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From the Archives: Type Casting

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Note: This post first appeared here about a year ago. I hope you enjoy!

I had dinner last night with Rick Rose the Artistic Director of Barter Theatre. We talked about a range of things but early on our conversation was about actors and type casting. The discussion started around the idea that at a place like the Barter, being able to work in a variety of styles was necessary for being an actor there. We then went on to discuss how many actors who “make it” get type cast and only hired to do a small range of roles. They do them well and as time goes on they eventually are not acting per se, but rather playing themselves as whatever character their current role is. In short, the celebrity persona takes over the actor and over time the basic acting skills of inhabiting another persona atrophy.

Our discussion of celebrity actors led into a discussion of celebrity designers. I was saying how one of the things I take great pride in with my work is the ability to design in a variety of styles. I am not tied to a specific look and truly enjoy the freedom and play it allows. Rick made the point that many of the old guard designers working on Broadway have a very distinctive style and that they are hired to light the play in their style. That they are limited to that style and should they venture too far from it, run the risk of producers telling them something to the effect of “I did not hire to light it THAT way. I hired you for your style.”

I noted that my Lighting Design portfolio originally had a sampling of the range that I could do, but that recently I had narrowed the focus to show a singular aesthetic point of view with a few pieces here and there to give a feeling of range. After explaining this I said how I was getting a much more favorable response to my portfolio since doing that. Rick replied that when hiring designers, or actors for that matter, it was necessary to place them in a type in order to understand their work. In short, one needs to be cast in a type in order to get hired. Once done, one runs the risk of getting hired for that type and that type alone.

The balance is a difficult one when marketing one’s artistic work, particularly as an actor or designer. As a designer, you want to be able to work in a range of projects, but that very range as represented in a portfolio, can often be a detriment to your ability to get hired for anything. So by necessity you must cast your type and present that to potential clients; theaters, directors, producers, etc.

This is the paradox of working as a designer(or director or actor) You must artificially limit your range in order to get hired on enough projects to express that range you are capable of. It is a bit of a Catch-22.

This is one of the things I love about the Barter. Each of the actors there, while certainly having strengths in terms of types of roles or dramatic styles, can jump into any role or style at the drop of a hat. And do so willingly. As a designer it is a wonderful place to be. The range of shows they produce allow me to flex a wide range of dramatic muscles. Sometimes I am designing monochromatic shadowy plays and other times bright colorful pieces. But no two shows call for the same style or approach.

I find myself fortunate to work in a range of styles. At the same time, a glance through my portfolio might give the impression that my range is quite limited. It is true that there are certain styles I prefer over others. Yet I do not enjoy these styles to the exclusion of others. Far from it. And that is a very important distinction.

Having an aesthetic point of view is important and necessary in creating any work of art. Equally important is testing that aesthetic to ensure that it is always up to date and true to ones inner vision.

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Electrical Stereotypes

Friday, February 5th, 2010

My work crosses a lot of different terrain within the world of live performance. I work on everything from small independently produced experimental pieces to high level assisting on Opera, and recently the Broadway tour of South Pacific, and everything in between. It seems to me that many people I work with, specifically the technicians, tend to stay within their own part of this world without much exposure to the other sides. Without exposure or familiarity one tends to create meaning and understanding through conjecture and rumor. The result are stereotypes.

Many freelance electricians I have worked with have a rather consistent view of union electricians. They see IA guys as lazy and disinterested. It seems that whenever the topic comes up there is someone on the crew who will talk about how lazy they are and how the “real” electricians are outside the union and so on and so forth. Upon a little bit of probing it often turns out that these people, who moments ago were so passionate in their truth, have never worked with union electricians or are thinking of a singular episode or a single person.

Union electricians have a curious view of the freelancers as well. While in my experience they tend to be more politic, that view boils down to freelancers being unskilled or not “real” electricians. Again, upon further investigation these observations often come down to “that one guy at an open call” or “back when I was in college.”

