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The most notorious question in the creative industry. Last night I was going through my e-mail and I came across a name I haven’t seen in a while. It was one of the interns I had when I was out in California. He started with the usual “hey how are you?” “I just graduated” blah blah blah and then he said he wanted to know how to get into freelancing.

Unfortunately I sat at my computer for about 2 hours writing and re-writing my response. Sadly I couldn’t give him an answer, or at least the answer that I wanted to give him.

Ask anyone in the creative, design, animation or motion graphics industry and he or she will tell you … every scenario is different. I wanted to give him a perfect, step-by-step answer and I can’t … realistically I don’t think anyone can. I remember the time when I struggled for work and now I want to give someone a chance, just like I was given a chance years ago.

Jessica Hische wrote a blog about this a couple weeks back and this is the best way to put it

“because what works for one person does not necessarily work for all people.”

This is absolutely correct … I have never heard of any of my freelancing buddies getting work the same way. Every story is different. Everyone has a different background. Hell I know a guy that went to school in Kansas and he received a degree in theater but now he is one of the most successful 3d freelancers I’ve ever met.

So in this diatribe is my advice on getting work if you’re a video editor/motion graphics artist or 3d animator:

BE COOL BABY

The creative game is one that requires a cool head, the ability to react to a situation and not “freak-the-fuck-out!”. Being cool both personally and professionally will be huge in getting work. Realistically, would you want to work with someone who is a total ass?

I’m notorious for being very social and when the job is done I want to celebrate with the men and women that made it all possible. Having drinks, dinner, playing putt putt (hey don’t knock it haha), etc and building personal relationships with editors, directors, producers, CD’s, etc is not only a great way to expand your friend base but realistically it will make them want you to come back.

Once I took the head a studio (that will remain un-named) out the dinner just to introduce myself … I made it very clear from the beginning that I was a freelancer but the dinner wasn’t about getting work but just meeting the people in the community … We are now good friends and ever so often he’ll throw me a job, but he constantly invites me out for drinks with other producers and directors

Also build relationships with other people in your field. I have freelance buddies that give me work and anytime I have too much on my plate I hand stuff off to them. Also your friends will know people you don’t and they’ll be able to introduce you to other studios that might require your services.

Makes sure your comfortable as yourself (i.e. how you dress and act) … in the design world I’ve never seen a real 9-5 week. If your unable to get along with people, those 16 hour days or 3-day crash sessions may feel like an eternity.

PROMOTE THYSELF or WRECK THYSELF

Rule number one of getting work is having a medium that people can use to see your work, therefore they’ll want to hire you. And I can’t think of anyplace better than the internet. SO GET YOUR SELF A WEBSITE! And once you have said website unless you are a graphic designer don’t bedazzle the hell out of it. People like to see the information in a clean and organized fashion.

This I hoped last night was a no-brainer, but tons of people still don’t have websites. That right there is a recipe for disaster. So do yourself a favor go to vimeo get an account (its free) and load some videos … then go to squarespace (costs money but is totally worth it), wordpress or tumblr (both are free) and link up your stuff. It’s not rocket surgery. The most important trait to have in a portfolio site is the ability to update the damn thing … chances are once you start working you’ll be putting everything you work on, on the internet.

DEMO REELS & RESUMES … THE TRUTH

Most of the time studios don’t ask for a resume … the reel, the rate and the availability is what they need to know. And it’s all about the reel baby. Nick Campbell at Greyscale Gorilla did a great segment about this (you can find that here: Say NO to DVD Demo Reels!) about sending in DVD Demo Reels and resumes at random. He also has a great post about how the length of demo reels (http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2010/07/why-your-demo-reel-should-be-really-really-short/). Since he does such a great job at this, I’ll let him give you the low-down on that:

Demo Reel Stats

I have a resume that every year I update but 95% of the studios I work at have never asked for one. But the format is short, simple and to the point. Studios don’t have time to read a mass of dribble. I myself have thrown away resumes when I had a studio gig simply because it took too long to get the required info. A novel isn’t required for companies to see your skills. Also make sure you keep it too ONE page … I’ve seen wayyyyyyyyyyy too many that break a page … if your resume is legitimately 2+ pages long odds are they’ll call you for work not the other way around.

