Zack Arnold

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Is Taking Free Work Really Worth It? | with Alan Bell, ACE

About Episode

In creative industries like film & television post-production, it’s extremely common to see job listings for free or low paid work, but how do you know if it’s worth it or if you should run for the hills? After all, would you ask for services for free in other industries?

Just imagine walking into an upscale restaurant and saying, “I’d love to try out the most popular item on your menu, and while I won’t pay for it this time, if I love it there’s a high likelihood I’ll have business for you in the future.” Um, that would be a big giant NO. So why is it okay for people to exploit creative talent and imagination in exactly this way?

In this archival episode from my ‘Fitness In Post’ days, Alan Bell and I discussed how to distinguish between whether or not a low or no paying job is worth the gamble for the bigger picture of advancing your career. We evaluate the many reasons that a specific job opportunity may be worth it based on the potential long-term payoffs, and we also talk about when it is absolutely unacceptable under any circumstances to take on a job that is clearly looking to exploit your talents and experience (not that anyone would ever be interested in exploiting your creative talents).

Transcript

Zack Arnold: I’m here today with none other than the Alan Bell, who is the editor of such films as The Hunger Games Catching Fire Mocking J Parts One and Two, The Amazing Spider-Man and one of my favorite indie films of all time, 500 Days of Summer as well as my favorite indie film of all time, Little Manhattan So, Alan, thank you for being back on the show.

Alan Bell: Thanks for having me.

Zack Arnold: So I had Alan on. I don’t remember exactly one, maybe six months to a year ago, and we talked all about Alan’s habits in the edit room, what he’s done to get more energy, get in shape, all these great things. None of which we’re going to talk about today, but I will link to that in the show notes. The reason that I wanted to have Alan on the show today was actually inspired by a couple of things. First, it was inspired by a Facebook post that I will go a little bit more in detail about in a couple of minutes. But it was also inspired by conversations that he and I have had offline. So this isn’t going to be so much today an interview of Alan Bell, as it is just going to be two friends kind of shooting at the bar, kind of a conversation. But the conversation on Facebook was all about the idea of free work, and I’m going to read this verbatim. And because it’s public and it’s already out there, I can link to it. But the post is as follows: Has anyone ever done an editing gig where they quote unquote hire you but ask you to edit your first project for free to make sure that you’re a quote unquote proper fit? Is this company worth working for? And what shocked me is the responses in this thread. There are over 218 responses, and this is a thread on the avid editors of Facebook. So if you are an editor and you’re a member of this group, you can read all of the responses. But there is just some vicious, vitriolic responses-not to the woman that posted it, mind you-to the people that would ask for something like this. And I know that you and I have pretty specific ideas about taking free work and whether or not it’s worth it, and basically the the overarching response is absolutely not. This is ridiculous. Don’t ever do it. And I think you and I are kind of a little bit more in the middle of the spectrum. Where I personally believe, and you can correct me if you disagree, but I believe there are places where taking free work is a tremendously beneficial move for your career, but it really feels like everybody’s saying all free work is you being taken advantage of. So let’s just kind of use that as a jumping-off point.

Alan Bell: Yeah, well, I do think that sometimes taking free work is the right thing for your career, particularly when your career is just burgeoning. You know, when you’re first starting off, it makes sense. Now, in this particular instance, the way that the post is read, I don’t think it’s a good idea because to me it sounds, and I, you know, hopefully I’m not contradicting myself because I can’t remember what I replied on those posts, but I don’t think it’s a good idea because this is a situation where they’re basically instead of just coming straight out and saying, “Hey, we’re not going to pay you. They’re saying, “Once you do it, if we like it, then you know maybe you’re the right fit. Then maybe we’ll pay you. To me, that feels it’s sort of a dishonest approach to just saying, “Hey, I don’t have money to pay you, but in doing this, you’ll be a building a relationship with me, and b you’ll be getting something that you can put on your resume and be getting you know some experience. So you know I don’t in this instance it’s a little bit weird because of the way that they’re you know writing it. It sounds like they’re really looking for somebody who is a little bit naive. Now you know I don’t know what the actual original post said in its you know verbatim. I know what the person wrote that the post said, but in terms of what you just read, that doesn’t sound like a good freebie job to me. Only because it just doesn’t seem like the people are being that upfront. It sounds like they want to get their work done and then not have to pay for it, without telling you that they’re not planning on paying for it. Which to me, that doesn’t sound honest. You know, there’s some red flags in that email. I think I also, you know, I don’t know about you, but I feel like there’s a tendency on Facebook posts and Twitter and just you know any type of digital forum for people to really kind of just like you know jump on the tackle and just pile up and pile up on these things that they see as you know either offensive or missing some moral compass or you know a little bit of people tend to kind of overreact. I mean, to the extent to where I think they even miss some important aspects because a lot of times when people are asking you to work for free, what they’re really asking you to do is to work for some form of deferred payment. I remember shortly after this post, there was another post that somebody posted up, and it started to get hammered, and it did get hammered in in some of the same ways that this one did, and it was a situation where they were saying, “Hey, I can’t remember the exact.” Specifics was like we have 100 bucks a day, and we’ll give you participation points. And the person who put this post up was like, “Well, I you know said sent this big email to the company or the people who wanted the wanted to pay deferred, saying, ‘Well, how many participation points you know is that is that brownie point? Like they didn’t understand what participation points were, you know. Be meaning if the movie sees a profit, you will get a percentage. You will be able to participate in the final profit of the film. Now, even if the film never makes a profit, failing to see the fact that you can actually write out a contract for yourself that states that you got paid X amount plus participation points. That’s not somebody asking you to work for free. That’s somebody who’s who’s actually saying, “Hey, we have a little money to pay you, and if we can, we’re going to pay you more. And on top of that, we’re going to we’re going to give you the ability to put this precedent in place for yourself that shows that when you work for low amounts of money, you get participation points in films. Only a few editors in Hollywood have that kind of thing in their contract, and you know when people are just piling up on that. Oh, they want you to work for free.