The truth, as is so often the case, lies somewhere outside the stereotype itself. It is true that I have worked with union electricians who had to be coaxed and prodded to just move a simple ladder. I have also worked with freelance “electricians” who could barely plug a light in. At the same time some of the most dedicated, proactive, and fastest, electricians I have worked with have been union. I am thinking here, specifically, of my time as lighting assistant for the San Francisco Opera, but experience has shown this same level of dedication and craft around the country. I have also worked with freelance electricians whose knowledge of electrical systems was so complete, whose skills were so developed, and whose programming knowledge so in depth, that I was in awe.

In my experience most people working in the entertainment industry are doing so out of love for the work. While this is most apparent in performers and other creatives, I find that it extends to everyone working on the show including technicians, admin, box office, and even maintenance. The work is never easy and the pay is never enough. At any level.

While I understand where these stereotypes come from, I am skeptical that they provide us with any benefit other than topics of chit chat over coffee. Sure I have worked with union guys who seem to do nothing but stand around. But I have met those same guys in independent freelance situations as well. The lazy electrician can exploit union rules to great affect. At the same time, the ignorant and untalented can exploit the freelance situation’s need to simply get people in the door to an easy, almost undeserved, paycheck.

In the interest of creating better quality work, and a more positive environment, it seems of greater import to focus on the quality of the work itself. The talent pool we have on any given project is what it is. And that is often quite varied. Unless something drastic happens, it will remain that way. What is important for us to do is take an honest stock of who we have, and what their skill set is, and make the best use of it.

The next time we find ourselves making assumptions abut the skill level or dedication of our fellow workers in the entertainment industry we might want to ask ourselves where those feelings originate from. Is the freelancer calling union guys lazy because she is tired from all the hustling? Is the IA guy calling the freelancer incompetent because he is exhausted from all those extra training sessions he has attended every weekend for the last month?

Often when we find ourselves criticizing or blaming others it is an inversion of what is going on inside of us. Recognizing the origins of these stereotypes and moving on from there can allow us to focus back on the work and make the best show possible.

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Visual Resume

Monday, November 30th, 2009

With the economic downturn I have been looking for work outside Lighting Design to supplement my reduced income. Because of the general flood of people looking for work these days I figured I needed to do something to make my resume stand out from the crowd. Below, and available for download, is my visual resume.

My ideal would be to work in a creative and collaborative environment where I could use my extensive research and organizational skills to bring exciting projects to fruition. I am open to new and different work experiences and would love to discuss options with you.

Visual Resume

Please download my resume for your files.

What do you think of the visual resume?

If you like this please Tweet, Digg, Stumbleupon, or otherwise let people know.

Thanks for reading!

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The Power of Networks

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

I used to think that work came about by talent alone. As if getting a gig were as simple as sending off a few resumes and portfolios and waiting for the phone to ring off the hook with offers. Clearly I knew how good my work was, so of course anyone who saw the work would think the same. While there is some objectivity and I have received a handful of gigs from the aforementioned method the vast majority of work I have had over the years came from my network of friends and colleagues. In fact, I can only think of two instances where I merely sent my resume and portfolio and was offered work.

Right out of NYU I took a job as the lighting assistant at San Francisco Opera. I got the job through one of my mentors. There I met several directors who I have since worked with. Numerous projects I did in the first few years came through classmates of mine or other people I met through school. Of course as projects occur there is a whole new group to interact with. The director, for example, hires me for a show. Then the producers of that show enjoy my work enough to hire me for another project with them. The director on that show likes the work enough to bring me on to a third project. And so it goes.

I have seen many incredibly talented people sit by without work because they felt, as I once did, that it will suddenly appear. It might, but more than likely the next gig will come from a friend or colleague or mentor. Speaking with numerous freelancers across disciplines I have found this to be true although especially in collaborative art forms like theater, opera and dance. There are many mistakes that one could make but one of the most important things to do is simply get out there.

