a shoot (no major CG work)

So basically what we have is a situation where we have to spend more time, doing more work, for a lot less money. And you get to have your work ruined in the end, when the agency panders to the clients every whim. Like they've decided their nephew's band would provide the perfect soundtrack for the commercial you've just spent 3 months working on.

Isn't advertising great?

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

Highly interessting to read all this.

But isn't the pitching process very time consuming?

What do you need in order that a Agent will put you on his pile?

Best way to get an agent is to have 3 respected industry people simultaniously recommend you to an agent saying "you gotta check this stuff out, it's awesome!". If you try to contact an agent yourself, their default position is "not interested" because if you were someone they should be interested in, someone would have told them about you.

So you are better off targeting the people who can get your work seen as widely as possible, so the agent is the one calling YOU!

 

[Dominic Jones]

What about Soderberg? Or Robert Rodriguez? I'm sure there are more out there...

Just off the top of my head there's Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi) who shoots a lot of his own movies (as well as editing and starring in them). I'm sure there are many more if you take the time to research it.

I've directed and shot, but mainly on music promos - it does take a lot of effort and there is a trade-off to be made between time saved in relaying what you want vs the time taken to do both jobs, but it also has other advantages. The talent often likes it as you're right up in the action and not over in video village all the time. If you're going to to that, though, a good Gaffer is heartily recommended...

 

[JustinGD]

Well what do you want to DO...?

haha, sorry. Right now I do my projects from start to finish, and I love it. I write it, produce it, light it, shoot it, direct it, edit it. So I want the job that allows me to have creative control over as much as possible. From my knowledge that would be director.

 

[Obin Olson]

Just had this EXACT thing happen, after we spent months working the spot out (it's 2d and 3d vfx spot) the client want's some band that is in the family!!

ARGGG!!!!!!!!!

This month I will Direct and produce 4 spots. this is about as many as I would like to work on at once. it gets insane. Need great producer!

BTW I have one small question. what is the average spot price guys on the national level?

We just did an all animated spot for Nick in NY, what would that go for in the "real world"?? I am sure we under bid due to not knowing what the market would take on that type work. It was all animation no live action no shooting. 30sec spot I will not say what our budget was but for your and our sake if we know what we should charge we can do our best to help the system by not giving it all away for free next time!

Well this is certainly one model of directing, but there are very few people in the world that get to work like that at this stage... The business is changing, and not for the better. Ads that are post heavy means the director is hanging around a LOT longer for no extra pay, and it's not like it was in the 90's any more. Though in America I hear directors don't necessarily always have o hang out to oversee the post being finished. In the uk, or France, or elsewhere, the director has to be there for the whole process - to the bitter end.

If you work on ads that tend to be post heavy, the average commercial duration is more like 2 months!

R.

[edit] Just spoke to my UK ad producer and asked him the average time spent on an ad these days. His estimated - 10 weeks on a reasonably post-heavy job, 6 weeks on just a shoot (no major CG work)

So basically what we have is a situation where we have to spend more time, doing more work, for a lot less money. And you get to have your work ruined in the end, when the agency panders to the clients every whim. Like they've decided their nephew's band would provide the perfect soundtrack for the commercial you've just spent 3 months working on.

Isn't advertising great?

 

[Yannick Hagman]

Best way to get an agent is to have 3 respected industry people simultaniously recommend you to an agent saying "you gotta check this stuff out, it's awesome!". If you try to contact an agent yourself, their default position is "not interested" because if you were someone they should be interested in, someone would have told them about you.

So you are better off targeting the people who can get your work seen as widely as possible, so the agent is the one calling YOU!

Thanks a lot. Very logical.

 

[Obin Olson]

Robinson, that milk stuff feels more like a short film then ad....backstory?

 

[JustinGD]

if we know what we should charge we can do our best to help the system by not giving it all away for free next time!

That is a great point. My production company is young, and we're still doing mostly corporate videos, but any advice on how to find standard industry rates?

 

[dino g]

getting the job

getting the job

in my experience, the agecy has an idea whom they want to direct the spots, mostly it is either someone they (agency and client) have had experience with or someone they have "heard" of that is hot and they want to give them a shot. so they will notify 3-5 directors that they want them to "bid" the spot, they give the director and his prod. company the boards and have a conversation about some fo the details.

then the bidder will "bid the job", create an AICP budget that they are willing to commit to. the agency will look at the bids talk with the client and then ""award" the job to one of the directors/prod co. often times, even though they "open it up to bid", the copywriter or someone from the agency or client will tip off the director they really want to work with and let him/her know where they need to be in order to get the job. but some jobs are not worth the money or the aggravation.

hope that helps, and you are right, my experience goes to the mid to late 90's with this stuff, in 2000, i realized that in order to survive i needed to diversify and learn the camera, lights, sound and editing. so i am sure there are still big jobs out there, but there are also many many more that are for regional outfits or the internet.

superbowl ads can cost millions to producer, we were on a sam bayer set on saturday (pepsi commercial) doing some tesing and there must have been over 150 crew members and a budget of at least a million, so those jobs are still out there...

learn it all do it all...this camera allows you to have no excuses.

what do typical ads cost...for what market, product, talent level, in the nineties for a national it was 200 to 400k for a :60 with :30 & :15 & :10 pulled from the original, in the last 3 months i have been on sets with red#0031 for commercials that ranged from tens of thousands to millions, so it is not something to generalize.

ad dollars are getting spread more and more throughout the different media, internet streaming/video ads are growing by leaps and bounds, so that is a great place to start.

a company that i helped start, Current TV (in US and UK), has a program called VCAM, it allows anyone to create ads for their sponsors, if they like them, they will run them on the internet and then on current tv to 50 million in the US and then also in the UK. if they resonate then the advertiser may run the spot on other networks and territories, paying the director for each level. it is a great way to "break in" to the industry. and you can shoot on a z1u, hvx, xl1...or what ever.

hope that helps.

for more info a great place to start is: http://www.aicp.com/

 

[Chris Nuzzaco]

Just to contrast all of this....