Alan Bell: You know, it’s to me, it’s just it’s very short-sighted, and I think that I don’t know. You know, in in Hollywood, it’s not the same as going to work for McDonald’s or some giant corporation. I mean, yes, we’re working for corporations many times. Many times, we’re just working for you know people who pull together sums of money, you know, trying to make their movie, and you can’t treat every film and every call for services as a, you know, this is the man trying to keep me down. You have to really look at, you know, these people are trying to make movies and or films, TV, webisodes, whatever they’re trying to do. Some people have money, some people don’t. This, even the people who are in it for the money, are doing it because it’s a labor of love 90% of the time. And I think it’s our job to try to find those people and work with them and offer them services that nobody else can, or distinguish ourselves in some way and build relationships so that we are sought after editors.

Zack Arnold: Yes, I definitely am in a similar mindset where I think there are a lot of opportunities where free work makes sense, and I have done more than my share of free work to get where I am today. Some of which paid off, some of which didn’t. But I think that what I really wanted to do today was not just kind of you know sit here and talk about free work and ah people want you to work for free they don’t want you work for free and is it worth it or not I actually want to break down kind of a simple matrix for all the kind of different scenarios that we can brainstorm for where you can be offered free work where it makes sense for your career and where it doesn’t. So the first one that we’re talking about is this Facebook thread that kind of inspired this conversation, and it’s the idea of hey, we’d like you to do a test to see if you’re a good fit. And like I said in this Facebook post, overwhelmingly people are screaming and yelling, like you said, all caps, red flag, stay away. They’re trying to rip you off. Hundreds and hundreds of comments, just like this, and I think to a certain extent they’re probably right. And I agree with you that this is not a good fit. And as you go much deeper into this thread, you see the woman that posted it ended up saying to the person that was trying to hire her, “No, thank you. I’m not going to do this. And I guess the woman responded rather angrily and was like, “Well, I never actually asked you to work for free. I’m going to pay you, but at the same time, you have to understand that I’m taking all of the risk on you. And I kind of laughed at that, and then I saw a post from somebody else that said, “Yeah, that’s kind of funny. All the risk is on you. It’s something called hiring people. That’s what hiring people means. You’re taking a risk. You’re assuming, based on their qualifications and their resume, their past experience, and their demo reel, that they’re going to work for you. Therefore, you take the risk. You pay them X amount of dollars for the work, and if it doesn’t work out, you fire them. So in this case, I agree. This is not the place where taking free work makes sense, and there are a lot of people that said that it’s exploitive, and they even go so far as to tell some of their own stories, saying, “Oh yeah, I did something like this, and then they ended up taking my work that I did for free, airing it, profiting from it. I never got paid. These are all instances where free work is a horrible idea. What I want to do is try and find some instances where free work is a good idea, and I can go through a couple of my own experiences.

Alan Bell: Yeah, and I’ll do I’ll do that as well.

Zack Arnold: I have two, and when I say free, I also want to like put in parentheses free slash grossly underpaid because there are jobs where you will get paid, but it’s very very little compared to what you should be paid. For an equivalent for providing the equivalent service fully paid, and they’re they’re kind of in the same category for me. So the the first instance that I want to talk about is one that is very very low pay, but was not for free, and that was my first independent feature film gig that I took. God, it’s killing me. I think it was 11 years ago now. Oh my God, that just terrified me. Thinking about how long ago that was, but anyway, I was two years out of college. I had been a trailer editor for two years, was very successful in moving up the ladder and getting paid good money. I had actually been offered a couple of jobs at bigger trailer firms for six figures a year, which just was more than my parents made. And I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. But I didn’t want to do trailers. I wanted to get into feature films, and I had found a connection through a friend of a friend to work on this really low budget indie film. And when I say low budget now, like now people are making indie films for $20,000 and a stick of gum. This the budget for this was like a million dollars, but it was personally financed by a producer from his own money. He was literally leveraging his kids’ college funds in his house and putting you know mortgages up to to finance this film. And they said we’re gonna we can pay you $600 a week all in to work on this film and help us get more funding by putting together sales reels and all kinds of other stuff. And I jumped at the chance to do this because it was my chance to work with real Hollywood producers, and it was my chance to build a reel of long form work. But I was taking, I think it was about an 80% pay cut. So for the work I was doing, which was editing a feature film, I was getting paid about $100 a day, except I was working about 14 to 16 hours a day, and I did this job for a long, long time. But I’m glad that you mentioned the idea of participation points. I had a contract that stated that I had deferred pay that would be based on what at the time would have been my my quote unquote full rate, but I also got participation points, and about a year and a half or two years later, after working on this film, when I was still working on it, I was on this project forever. The film ended up getting purchased by Fox Searchlight for $4.75 million, and I did end up getting about 20% of my deferment. So I had done this work for a long time, grossly underpaid, really-I mean, crazy long hours-and it was actually during this project that I had my kind of suicidal depression breakdown, and that was the the instigator for everything that started with Fitness and Post. But with the deferred pay, like you said, it is a contract. I ended up getting a check like six months to a year later for like $10,000, so this was an instance where I took a job for a ridiculous amount of pay below what I should have been paid, and I because it was so low pay, I was also my own assistant, so I didn’t have an assistant editor, so I was doing all my own assistant work, and I was cutting the film at the same time, and I ended up also doing the theatrical trailers for the film, all within the same package. So there, there was certainly a little bit of exploitation, but for the most part, I was treated very well. And we actually have a mutual friend in common, and the producer that hired me, who’s Stephen Wolf. So this was an instance where me making this leap of faith ended up paying off building contacts. It’s how I met you. You and I met through Stephen Wolf and through a project that you and I were both interviewing for.