I often joke about how my job really breaks down to hanging out with people all day. While I say this in jest, there is a degree of truth to it. The social dynamic that goes into a work of performance is as important as the work itself. The relationships between the various artists forge insights into the piece at hand that makes the work itself stronger. The lunches and dinners between technical rehearsals are as vital as those rehearsals themselves.

Opening night parties, fundraisers, and so forth, all serve to bring people together and form relationships which thus create a kind of emotional shorthand that allows you, as artists, to cut past the superficialities and dive more fully into the piece at hand.

I know numerous people in the tech industries who swear by LinkedIn, Twitter and the like for networking for jobs. Perhaps that works in the performing arts, although I must say, as connected as I am on-line, by and large I have not known that to be the case. What I do know is that by maintaining and continually building relationships with my friends work comes my way. Networking is not a matter of asking everyone you know for work. It is simply a matter of spending time with people whose company you enjoy.

Perhaps networking as a verb is a misnomer. The network exists. We are simply actors within a preexisting network who, through our socializing, increase and expand that network. Occasionally the network drives work from one person to another within it.

Working in the arts is never easy and the money is rarely good. Just as doing work that you are not invested in is a waste of your, and everyone else’s, time, so too is working with people you do not enjoy. Because so much of the product is the process, to ignore that is to miss a major component of creating the work itself.

I hear people often speak in terms like “exploiting your social network” and other such things. My experience is much different. In fact if you feed your relationships and friendships your network will end up exploiting your talents and keep you busy with engaging and interesting projects. Nurturing those relationships is the key to a healthy career. But once you have the gig you need to prove your worth. That is where the talent comes in.

I am in a curious position right now. After building up my network for 7+ years in New York I suddenly found myself without it. Having relocated from one part of the country to another my network had to be rebuilt. It did not take long to notice its absence and begin working to fill that void.

While it could be said that I am networking, more to the point, I am finding interesting people to spend my time with. I am going out to look at work that appeals to and engages me artistically. While some projects have come my way through this of greater import is making new friends, deepening relationships, and finding interesting and engaging new art.

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The Uncertainty of the Freelance Career and a Love of the Game

Friday, November 20th, 2009

One of the hardest things to come to terms with in freelancing is the fundamental lack of job security. These days it seems like no one has much job security and while it is certainly true that the position of the American worker has become far more tenuous in general the impacts on the freelancer are even greater. As a general rule workers tend to keep their jobs so long as the company is doing well and they do their work. Not so with the freelancer. Organizations they have worked with for years might be doing even better and choose not to rehire them. While it might come down to money, it could just as easily be a matter of aesthetics, or simply the desire to try someone new. In short, contracts might disappear with no discernible cause.

This can be hard. Some version of this scenario often prevents people from taking on freelancing as a career path. They see the tumultuous nature of the work as an insurmountable psychological barrier. That barrier is real. It takes a certain strength to have faith that work will materialize as it is needed. Because, while sometimes one might find their calendar filled with projects a year or more out from the present, it is just as common to have vast stretches of no work ahead. Projects may come along to fill those gaps or they may not. There is no way of knowing, although one can get good at guessing after a while.

I have a certain envy for people with regular jobs. They know months from now, if not years, where they will be working and more importantly if they will be working. While it is always possible that the company will go under, or cut massive amounts of workers, the underlying assumption is that there will be work. Not so with freelancing. While one must take as an act of faith that things will work out, there can be no realistic assumptions about what work there will be, where it will come from, and how much there is.

I have had years where I knew, more or less, what the whole year would look like as early as January. At the same time I have had years that looked solid in January and yet by the end of the year 80% of my projects had fallen through to be replaced by other ones. There is no way to predict the trajectory of one’s work in a freelance environment.

