Originally posted by: Trygve
Originally posted by: NL5
Hey Trygve,
Do you do all of your work freelance, or do you work for a production company?
Well...ummm..."yes."
I suppose what I do is closer to freelance: I work for a bunch of people and companies, some of which I own all or part of. (So, for example, I do a lot for
Inferno Film Productions and
Asgard Entertainment, but I'm also a shareholder.) The sorts of things I do are pretty random--I might be doing acting and stunts during the day and then work on editing their promotional material through the night and, of course, fixing everybody's computer problems on and off the set. (Oh, well; I suppose if I didn't get roped into fixing everybody's technical issues--whether computer, sound, or video--I'd end up doing something silly like hanging out off-camera with a bunch of nubile, young actresses between set-ups.)
A lot of what I have to do is get films ready for sale to distributors. There's a lot more involved than just shooting a movie, you've also got to produce material that will make film buyers want it (which is not the same as what you'd present to the general public) and you have to create the elements necessary for the distributors to deal with censorship and regulatory issues, produce dubbed and subtitled versions, and produce distributable versions from whatever master format(s) they need.
Then I get to play "salesman" for the results. Some films I get a piece of (in a lot of independent films, you just get a piece of the profits...assuming there ever are any) and for others I work on commission. I just got back from the American Film Market, which is the world's biggest. I've got some pictures from it in my
November Blog and a more thorough writeup of
February's Film Market in which I ramble on about the wonders of selling international film rights.
That's probably far, far more information than you'd actually wanted, but I think I'll go ahead and hit "reply" anyway instead of editing it down to a more reasonable size.