Finding an Agent, Should You Pursue Your Passion, and the Danger of Devaluing Your Rate to Land Your Next Gig
About Episode
This episode is yet another installment of the Q&A series with my trusty sidekick Natalie Boschan. In this episode we discuss the psychology behind pursuing your passion as opposed to just getting the job done, we chat about the dangerous and slippery slope of devaluing yourself just to land the next gig, we talk about ways to stay active while traveling, and we also addressing the giant question many editors and creative professionals in the film industry face: Do I need an agent, and if so, how the heck do I get one?
Episode Highlights
- Zack’s childhood introduction to video editing
- How to know if you need an agent
- Natalie’s high school video work and how she learned she loved to edit
- Understanding what agents can and can’t do for your career
- Learning to work strategically with your agent
- How to know if you’re cut out for the film industry
- The problem with making movies for less money
- Dealing with executives and learning how to price your work
- Staying moving while on long trips
- Preparing healthy food to eat while travelling
Useful Links
Transcript
Zack Arnold: So I’m here with the Natalie Boschan. If you’re not, if you’re not familiar with Natalie, she is the star of previous Q and A podcast. It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be one of those nights, my brain is fried. Your brain is fried. I am just gonna give a disclaimer right now, there may be no value whatsoever in the next hour of this show. I just want to warn the listeners. Now, I don’t know what you’re getting into.
Natalie Boschan: Do people listen to this show?
Zack Arnold: I don’t know. I should probably, should probably check my stats more often. If they do, we’re going to be in trouble for the next 45 to 60 minutes.
Natalie Boschan: Yes, that’s true
Zack Arnold: Anyway. So for those that submitted questions, I want to be respectful of the fact that you put your time and your energy and your effort into actually submitting a question. I very much appreciate it. We have a whole slew of them, and our little Google spreadsheet here, I’m going to try and put them together a nice little package so they all kind of feed into each other. And if we get to the last question, I know that basically Natalie is going to make fun of me for 10 minutes straight. Minutes straight, and we’ll have the pictures to prove it. But anyway, the first question that I’m going to pick is from Beaumont, and I guess I’ll read through the whole question. It’s not that long. We have another question that I would need a whole episode just to read that I’ll paraphrase. But this one, he says, I just wanted to know if you knew that you always wanted to edit. I’m in the position now where I always said to myself that I want to be an editor, but I haven’t edited anything really significant. I’ve done a few shorts with a director, and I enjoy them, but not as much as I feel I should enjoy them to have a career as an editor. It could be my experience with this director anyway, I feel like I want to try it out fully, and I’m trying to, but I wanted to know if you actually knew that you always wanted to be an editor, and if you always had a knack for it, or if you just stuck to it and you improved.
Natalie Boschan: Let me see our story.
Zack Arnold: Oh, my I have. I feel like I’ve told it before, so I apologize for for anybody that’s heard this before? This is a very common story that I’ve told, but for anybody that hasn’t heard it, the short version of this question is that I’ve wanted to be a filmmaker and an editor since I was like, eight, and it all started where my brother came home one day, and he’s like, 14 years older than me. He came home with a VHS camcorder, and they were like, the giant like Zack Morris camcorders, like you put on your shoulder and you held over it, and he’s like, let’s run around and shoot a movie in the house. I’m like, okay, so we spent the next 12 hours running around our house shooting this movie, and it was a really hot day. It was in the middle of summer, and he was editing it in camera. So we would try and, like, do it exactly when we hit the record button and then hit stop. And I hated the process. Absolutely hated it. So I hated being on set when I was eight years eight years old. I still hate it to this day. That’s why I chose editing. But anyway, I remember looking in the little viewfinder of the VHS camera at the end of the day, and I looked at him, I’m like, That’s it seriously, like, that’s always like, five minutes long. But a couple weeks later, he came back and he had a VHS tape, and he showed it to me again, but this time, he had put credits on the opening and the closing of it, and he used, he basically video taped him using the titles on Zelda and Duck Hunt at the original Nintendo to make the title. So it was awesome. But then he scored the whole thing with the good, the bad and the ugly, and my jaw dropped open, and I swear to God, it was like, I’d seen porn for the first time. It was amazing. And I said,
Natalie Boschan: A porn editing porn,
Zack Arnold: Right? And I asked him, How did you do that? And he explained how he connected to VHS players together, and then he had the audio input to the record one coming from a cassette player. And he was like, hitting play and record at the same time. And that was it. I was hooked. And that’s all I did, basically, until about two months ago, was just learning how to edit, starting with cassette players, VHS players, and just moving up from there, doing the Video Toaster in high school, doing crappy versions of avid and Final Cut version one in college, and so on and so forth. So the long answer for me is that, yes, this has been my passion and been in my blood and been my identity since I was less than 10 years old. So I don’t know where you stand. I know that this is something you’ve been very passionate about as well, and we’ll get into how important that is first, but I think people should hear your story as well.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, I don’t know if I’ve told you my story. Maybe I have when I was graduating kindergarten, the teacher asked us, What do you want to do when you grow up? And I, being the very serious child that I was, was like, Oh, my God, this is not something I thought about. What do I want to do when I grow up? So I thought really long and really hard about it. Was like, I need to get back to you. I don’t know. So I went home and I think, I don’t know how many days it took me to, like, figure this out, but I remember, I was watching the news with my parents, and I was like, that’s what I want to do. I want to do the news. I don’t know what that meant, but I said, I want to do the news. And I think they told me I wanted to be a journalist. I was like, Yes, I want to be a journalist. That’s what I want to be. And so I. Stuck with that until all the way up to high school, where we had a television program. We had a, you know, a cable, a local cable channel, which I don’t think you can get anymore in the age of digital cable. But we had a local tell we had a local cable channel from our high school that the high school kids, you know, didn’t make content. They did, like, five minute videos. And there was a news program, there’s a sports program, there are other random programs that they did, and it was basically something that, like other either younger kids or like high school kids, would watch, kind of like late at night or whatever, when you had nothing else to watch. But