Living with, and learning how to operate under, that level of uncertainty can be like a spiritual practice at times. One is compelled to find deep reserves of patience. Meditation is often a useful technique to allay the fears and uncertainties inherent in the work. It is not easy to live with but becomes easier over time.

By limiting the impact of the uncertainty freelancers can stop using their energy to diffuse stress and can put it towards the work. Many people who freelance do not do so exclusively. Balancing freelance work with some other regular income can minimize the emotional turbulence caused by freelance contract work. Some people marry money. It may sound silly, but having a spouse or partner who will support one’s foray into the world of contract employment can make it a much safer venture. Others are independently wealthy. Many successful freelancers I know come from money and as such the concern over how to pay rent or where the next meal will come from is not present.

There is a common problem which transcends money and that is the work itself. As a freelance artist you are not just providing a product or a service you are providing a piece of yourself. The financial concerns are only one aspect of the impacts of this kind of uncertainty. I know plenty of freelance artists who are independently wealthy, for whom the money is no concern, who still fret at the lack of work. For them, as for most of us, they do it out of a love for the work. One does not become a freelance designer out of a desire for wealth or fame. You become a freelance designer because you love the work.

In the end it is that love of the work which makes possible a career as a freelance designer. It is a love of the work which makes it possible to endure the psychological complexities of managing one’s career as an artist. It is a love of the work which makes it possible to put yourself out there, in front of total strangers, to be critiqued and criticized.

It is a love of the work which allows you to pass through the uncertainty and continue on the path.

Why do you have your job?

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5 Tips to Build Your Blog Audience or Why My Blog Will Never Be Popular

Friday, November 13th, 2009

I do a fair amount of reading about blogs. The structure of blogs, blog writing style, how to have a successful blog, and so on. I think anyone who has been blogging for any length of time, I’m going on 5 years now (more than 3 in this current incarnation), would like to see their work widely read by thousands of adoring fans. I certainly would.

Having gone out and done extensive research through reading successful blogs, to reading articles about successful blogs, I think I have uncovered the key. Not having much interest in radically transforming my style from where it currently is I decided to use my own blog as a negative example to illustrate the five keys to a successful blog.

  1. Broad Topic Area
    American theater is a good broad topic area to bring in a wide array of readers. You have many elements to touch upon that could resonate with theater makers and theater goers alike as well as the casual observer. My blog not only limits its discussions to design elements, it further concerns itself with lighting design alone. While that alone still provides a broad enough area as designers, technicians, and appreciators of light might enjoy the blog, my readership is further constricted through an approach that looks at the philosophic underpinnings of the aesthetic concerns in a certain flavor of design.

    There is the occasional deviation from this. The most popular post on my blog from web searches shows pictures from a production of Wizard of Oz that I lit. That and my semi-regular posts about money management and the business of freelancing are quite popular. The rest of it is rooted in an analytic tradition borne from my early exposure to, and love of, late modern continental philosophy.

    Not only should the ideal reader of my blog have a love of lighting design for live performance, they should also have a love of continental philosophy. The combination makes it too theatery for the philosophers and too philosophic for the theater types.

  2. Accessible Language
    Derived from the first point, this blog is written in a formal academic style. Not as extreme as some blogs out there, but it is far more to that end of the spectrum than it is rooted in colloquial English. Simple words, unless the blog is about linguistics, help to boost popularity. I prefer larger or more obscure words in an effort to be precise. Thus there is an inherent structural impediment to this blog’s success and popularity. The casual reader does not want to work for their information. They would prefer their information presented simply and easily even to the point of not being precise, accurate or true. Lists with an arbitrary number of steps to achieve a goal are a wonderful way to meet this desire.

    This simplicity plays right into the anti-intellectualism that runs rampant in American culture. Experts are shunned for folksy folk who are just like us. The irony that we would not trust ourselves to do whatever task we are entrusting this non-expert to do is largely missed. Their down-home, just like me, style implies that anyone can do what they do. Perhaps if they are just like me they are an expert, because, well, I know stuff.

