Putting Money Back into the Business

My working world bounces between three specific circles: business, financial, and creative. It's embarrassing knowing how much time I spend staring at spreadsheets and analyzing how things are going business-wise. Still, it's that time analyzing details and planning ahead that affords me getting to sneak into the creative pool more than if I wasn't putting in that "non-creative" work.

While I'm making more money here in NY, the cost of living and doing business is considerably more. The way I'm making money here – at least at the moment – is quite a bit different too. My camera operator/DP numbers are way up and there's solid uptick in my stock footage sales. My numbers as a production company though – a combination of above and below the line roles and hiring crew as needed – have dropped dramatically. By no means am I doing major long term planning based solely on my 2019 numbers, but surely there's some insight from these last six or so months combined with my other financials and work records.

MY FREELANCE REVENUE STREAMS (PERCENTAGES)

I feel like understanding the health of my revenue streams gives better idea on how to re-invest my profits. There's always an incentive to dump money back into the company to help lower my yearly taxes, but it's hard to justify dumping money into something that's not promising a healthy return on the investment.

Last week I spent three days as b-cam op on a slick Alexa Mini setup with one of those Angenieux EZ 1 zoom lenses, an Oconnor 2560 fluid head, and a fancy pants Odyssey monitor that let you switch between the two cameras.

When you're working on gear that helps you do your job better you have fewer excuses to suck at what you do. Yes, by all means my heart was happy working with this camera package. And yes, I checked into the pricing and quickly started working through how to justify the purchases "for the business." Oh, and the sound mixer had one of those nice blue Schoeps CMIT5U microphones. Then the adult in me kicked in.

Looking at my current revenue streams why on earth would I dump that much money into an area that's not growing? Would this be a fantastic camera package? Yes. Would it get me hired more and grow this revenue stream? Not necessarily. Would my overhead go up? Absolutely.

It's a weird feeling having to switch gears in terms of how I'm putting money back into my freelance work. It's still early – just over six months – in my professional experience in this new market to seriously consider making major capital investments. But man, those Oconnor fluid heads are so freakin' nice to shoot on.

Horrible Short-Term Memory

It's that magical time of year when work seems to slow down and you're absolutely sure you're finished. That no more work – meaningful or not – will ever come your way. Feast or famine. Thank goodness I’m that guy who keeps records, journals, and other nonsense to help remember what's happened before.

It's been helpful looking back at financial records for an objective view of money coming through the door. Over the years my work typically slows down during the summertime, tends to see a big swing into the fall, and then drunk toddlers into the winter.

There's also the thing about having kept a weekly blog for a decent amount of time. There were a handful of projects I'd posted around this time last year that I was proud of and it's helpful for me to go back and reflect on those times, look at what I'd been doing, and remember why I was happy with what I'd been putting out. There's still something to be said about being intentional and not "waiting for inspiration."

Obviously circumstances have changed over the last year or so, but it's helpful to remember slow seasons don't last. Surely there's wisdom in spending less time comparing my work to others and actually being intentional about putting the work in myself. Not exactly sure what that looks like, but I still like the idea that "it's easier to steer a boat that's moving."

Facebook Portal "Real Stories"

One of the New York connections I've made the last couple years is with a DP named Dave Adams. He's a stud, also a Filmsupply contributor, and has thrown me more than a couple jobs these last few months. One of those jobs was as a 3rd Unit DP on a project for Facebook. Crazy excited to see a couple of these edits starting to come out.

DIRECTOR: Peter Jordan
CLIENT: Facebook
DP: Jeremy Snell
2nd Unit DP: Dave Adams
3rd Unit DP: Tanner Herriott

Freakin' ton of moving parts on this one and I was no question the littlest fish in the pond. By far the heavy lifting was already done by DP Jeremy Snell and the fantastic Chicago based crew. I literally flew in the night before, shot a full day on a beast of an Alexa Mini package with Panavision lenses, and flew back to NYC the next morning. Bonus points too for working with a local AC named John Waterman who I actually worked with waaay back during our OPUBCO/NewsOK days in Oklahoma City.

The first unit was in Chicago and helmed by Director Peter Jordan and DP Jeremy Snell. Dave Adams was shooting simultaneously with a second unit in Atlanta, while I was going at it with the third crew in another part of Chicago. Only a couple of my shots made the edit but good grief I'm stoked I was even invited to the party.

Six Months In

This week marks six months since I’ve been in Brooklyn. I’ve met and worked with creative heroes who’s work I’ve followed for years. I’ve shot on projects for major brands that everyone would know. I’m getting close to where we need to be financially to continue living here as a family of four on one income.

It’s still hard AF to live here, especially with small kids, but I’m glad we made the move. The opportunities here are very real but you’re by all means paying for them financially, emotionally, and physically.

With all the changes these last six months there's still things that don’t change. Moving to New York didn't add more hours to the day and I feel like the time I do have is even more sparse. It's incredible how quickly these past six months have gone. I’ve been working a ton the last few months and I still constantly fight the urge to just spend incoming revenue on new gear instead of aggressively paying off business debt and building an even deeper financial cushion. Trying to be a good husband and parent for sure isn't any easier.