it was fun, because it’s like, you know, these people. And so I ended up getting involved, heavily involved with that, and that’s where I was introduced to Final Cut Pro and I did my first movie about my dog, my five minute movie about my dog, which took weeks, weeks and weeks for me to make, to shoot, to write, shoot and cut, my five minute movie about my dog. And then a couple years, I think a year or two later, probably two years later, I did a documentary with two other friends, and everyone always made fun of me because they had we got our first g4 or Yeah, we got our first g4 laptop with 54 gigs of storage, which was a big deal. And so I was sitting there on the laptop while, like my teacher and my other two partners were like, yammering on about something or other, and all I was doing was, like, focusing on, like, what I was editing, like, whatever the documentary was at the headphones on, I was just, like, laser focused on, like, what I was doing. And I was super into it. And they were like, Oh my God. Like, we’re sitting here, like, prattling on, and all you can do is edit. I’m like, Yes, I have work to do, guys, please stop talking. So, yeah, so I got really into it then, and went on to do it in college. And, you know, I sort of moved away from the journalism thing and got way more into, you know, focusing on narrative, sometimes documentaries. Sometimes I would do more towards, I would go more towards the producing end. And funny enough, I asked when I, when I first got out here, I was talking to a friend, and I said, Well, do you think I should go towards producing, or you think I should go towards editing? Because I like doing both. And he was like, do editing learn a skill. And I was like, All right, sounds good, so I’m going. And so that’s when I got on the editing track, and I think I went and talked to you about it, because I was doing my internship. It was at some production company, and all they had us doing was reading crappy scripts and doing coverage. And I was like, this sucks. And so I think I emailed you, and we sat down and talked about what it’s like to be an editor and what it’s like to do this, that, and the other thing in the business. And it just sounded like something I wanted to try, because it’s very different being a professional editor and being a professional like a post production professional, and doing it on your own. You know what I mean? Like, it’s a very I think that’s where the divergent, like, the divergence is coming. And beaumonts question is that when you’re doing these stuff on your own, like when I’m doing it in high school, and I can just sit there and do my own project and be in my own world, that’s a very different place than doing it professionally. You know, yes, you’re doing someone else’s project. You don’t have as much control as you thought you would, or as you did when you were, you know, doing your sort of independent films, or whatever you were doing. And so when you’re doing this professionally, it becomes a job, and that’s where it becomes hard, like, that’s where you start losing your focus on whether or not it’s something you want to do.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, I think that the what I can lend to this is now the word at episode over 100 I don’t even remember the episode number that this is as we’re recording this, I think is 107 maybe. But many of those 107 episodes, I’ve talked to other professional editors. I’ve heard many, many stories about how they all came up, and in the last 15 years in this industry, I’ve gone to many panels. I’ve listened to other editors, I’ve listened to other directors. I’ve listened to other people in the filmmaking field, and their stories, although the details are different, all their stories are the exact same story. I was eight years old. I was 11 years old. I was whatever, something very young. I was exposed to this film, that film, or the other film, and I said, I want to do that. And they were passionate about it ever since. And my theory is, I’m not saying this is proven, but given how difficult it is to survive in the filmmaking industry, how cutthroat it is, how long the hours are, and how brutal It is to your self esteem, because people are constantly driving towards the best version of a product, and if you can’t get them there, or the decisions that you make, can’t get the product where they want it, they’re brutal with you like nobody cares. You’re not even treated like a human being. And I’m not saying that’s editors. I’m saying that’s pretty much universal. The only reason that people stick around and make great work is because this is their passion, and it’s in their blood. The people that I talked to, where they’ll say, yeah, no, I was doing this thing, and I was going to be a doctor or lawyer. And, you know, like I wanted to be doctor from the time I was seven, but then I didn’t want to go to medical school, and I took this film course, and it was really cool. I really enjoyed it. It was fun. They never survive because they don’t. Realize how just absolutely difficult it is to survive this industry. So I think that coming into it with, oh yeah, this looks like it could be an interesting career. It’s going to be really hard to withstand the rigors of what you have to go through. But if you’re somebody that just has it in your blood, you’re like, I don’t care what it takes. Like, that was my mentality. I mean, you’ve seen me since before even the Burn Notice days like you worked for me. When I was the starving artist, I couldn’t find any work. I was trying to break into my career, and I was a nobody. You saw that version of me. It didn’t matter how crappy the project was, it didn’t matter how awful the director was. I was so driven to get to the next step and learn, because this was who I was, and it was my identity. So I think, kind of going back to beaumont’s question, if you don’t have at least some of that passion, this is a really tough job and industry to withstand.
Natalie Boschan: Well, there’s no roadmap. Like, I think I’ve talked about this before, like, there’s a lot of supply, and there’s no one out there who wants to give you a job until you’re, like, you know, established and whatnot, but you’re not going to be recruited from somewhere to get a job, and so like that hurts. It takes a lot of strength to continue to keep going, even though you don’t get that reassurance when you’re in your younger day, you know, the younger part of your career, or, I guess, the beginnings of your career. So that’s really tough. It’s really tough to stick to it, and it’s really tough if you’re See he mentioned that he’s working on a lot of shorts. I mean, if the contents not great, if you’re not if the director is not great, I’m not saying this one isn’t. If you’re not working on a project that you’re passionate about either, then I’d say, move on, like, if you’re not getting paid for it. If it’s not something that you’re into, I’d say, move on and try to find a different project. You know, because I was feeling pretty down on editing for a little while. I think everyone does at some point. It’s a very like, it’s a hard thing to withstand for so many years, but I was feeling pretty down on it for a while, and now the project I’m on, I really, really enjoy it. It’s just like, such a it’s a great project that it’s the type of project that I wanted to work on for a little while now. And so I’m very happy where I’m at. And so I’m much more happy in my job, even though I’m working a lot of hours and doing a lot more and as far, far drive. But I really enjoy the work.