My current resume has my past STUDIO and FREELANCE experience … I don’t include any other irrelevant jobs purely on the fact that studios/production houses could care less, My skills and software certs, my rates and my reel … oh and my name haha. If they like the simplified info that you layout for them they’ll respond. Just give them what THEY need, not what you want them to know.

Craigslist is NOT the answer

Craigslist is great if you’re looking for an apartment or a coffee table but not for a job. That is the number one place if you want to get screwed over big time. Rob Loukotka (fringefocus.com or see below) had a great statement about this:

When looking for shitty clients, Craigslist is a great place to start. The ‘gigs’ section is a virtual goldmine for the bad work you’re looking for. Be sure to look for posts that say: “Student Needed” or “This will be great for your portfolio!” ALL CAPS posts are exceptional resources.

And the man couldn’t be more right. I’ve taken a few craigslist jobs and the results are as followed:

* 2 haven’t paid me
* 1 took my project to another designer that would do it cheaper
* 3 only paid half
* The rest tried to get free work

If your going to use the web to find work use the right sites.

* Motionographer.com (my fav)
* Behance.net
* Mandy
* The jobs section on mograph.net
* Etc.

Popular design and motion graphics sites generally have a jobs listing section. And if the site is popular odds are employers, producers and directors go there.

STRENGTHEN YOUR LIVER

Now this part might seem like a joke but its not. The amount of work, time, blood, sweat and tears that go into the design jobs you see companies put out is extreme. And after a 3 day C4d/AE bender I know plenty of people that want to go party and celebrate another successful challenge conquered. So most of the people I’ve meet love to drink (I myself am one of them haha) so learn to be social at bars and restaurants, but don’t overdo it … the last thing you want is to be super drunk in front of your peers/employers. Now if they get you that drunk than that’s a totally different story.

BE NOT AFRAID

Lastly don’t be afraid to take a hit the first couple of jobs. Unfortunately it is kind of a rite of passage.

If your right out of school, don’t charge what the senior guys charge. If you walked into a studio and wanted 100 bucks an hour odds are you’ll be laughed at until you have some years under you. This is where having a day-job is key.

Also don’t be afraid to say no … just because your new, companies might try to squeeze you for less money … remember if they have already invested in you, they’re not going to fire you unless your a dick about being paid shit. Be polite but firm and if push comes to shove you might have to yield, but that director now knows you have some balls.

Also ask your co-workers for advice once you start working … If they are total assholes then avoid them, but if you meet some people and they’re cool, hit them up for some tips over a beer. People who have lived and breathed the life can give the best advice.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO MY RAMBLE

Odds are I rambled alot during this, so if you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me. Obviously we only scratched the tip of the piece of frost that is the very top of the iceberg known as “freelancing” but hopefully this should fill in some of the gaps.

I wish you the best of luck

~Mike Florio

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Creativity is one of those subjects wrapped in shrouds of mystery. How does one “get creative.” How do you go from staring at a blank canvas, a black and empty composition, and then end up with a masterpiece. Everyone has a different take on it, and most people try to boil creativity down into repeatable steps. I’ve heard many variations of 3, 4, 5 or 6 step plans to getting creative:

1. Preparation 2. Incubation 3. Illumination 4. Implementation

1. Observe 2. Reflect 3. Make

1. Inspiration 2. Clarification 3. Evaluation 4. Distillation 5. Incubation 6. Perspiration

I think creativity is quite a bit more ambiguous and mystical than a clever sounding 5 step plan and I also think it will be different for every person. Let me share what works for me:

Find inspiration

Finding inspiration before I start transforming a blank canvas is key. My process usually starts with cruising the internet, taking screencaptures of design or photographs that spark something in me. It could be a color scheme, a font, a background texture etc. I compile all of these into a folder. All of these different inspirations start to focus my mind into a direction I want the piece to go.