I'm a Guest

There's still a good deal of "Hi, it's good to meet you. My name's Tanner." going on nearly six months into living here in NY. I'm constantly meeting new people via work stuff, friends of friends and new friends, and tons of people/parents and orbiting my kids' worlds. Saint Anne the Wife is still driving the boat with the social circles outside my work stuff and she's by far the lead in those relationships.

With that in mind, I desperate try to live out that "I'm a guest" attitude just about wherever I am: our rented apartment, whatever mode of transportation I'm using, the coffee shops I frequent, etc. Focusing in on work stuff I want to say that I approach each client, job, and set I'm on like I would as if I were a guest – because I am.

““When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table! “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”” - Luke 14:8-11 NLT

Clients with paid work and collaborators with passion projects have reached out to me to do the thing, so I'm basically there because they invited me. I like to think that keeping the "I'm a guest" attitude helps to not be an all around turd.

"You're a guest," so that means not being a jerk or a headache to the other people on set. Do what you're supposed to be doing. Go out of your way to be helpful. Don't suck all the air out of the room by trying to be the most important person there.

"You're a guest," so that means you're not treating their gear or the rental gear like trash. I'm very intentional in how I treat my own gear because it's valuable to me. I spent good money on it and want the return on my investment to last as long as possible. Surely I can treat other's gear with the same respect.

"You're a guest," so that means act in a way that will potentially lead to them inviting you back. That being said, I'm not saying you have to answer their call the next time if they were a dumpster fire and not worth working for again. Still, don't forget that dumpster fire may know people you don't and could help you land your next client/job/project.

(Politely) Saying "No"

"Hey! I'm a person/organization/business offering you money for the thing you do. Would you like to do the thing and me pay you?"

Easily one of the best things to hear as a freelancer. Good grief thankfully I've been hearing that a lot lately. There's much more cinematography work here in New York and one of the major reasons for uprooting and moving our family across the country.

Coming from a smaller market like Oklahoma City I said "yes" to just about everything coming through the door – I had to to keep the financials where I wanted them for my business and our family. Here in New York I've had outlier days where multiple paid job offers come literally minutes to seconds apart.

Please know this isn't meant to be boasting. At this point I've got years of freelancing behind me and ABSOLUTELY know that this line of work is feast or famine. Landing work here in New York came much quicker than I expected so there's no reason for me to believe that it can't just as quickly go to some other hungry hustler doing the same thing. That's the terrifying thing about saying "no" to paid and even some unpaid work. People, organizations, and businesses are literally offering to pay you actual money you can use to pay bills and cover your responsibilities to do the thing you do and you're telling them "no." There's also the thing about during down work and the very real possibility that the person/organization/business falls in love with the next person they call and they never call you back – and tell other people/organizations/businesses to not call you either. That's absolutely terrifying and no question keeps me up at night.

In being transparent about all this nonsense and in the interest of other priorities I have at the moment I'm literally saying "no" to going into how and why I decide to turn down paid work and passion projects. I've for sure got my reasons and could go into how priorities help me make the decision, but that'll need to wait for another time.

Am I doing it right? Again, no clue but I sure hope so.

Proof I'm actually working

Thanks to my fancy-pants spreadsheets, as April 22, 74% of my 2019 revenue has me behind the camera and shooting. The other 26% is stock footage (21%) and editing (5%), but we can talk about that later.

The vast majority of my work as a DP and camera operator has me handing off footage that I'll never see again. From time to time I'll dig around the interwebs looking for footage I've shot and this week I found two episodes of the Take It There sports show I've been shooting with the HSC.tv team. Bonus points for each of the two episodes including me in a shot or two wielding one of their Panasonic EVAs and looking absolutely ravishing in my striped Nike tech shirts. I plan to continue this behind the scenes game of Where's Waldo until I'm told to stop or end up buying some more work clothes without stripes.

Dear reader, do you actually stick around long enough to read the credits – even some of them – at the end of movies and shows? More often than not I'll hold out long enough to make it through the camera, grip/electric, and sound – but not a second more; I'm not a monster. I still trip out seeing my name in the credits of projects I get to work on and hope that feeling never wears off.

Back to Family Stuff

Seriously thank goodness I've been staying busy. Work has been coming in and closely followed by invoices and paychecks. Lately I've been on the road quite a bit and the opportunity to travel has always been one of those fringe benefits to what I get to do for a living. It seems like I've worked and travelled more these last two or three months than I had in the last year or two. With that in mind, I'm trying hard to respect the time I get with my family.

I'll never not say it: Saint Anne the Wife is the quarterback of our family while I'm barely the JV waterboy. Being a parent is hard AF and trying to do it in New York City doesn't make it any easier. We're trying our hardest to even reach for the lowest hanging fruit of "not raising terrible and entitled monsters." Are we doing it right? I have no idea, but I'm assuming we're ahead if we aren't the parents letting their kids lay on the floor at Whole Foods.