  3. Write about your Mistakes
    I write about perfection or at least the attempt to attain it. Warts and all blogging brings with it an anti-intellectual ideology that anyone who can sign up with blogspot can become an expert on kitten pictures or international finance with no experience or qualifications. People with less than a year experience write about freelancing. Only recently do I feel on the verge of qualified to talk about such things. I have been freelancing for five years.

    Writing as an expert about a topic for which you are not an expert gives you room to make mistakes. Those mistakes become the basis of new blog posts about how you will do better in the future. My personal favorites are financial advisory blogs that get the math wrong or frugality blogs whose authors continually fall off the wagon and spend their money on unnecessary wasteful expenses.

  4. Use Humor
    With the exception of this post, and even here it is dry sarcasm (really more sardonic than sarcastic) rather than humor, I would prefer to stick with a clear and rigorous discussion of the topic at hand. Joking about is a great tactic to endear your readers to you and bring them back. With this blog I have chosen to engage in some rather severe critical thinking about topics of interest to me and projects I am working on. I leave the humor to Facebook.
  5. Light Colored inviting design
    No.

Employing a tactic of many successful bloggers I will close with a few questions, thus inviting you to join in the discussion in comments. Was this useful? What is your experience with blogging?

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Dirty Money, Starving Artists, and the need for new myths

Friday, November 6th, 2009

One of the most pervasive identity myths that haunts art worlds is that of the starving artist. There are countless examples in popular culture of this archetype including a very good opera about the subject. While the idea that a true artist suffers and through suffering art is born might have a degree of romantic mystique the truth of the matter is that all suffering creates is suffering. The archetype of the starving artist, and her condemnation of anyone who achieves any degree of success as “selling out,” does little more than provide limited solace to an otherwise unpleasant existence.

Archetypes are powerful things. Consciously or not, as beings in the world, we emulate strong and powerful archetypal roles. Not to get too Jungian but I see it as far too common to deny. Personality is performance. In the performance of personality we model our ‘character’ off of good actors (in real life or literature and pop-culture). The starving artist, through its romantic appeal, is a popularly recurring figure. Sadly this figure does more of a disservice to us in the long run, in the same way as the alcoholic writer generally creates alcoholics not writers.

The starving artist type gains value, to a greater or lesser degree, in the idea that money is somehow dirty. There is an air of superiority, by those who don the starving artist type, placed around obscurity. It is as though anyone whose work could be understood by, and thus appreciated and paid for by, more than a select inner cabal of followers is somehow flawed. Because popular/successful is read as bad, money, as a tangible proof of popularity of ones work, is also treated as bad or dirty. There is a belief that the work itself becomes sullied by making money off it.

This is as common in the performing arts as it is in any other medium. Many theater makers working on a small scale will deride the “commercialism” of Broadway plays or the work produced at regional theaters. Rather than examining the work itself the funding for the work comes under attack. Rigorous critique is replaced by a more general barrage against slick stagecraft and well rehearsed acting. Taken at their root these critiques are really about money and the relative access to, or paucity of, its presence in making the work.

While it is true that throwing money at a bad play will not make it better it does not follow from there that all plays with good funding are bad. It is true that people throw millions of dollars into producing total crap while others spend next to nothing to make a true gem. At the same time, those true gems, with a fully financed producer, would potentially become even greater while the well financed schlock would remain schlock.

The archetype of the starving artist and the myth of dirty money have created a false dichotomy between “uptown” and “downtown” theater. Between “indie” and “commercial” plays. Being poor does not inherently make one virtuous and even Jerzy Grotowski conceded that poor theater costs a lot of money. High budgets do not make one good or bad. Powerful authentic art can exist with no money or all the money in the world. But this is not the point. The focus of our critiques should center on the quality and effectiveness of the work itself rather than its funding.