Set boundaries

In my opinion, setting boundaries is the key to getting started. The hardest part for me is the first object/element I put onto the blank canvas. Setting boundaries helps you narrow down the infinite possibilities into something that can focus your mind on. Deadlines are one boundary that will force you to get started and do the work. I watched a video recently by Jack White of The White Stripes talking about boundaries. He said this:

“Deadlines and things make you creative, but opportunity and telling yourself “you’ve got all the time in the world, all the money in the world, you’ve all the colors in the palate you want, anything you want” — that just kills creativity.”

Start with one piece of the puzzle

I look at the client, their logo, a font they require, their color pattern, their vibe/mood. These things all set boundaries as well. If I have a certain color palate, then I have a boundary. If they require a font, then I have a boundary. These help me put something into my empty comp. They help me start the process. I find that once I get one element in place, then my mind clicks into the flow and everything else is simply getting lost in creating and filling in the pieces.

Crank up the music and get lost in the flow

Once you get that first element in place and you have started the process, the rest is easy. Your mind is prepped and ready. You have boundaries and direction. At this point I turn up the music and get lost in my mind. Simply enjoying the process of creating. Not really thinking, just enjoying. This is the “flow” that is so coveted and so sought after; A strange phenomenon where you lose track of time and simply enjoy the process.

As for the details of the process, this is my workflow: I create 3-4 style frames for a project. I generally show one style frame for how I will treat a text moment, one frame for how I would treat any video that is in the spot, and one frame for the end slate with client logo and call to action. I create these in After Effects which may or not be unusual. I know a lot of people do them in Photoshop, but I can’t stand doing that. All of the effects and plugins and presets that I have are in After Effects so I feel like I have more options and tools. I also am able to “build” the scene to some degree and then when the concept is approved I don’t have to re-build it. It’s ready to go.

I never, ever turn on the 3D layer button or animate anything. That is a limitation I put on my design phase. Everything is 2D and the layers are simply stacked on top of each other. I do this so I have more creative freedom to grab layers and push them around and try new things quickly. Animating anything or “testing out” a camera move simply takes too much time. The goal is to create a design, not to animate. Once I changed to this mindset I was able to create concepts much quicker. If I’m doing any C4D work I will render out a single frame, bring it into AE, play with it, go back to C4D and make tweaks, then render that frame out again. It makes it incredibly easy to integrate the two programs when you’re just doing one frame and it gives you the ability to try out so many different variations on a design.

Take a coffee break, then come back and look at your creation

When I’m done creating a design I step away. I go for a walk. I go refill my coffee. Then I go back and look at the design. A lot of times you need to step away, even overnight, before you can see what you have created with the perspective of someone seeing it for the first time. Getting others opinions is vital also, since you are so steeped in the design you may be blinded to little details.

And that’s my process for coming up with a design. It works for me. I’ve spent years trying to figure out the way my mind works, the way I get into the “flow” and the way I find inspiration and translate it into unique and powerful design. It most certainly is a process that you will have to figure out yourself.

I’m interested in how you stay creative and what your process is! Please share in the comments!

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Something that goes overlooked quite often while on the hunt to be the best, most relevant person in your field is the time to step away from work for a bit and regain your life. I’m coming off a two month freelance hiatus and I’ve got to tell you how unbelievably refreshing it is to come back with a new found passion to do good work.

That seems like something a lot of us do to ourselves while on the grind to produce, produce, produce. I’ll speak from my personal experiences and assume that all, if not most of you, are the same way. Almost above all else we love what we do more than anything. The fact that none of us have to work a 9-5 doing data entry or waiting tables makes us very thankful and in love with what we do to make a living. I believe it is that fact that most of the time I will unknowingly give up basically anything and everything I’ve got going on to make sure that this privilege continues to pay out.

For a long time I had no idea how to correctly balance and make sure that work life and personal life supported each other and did not cannibalize each other. The great thing about graduating from Full Sail University is that if the school is good for one thing it is making you great at what you do while programming you to produce under any circumstance over everything else you may have going on. Which is also the worst thing about graduating from Full Sail University. I’m sure we’ve all sacrificed our personal lives in pursuit of that next great project or to finish up that insane deadline. How many of us have let work become all we do and think about? Personally, I have missed out on great moments with my friends and family in the name of “getting this done” and with the intention of “when this pays out things will be better”.

