Why Work For Free In The Creative Industry?

A month ago, I read this article on the The Guardian website, about how film director Mike Leigh withdrawn an unpaid job post on a film jobs website.  The job post was for a producer role on a student film with the filming to take place in Accra, Ghana.  The student film had the backing of the school, the London Film School, which Leigh is part of the board, and they injected £4,000 funded the project.  However the job was unpaid, and one of the jobs as a producer was "to help find additional funding."

I don't want to say I'm against working for free, in most of my projects I have done, especially on shorts with a low budget, we had actors working for free.  And when I meant by low budget, sometimes, we didn't have any money at all.  But we did have an understanding for the project and thus I was lucky enough to have them on my project.  My problem with the student project from the article, is that they had funds for £4,000 and they didn't utilise it.

The project does sound like it's for a short trip to Accra in my opinion.  What they could have done, is make a short for that sum and film something in London.  You can get away with a lot with £4,000.  If you put on your producer's hat and write something compelling within that budget and you're good to go.  To not pay for labour on a large scale project, and it does sound very large scale, well that's not fair.

In the past, I have been on a few funded projects, that never paid, and for me it wasn't a good experience.  You start questioning why you are doing it and feels like your time has been wasted.  The film maker that you would working for, will probably say, it's good for your portfolio.  But I find that to be untrue.  You will never know if the project will take off.

As film makers, we have to put on our producer's hat at all times and have to understand that making films is not all about our story and our vision, but it's a collaboration of people to help with your story and your vision.  If working on a tight budget, ask friends or colleagues you worked with before to help on your project.  If you can pay them, the better.

What are your opinions on working for free?  You can tweet me @eugeneeyo or send me an email.