Zack Arnold: So this was an instance where it absolutely made sense and it paid off long term for my career. But short term, anybody would have looked at the two options and said, “Are you crazy? You can get paid six figures to edit big budget trailers, or you can work on some no name feature for $600 a week. If I posted that on Facebook 12 years ago, people would have screamed at me.

Alan Bell: Yeah, they would have. But you know, here’s the thing: is that not only did you get paid, but you also got paid with the opportunity to work in a feature narrative environment, which you didn’t have previously to that. So you know, you were working in trailers, and Stephen Wolf. I’m assuming he was the producer on it. You know, he was basically saying, “Look, I think this guy can do it. Now, Stephen is one of the most frugal producers out there. He makes movies with small budgets for a price. He’s very smart about how he makes them. He’s also a man of his word. You know, he’s an honest person. He’s a very nice person. So you know, this is a guy where when you go to work for him, like yeah, he’s going to make sure that you know that pencil that you have is only an inch long before he buys you another one. But he will give you a writing implement at the same time, you know, so he doesn’t waste any money at all, but he does what he says he’s going to do, and so in that, you know, that’s why you got your deferred check at the end of it because once the movie saw profit, you actually, you know, were paid some of of what they could afford to pay you, which I think is is remarkable. Because many deferred payments, you know, people never do get paid. But what you’re saying brings me to the point that I want to make, which is simply that when you’re working for free, you’re never really working for free. I mean, you should never take a free job if you’re not going to get something out of it, right? So, like for me, it doesn’t make sense for me to go do somebody’s indie film for free, unless you know there’s something that I can gain from it. They’re going to get all my services. What am I going to get in return? So either it needs to be participation, profit, producing something that I’m going to earn, you know, experience from. So like my first freebie job was a situation where I came into the film industry with absolutely no experience at all. I didn’t know which end was up if I looked at a film strip. You know, I didn’t know which was the emulsion side, which was the you know the back acetate side, which was the top or the bottom. I had no, I knew nothing about film and filmmaking. So when I first got my job, I was asking people for how can I get in the film industry, and everybody said, “Well, you can either go to film school. When you go to film school, you’re going to come out and you’re going to be looking for a job, and you’re going to find a job as an apprentice. You know, if you want to be an editor, you’re going to have to get a job as an apprentice. Maybe you you won’t even get that. You’ll get a PA job, and most of those jobs are going to be very low paying or no pay at all. So you could do that, or you could just go out and knock on doors and find a job and just tell people, “Hey, I’ll work for free. I want I want to learn. So that’s what I did. I just started calling people up. I talked to a woman named Nancy Beta, who’s married to Kent Beta, she was cutting a movie over at Roger Corman’s place over in Venice, and she was working next to a guy named Norman Holland, who was cutting at that time a movie that was made with the excess with the leftover budget from the movie Nancy was cutting. So Nancy was cutting Big Bad Mama two. He was cutting this movie called Daddy’s Boys, which was made over like a shot over like a weekend or something, on like a $20,000 budget, and they had absolutely no money. But I, she got me to Norman, and I said, “Hey, I’ll work for free. You know, just teach me. Let me come work. And I worked for him for I want to say it was about eight weeks, completely for free, 14-hour days. You know, five five days a week. On some weeks, some days was six and seven days.

Alan Bell: Learning how to file trims. You know, just learning that job of what an assistant was in a film-based cutting room at that time because this was before non-linear had taken Hollywood by storm, and so what I got from that was the experience he got. Somebody who was eager, and you know it paid off because Norman is a really great guy. If anybody doesn’t know who Norman is, he’s a USC film professor. He’s cut a lot of great movies, so he brought me on to cut some other movies with you know to work with him on some other movies. Eventually, the last movie he and I did together was Heather’s. So you know, yeah, I took that job and I was working for free, but I really wasn’t working for free because in my mind, I was working for experience, and I think that at the end of the day, really whether money’s involved or not, if you’re working for extremely low pay or no pay at all, there should be some other factor that you’re getting out of the experience. Otherwise, I don’t think it makes sense to work for free. They’re making they’re taking a chance on you, or basically saying, “Hey, we we will help you get this experience. You need to be in a position where that experience is meaningful. You know.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I think that’s a huge, huge point. Is you know, there’s a difference between free and not getting paid money because you can walk away with a tremendous amount of worth from the job that you’re doing. It just as a bit of self self shameless promotion before we move forwards, I do want to mention that I have two podcast episodes with Norman Holland, who’s one of my favorite human beings on the planet, and I know he listens. So hello, Norman. So episodes 56 and 57, Norman and I spent two full hours going into how you can advance in your post production career or break in, and I also, since you were talking about film school, did a very popular episode with film editor Eddie Hamilton, all about whether or not you need film school. And you two are both perfect examples of people that didn’t go to film school. And based on your resume, you seem to be doing okay. So for anybody that wants to go deeper down that rabbit hole, we can do it there. But I love everything that you said, especially about the idea that you’re getting some worth out of the job, even though you’re not getting paid. So I want to use another example from my past. This is something that I did my junior year of college, where I had decided that I really wanted to learn graphic design and learn After Effects. It’s not something that I wanted to do for a. But I was really thinking, and remember, this was God. This would have been 15 or 16 years ago when After Effects was like version three. The original version three had only been out a couple of years, but I really wanted to learn, and I wanted to do motion graphic design and title design, and I wasn’t really interested in visual effects or compositing. But I loved motion graphics, so I went to a company in Southfield, Michigan, right outside of Detroit, that did all of the graphic design and editorial work for all the big auto companies. So all the national Ford commercials, Chevy commercials, and whatnot. And I had a random connection, and I emailed them and said, “Hey, I’d love to come in for an interview and just talk to you about some form of an internship. They said, “All right, you know, they were kind of doing it as a favor. And I basically walked in and said, “You don’t have to pay me $1. You don’t even have to create a one-page sheet that says that I can get credit for this. All I want is to learn. I will come in here for 20 hours a week during the summer. I will get lunches for you guys. I will do any kind of basic tasks that you may have around the office, and all I’m asking in return is a workstation where I can spend all day long on After Effects. And if I have questions, I can go to somebody and just pick their brain if they’re not busy or with a client, and they just had this look on their face like, “Yeah, that sounds great, and that’s what I did my whole summer. Is I just sat on a workstation with a book, and I learned After Effects 20 hours a week my entire summer. And I had flame artists write literally over my shoulder, where I could just talk to a flame artist and say, “Hey, I’m trying to do this thing. I don’t understand it. Can you show me? They loved it. We like we all became really good friends. It was really fun. I got their lunches every day that I was there. If they needed some other random task, I would do it. And they even let me do some basic work on design work that went into their commercials. I didn’t get paid a cent. I didn’t even get college credit. But the amount of education that I walked away from that internship still brings value to my life to this day. Right.