There is nothing more important in your life than friends and family and the moments you get to spend with them each and every day. You have to take time and find that balance of work and life and make sure that each gets the proper time it requires. Not to say that you shouldn’t ever work till 3am on a project that has to get done, but rather that if there is a time when that happens make sure you counteract that time spent another day and go for a bike ride on the beach or spend time with people you care about. What good is spending all the time learning our craft and creating the things we do if we’ve alienated ourselves from the people we want to share our work with most?

With all that I simply suggest to examine all that you’ve got going on and make sure everything is in balance. The worst thing in the world was getting burnt out and seeing how much I’ve removed myself from my friends and family. Take the visualization of balancing a pencil on your fingertip. One end is work, the other is personal life. You could put your finger in the exact center and the pencil would stay there balanced. However the Holidays are coming around and now there is more weight on the personal side of the pencil, so you have to move your finger closer and closer to that side to make sure the pencil does not topple over. Then the Holidays end and you’ve got multiple projects knocking down your door, now move your finger closer to the work side. The real trick is simply feeling out who needs what and keeping an even keel of everything. You don’t want to end up where I was to find you were wasting away in front of a couple of monitors and interacting with friends and family on Facebook alone.

Go take a break. Go hug someone you love more than anything and make sure they know. For crap sake, call your mother I know she’s worried. Get away and make sure the real people in your life come first. Balance.

Be good.
Timmy.

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Introduction

The ’70s might have been the heyday of the maverick filmmaker, but the ’80s still remains a creative decade in my opinion. Mega hits dominated the theaters, but beneath the surface, there were several lesser known but equally praised films and filmmakers whose techniques and qualities were simply too strange, odd, dreamy, morbid or beautiful to fit in with the mainstream. Call them art cinema, independent, cult or arthouse. I call them required viewing. Here are five noteworthy arthouse films:

1. WINGS OF DESIRE

1987. Germany/U.S.A. Dir: Wim Wenders (Paris Texas, The Million Dollar Hotel). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Simply one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Wenders employs a wide variety of fresh ideas onto the screen, getting outstanding performances from his actors. Peter Falk playing himself and being the only character to sense the angels that roam the city will always impress me. Shot in black & white and color, its euphoric feel is further emphasized by the haunting soundtrack and source music.

2. BLUE VELVET

1986. U.S.A. Dir: David Lynch (Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Just about everyone knows about Blue Velvet, but for some reason I keep meeting people who have never actually seen Blue Velvet. It’s quintessential ’80s arthouse and everyone really should see it at least once. Lynch works some of the most twisted ideas, characters and images into a lucid and compelling mystery. Visually stunning, well acted and another prime example of Lynch’s meticulous attention to sound design.

3. A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS

1985. Britain. Dir: Peter Greenaway (The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Greenaway has this thing for flamboyant sets, heavy themes and even heavier imagery. His films are often as disturbing as they are beautiful; as shocking as they are pretentious. Zed is no exception. Between time-lapse footage of prawns decaying and pacing (sometimes legless) animals, we watch as two zoologists go mad after the death of their wives.

4. TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

1988. Canada. Dir: Guy Maddin (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, Careful).  Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Maddin’s use of altered film and sound are quite impressive to say the least. He can take us to just about anywhere in time and achieve any look with his technique. In his first feature length film, Gimli Hospital, he takes us to a rather odd and low budget place. Shot in black & white, the film plays like an 1940s horror movie without the horror.

5. VIDEODROME

1983. Canadian. Dir: David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, Existenz). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Cronengerg’s nightmare visions defy category; dark enough to be horror, futuristic enough to be sci-fi. I think of his films as being smart enough and certainly surreal enough to be considered arthouse fare. Videodrome is one his more twisted films and like his earlier work, relies heavily on themes of mind control, secret organizations and humans with guns growing out of their hands. Disturbing but worth every minute.