Zack Arnold: And for those listening, in case you don’t know, Natalie’s on a super secret project, but I’m actually, I’m gonna break the secret, and she’s actually working in porn now, so I just want to make sure
Natalie Boschan: I’ve been passionate.
Zack Arnold: It’s really long hours, but you can see how much happier she is.
Natalie Boschan: Do you know what? I actually met somebody in this weekend whose roommate, no, it’s a friend of mine, but I just found out that his roommate directs gay porn my and I was just fascinated by that. Wait what? But they exist, these people.
Zack Arnold: It’s a multi billion dollar industry.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, they got to make a living too. It is pretty it’s, it’s pretty funny to be only two degrees to separate or one degree. Yeah, two is that two degrees? If I know someone who knows someone, two degrees wonderful me gave one
Zack Arnold: I think I don’t know. I honestly
Natalie Boschan: One degree is that you know the person,
Zack Arnold: Maybe it is so. So basically, what you’ve done is you turn Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon into six degrees of gay porn.
Natalie Boschan: Yes,
Zack Arnold: Okay, we’re gonna turn that into a board game.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah,
Zack Arnold: I think we pretty much wrapped this up. But the last kind of small caveat, I think you kind of answered this, is that you’re not gonna be passionate about every single job. Like, if you’re thinking, oh my god, I’m not super passionate about this short and I don’t feel it like there are a lot of crappy jobs, like I have a lot of stuff that I’ve worked on for several companies that I was not happy at all, and I’m thinking, Why in the world am I doing this for a living? Like it just sucks the passion right out of you. It sucks the life out of you. Everybody knows my burnout stories ad nauseum, so I won’t tell those again. And if you haven’t heard them, and you’re brand new to the show just look up the word burnout on the site, and you’re going to get my whole life story, and you’re going to know more about me than when my wife does.
Natalie Boschan: And you can link to it in the show notes,
Zack Arnold: Yes, and I can like, thank you. I can link to it in the show notes. At least one of us is on the ball right now. But just just realize that there are going to be periods where, even if you have that passion, it’s gonna suck. You got to get through it and see the bigger picture, and kind of play the long game, because I had like, five years of just that’s a part of my resume that very few people know about. Some of it’s on IMDb. Most of it isn’t, but I just saw it as a learning period in my career, and I took a few risks and took a few chances, and it all paid off, but you’re not always going to have that passion. But I really do believe that it’s very hard to survive in the filmmaking industry if you just come at it thinking it’s going to be fun and it’s going to be kitschy, and you could say, oh, I work on movies like you’re going to get eaten up and spitting out and just eaten alive.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah.
Zack Arnold: Anyway, on that happy, happy note, we should. We should just call this the bitter in post podcast.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, right. No, I like my job. I do like my job now, so
Zack Arnold: I’m very glad to hear that.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, I liked my jobs, working with you too, though.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, whatever. Too little, too late, I’m getting a new co host. Curtis is going to be my next co host.
Natalie Boschan: Yay, to hear from Curtis.
Zack Arnold: All right. So we have the question, that is a chapter of a novel, and then we have the other two. I think I’m going to transition, since we’re kind of on the idea of jobs, it’s going to be a loose transition to this. But we have a question from Joaquin, and this is a really, really common question, and I’m actually surprised that nobody has asked it before, but this is a question that I didn’t know the answer to for years, and I’m not sure I have the right answer yet, but I can share my own experience. And he asks, Could you explain the ins and outs of getting an agent, if I’m an editor? How does it all work, and is it worth it?
Natalie Boschan: I don’t even know this story, so I’m actually interested in what you have to say.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. So I have kind of mixed feelings about the whole agent process and just how it all works. And I’m not saying that like, I don’t want somebody to listen to this and say, Well, this is how getting an agent for an editor works, because I’m one person. Everybody has their own stories. I’ve talked to a few different really big ticket a list editors about this process, so I have some of their insights. But this is by no means the definitive answer on how this process works, because just like everything else in filmmaking, there is no roadmap. There is no right answer. But my story, as far as finding an agent, is no different than how I’ve kind of made everything happen, whether it was Facebook stalking people on Burn Notice or just beating people’s doors down and sending them letters and emails until I responded like Walter Murch with getting an agent, if I remember correctly, many years ago. This would have been probably two or three years after I came out to LA as you know, the CEO and founder of UTA so united talent agency is Peter Benedict, and Peter Benedict does a benefit every year for University of Michigan graduates, and he lives in Brentwood. So basically you can go to his house and have dinner and schmooze, and you pay like 25 bucks, and it’s basically a fundraising effort for the University of Michigan screenwriting department. So already everybody’s saying, Well, I don’t go to the University of Michigan. The point is that there’s always going to be something for whatever group you come from, whether it’s an alumni group, whatever it is. This was my entry level. This is my Dorian. So I had gone to this event probably for two or three years in a row. I had no idea who Peter Benedict was. I thought he was just some guy that graduated from the University of Michigan and was doing fun,
Natalie Boschan: Really rich now,
Zack Arnold: But I’m like, Oh, he’s got a nice house, and, you know, he’s super supportive of the University of Michigan, and I get to see all my friends that I graduate with. These are fun. I was so clueless and naive, and I don’t remember how I discovered it. I still remember the feeling that I had when I discovered it. I don’t remember what year it was, I don’t remember anything else, but I just remember going online and seeing Peter Benedek, CEO and founder of United talent agency. And I’m like, You have got to be kidding me. I’ve been talking to this guy for like, three years. I had emailed back and forth with him, thanking him about the party, like, but with there was no pretense there. I wasn’t trying to get anything. I just because he was a nice guy. I really liked him. He’s a really, genuinely nice human being. And I was like, You got to be kidding me. I’ve got a relationship with the CEO of the United talent agency. So I emailed him again, and I was like, Hey, I just, you know, I didn’t like I didn’t want to say all of a sudden, hey, by the way, I just found out you’re super important. Because that would have been kind of rude. But I just emailed him like, hey, you know. Just wanted to let you know this is kind this is kind of the stuff I’ve been up to, thanking you again for the events that you do. And I just wanted to see if there’s anybody that I could meet with, that I could pick their brain about how the process works for getting an agent, for being an editor. I’m still really young. I’ve only cut two or three feature films. I just want to learn, and that’s the key takeaway from the story. Don’t think about the details. Don’t think I don’t know Peter Benedict. Don’t think I’m not a graduate of University of Michigan. Think all I wanted to do was learn. That’s the key.