Alan Bell: I mean, it was more. It was probably you probably learned more in that one summer than you would have if had you taken an After Effects class in school.

Zack Arnold: Absolutely, I walked away with so much knowledge of After Effects. When I came out to the here to L.A. to start working, I was doing motion graphics and titles that were finishing in the theatrical trailers within six months of graduation, working with editors that had been doing this for five or 10 years, saying, “How did you do that? Like they they loved the motion graphic work that I was doing, and it’s part of the reason that I was promoted to trailer editor within five months of graduation because of my motion graphic skills. They saved a ton of money because I was able to do the motion graphics, and they didn’t have to farm out to other houses, so it brought tremendous value to my life.

Alan Bell: Right, I think you know. I think one of the things that happens online because things tend to be black and white online. Everything seems, for some reason, seems to be looked at through this filter that’s like that’s either good or evil. There aren’t a lot of gray areas, and I and I think that a lot of people get upset and offended when they get to a certain point in their careers, or they’re at a point where they feel like I shouldn’t have to work for free. And if you feel that way, that’s fine. I mean, I I certainly feel that way at this point in my career. People ask me to work for free. The answer is always no. You know, I might do something pro bono for a worthy cause. You know, if you know, I’ve had a bunch of friends who have died from cancer over the years, and you know, if a cancer organization came to me and said, “Hey, we you know we need some help with something, I might be inclined to help them, and I’d be doing that. What I’d be getting out of that is a sense of self self worth and well being, and you know the idea that I’m I’m helping. But I think that most people get to a point to where they feel like I shouldn’t have to work for free, and when someone says, “Hey, you know, will you do this project for free? it offends them, and so then they rail against it, and I think that if that’s where you’re at, then you shouldn’t be working for free. The answer for you in that case is no, but it’s not necessarily correct to say that it’s no for everybody else because there are you know varying levels of expertise. There are varying levels of you know you can be a great editor, but only have only worked in trailers, for instance, or you know just done corporate in-house corporate videos, and you want to break into narrative. Well, it might be worthwhile to work for free on a small, you know, webisode or some sort of narrative, you know, web-based project or YouTube project or vanity project or something for an actor, or to go out and cut some actors’ reels, if you you know you’re working in in-house corporate stuff and you want to get into trailers, you know things like that. And I guess I’m just saying this because it seems like everybody sort of thinks that their plan, the plan they’ve made for themselves, and maybe you and I are just as guilty of this, is the only way to. And I kind of feel like you really have to sort of take stock of like where you are, where you are in your career, where you are emotionally, where you are, you know, in terms of what’s required of you. You know, do you have a family? You know, is your overhead enormous? And that brings me to another thing. When I think about overhead, is that sometimes working for free just isn’t an option, no matter what your situation is, because you don’t have time, and that’s why I think that in this freelance world, we need to make sure that we maintain a low enough overhead so that a we can take long periods without work, which allows us to be choosy about which types of jobs we do. Because when you go into a job interview, hopefully, the only way you can enter it with strength is if you’re interviewing the person that is interviewing you as well. You know you should be asking yourself, Do I want to work with this person? Do I feel like I’m going to be served, and I’m going to be able to serve them in this situation? And you should be doing that when you’re going for a low pay or a no-pay job, as well as when you’re going for a high-paid job.

Zack Arnold: Well, I’m one of the things that you just brought up that I thought that just totally sparked my brain was when you said the word webisode, because this brings me to the next of my examples. It’s funny; the more that we’re going down this rabbit hole, the more I’m realizing, holy crap, I have done a ton of free work in my career, I cannot believe how much free work I keep remembering that I did years ago. But anyway, when you brought up the word webisode, that was the turning point in my entire career. This was about seven years ago now. This would have been yeah, so seven or eight years ago. This is in 2008. I was unemployed. It was the first streak of unemployment I had ever had because I went off and I got married and up until the point I got married in 2007 I had never had a day where I didn’t have work unless it was by choice I had been freelancing for a long time always had worked took it for granted and then I said I’m going to take three weeks off go on my honeymoon take a little break ease into marriage came back and nobody had work. I’m like, well, wait a second. What do you mean you don’t have work? It was just I just assumed I should always be working, and I it started this long streak of two years where I could barely find any paid work, and I was in very, very much financial dire straits. And on Craigslist of all places, I found this ad for a web series, and I’d been responding to Craigslist ads and media match ads, like just the worst stuff, because I was desperate. But I found this web series that these two guys were doing, named Mark Ant and Jesse Warren, and they were doing something that was very slick, kind of looked like an Ocean’s 11 type show. It’s called the Bannon Way, and they had $1,000 all in to cut the web series, which at the time was just two pilot episodes, so it was maybe 10 to 15 minutes worth plus a trailer. And I had another editor working for me at the time. I had a small boutique post company, and I paid that other editor the $1,000, the whole the whole check, so he could edit the trailer while I was editing the pilot scene, so this was work that I did 100 for free personally. Even though they were paying $1,000, I saw 00 cents of that, and it actually ended up costing me money based on the facility time and all those other things. And I did the the two pilot episodes. He did the trailer. They shopped it around, and it took about a year or a year and a half, and then Sony ended up buying the web series, and it ended up. I don’t know what the exact budget was, but it was probably I don’t know somewhere between one and 2 million, and it turned out to be the most successful web series that not only Sony had ever done; it was on Crackle, but it was the biggest breakout web series ever in the history of web series, which clearly there’s not a huge history of, but because I ended up getting that job and that job was paid, I used that as my calling card to get burn notice. So I went from a Craigslist ad making 0.0 dollars, and I had to play the long game. But in less than two years, I ended up on burn notice and breaking into the you know the much more professional side of my TV editing career.