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Prologue

I wanted to watch some television, so I turn on the set and begin pressing the buttons on a brown box. The box has about 14 buttons on it, and a long brown wire that connects to the television set. As I make my way through the buttons, I see commercials and newscasts, boring shows for grown ups, etc. I reach the last one which is labeled Z. I press the button and the television screen turns black and white. I’m seeing a room with a formal dinner setting. People are in the room but they seem to want to leave. They can’t seem to leave for some reason. A goat appears and walks out of the room.  The people are confused.  They start trying to break a wall down in an effort to escape the room. People are yelling. I can’t understand what they are saying because they are speaking in a foreign language. There are subtitles, but I don’t know what that means yet. The words go by too fast to read. I’m not sure why I don’t change the channel, but I keep watching, keep looking. It’s 4:35 in the afternoon. Tuesday. The year is 1978. I am 7 years old and I am watching the Z channel—one of the world’s first cable stations.

Z Channel’s Impact on the Film Industry

Introduction

Jerry Harvey and the strangely named Z channel burst onto the emerging California cable scene in 1974. The few existing stations catered mostly to exclusive sports coverage or Hollywood hits. His idea—rather his goal, was to start a station dedicated to “the cinema” featuring the celebrated works from the likes of Fellini, Buñuel, Peckinpah, Bergman, Visconti, Kurosawa, Kubrick or any other noteworthy filmmaker from around the world. And that’s exactly what he did.

To understand the full impact of the Z channel, we must first remove from consideration our current landscape: Internet, DVDs, anything digital and go back to a time before Star Wars; before blockbuster mega hits in general. We must return to a time when print and word of mouth were the only realistic way one could ever hear of such films and directors. You might get a chance to see a current Kurosawa film as the reels tour the U.S., but you could only read about his back catalogue of films. A student of film in the ’70s might have the privileged experience of seeing some of the older imported gems in class but in general, foreign films were, well, foreign.

The late ’70s and early ’80s were truly the heyday of television. The business of cable was an entirely new concept and no one was quite sure what to make of it at first. Beyond the game shows, news, sports coverage and hit T.V. shows, stations aired re-runs like Gilligan’s Island and The Twilight Zone, classic movies, and old cartoons on every channel. We saw the birth of  new cartoons and the subsequent Saturday morning cartoon phenomenon, Godzilla and MGM horror movies on weekends, made for T.V. movies, and even television ‘cuts’ of movies that had R ratings in the theaters—Halloween by John Carpenter and The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola being two examples. Cable really didn’t have much to offer beyond the three main things T.V. couldn’t offer—R rated movies, live sports broadcasts, and pornography.

A cable station featuring foreign and art house films certainly would have failed had it been launched in Des Moines, Iowa, but in Los Angeles it flourished. In 1974, Martin Scorsese was finishing his first film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Stephen Spielberg was working on his first, Sugarland Express. It was an incredibly prolific time and creativity was king. The success of Midnight Cowboy released in 1969 by maverick filmmaker John Schlesinger had changed a lot of things. It was a story about a Texas dishwasher who moves to New York to become a hustler, blindly thinking that rich women will pay to have sex with a young Texas stud. His dreams clash with reality and he soon finds himself homeless and running out of money. After a few failed attempts at male prostitution lead him to utter helplessness, he befriends another lost soul. The film won three Academy Awards including best picture. Hollywood was changing indeed and the Z channel was  immediately embraced by it’s community. Jerry Harvey and his cable channel quickly became the talk of the town making the scene, meeting people and setting up premires of new and classic foreign films in America with Theater owners.

Widescreen on Television

Back at the Z channel, Harvey introduced the virtually unheard of process of letterboxing on T.V. to an unsuspecting audience, sometimes going as far as contacting filmmakers or studios asking for original reels in order to make a transfer in the films original aspect ratio. Widescreen feels natural now, but at the time it was revolutionary. Films like Ben-Hur or How the West Was Won with their huge 70mm prints were cropped down for television and hadn’t been seen in their original aspect ratios in tens of years. It would take production companies another ten years to warm up to the idea of releasing widescreen videos, and now with DVDs, it is unheard of to be denied the full aspect ratio of the filmmakers’ vision. But Harvey wasn’t just ahead of his time, he was lightyears ahead of his time.

