As I stand, the majority of customers who have wanted to hire me, have been actors and businesses. For someone without representation, this seems to be the easiest work to procure. I have been taking headshots and portraits as part of my business since I started freelance and I know what I can charge in terms of what I can produce in a competitive environment.
When it comes to day rates for different situations, that is a bit different. On average I wouldnt put my day rate for a single day below £500 for most commercial clients, however when there are multiple days or the business I am working for is small, I will reduce the charge. The estimates and invoices are essentially package based for headshots, the client knows how many images to expect and how the process will work. When it comes to longer sessions with clients outside of headshots, I am careful to work through a shot list with the client, define their expectations in terms of who is doing any post processing as well as how many images are expected in terms of shot options.
The planning that has had to go into my shoots so far has been rather minimal – not by choice either, I have found that a lot of clients are more than happy to play fast and loose when it comes to getting the shots they need which could be an issue if they forget something. This is why I need to bolster my protection with a revamped terms and conditions document that would protect me outright
1 on 1 with Tutor
My 1 on 1 with my module tutor was positive despite at this point, not producing much work to show. Where I was feeling utterly lost around what to do with the next chapter in my project (Ceremony), my tutor suggested that I should make a diagram that links the title of the work, its meaning and associated meanings from there which would help focus my ideas.
Interestingly this approach reminded me of a talk given by Nadav Kander about how he gathers his inspiration for projects or his ‘Juice’. the first 5 or so minutes of the video below hosted by It’s Nice That covers the process, and then goes on to be a slide show of inspirational images for Kander.
Following the advice of my tutor I put together a combination of a word diagram and a look book or moodboard for my project.
I am unsure as to whether this is really a good idea for my practice because I will essentially be striving to create something that produces the feeling that I get from looking at these striking images. This could be restrictive mentally as I don’t know if I am able to recreate the kind of lighting or looks of these images with the resources I have indoor and out. The word diagram was certainly helpful.
Headway East Pitch Update
In week 5 I had managed to create an example video to pitch to Headway, based on the topic of hidden identity. I created this on my own outside on a quiet street in Hackney, the quality is not amazing and it is only a single still but it gets the message across and also is a simple example to show Headway that we are interested in looking at different approaches in communicating with an audience.
The group also created the stills, playing off the original mood board and idea of hidden identity.
Whilst I like the images, I don’t really feel like we nailed the stills in terms of a brief, none of them are obvious enough for an advert about brain injury awareness week. I think our pitfall here is that we didn’t develop the idea enough or early on enough. There are definitely strong elements of each image that are visually exciting and pleasing, however, I don’t think they would work without a really strong text to go with them and we were running out of time at this point. I think the realistic issue here was not being able to meet face to face or speak for more than an hour a week on one specific subject. I think we did well considering the challenges faced.
CRJ 