Alan Bell: See, working for free does have its benefits.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and it it totally paid off. And then the other example that I thought about that I wasn’t even thinking about talking about, but is I wanted to hit on your point even further about the idea of setting yourself up financially, and this is a conversation I think that you and I had like three or four years ago on that post show podcast. I went through another situation, and this was before I got married. I believe I can’t remember the timeline of any of this anymore. All the free work is just starting to to get mixed up in my head. But speaking of Stephen Wolf, the second feature film that I did for him, I did 100% for free. So if somebody’s saying, “Oh, well, you got paid 600 bucks a week for that other one, that’s not that bad. The next one was 100% for free, and I did it for eight months straight. So it was an eight-month job for no pay, and somebody’s thinking, “Well, how could you even?” Do that. It’s because, like you said, I had set aside money from my high-paid trailer work, and what I was doing was I was going back and forth, and I would occasionally take two or three weeks off the film. I would go and cut either featurettes or trailers or something that I was getting paid a full freelance rate, which is very, very well paid, and I would just sock that in the bank and I would keep my expenses extremely low. Basically, living, you know, I mean, I was living in an apartment, but I wasn’t. I had no extravagances. I wasn’t spending any money, even though I was making a lot. So I could edit this feature film for eight months for 0.0 dollars, and the payoff for that was Stephen and I developed such a good relationship that I ended up getting an interview on 500 Days of Summer, which kind of comes full circle to how you and I met each other. So that was another huge payoff to taking free work and having another feature film on my resume.

Alan Bell: Right, and and Steve’s the kind of guy who, when he can pay you, he will pay you.

Zack Arnold: Yeah,

Alan Bell: You know he will try to get you on those movies that he’s producing. You know, relationships is really what you’re what you’re trying to build, and obviously, you know, you don’t want to just have relationships with people who are exploiting you. So you know, they need to be solid relationships. That’s why I say you need to interview the people that are interviewing you just as much, you know, as it works the other way around, so that you’re, you know, making sure that you’re the right fit and they’re the right fit for you. And having flexibility is the only way that that can happen.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and I think that’s an excellent point that so many people overlook. That I myself have overlooked and gotten overzealous about projects just because I needed the work, or it sounded like an interesting project, and I didn’t interview them. And when you’re in that interview, you have to ask some questions to make sure that it’s the right fit for what you want as well. Because you may be thinking, “Oh yeah, well, you know, I don’t have a lot of money in the bank account. I really need work right now, so I’m just going to take this. But sometimes the money is not worth the trade-off for the nightmare that the job may end up being.

Alan Bell: Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s interesting because you go into an interview thinking, “I really want this job. I have to nail this. Like, you know, I hope they love me, and that isn’t necessarily the best way to go into an interview. What what I try to do is I go into an interview thinking to myself, “Well, I really like the material, and I really like you know these. When I look at these people on paper whom I’ve never met before, I I really like the the work that they’ve done in the past. Gee, I hope this is the right fit for me. You know, I hope they are nice people. I hope that it’s a job that I’m gonna want to do after this interview. So you know they’re looking for signs that in me that are going to make them want to work with me, and I’m also looking for the same thing in reverse, because the one thing I have learned is that if you’re in a position, you know, editing is enormously stressful. So if you’re in a position that’s a stressful position on a movie with with politics, just the fact that the material is great isn’t always enough to make you want to get up in the morning and go through that washing machine again, because it can be pretty brutal. It’s just like tumbling around, you know. Politics, studio politics, can be enormous at times, and you know you better like the people and want to work with the people in order to get into the ring with them at times, and so I think it’s really important. And the only way that’s possible is if you keep your overhead down low enough so that you can turn jobs down that you may even want. You know that on the surface looked great, but when you met the people, you’re like, oh, I don’t really want to work with this person. I don’t think we gel well, or you know, I remember an instance where I turned down a job just based on somebody’s reputation. I was out of work, and I was I took the kids to Knott’s Berry Farm. I had my mom there with me, and I was just complaining to her about, man, I got to get a job. Like you know, as I was buying you know, the $12 soda for my kid, or the you know popcorn or whatever. Like I got to get a job. This is killing me. I think I hadn’t worked for you know two or three months or something, and my agent called me and said that Michael Mann wanted to meet me, and you know Michael Mann has a pretty long reputation, and I know a lot of people have worked with him and enjoyed it and gotten along with him well. But I’ve heard, you know, more intense stories, and and it just doesn’t seem like the kind of environment that I would thrive in. And so I just said, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think I want to take that meeting. The more I asked, the more it was apparent that it wasn’t the right situation for me, you know, it was like it was. I think a Wednesday. They’d started shooting on Monday. They wanted me to, you know, be there at 6p.m. that day on Wednesday to meet him, so that if he liked me, I could start the very next day. And everything that I’d heard about Michael Mann just led me to believe that. He wasn’t that he and I weren’t going to be a great fit. Maybe he’s the nicest guy in the world, but there’s a lot of there’s a a lot of people talking about him, and not everyone’s saying great things. So I just turned it down. And after I hung up the phone, my mom’s like, “You were just telling me how you needed a job, and I’m like, “Yeah, I need a job, and I need a job with somebody that I think that I’ll enjoy working with. And I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m working with someone that I’m not happy with, that I’m not able to do my best work. A, I’m an editor, so I never quit.