The Director’s Cut

By the mid ’80s, his devotion to the filmmakers’ vision would introduce us to another now household term: the Director’s Cut. Heaven’s Gate, a box office disaster whose merits are still debated to this day, had cost 42 million dollars and made only 3 million after terrible reviews. It basically sank United Artists and started a huge controversy in Hollywood. The studio had to cut down his five hour long film into something realistic for theaters, and nobody was happy with the 149 minute result. Crimino’s previous film The Deer Hunter released in 1978 was a huge hit, winning the Academy Awards for best picture and best director. At that time, Hollywood was experiencing great success with these young directors. Spielberg would get millions to do a movie, and the movie became a hit, so the studio would make billions. Studios had little reason to interfere with these maverick directors. But Heaven’s Gate ruined all that. Hollywood blockbusters would not be left up to chance anymore. But strangely, when the film aired on the Z channel a few years later in a three and a half hour ‘director’s cut’, it became a hit. The Z channel soon followed with more director’s cuts like the the five-hour cut of Bertolucci’s masterpiece 1900, which was also disastrously cut by the studio. After years of attempts at re-releasing it in everything from a shorter PG version to a longer R-rated and finally an NC-17 sort of longer version, it got a proper release in its uncut, unedited five-hour glory in 2006, something that the Z channel was happy to show way back in the mid 80s.

The End of Z Channel

With the introduction of the consumer VCR in the early ’80s, the landscape of entertainment certainly changed. Star Wars was changing things with its toy and merchandising franchise. Cable networks were popping up. Now a kind of funny thing happens. But again you must forget about how we use technology today to see it. Today we can get instant feedback via the computer. We can track how many people visited our site today. We can make instant graphs and charts. Hollywood then and today has had to take a big chances. Even with star power, you can’t guarantee a movie’s success. But the new craze of VHS and Beta rental tapes soon proved to be a more than useful aide to Hollywood itself.

First Blood is a good example. Rambo is a household name. An icon of the ’80s with a huge franchise. But the interesting thing is that First Blood was a dud in the theaters. Stallone was still coming off of Rocky fame—hence the “this time he’s fighting for his life” tagline for the title. But it basically did nothing money-wise or for Stallone’s career. His next film was even worse; a ridiculous piece of garbage called Rhinestone co-starring Dolly Parton. But then out of nowhere First Blood became a huge hit on VHS. Sales of tapes probably had people guessing for a while but they eventually made Rambo: First Blood Part II which was a huge hit on the screen and started a trend in crappy action movies. Other films like The Breakfast Club would become VHS classics and create a another trend—the modern teen movie that would last well past the ’80s. Low budget horror films become video hits and a sequel with a higher budget is made and a nice and safe system is born. Hollywood had found a formula that didn’t require the maverick filmmaker at all.

All of this meant certain doom for the Z channel. Cable station were popping up everywhere, offering the latest hot Hollywood films and in the end, Rambo beat The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. At its peak, the Z channel only had 100,000 subscribers. In the early days of cable, that was a fine number since there were so few to compare it to. Jerry Harvey’s world was coming to an end, and he would never live to see his ideas and impact on the film community. His ideas became memes embedded in every filmmaker, actor, director who was lucky enough to see the Z channel.

Epilogue

I was much too young to understand what I was seeing and I’m sad to say I didn’t watch more. Even in my early teens, I’m sorry to say I wasn’t instantly  influenced to become a filmmaker after viewing the works of the most important filmmakers in the world. The truth is, I was like every other kid in my initial quest for T.V. entertainment; I was looking for Godzilla, Kung Fu movies, cartoons or a show I liked. But if I couldn’t find anything I would always check the Z channel just to see what might be playing as a last resort.

Years later, I would fall in love with film and revisit many of the images I had observed as a curious child. I would discover Film Noir and start watching everything I could get my hands on. A scene would happen and I’d remember seeing it on the Z channel. Before DVDs, you had to rely on imported videos from Europe or Japan to see a lot of great films in widescreen or uncut versions. I was into Sergio Leone at the time and was happy to see a crappy bootleg with chinese subtitles just to see a widescreen version of one of his films. I remember when Once Upon a Time in the West finally came out on DVD around 2005 or 2006. Perfect image. Widescreen with the correct aspect ratio. Uncut. Restored sound. Just like the version that played on the Z channel more that 20 years earlier.