Natalie Boschan: I don’t people say that now, though that’s that’s become a like, I feel like that’s played out.
Zack Arnold: I disagree. I absolutely disagree. I mean, this is exactly how I built all the relationships that I have now in the fitness but, but I’ve also done it in the fitness and wellness space. All the things that I talk about in, like the core foundations of, how do you break into the industry? How do you these are all things we’ve talked about ad nauseam and past podcasts. I’m I’m in the exact same position where I’m trying to break into a brand new space, and I’m a nobody. Nobody has any idea who I am, and I’m using all the same tactics, and they’re working, and one of them is that i It’s not that I want to pick your brain that you don’t want to use, because everybody hates that, but if you can rephrase it in such a way that you’re you really want to understand something, and you don’t want to get anything from them, and also you want to bring value to them. In this case, this was over 10 years ago, and I didn’t know how to do that, but if you can bring value to somebody else first, then they’re more than willing to help you. But basically, that’s a long circuitous way around the fact that I got a meeting with another fellow Michigan graduate that was. Also coming up at UTA at the time, who was in the legal department. So he wasn’t actually an agent. He was just doing contracts and kind of doing paperwork and stuff like that. But he and I met, and I just gave him the pitch and said, This is where I want to be in five or 10 years. These are the kind of projects I want to work on. And he and I built a relationship where, when I had jobs that came up, and these were jobs that paid me like, you know, $5,000 all in for like, 12 weeks of editing. Like, these are jobs that paid nothing. But I would say, hey, like, I got this, this next feature film I’m going to edit. Would you mind just taking 15 minutes and reading the contract and making sure they’re not going to screw me? So he would, he would do that just as a way to help out, and he wouldn’t charge me any commission. And then as I started going up the ranks, and I got the job on Burn Notice, I of course stayed in touch with him. And then eventually, I think it was either season six or season seven of Burn Notice, he said, Listen, we would love to get you more television shows. Would you like us to represent you officially? I’m like, Well, yeah, of course I would. So I got representation, but I made the mistaken assumption that all people make about agents, and this is kind of the the the key to this question is that everybody assumes, when you have an agent, you’re done, and the agent gets all your work. And the lesson that I learned the hard way by making the rookie mistake, and I talked to several of my contacts that I have that are super, super high in this industry, and they all say the same thing. They’re like, agents don’t get you work. You find the work, and they’re going to help make sure that you’re protected. They may refer you a script here or there, but you can’t count on agents to get you work. So that was kind of a big revelation to me. And I will say that my agent is awesome, and he has covered my you know what, several times on some of the projects that I’m working on, and there are a couple of pilots and other shows that have been sent my way that I never would have found out about otherwise. So in that sense, they have absolutely found me work. But people make the assumption that once I have an agent, they’re just going to work for me all day long. And what you need to understand about agents, and it’s not just for editors, it’s for everybody. If you’re somebody at the level where you’re thinking, I really need an agent to break in. No agent is ever going to take you on if you’re trying to break into the industry, they want somebody that’s already proven themselves, they’re already established, they already have credits, and they want to help you build and shape more of a career. They’re not going to help you build your career. That’s your job. It’d be no different. Like, let’s say that you’re on Shark Tank and you’re trying to raise money for your business, and you’re like, I want $100,000 and I have this widget. And they’re like, Well, how many of you sold? Well, I haven’t sold any yet. I want you to be my partner, to build and like, no, prove yourself first, sell a bunch of widgets, and then I’ll help you scale. That’s kind of what an agent is going to do for you, as well as they’re going to help you build, get more projects and grow larger. Just don’t assume that they’re going to get you the work.
Natalie Boschan: Well, I don’t have much to add to this. I don’t have an agent, but I was actually but that was all very interesting information to me. All new information, so I hope that’s also interesting to everyone else out there.
Zack Arnold: But that’s not to say that getting an agent is going to be a bad thing or you shouldn’t do it. I just want to really emphasize to people that you got to make your own way first. And everybody’s like, well, it’s a catch 22 like, I can’t I can’t get an agent unless I’ve sold a script, but I can’t sell a script unless I’ve got an agent. You just got to hustle. Like, that’s just the way that this business works. Like one of the best analogies that I ever heard about this industry, and I don’t know if I’ve ever shared it before, so if I have, then I’ll just be redundant. And hey, it’s the redundancy and post podcast. But this industry is kind of like a bucket full of crabs. And I don’t mean crabs the disease. I mean the actual, like, live crabs, the, you know, the crustaceans. But basically what happens when you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket is they can’t escape. And the reason is because when a crab starts to crawl up to the top of the bucket, the other crabs pull them down. So basically they just all die in there because they won’t let anybody get out, because they’re all pulling each other down. And my kind of version of, like, I see that happening a lot in this industry, where you can’t think that I’m just going to be able to do this, and I’m going to go a certain level, and then somebody else is going to do all the work for me. You got to prove yourself and prove that you can get out of the bucket first. Then the agent is going to look at you. And the other thing you need to consider as well is like, for example, when I was done with Burn Notice, I’d done four seasons of Burn Notice, I couldn’t get work, and I had the agent, and he couldn’t get me work, and he’s like, Well, but you’re still young, and you only have one credit on your resume. And to be honest, we’re getting projects that are coming in every day. We’re getting calls every day, but we have other clients that we need to get jobs for. So they have priorities. When you have an agent, you all of a sudden assume, well, your job is to get me work all day long. But in their mind, they’re thinking, I’ve got 25 clients. You’re number 25 on my list. I have 24 other people that have been clients longer, that have been more established, that have been working longer. I have to get them jobs first, so there’s not enough work coming in until you really prove yourself. So that’s a really long winded answer to don’t assume an agent is going to make your career, build your career, and then an agent will help you shape it and help you go further.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, well, that’s why you have to continue to find projects that are worthwhile, you know, and find projects that will help you get there. Yeah, that’s as much as I can contribute to that, because I don’t know much about this, but that was all really interesting. Actually, I never heard any of that.