Sometimes it's just plain old luck and good timing.

I shot my first regional commercials this past summer, and they were for Court TV judge shows.

How did I get that gig? Well, I had recently went full time as a DP, and I needed more crew contacts in the DC/Baltimore area, which by the way, can be hard to come by. DC is a HUGE news media town, not many good film folks if you know what I mean. So anyways, I peppered the internet with my little ad, all the biggest local film list serves, and of course, good old "hit'n miss" craigslist.

About 1 week later, I got a phone call from a networks headquarters, which happens to be near Baltimore, and the guy is a director shooting a series of commercials. Apparently a guy he works with over there saw my ad and looked at my demo reel (I never post anonymously, if you have the goods to show off, show them off!). To keep the story short, he sent my information over to the director, he liked my work, and I got the job.

I used to be a sleight of hand artist, and I remember an old saying, something to the effect of "you prep for years so that you are ready for that one moment where you are in the right spot at the right time."

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with a story like this.

 

[Obin Olson]

Kos, in your honest opinon IYHO then an animated 30sec tv spot would or should be in the range of the 2-400k? for national all cgi?

 

[dino g]

it is a good question, the last spot i was involved with that had heavy cgi was the gi-joe/ barbie nissan spot in 1996, it was very expensive. (links to both referenced included)

i have no idea what an animated spot would either cost or what someone would pay for it, surely the tools have come down in price and accessibility is on the rise, so it is not as unique as it was back in the day.

i am sure someone will chime in that has specific and relevant experience, that is more up to date.

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

Robinson, that milk stuff feels more like a short film then ad....backstory?

Creatives were actually REALLY good, and we had a client that said "if people don't like it, they are hardly going to stop drinking milk, so fuck 'em"

Not too many clients like that these days...!

...and not many creatives that good either, James Lee, the copywriter recently passed away, and will be missed.

R.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Going back towards the beginning of the thread. If you're 'in it for the money' you certainly won't succeed because being a dentist has a much better rate of return.

But I don't think it's unreasonable to hope for a living wage either. I think it's unfortunate that to some degree I've seen a lot of creatives go into other fields because they aren't the type of individual who likes to live in a constant state of financial crisis. I can't count the number of times that I've heard down right financially wreckless recommendations for how to break into the movie industry. "Just get 4 credit cards, max them out and make your movie!" Some call that passion. I call it downright stupidity.

You should do what you're best at and what makes you excited to wake up in the morning. But if that means your credit being ruined and garnished wages for the rest of your life I can't see how any passion could be worth it.

I guess I just find it unfortunate that there isn't a broader range of compensation types from hourly to day rates to annual salaried positions at all rungs of the ladder to accomodate a broader spectrum of individuals. 'Finding the next job.' seems like a needlessly wasteful part of the process.

 

[John Allardice]

Creatives were actually REALLY good, and we had a client that said "if people don't like it, they are hardly going to stop drinking milk, so fuck 'em"

Don't you love it when stuff like that happens?
Seriously though, lovely execution, congrats...how the hell did you talk 'em into going 2.40? Well, at least we're past the days where even getting them to go with 16x9 was an uphill struggle.

Oh BTW, check with the webmaster at Blink Ink...they've got Silent City down as being a MILK spot.

Now THAT would be a brave creative.

 

[JustinGD]

I don't think it's unreasonable to hope for a living wage either. I think it's unfortunate that to some degree I've seen a lot of creatives go into other fields because they aren't the type of individual who likes to live in a constant state of financial crisis.

Any advice for aspiring directors? Right now I make a living (barely) editing and DVD authoring for other producers, making fundraising videos for non-profit organizations, and cheap music videos on a DVX or HVX. And I also shoot for a fishing show. But I don't want to shoot a fishing show.

How would one start to make a living wage just as a director?

 

[steve palazzese]

You need the first "good work"!

Then the others come one by one...like the domino.

i'm still waiting for that one... ;-)

 

[Yannick Hagman]

Cheers to Lugano. I'm learning some Italian.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

How would one start to make a living wage just as a director?

Sadly there is really only one way to have a good chance of earning a living wage just from directing that I know of: Corporate videos. But that's not really a route to either commercial or feature direction that's just another job to "pay the bills".

Really you're asking the wrong person. I'm in VFX to pay the bills so I'm pretty much in the same boat. If you want to start out directing you have to work for free either for yourself or other people's pet projects and maybe someone will see something they like and then maybe they'll pass it along to someone who has the financial leverage to make it happen. If someone offered me a pay cut of 50% but it was steady dramatic/commercial direction I would take it today. My joke has always been "I want to win the lottery so I can start working." Don't get me wrong I love VFX but it's not my greatest strength I'm naturally more big picture focused and can get bogged down having to deal with the minutia of say... rotoscoping where as I know people who love rotoscoping and just get into this zen like state. I'm of the personality type who I think would have been very compatible with the old studio system.

I also know people who are quite financially wreckless and will take out massive loans to make the film of their dreams.