Career Frustration

[Jan McL]

Began "Thinking, Fast and Slow" this morning.

The expectation of intelligent gossip is a powerful motive for serious self-criticism, more powerful than New Year resolutions to improve one’s decision making at work and at home.

Kahneman, Daniel (2011-10-25). Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 3). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition. 

People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory— and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media.

Kahneman, Daniel (2011-10-25). Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 8). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition. 

To the extent that screen captures of Craig's List crappy job offers populate our professional news feeds, we create the possibly-distorted idea that most producers and their jobs are crappy.

I find it more helpful to start the negotiation process by planting my brain in a less antagonistic spot.

Will report back after more words from Mr. Kahnerman have sunk in. Thanks for the lead.

[VASI]

 

[Jan McL]

 

​Yup, yup, yup. Thanks for posting, VAS.

[David Silberberg]

So I watched the above posted Tisch SOA - De Niro video, (thanks for posting) and the take away for me is his closing theme about producers/directors using the same actors , writers , editors again and again. He's really he's talking about a network of artists - the same thing happens if you're in a sound career as well. Unless your're on staff somewhere , you'll be working in a project by project gig economy. You will get hired and rehired by the same people in your network. As time goes by your network will grow , if you keep working, and you will  find new people popping up in your network. The camera person you met 2 years ago may give you call out of the blue needing somebody just like you. People who may have gotten your name from a colleague or a producer and now you're getting the call.

You may also find yourself in a network where you really don't belong, the working opportunities are all wrong for you. And it is not always the money that's wrong- though that's usually where it starts- it could be the kind of productions, the type of people or companies involved, the way it's organized or not organized , the technical particulars.  Finding your place in the sun is a matter of building the right network of people to support with your skills and ears, so you can earn enough money to sustain yourself and grow. This will be a network where you are trusted.

The OP's original theme , if I understand it, was about the irony or futility of the actions of people who shame  Craigslist producers for offering starvation rates. One way to describe Craigslist is that it's an undiscriminating network of strangers who are pitching their projects, looking for cheap help from the un-networked  or under-networked newbies. Good and Bad experiences are equally likely to happen to anyone in this network- and those aren't very good odds for a producer.

Edited June 2, 2015 by David Silberberg

[ninjafreddan]

Very interesting reading and even though I'm not in the film making business, I understand the frustration of being approached by low-ballers.

Now and then, TV-production companies approach me about EFP-work and when I tell them my day rate they spontaneously reply that they've N E V E R payed that much for a soundie (unconsciously disparaging my profession as a sound engineer). My reply is always the same, "there's a first time for everyone..." 

And when I tell them the daily rate for my gear, they go "well, we got our own sound equipment and it doesn't cost that much to rent". And my reply is "well, why don't you use your own sound gear?". Ah, you're flying in from another town and you sort of was hoping that the local sound guy had equipment. Your sound gear is used in another project? No problem, I got all the gear you need and I'm going to spoil your camera guys with wireless TC and audio. They will understand the creative freedom once we get to work. Hidden lav mics and in-ear monitoring for the reporter, no problem...

Of course I "loose" some gigs by this approach, but I will gain their respect and that's more important to me. After all, it's not me looking for work, it's them looking for a sound guy.

Luckily, they usually call me at the last minute, so they really have no choice but to use me.

I'm not a world class boom operator, but I've swung boom for ten years or so, and in some pretty exotic and strange environment. I know the pitfalls, but most of all, I understand picture composition, so I keep the mic out of the frame as long as it doesn't have to go closer. Funny enough, with some younger camera guys and the first time we work together, after a long day of filming, they look at me and say "great sound, man - that wireless link is so liberating. You kept the boom out of the frame for all day". Just doing my job, it kind of makes me wonder what kind of "sound engineers" they usually have to work with.

The same production companies have a tendency to work their crew to the maximum, unnecessary long hours due to poor planning and poor script. When I send them my invoice they might bitch about it, but it's not me deciding to work long hours, it's due to their poor planning. Trouble is that they've been spoiled by young ambitious crew members working their a**es off for peanuts.

Someone wrote earlier that low-ballers have the right to ask, and you have the right to say yes or no. Well, sometimes I just hit them with silence. Nothing is more annoying than silence...

*Rant off* Time to go to bed! :-)

 

Cheers

Fred

[VASI]

Just want to add this here.

The Full Costs and Income of a £1million Indie Film

[Jan McL]

If I'm hearing correctly, pretty much everyone here feels that vindictive responses to low ball offers are morally indefensible, and most people find them impractical as well.

 

It's not that they can't achieve their desired immediate effect, but that doing so undermines the larger discourse that really everyone wants everyone else to treat each other with respect.

 

However, I'd like to refer back to Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow", which suggests not only that we do blatantly reject negotiations based on low ball offers, but also that we make the offerer aware that he is operating in bad faith and that we will warn others who might negotiate with him. Perhaps we could find language and a protocol that would be deemed polite and professional, and also achieves those effects.

 

Any suggestions?

​Have "Fast" in the library but not yet read but the first pages since prepping.

I rejected a particular company for a series of motion picture offers and finally stopped the first caller and firmly stated she should convey to the producers they should cease and desist calling me since they had a reputation for treating their crews badly.

They desisted.

Twenty years later working with a principal from that company on the occasion of his directorial debut. Still low budget but feel we will be well taken care of this time around.