Zack Arnold: Well, I’m glad to hear that.
Natalie Boschan: Thank you.
Zack Arnold: The last part of his question that I feel like I haven’t quite addressed is the question of, is it worth it? And when it comes to somebody taking 10% of your check every single week, it’s not a fun experience, especially when you get the itemized invoice at the end of the year and you see how much money of yours they’ve taken. Not a fun experience, but is it worth it? Absolutely. And the the two reasons it’s worth it are number one, when you have an agent and you get these horrible negotiation processes where you’re dealing with the heads of posts of certain studios, and I won’t name them, but they rhyme with box when you get into negotiations on shows you don’t have to take any phone calls and you don’t have to talk to anybody except your agent, that, to me, is worth it alone. The second reason why it’s worth it is you. For a lot of people that are listening, this is probably long ways off, but I wish that I had known this a long time ago. When you get to a certain level, you’re never going to get a project unless you have an agent, even if you know the director directly. Let’s say that you have a really good relationship with the director, and the director wants to hire you, the director isn’t actually going to be able to hire you. They’re going to send you along to the producer. The producer is going to send you along to the studio, and everybody’s gonna say, well, I need to talk to his agent. And if somebody says, well, he doesn’t have an agent, then their immediate response is going to be, oh, well, then they’re probably not experienced enough, because at some point everybody kind of gets an agent. So in the sense, is it worth it? Yeah? Like, there are doors that would not have been opened without an agent. Like, I never would have gotten the underground pilot if I didn’t have an agent, and that was something that I got through a personal connection. But coincidentally, the same day that I got the email from the director of underground, I got an email from my agent saying that the studio had submitted to my agent, saying they were interested in me working on it. So all these things kind of connect, and you need them once you get to a certain level, to get in certain doors. So in that sense, is it worth it? Absolutely, like, I would not want to try and wade in these waters without an agent. But it does come at a cost.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, from what you’ve told me before about having, like, this sort of, I guess they’re, they’re sort of like advocates for you to a studio, because someone in my position, like I only, I just take whatever the Studio gives me, like I don’t have any room for negotiation or anything like that. And so I feel like it would be nice having the once you like, once you do get to a certain level in your career, to have someone to be that advocate for you, because you know the studio is going to lowball you and whatnot, and you need someone to sort of be on your side and say, Nope, you know, yeah. And it’s like, it doesn’t, it’s not. It’s hard for you personally to do it, because the same reason, it’s hard for you to be your own advocate, because you’re like, Well, I don’t want to feel bad. I don’t want, I don’t want, you know, I don’t want to be too aggressive. I mean, that, you know, that sort of, that sort of thing. It’s like, well, I don’t want to, like, push it too far, so they don’t give me the job. But you just don’t know your limits. You don’t know how far you can push someone. But an agent knows all of that stuff. You know they know. They know all that political stuff in the language and what to do and how to phrase things, and how to get what you want more effectively than maybe you would.
Zack Arnold: And what you can do is you can play good cop, bad cop. So basically, if you know the director, you know the producer, but they’re dealing with your agent, you can tell your agent, like, listen, there’s no way I’m doing this job for X amount of money. Do whatever it takes. And then they call and then the producer or the director calls you direct and like, dude, this guy was so mean. He said you wouldn’t work for less than x amount of dollars. They’re like, Oh my god, I’m so sorry that he said that to you. He shouldn’t have said that. Like, I apologize profusely. But then you call your agent, you’re like, dude, keep going. So you can totally play good cop, bad cop. So that makes it worth it as well. And then also, now we’re really getting into the weeds about, like, the little tiny details, but one of the other things that’s really great, I’m not sure it’s worth the commission in and of itself, but every single job, they screw up your paycheck the first month. It doesn’t matter what studio, it doesn’t matter what production company, everybody messes up your paychecks. They’re all
Natalie Boschan: There one no, there is one company that does it every time, and I won’t say it over there, but you know who they are,
Zack Arnold: But it rhymes with box.
Natalie Boschan: No, no, no, no. Studio, the entertainment, the payroll.
Zack Arnold: Oh yeah, the payroll company, yes, yeah, yes. But anyway, basically what I can do is I can say, can you take care of my paycheck, please? And then they do. They call all the people. They call the accountants, and then I magically have a paycheck. Otherwise, I’d have to spend like, three hours of my first two weeks on a brand new show. When I’m trying to focus, I’d have to deal with my paycheck. So that’s actually is worth. Tremendous amount to me, because my time and my energy and my focus at this point are worth way more to me than anything else. So if I can outsource dealing with that kind of crap, I love it.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, yeah. No, that’s just Yeah.
Zack Arnold: As long as we’re on, we’re kind of talking about this idea of value and agents. And am I passionate about my career? I think we’re going to hit the novel next, because I don’t think that the other one is kind of like a nice little button and it’s like a fun ending, but I really think that this one, I like the idea that these are all kind of business and career oriented.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah,
Zack Arnold: So I can’t read the whole thing because it would take me 15 minutes to read it. And that’s not an exaggeration, but basically, the beginning of the question is, what do you think of people that are bragging about how little a production costs? So for example, it says, I noticed you’re always asking people to stop wearing lack of sleep as a badge of honor, but I’m wondering if there’s another badge that you would be interested in tackling, and that’s the badge of honor that comes with how little a production costs to produce. So I’m talking about people who say that they made something for anywhere from zero to $200 or something obscenely low. The question goes on for a very, very long time.