Alan Bell: And B, if I’m on a show that I’m unhappy in, when that show where I might be happy comes around, I won’t be available. And my mom was just scratching her head because she has the she has the mentality of you take the work that’s there and you’re just thankful for it and in Hollywood you can’t do that you have to take the work that’s good with good people so that you can thrive because we work so hard if we’re not happy while we’re working then what’s the point because 90% of our lives is spent in the cutting room with people that you know we have to interact with in very close quarters, and if they’re not people that you want to be around, then I highly recommend finding someone else to work with.

Zack Arnold: So then, along the lines of what we’re talking about with doing the job interview, making sure you’re working for the right people, what are if somebody’s listening to this saying, “Oh, I never thought about that concept. What should I ask? Are there like a couple of stock questions in your head that you’re like, if you’re going to be interviewing them without sounding like you’re interviewing them, what are a couple of good questions to ask that director or that producer? When

Alan Bell: You’re working for free, those might be slightly different questions, but the types of questions I’m asking in paid interviews on movies are a. I’m trying to find out if the director and the producers in the studio are if they’re all in alignment. You know, in terms of the type of film that they’re making. So you know, a I have a take on the script and the material, and so when I’m talking to the director, I’m asking them questions one to find out if we’re in alignment in terms of you know how we feel the movie is and and if we’re not in alignment that’s not necessarily a bad thing because often their interpretation the material is something that I may not have thought of which you know may actually broaden the appeal but in the case where you find that the director is already at odds with the studio, and filming hasn’t even begun in terms of the tone and the material, or you know things of that nature. That is usually an indicator that you’re going to be in for some serious politics down the road. One, you’re going to have competing forces about what type of film it’s going to be, and that’s not a position of clarity. And when when you’re making a movie, you really do have to have a clear point of view in order for it to be good. In my opinion, it’s a lot harder to make something when you have differing points of view and they’re both equally struggling to get it made. It’s just it’s just much harder. So those are things that I’m kind of you know questions I’m asking are in subtle ways helping me kind of suss out like oh are they in firm agreement or not? I mean even to the point to where I I have been somewhat blunt with directors, particularly on movies where there are multiple producers and maybe they’re from very you know multiple studios, where I’m just like so. What? How is your relationship with this studio and this this director? Are they you know is everybody trying to make the same film? You know are you disagreeing in areas? And in most cases, they’ll be very forthright and tell me how they feel, and I that at least gives me information so I can gage what type of environment it’s the film’s going to be in as we get further down, you know. Because usually these things, I’ve been on movies where politics have been very, very intense through pre-production, and I was not aware of it until we came back from shooting and got to the director’s cut, and suddenly found out that whoa, the studio was not on board with any of the choices the director had been making throughout the shoot, and now they were going to get their payback. And that is not the position you want to be in as an editor. It’s a, it’s not good for the movie, and b, it’s not good for your stress levels.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and one I agree with all of that. And what I would also add is a really good question, and this is a conversation that I just recently had in a job interview, is understanding the process of the person that you’re going to be working with the most. So if that’s a feature film, that’s the director. If that’s TV, it’s probably the showrunner or the executive producer. And I will often be asked, well, what is your process for editing? And what I will often do is kind of reverse that and say, “Well, I would love to know how you approach the editing process and how you look at it, because I’ve worked with producers in the past that do not care about the editing process. To them, it’s an afterthought. It’s a nuisance. They would rather just be either on set or in the writers’ room.” And that can have a very taxing effect on, like you said, your stress levels and your day-to-day lifestyle because things are constantly behind and you’re not able to focus on the work properly. So what I’ve done, I’ve been very bold and very honest in meetings, and I’ll say to them, “Listen, I’m somebody that likes to work in a very efficient manner. I will always meet my deadlines, but at the same time, I have expectations that when things are delivered, I’m going to get a response back, and we’re going to have a relationship. And more importantly, if you’re looking for an editor that is going to assemble your dailies and give you all of the material, and then you basically tell them how you want it and the way that you want it shaped, and the editor kind of becomes a set of hands at a keyboard. I call them a keyboard monkey. I don’t. I’m not the right fit for you, and I don’t think that hiring me makes sense. I’m just going to tell you you shouldn’t hire me because that’s not what you’re going to get. What you get with me is somebody that’s going to bring something new to the project. I am very opinionated. I am very honest. I’m very respectful, but my allegiance is to the project, not to any specific person. So that’s what you’re going to get with me, and I want to understand your take on the process as well, because I’ve worked with directors and producers that post is just kind of a nuisance, and those are not projects I want to be a part of. So I need to understand how they approach the day-to-day process.