If you can't tell already, this is one of those phoned in posts because I have more work than time this week. That being said, here's some iPhone stills of us finally getting to visit Coney Island this past weekend.

Shooting Cheap Plastic

Happy Monday yo. I'm back in Brooklyn after spending the majority of last week in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. I could go into how weird it was going back home for the first time after moving my family to New York, but no one has time for that. Loved getting to spend some time with my parents and freakin' kudos to Tulsa and all the goings on for the art kids up there.

Now that that's out of the way, on to the main event: me giving in depth tutorials on "how to become a better filmmaker" and trying to sell you a subscription to my inner circle membership. Either that or me just walking you through an idea I'd put aside a while back to actually using it on a paid client project.

Todd Pyland from TPC Studios called a couple weeks ago with a project the first week of April. Any reason to be in Tulsa is a good one so I was all about it. We'd be shooting some interviews for one of their non-profit clients in TPC's white studio space. I sent them a link to some of my other talking head shoots and also put together some options and rough ideas.

We ended up going with a mix of ideas I'd seen from DP Oren Sofer (screen grabs and BTS) and a conversation I'd had with a buddy of mine named Charlie Molleur about another DP who'd shot through clear plastic spoons to get a distorted look into the camera. I'd shot through similar items before and knew the distorted image could help to add an interesting look to these interviews.

The client approved the look and I started working through how to make it work. Oren Sofer used stands and Cardellini clamps to place small sheets of glass in front of the lens; Charlie's guy had taped plastic spoons to a c-stand. When I'd shot similar looks I'd just held the transparent item in front of the lens, but for this shoot I knew I'd be on my own for setup, running both the camera and audio, and we'd planned to slightly vary the look of each of the interviews. With that in mind, I wanted to figure out a way to quickly and easily attach whatever it was I planned to shoot through. Oh, and also didn't want to spend any money doing it.

The first solution was taping the plastic utensil – the knife looked better than the spoon for this shoot – to a bent wire I harvested from a coat hanger attached to the matte box. Yep, held it in place, but quickly became a nightmare in trying to adjust the look. Then I used a spring clip to attach the plastic utensils to a light stand. MUCH easier to adjust vs. the metal wire, but now since it wasn't attached to the camera I couldn't reframe as the talent adjusted in their seat. The final solution was to re-purpose one of the articulating arms I use for my monitors. Turns out a $200 Zacuto Z-arm is MUCH easier to adjust vs. the metal coat hanger gaffe taped to a mattebox or using a spring clip and light stand.

OH! And freakin' shout out to TPC Studios for having two large black v-flats at their space. I wouldn't find out about those being available until LATE into setting up for the shoot. I was absolutely tripping out trying to work out getting any kind of contrast while trying to light in an all white room. Being able to move those around along with different lens lengths (50 & 85mm) and adding a slight Dutch angle to the camera helped add some variation to the shots in what could easily been a sterile looking interview in front of a white wall.

"But Tanner, didn't you already work this out back in 2016 with a prism and talk about it on REDUSER?" - me, just remebering about it while writing this post

The original goal was to do all this nonsense without spending money. There's times when cheap hacks absolutely work, but by all means there a reason why professional gear is worth the investment. Oh, and I'm absolutely including the "figured it out in 2016" thing hoping anyone reading this doesn't think I'm an idiot.

Stumbling Forward

Seems like this "post once a week" nonsense has been getting harder and harder lately. March started off with me basically saying "I'm too busy right now." The next week was me talking about working with other people and not taking their experiences for granted followed up by another week of me saying "Man, I'm so busy right now." Then there was a music video that I'm incredibly self-conscious about.

In my regular end of week "oh man, what am I going to write about?" panic, I end up coming back to the purpose and goal of regular blog posts: a self imposed discipline to reflect and continue improving on whatever it is I'm doing.

At church this past Sunday the guest speaker opened his sermon by basically saying "I don't have anything that anyone needs." Good Lord that's entirely appropriate for anything I‘ve ever written. Instead of pretending to be an expert I’m admiting to times of "stumbling forward" in hopes it'll be helpful to someone else.

March was a good month – stressful, but good. Financially it was the best March I've had since I started keeping records. I'm crazy thankful to have had 14 days of paid shoots and be working out of town nearly as much as I was home. It was also one of my better stock footage months too, so by all means I'm down with that. April is off to a good start and I've already booked three shoots back in Oklahoma this first week.

Months ago I'd given myself an April 1st deadline as to whether or not I'd continue freelancing or go after a full-time job here in New York. Well, it's April 1st and I'm planning to continue freelancing for the foreseeable future. That's not something I'm taking lightly by any means.

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This freelance nonsense is feast or famine and I know full well that work can dry up just as fast as it comes. Still, every once in awhile I get to look up from whatever viewfinder I'm shooting through while walking backwards covering a scene and get to see views like this one from just outside Salt Lake City, Utah. I'm pretty sure experiences like this are a major reason I still love what I get to do for a living.