Natalie Boschan: They produced it for like,
Zack Arnold: Yes, yes. So this, this is actually a conversation that is rampant in our industry right now, and it’s the idea of devaluing everything to the point of nothing, where people can’t survive anymore. And I know several people that have businesses that have shut down because they can’t compete with some 24 year old that has a laptop in his mom’s garage that’s under bidding, and they’re doing good work because the software has made everything so much easier to do this stuff. And my feeling is that you can brag all you want about how little you did something, but all you’re doing, in my mind, is devaluing yourself. So if we’re going to continue to do this for a living and make money and pay rent and buy groceries and raise our kids, you can’t say, Well, I can do this shot for $47 and I can make an entire feature film for $7,000 like, if you’re passionate, if you’re trying to prove yourself, and you’re young and you want to show how resourceful you are, that’s great. If you do this for a living, you’re just devaluing everybody in our industry, and you’re raising the price that everybody can quote as their rate. It’s not it’s going to be lower across the board, and it’s going to get to the point where nobody can support themselves. And just as as one small example about how things have changed, I still don’t make the weekly rate that I did when I was 24 years old. I made more money when I was 24 doing trailers and featurettes than I do now, editing empire and shooter and all these other shows, because the rates for everything just continue to devalue because people keep undercutting each other.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, well, now you’re doing union job versus non union, and also trailers pay a lot more.
Zack Arnold: They do pay in I mean, if you’re comparing scripted versus marketing, yes, they pay more, but still, I don’t think I could get the right? I mean, maybe I could now, but it’s not like I would make obscenely more amounts of money, even though I have 10 years more experience, because now there are people that will do it for way less, because people just want to do the work, and they want to get out there, and they want to get noticed, and everybody’s bragging about, well, I can make this movie for this amount and this amount. And a perfect example would be independent feature films, where I guess it would have been God almost 10 years ago. Now, Jesus, I’m getting really old, where they had all these great independent films that were being made for three, five and $10 million and those are the ones that were winning all the awards. And there were all these different like movie studios, like focus films and Paramount classics, and Warner Premier, like all these little like indie arms and all that went away because people are saying, well, I can make a movie for $75,000 and I can make money off of it. So that’s why we either have these straight to video, horrible movies that you and I both cut many, many trailers for Yes, or you have the Avengers seven,
Natalie Boschan: Right?
Zack Arnold: Because movies that you make for 10 or $15 million don’t make any money anymore. Nobody goes to see them. So those movies have turned into TV shows, right? But that’s because of this mentality of people saying that I can make a movie for $7,000 so it’s
Natalie Boschan: Happens in like, big budget television shows too. Like, you know, you’d think that, like a TV show, like on a big network and all this stuff, like, you know, that you make all this money, or they give all this, you know, you get all these perks and whatnot, and you don’t, like, it’s great. Like, you know, the union is great because you have a set rate. But you find out that, like your like, your paycheck is very small, and like the budgets are very like, they’re very tight, and they expect, you know, that the studio, like, they expect these sort of feature film quality works, but then they don’t want to pay you the feature film rate. So. Television shows are getting way more complex, and they’re getting so much like the stories are more complex, the production value is going up, but they still expect all the post production and all the production to happen within the same amount of time. But the studios want a higher quality product, because that’s where we’re at with television right now, and it just keeps getting, like, more and more out of control. Right? Your t shirt, today’s miracle is
Zack Arnold: Today’s miracle is tomorrow’s expectation.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, exactly. And so that’s another way that our work is sort of becoming devalued. It’s us and it’s production. You know, we like some of the things that you’re expected to do, and expected to do it perfectly and on point, it’s just not sustainable. And like, the studios don’t see that. They’re like, Well, why can’t you did this before? Why can’t you do it again? Or you have an episode that’s way more complex with, like, more action scenes, or more music numbers, or more just more something that’s just way more complex than maybe something that’s mostly dialog driven, or mostly, you know, they do that for a purpose. You know, you got to have lower you got to have some episodes that sort of balance out the budget for, like, the bigger episodes. But like, the studios don’t understand that you can’t have the same expectation for an episode that’s like 95% dialog versus an episode that’s like six music numbers and like big, you know, like action or whatever. You know what I mean, but like, they expect this to be the same thing, and it’s because they’re looking at a spreadsheet and they’re wondering, like, why can’t you just do it in the same it’s it’s a 50 minute television show, why aren’t they the same? And you’re like, Oh, God, I can’t. And so it’s just, it gets to be mind boggling, the amount that’s sort of expected.
Zack Arnold: The reason that I wanted to pick this one out is, I feel like that. It feeds back into the first question. And first to go to your point about you have people that are just assuming that they can get the same get higher quality for the same price. That’s because most of the people making those decisions have MBAs, and they’re not people that are filmmakers, because anybody that grew up from the age of 789, years old, and said, I want to be a filmmaker. They didn’t go learn how to budget films. They went to go learn how to make films. So the ones that are making all these decisions in the suits in the studios, most of them have ever actually been on the ground and made films. And I used to think that that was just a stereotype. I used to think, Oh, well, there’s no way it’s actually like that. They just do that on TV. Then I got into the business, I’m like, oh my god, it actually is like that.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah.
Zack Arnold: Like, all the stereotypes you see of studio executives that are in TV shows and movies like, those aren’t stereotypes like that’s just art imitating life, right? So they really don’t understand the production process. They just know you should be able to do it, because Microsoft Excel says, so,
Natalie Boschan: Yeah,
Zack Arnold: So they don’t get it. But where that feeds into the first question about being passionate? I don’t know if this is conscious or not, but another one of my theories, I have a lot of theories, and you already know this, but maybe the audience, I’ve got lots of theories, lots of stupid analogies and lots of theories, but
Natalie Boschan: Thinking
Zack Arnold: The reason that I feel that people that are in creative roles get devalued is because the people paying the bills know we’re passionate,
Natalie Boschan: Yeah,
Zack Arnold: And if we’re passionate about it, we’re going to work for 22 hours a day, because we want the exposure. We want the experience. So they figure, well, I can tell them, I’m only going to pay them this much because they’re really in this, because it’s in their blood, and they’re right. So there are these memes that I’ve seen going around recently where it’s a picture of a guy with holding $1 bill, but they’re called exposure bucks.