Alan Bell: Yeah, I think that’s I think that’s right. I also think you have to know what your personal temperament is. I mean, I’ve certainly worked with a lot of you know other editors, and many of them are different than me in that they would prefer to be just kind of left alone. I find that that’s not a very efficient way to work for me. So, like in many cases, I’ve worked on movies where the director just doesn’t spend any time in the cutting room, and instead they look at cuts and then they give me notes, and that’s fine. I can work that way. I find it to be highly inefficient because when a director gives me a note that is maybe a good idea on paper, but in reality, once you start down that path, isn’t a good idea. When they’re in the room with you, you you go three cuts down that path, and it’s very obvious to everybody in the room that this is not going to work. You can discard that and move on to the next solution. When you’re sitting in the room alone, you have to continue down that path for a lot longer than you would have needed to otherwise, and I find that very frustrating when I when I actually have to polish things that don’t work because I know it’s going to get sent out and I’m not going to be in the room with them. And this is more true of directors that you’re still building a relationship with, you know, directors that maybe you haven’t worked with previously. You know, they need to know that you’re really putting your back into it, and so you’re often finishing things that don’t work, so that they can see that you put the effort in to make it work. And you know I like to be in a room with the director so that we can discover and collaborate on these things together, so that I’m not spinning my wheels trying to fix something that’s never going to work. Other editors like to just get those notes and be left alone, and maybe feel more comfortable just you know going three or four cuts down and sending it off and saying you know this doesn’t work, so I did this instead. It’s I really think knowing what your temperament is is also going to benefit you when it comes down to asking those questions.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I think those are all excellent points, and I hope that at this point in the show, for anybody that has been thinking to themselves, “Well, I would never take free work. I hope you’ve now seen that there are plenty of different options available where you might not be getting paid money, but you’re going to be getting paid in something. So really, the question is: Is there value coming from this? Whether it’s monetary, whether it’s a connection, and a connection and networking may be infinitely more valuable in the long term than getting paid whatever your rate might be. But now, what I want to do to close out the show is we’re gonna go to the best job listing in the history of job listings. I’m gonna read through this. This would be an example of one of those that you probably don’t want to take, but I don’t think if anybody had written this as a fictional job listing, it would have been as good as this one is. So I’m gonna read through this pretty much verbatim, and I just want to get your take on this, and I already know what your take is going to be, but I think it’s important for people to read this because they can think, “Oh, wow, he got the Bannon way on Craigslist, so that means that there are great opportunities on Craigslist. There are, but they’re they’re also unicorns. You have to be very careful about what you take and what you don’t. So I’m going to read through this. So bear with me; it’s going to take a few minutes, but every bit of this is absolute gold. So this is for a scissor reel. Says reality. TV. The rate is low budget, so it’s $150 a day for a 12-hour day. So this is not even a free job. You are actually getting paid. So 150 bucks for a. Hour day need a solid seasoned editor with graphics producer and editing abilities. We are an established production company with many Emmy-nominated producers and cameramen. This is a sizzle, so we are a little pressed on the budget. We can pay 150 a day with the possibility of working on the show when it sells. Ooh, possibility of working on the show that was paying me nothing. Anyway, I’m gonna I’ll stop the commentary because I could do that for an hour. I know it is low, but we also have other scissorials that we need cut. So if you do great on this, we can keep you busy for a couple of months. Here’s where it starts to get good. Qualifications need to be a self starter, have major network credits, be able to work weekends and nights. A team player, have passion for this project, know the Avid like the back of your hand. And I just want to remind you before I go further: this is paying $150 a day for a 12-hour day. Be able to make graphics in After Effects and Photoshop, and knowledge of Maya is a plus. Also, if you know web design, that is a plus as well. I can’t even get through this with a straight face, and I’m not even to the good part yet. Be able to work fast and efficiently over long hours. Editors with loan out companies preferred, and this means they’re also asking you for your equipment. Be able to troubleshoot the bay. We have been having some crashes lately. Be able to work 10 to 12 hour days minimum. I’m still not done. It gets better. So the project, a sizzle reel for a major network. I can’t be more specific at the moment, but I will give you more info once hired. We are so busy, so we won’t have a string out, but I’ll have an AP, meaning an associate producer, talk you through it. Mostly, it is a blank canvas with some detailed story points from us. This is a great opportunity for a seasoned editor to put on a producer’s cap and work on a project that allows you to have fun and be creative. We will give feedback daily and make sure that we are on the same page.

Zack Arnold: I still haven’t gotten to the best part, but just to recap, $150 a day for a 12-hour day, you have to provide some of your own equipment, have a loan out, have major network credits. You’re going to do producing, you’re going to do editing, graphics, and After Effects and Photoshop, and hopefully Maya and web design. So I just want to make sure that we’ve covered all that. This is where it gets amazing. This is a deadline by the end of next week, so nights and weekends might be required. Also, we don’t have all the footage in, so you might need to do some transcoding. We can’t pay for the downtime during the transcode, but you’re more than welcome to leave and come back. We will assign 24-hour access to your key card. Here’s the kicker. Here it comes. This is an important doc about the climate of foreign labor forces and the abuse of overworked, underpaid workers. We and the network are highly excited about this project and really want this to be something special?

Alan Bell: Okay. Now you actually believe that that’s real. I

Zack Arnold: Do. Okay. I actually believe that this is real.

Alan Bell: And I and I just went okay. Very very clever. I don’t think it’s real.

Zack Arnold: I believe that it is. That that’s my feeling. I actually tried to to look it up and find more information, but because it was on a paid job site, I couldn’t find more information. I actually believe this is real. But here’s the point: even if it’s not real, there are enough job listings in the world on these job listing sites that I have to question whether or not it could be real. It’s not so outlandish that automatically you’re thinking there’s no way this is real. There are plenty of people that believe it

Alan Bell: Is right. There are so many red flags there that you know that’s clearly not you know if it is real, the expectations are that they’re getting a super a superhero editor for 150 bucks a day.

Zack Arnold: I just want to say that based on your resume, your as far as your level expertise and experience, I’ve never met an editor that has the technical capabilities that you have, as far as your ability to not only edit story but also do visual effects and compositing. Like you are way overqualified to just be called an editor, and you are not qualified for this job. You don’t have the skills that this job is asking for at $150 a day. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t have a

Alan Bell: Lot of them. But I think I’d really suffer when it came time to do the transcoding.

Zack Arnold: Well, not only that, but do you know web design really well?

Alan Bell: I don’t know really well, but I can definitely do it. Not an expert in web design. I’m not an expert in Maya. So you know, I do. I can do 3d modeling and animation, but not in Maya. Use different programs, but you know I’ve built, I’ve made websites. I mean, I could certainly go there and go, hey, I can, I could probably do a lot of the stuff you want, not in 12 hours a day. You have to pay me more than 12, $12.50 an hour if you want, if you want me to do all this. Yeah, I just look at that. There’s just so many red flags. Like okay, so the deadline’s a week from now, and the show may not be shot yet. Like, so there may be some trans. Like, it just sounds to me like just a joke, especially when I get to the kicker. It just sounds like a joke. And here’s the thing: if it’s not a joke, it is a joke. And there’s no. If I was inexperienced, the reality is, they’re saying that they’re going to pay you something, so they want something for that money, but the pay is so low that for them to expect you to meet all this criteria is ridiculous. And you know, who wants to work for ridiculous people?