Time will tell, so more later.

[Jan McL]

Just want to add this here.

The Full Costs and Income of a £1million Indie Film

​Another good one from you VAS. Really good.

[Jan McL]

Executing a slight turn in the discussion to include another flavor of career frustration: field fails.

Catastrophic failure frustration may be witnessed and evaluated--as with previously-covered producer-related frustration--in text many times a day on our public and semi-public professional forums.

When one experiences a catastrophic field fail the temptation and reptile brain automatic response is, "This gear sucks!" I know this from experience and also know from experience that this first response is less than useless toward finding the solution. I must consciously sweep it away. I take a breath. That initial panic-based response now only costs me 1/2 of one second before I put my head into troubleshoot mode.

• Does it have gas?

Start with the basics and proceed from there prioritizing the fastest checks for possible fixes: e.g. three things I can change / check in < 1:00 to see if THAT's it.

Dissing the gear first thing is a huge temptation. Now that it's possible to write and post, succumbing to the temptation has potentially negative career implications. Writing out the issue in cohesive sentences is definitely a great troubleshooting tool. It puts the brain into a more logical mode than freethinking alone. 

My advice? Resist the impulse to share your frustration publicly. In almost every case it's been my user error or something simple. I can't teach the art of troubleshooting. Not my milieu 'cause I do it automatically and don't actually know any more how I actually do it. But it's a scientific, methodical process.

Getting emotional in work-related public is a kind of weakness based on my professional training and experience. Fact. Defensiveness is also something that does not bode well when choosing team members to ride out with. Frustration and defensiveness are emotional cousins. Better these emotions are expressed in a contained setting, in private.

 

[Sound Art Film]

There are some points that I will add for discussion:

If a producer is asking you to cut your rates, then really he/she is asking you to invest in their production.  They are asking you to invest your time, equipment and expertise.  It is their job to try and convince you to invest into their production.

Understandly, people can get upset or insulted when they are not treated as an investor, but as a commodity; a means to an end.

Yes, this is a creative field of work, but it is still business.  Give me a valid reason or set of reasons to invest in your production.  Convince me why I should dedicate my resources towards your production.

Most investors would be offended (and quite rude) if you asked them just to throw money at you, well, just because you asked for it.  

Aside from the question of whether you feel inclined to invest or not into someone's production, I feel another question arises:  Do the producers not believe in their production enough to fully invest in their own film?  Someone who is wholly confident in their production would be willing to invest everything they can into it.  By asking the crew to shoulder a large portion of that risk, they are demonstrating a lack of confidence in their own production, which may be a red flag in of itself.  You decide that...

Not every Sound Mixer wants to be an investor.  Some mixer's don't need to invest.  Sometimes we need substantial reasons or motivations to invest.  And yet, some people are open to freely investing, regardless of the end results.  That is your choice, it is a "free market" after all.  

However, there is still proper etiquette that should be adhered to, from both sides of the table.  There is a right way and wrong way to ask someone to invest in your production.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nate C]

Jan I am hesitant to respond to this in full knowledge that in part a thread I started in another forum was partially responsible for your Field Fails post. 

In my defence I was trying to warn others of a potential risk. I was wrong, let my frustrations get the better of me thus and misinformed people. Full well knowing the negative off shoots, yet denying I could be responsible. History is full of people with good intentions  And that is a point of this conversation, think carefully before you criticise. Know what you praise.

Not sure if I should of commented

and cheers Nate.

 

Edited October 22, 2015 by Nate C

[Jan McL]

You should absolutely respond and most especially here. Delighted you did. How else to learn? 

These subjects may only really be learned by being burned by them and someone taking the time to walk you through it. Best case scenario: walk you over the coals as it happens so you have the benefit of another perspective. The telling of / listening to stories of fires are both instructive, but one must spend many hours in the company of good storytellers in order to take the benefits. 

This is why I enjoy Sounderday so much: it's a virtual campfire.

Lots of you mixers are shooting to the top quickly and bring non-union bag gig sensibilities that are different enough from narrative that sitting around the sound campfire is really important.

You, Nate, have stepped up like a man of honor and almost didn't get Defensive. [Half a star off for that.] I'm grinning broadly over here because I'm proud of and for you.

One of the best "classes" I ever took was to have been a forum lurker beta tester for the first predecessor to YouTube. I was more than mildly interested in the gate-breaking tech, but what really stayed with me was the equanimity with which the developers fielded the more...aggressive...testers. At least in text, these most-vigorous individuals were to my ear/eye unqualified assholes. The developers were magnificent in their herding of  this small group of ill-tempered customer / cats. This is one reason why I admire Jeff Wexler so much since he is cut of the same diplomatic and dignified cloth.

Suspect that those who operate at this Olympic-quality level of aggressive and sometimes mean-temperedness in their text communications are unable for some reason to adjust their tone. Not my problem. My problem is that kind of back-and-forth brings out a monster in me, so I avoid them at some cost. I'm trying to learn to deal with it in a more adult way, hence the importance of this thread to me personally. 

It takes some self awareness to recognize the impulse and wait for it to pass before communicating in a less emotional way.

Perhaps the typing of the issue is what's really important to the process...it takes more thought to type cohesive sentences and paragraphs than to speak off the cuff aloud. Sending it may not be the ultimate goal.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Jan McL
Copyedited for clarity.