Natalie Boschan: Oh yeah,
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. And he’s trying to pay his rent with exposure. And it doesn’t work that way. But we are creative people are preyed upon, not just in our industry, but in many industries, because the people paying the bills know we live and breathe this stuff, and we’re going to make sacrifices, including financial ones, to get the job done. So when you start to devalue yourself, it never goes back. That’s that once you it’s not like you can say, well, I’m going to give it to you for this price, that this time, once you set the price, that’s your price, until you decide to make a giant leap forwards and prove yourself, and then people will pay you. But I spun that wheel for a long time where I just kept trying to get the work, and I would take low pay, and I could not get out of that hole for years.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, that’s super important, because you think that like, oh, you tell them, Oh, I’m gonna give you a break on this. And you think that that’s going to win you good favor later on, but it doesn’t. It just makes them think that they can undercut you every time, or it honestly ends up devaluing, like you end up devaluing yourself, and so you are now devalued in their eyes as well, because they’re like, Oh, well, I can take advantage of that person. It’s like, it’s like being in a relationship, but you got to play hard to play hard to get. Every time I get to, like anything in work, everything is always like being in a relationship, and you play hard to get, and then the person wants you more and more. And it’s the same thing in work, you know, like you just, you have to sort of stand your ground and say, No, this this is where I’m at. This is what I this is what my work is worth. Therefore. I’m not going to work for anything less. And if they can go find some, you know, what will likely happen is they’ll try to find somebody who will do who will work for less, the work won’t be as good. And then they’ll come back to you and say, Hey, can you fix this? Like, we hire this other guy, but, like, his stuff wasn’t so good, so can you fix it? I’ve heard, I’ve heard that story a lot.
Zack Arnold: Oh yes, that happens all the time,
Natalie Boschan: You know. So it’s, it is, I mean, it’s just very hard. And I don’t feel like, you know, from listening to some of the podcasts, like older, more experienced editors, I don’t I think it’s been this way for forever. You know, that’s why we have unions in the first place, is that that’s, this has always been happening. I don’t think it’s a new phenomenon. I think it’s just human nature. You know, these people are going to try to try to get what they can out of you for as little as they can, and you just have to stand your ground and say, Nope,
Zack Arnold: It’s been like this since the business began, and long before filmmaking ever existed. So for anybody that is thinking, Oh, my God, I can’t believe this is the way things are now, and it’s so much harder than it used to be, and nobody understands me. It’s like, it’s been like this for hundreds of years, so it’s no different.
Natalie Boschan: This is also why I’m a bad haggler, because I can. I’m like, I take the position of, like, well, I know where they’re coming from. Like, everybody’s got to make a living. But like, I end up paying way too much for stuff, because I’m like, No, I get it. Like, it took time and effort for you to make that thing. And so I end up, like, paying way too much for it, because I understand what it’s like to be in that position. But then I ended up getting taken advantage of when it comes to like, the person buying stuff. Like, no, I don’t want to be that person.
Zack Arnold: On that note, we’re gonna do a really smooth, easy transition to our final question, which is
Natalie Boschan: Final question,
Zack Arnold: Yeah, this one’s not gonna take long. How do you stay active when traveling, do you have a routine when flying and on a road trip? How do you maintain good nutrition? It’s so easy to eat garbage when stopping frequently to gas up. So this is the perfect transition from everything we’ve talked about so far, smooth segue.
Natalie Boschan: We are traveling into a different part of fitness and post,
Zack Arnold: Yes. So this is actually a question that was just submitted by one of my five ex challengers yesterday. So I told him I would, I would answer it, but there’s a really nice, fun story that’s attached to it as well. But I also thought it was timely, because we just got over the holidays, and I did a crap ton of traveling. I was on like, four or five flights. I just came back from New York, I was in Wisconsin, did a bunch of driving, and the big thing for me, if I’m flying, is that I used to always want to sit in the window seat, and the reason is that nobody would bother me, and I could get in my little corner and I could sleep. I can’t do that anymore, because I get really antsy, because I’m so used to moving all day long that it drives me crazy. So I just make sure that I have an aisle seat, and as soon as the seat belt light goes off, I just make sure that I stand up every 20 to 30 minutes, and I’ll just go into the bathroom, and I will just, like, move around. I’ll bounce around a little bit, or I’ll kind of do twists, or whatever it is, or if I’m standing in line, I’ll just do like, calf raises, just anything to move, because I know I’m going to be sitting for hours, so I just it’s not like I can do burpees in the aisles, like there’s very little that you can do, but you can move around. One of the nice thing about at least, if you’re talking about airport travel, is that getting to the airplane is a lot of walking,
Natalie Boschan: Yes,
Zack Arnold: And there’s a lot of movement involved there. So it’s not like you’re totally sedentary. You just have to be careful of like I was on a six hour flight going to New York. I just had to make sure that I could get up enough that I could kind of negate all those negative effects that happen when you sit for more than 30 to 45 minutes at a time. So that’s kind of my thing for flying. When it comes for road trips, that’s much easier. You just get out every hour or so, even if it’s just to, you know, stop at an exit, walk around for two minutes, stretch and get back in your car like that part I don’t feel is nearly as difficult. You just kind of have to be diligent about it and plan it in your trip and say, Well, I’m just going to push as hard as I can and drive for four hours to get wherever I’m going. Plan four and a half so you can take, you know, five five minute breaks or something.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I don’t know why you want to power through four hours. I mean, I have to go to the bathroom like every hour at least. So
Zack Arnold: Well, I used to do that. I mean, that was my thing again. It was like a badge of honor to see how far could I drive without stopping. So I would go on something thing, yeah, I would go on an entire tank of gas. I mean, I I did 215 hour days in a row, and then a 10 hour day. When I moved from Michigan to California, I did it in two and a half days. And that was stupid. But I wanted to see how far can I go without stopping. So I would go, like, six or seven hours, as long as my gas tank would hold me and I wouldn’t stop at all. That’s dumb, but I was 22 years old. I didn’t know any better. So, you know, I just make sure that I build in that time. But when it comes to nutrition, yes, it’s very hard to eat healthy on the road, the key is to be prepared. But if you have things that are with you already, that are healthy, then you’re not going to be as prone to eat the garbage. And I’m going to segue to you, because I know that you and I have had that experience together.