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and the for me again, it it really is irrelevant whether or not this is actually real because it is so close to real job listings that I think that’s irrelevant. But one of the most common things that you’ll see on these job listings is with the possibility of working on the show when it sells. We also have more work down the pipe. Great opportunity to build a long-lasting relationship. All of these things are the catchphrases for producers that want to exploit every ounce of you and throw you away. Yeah,

Alan Bell: Yeah, yeah. They are because basically, you know, most people who are asking you to work for free are asking you to work for free or for low pay because a they don’t have much money, and they recognize that that you’re going to be doing them a favor, and so they also recognize that they’re one that you may not be the Jerry Greenberg of their particular format. You’re going to have there’s going to be a learning curve for you as well potentially. So they’re never going to be saying you have to be you know have these huge resumes you know with network TV or this or that unless they’re really looking for something that doesn’t exist, and most people were looking for something that don’t exist. I mean, when you set that kind of criteria out, and then you hire somebody, and you know, chances are, if that is a real job, they found somebody and they hired them, and that person didn’t have all those, you know, all that criteria. Do

Zack Arnold: You think?

Alan Bell: Yeah, right. But that person was probably made to think like, “Wow, you know, they believe in me. You know, the people who take these types of jobs are are people who they’re desperate for the money. You know, because they’re not in a secure situation where they can turn down this sort of work. They’re going from paycheck to paycheck, and they’re in a position where it’s easier for them to be exploited, so you have a producer who’s you know more of a predator than an actual real producer who’s just looking to fill that chair, and like yeah, we’ll give you more work down the road. We’re more than happy to continue to exploit you for as long as we possibly can. Once they burn you out, then they’ll throw their ad back up again, but you know those aren’t the kinds of scenarios that we’re talking about. Like that’s why you have to be diligent if you’re going to work for free or for low pay. You got to suss it out. It has to be somebody who will appreciate what you’re doing for them, and that you’ll be able to get something out of it. And you know those kinds of catchphrases. You’re absolutely right. You’ll be able, you know, this job could extend. It’s like, okay, that’s that’s great. It’s not because you can’t afford it. It’s because this is what you want to pay for somebody long term. It’s

Zack Arnold: Funny that you brought up catchphrases because that’s the last thing that I wanted to mention. There’s this meme that has gone around, and it’s perfectly applicable to what we’re saying right now. It’s at the top of it, it says film industry terms, and I’m just going to read through some of these because I think that these are the giant red flags. So obviously, this is humorous memes, but film industry terms: collaboration equals no pay, assistant equals no pay, seeking film student equals no pay, micro budget equals no pay, food and IMDb credits equals no pay. We have some A-listers signed on. No pay. Really simple shoot equals no pay. We’ll be shopping this project to major distributors equals no pay. Like it just goes on and on and on. These and I can actually put a link to this meme in the show notes as well. But these are the kinds of things that when you see them, you just run for the hills. And the other thing that I want to link to as well, I don’t know if you’ve seen this floating around, but there’s a viral video recently that was created of this guy going around to different businesses where he was asking them for free work, like going to a you know a picture framer or going to a restaurant and saying, “Well, you know, I’d really like to try the appetizer, and if I like it, then maybe I’ll buy something off the menu. So I’m going to link to this as well because it’s brilliant. But this is all the opposite end of the spectrum. I know we’ve spent most of the time talking about why free work is good. There are a lot of reasons to not take free work, and I think that that video is the perfect example of how absurd our industry can be.

Alan Bell: Yeah, well, I you know I think that that’s true of all creative industries, you know where it’s easy to do those kind of spoofs where you like you go and you ask people to work for free, you know, restaurants and stuff like that, car dealerships, whatever it is. But those it it’s kind. It doesn’t. It’s not exactly fair because there are instances where we’re asking somebody to work for free. In the case where they’re getting something out of it, does make sense. You know, there are plenty of instances where, if you want to be a chef, you know, you could find yourself going to a kitchen and working for very low pay or no pay to learn some of these things, or you can go off to culinary school and then go to a kitchen and be you know low on the totem pole and work your way up. So, you know, I I do think that it’s something that’s easy to make fun of, and many many cases it’s deserving to be made fun of because there are a lot of people who do exploit, you know, the desire of young people to, you know, learn a trade, whether it be filmmaking or whatever. But I just, you know, I think that you got to look for those catchphrases, and you also have to, you really have to judge the the people, you know. So obviously, if you read something that’s like that thing that you read earlier, you’re gonna look at that and go, “Well, this is complete baloney. And if it’s not baloney, it’s baloney in the sense that I don’t want to eat this. This is not healthy for me. So you just have to really be, you know, on on your guard. And if you’re going to be working for free, which generally you’re going to be doing early in your career, so you’re young. You’re right out of school. You haven’t gone to school, and you need to, you know, take care of yourself and make sure you make those right choices and understand, most importantly, why you’re making those choices. And then everything else kind of melts away. And if you’re honest with yourself and honest with everybody else around you, you’re probably going to attract honest people, and you’re going to see those red flags and know that oh, this isn’t one that I should go for. And when you do go for something, and maybe there isn’t a red flag, and you go to the meeting and you start feeling red flags when you’re in the meeting, back away. You don’t you don’t have to do it. You know, just that’s really I think for me the best thing anybody could take from this conversation is if you’re honest with yourself and you’re honest with everybody around you, when you go into these interviews, just take stock of the situation and decide what’s best for you. If you do that in your life, I promise you, you will be successful. Not everybody is trying to cheat you. Most people want something for themselves, and at the same time, they can get that and help you. At the same time, that’s what makes most people happy. That’s certainly how I have pushed forward in my career, and it’s worked really well for me.

Is Taking Free Work Really Worth It? | with Alan Bell, ACE

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