Natalie Boschan: That’s true. That’s very true. Zack and I went to a Spartan Race, my first Spartan Race, up in Sacramento, which is the five hour drive, six hour drive from here and Zack. Zack brought his Nutribullet and Shakeology and whatever the heck else, something strawberry looks like with him was, and proceeded to find an outlet. Well, tried to find an outlet in the gas station. None of the outlets worked, so we had to go outside to use his Nutribullet at a Shell station. So,
Zack Arnold: And we have the pictures to prove it. By the way, Natalie took pictures. So
Natalie Boschan: I take pictures and they look ridiculous.
Zack Arnold: Yes, I’m gonna have to put it in the show notes.
Natalie Boschan: Yeah. I mean, there are easier ways to do this. You can. There are that, you know, you can bring a banana. You could what
Zack Arnold: Almonds, cashews, like. There’s a lot of stuff that you can do. Basically, I did that because this was going to be a long race, and I wanted to make sure that I had the proper fuel and nutrition. So this wasn’t just a regular road trip where I wanted to eat healthy. This was me knowing that I was going to be doing a 10 mile race in the mountains, doing crazy obstacles, and I wanted to be in peak performance to be able to do that on a regular road trip. I’m not going to travel that way. I’m just going to make sure that, like you said, I have apples, bananas, I have almonds, cashews, because you’re always going to want to munch on stuff. That’s just kind of how you kill the time when you’re driving, just if you’re hungry and you don’t have anything there, then the first thing you’re going to do is stop and get a Snickers bar and get a Snickers bar and get a bag of Doritos. But the other
Natalie Boschan: Won’t feel full if you do that, you know,
Zack Arnold: Yes, and you’re also gonna fall asleep,
Natalie Boschan: Yeah. Well, I had an experience where we had some the the Detroit Lions were just in the playoffs, and now they’re not anymore, but we had some people over. We ordered pizza. We had, like, chips, they like all the sort of, like pizza fixings, kind of snacky stuff. And that’s pretty much what I ate most of the day, like I had a regular breakfast. I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast, but anyways, but what I ate for most of the day was, like, chips, pizza, whatever. And at the end of the day, I was like, I am so hungry, like I was so I was just starving, and I couldn’t figure out why. And finally, I ate some tomatoes, and I was like, little grape tomatoes, and I was like, Oh, I feel much better because I have sustenance in me. But I was like, dying because I was so hungry. So if you eat, like, banana, cashews, almonds, you know, Apple, you’re gonna feel way more full and way more satisfied and awake than if you picked up a bag of Doritos or, you know, had like, a slice of pizza on the way, or something like that. So it’s actually you, you will be able to go farther in your car if you have these things with you, and you only have to stop for like, gas and bathroom, as opposed to me, like, Oh, I’m so hungry again, even though I just ate, you know, and you won’t be tired, which is good. You should be tired when you’re driving.
Zack Arnold: Well, the caveat to all that is, and you’re reminding me about this, because in our little Skype chat, you sent the pictures from this trip that I didn’t even know you had, but the final picture is a giant bag of Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels and Doritos, which both you and I murdered on the way back. So we ate like gluttons on the way back
Natalie Boschan: Is there watermelon in there?
Zack Arnold: That’s yours. That’s definitely not mine, because I nothing but garbage. But, I mean, we just ran like a 10 Mile frickin race in the mountains, and we burned like 78,000 calories. So I’m like, you know, I don’t care. I just wanted to enjoy myself, and I felt horrible afterwards. I knew I would after I did my 13 miles Spartan Race, I had an entire box of Fruity Pebbles, like, it was awesome,
Natalie Boschan: Delicious. Well, that’s something else to think about like. So I find flying to be a little bit stressful a lot. Well, I do it a lot. I don’t really like it that much, but what I have found has worked when you’re sort of like, because the airport’s stressful, like, getting on the plane is stressful. Sitting on a plane for a long hours is stressful when what I find is worked is that like, I sort of like starting the day before, I try to get into the mindset of, like, I am going to spend four hours with myself, like I have four and like I sort of like, relish in it. I’m like, Okay, well, I can watch, I can I this is like four hours of me time. I can watch a movie, I can read a book, and I sort of like psych myself up for like, this very this quiet time that I generally don’t get, because it is a very rare day where I get four hours of uninterrupted, like, don’t have to do anything, time to myself, like, it just does not happen anymore. So I sort of like relish in the, you know, being able to do that. And so I’ll like, get myself, like, a little cup of tea, and like, bring my book, and then, like, settle in and say, and take off my shoes and put on little, like, comfortable socks and say, it is time for me to settle in and have me time. And so I find that, like, having that mindset also kind of helps when. You’re sort of in a stressful situation like traveling, because traveling is stressful,
Zack Arnold: Agreed, having just done it for many, many hours in the last two weeks, I would agree with all of that. Yeah. So on that note, I think we’re gonna call it a night, and I hope that everything that we said was useful and informative. And I wish everybody the best of luck. And I wish you the best of luck working on your gay porn.
Natalie Boschan: Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Episode Credits
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, the show notes were prepared by Jakin Rintelman, and this show is executive produced by Kanen Flowers. We are a member of the THAT STUDIO podcast network.
The music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Dorian Cheah from his brilliant album ARA.