So too our personal narratives would do well to be reoriented away from the damaging myth of the virtue of the starving artist and back towards the rigorous and devoted artists and craftsman. Even a cursory look at the Renaissance shows us that powerful and lasting works can be created from well funded origins. There are many people in pop-culture one might look to who are wildly successful and still maintain a high degree of artistic integrity. Danny Elfman comes readily to mind as one such example as does his regular collaborator Tim Burton. Many artists have made the transitions to the big leagues without sacrificing their artistic integrity.

Poverty is only romantic with distance. It is time to retire the Starving Artist as a myth of a bygone age. A romantic notion, well fit for literature, and hardly worth modeling one’s life after. The reality of the starving artist too easily winds up starved. We need new archetypes for a new millennium. Archetypes that empower us to live strongly and courageously as artists in our contemporary world and beyond.

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New Beginnings

Friday, October 16th, 2009

I had dinner with a friend the other day, a lighting designer, whose work freelancing in theater is nearing an end. Having garnered for himself some national and international success, regularly working off-Broadway, and regionally, he has decided that the lifestyle of the freelance lighting designer is not for him. While he has projects through next fall he has been turning down work steadily to give an end date of October 2010.

I find it fascinating to see the choices that people make in life. By many external standards my friend has achieved great success. At the very least he has achieved what he set out to achieve. Being now at the place he set out to reach ten years ago his targets are shifting. We all do this to greater or lesser degrees. In my experience it takes great strength of character and a strong inner compass to be able to shift course in such radical ways mid voyage.

There are interesting parallels between my dinner companion and the show I am currently working on. Richard Foreman, a true master of the American stage, is directing his last ever theater piece. His interest now is on experimental film. He has given up his theater space of several decades and will transition full time to film. It is one thing for someone approaching 40 and considering starting a family to shift careers into something more stable and sustainable. It is something else, albeit related, for a man of 72, considered a leader in his field, to decide that he has reached the end of what he can do aesthetically and needs to find new mediums of expression.

Both of these decisions necessitate clear thinking to come from a proactive place rather than a reactive place. Too often we hold on to old ideas of identity long past their relevance to our actual daily lives. At some point we find ourselves scrambling to make up for lost time as we attempt to reorient our consciousness to this newly realized, but long existing, reality.

Too often it takes some crisis point for one to wake up to the reality of their existence. Rather than taking the time to look around and recalibrate our lives we wait until we are up against a wall and then are forced to choose between a now limited range of options.

Successfully navigating one’s life and career does not mean simply doing the job in front of you well. It is not just playing the cards you are dealt. It is knowing when to trade in your cards for a new hand or folding entirely and taking your winnings from the table.

Being proactive is what makes life vibrant and full. Seeing a challenge or a goal or having a desire and putting your full effort and intention towards achieving that goal makes for an exciting life. Grabbing life by the reins and taking opportunities as they arise or even making your own opportunities creates an adventure out of life.

Often I find people focus on endings. We see the end of some phase of life or a project or a relationship. But each of those endings are also beginnings. Having the courage and foresight to see those beginnings and transforms them into powerful opportunities for growth and transformation is necessary for inner peace and true success.

In many ways success is easy. Outward success that is. One can craft a life that looks to external observers like they have “made it.” However, just because the life looks good to an external observer does not mean the one holding the cards is enjoying the game. The appearance of success is not true success. Being true to one’s self and one’s inner vision of the life one wants to lead takes courage and continual vigilance.

This is a tough path for anyone to walk.

Good luck!

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From the Archives: the art of money

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Note: This was originally posted almost two years ago in December of 2007. It is interesting to me to see how much more sophisticated my writing on finances is now than it was then.

I hope you enjoy.

The other day imomus mentioned that when money people get together they talk about art and when art people get together they talk about money. The money of art is something that can be rather difficult to talk about. I think this is a primary reason professional artists generally have agents. Leave the money dealings to someone else so the artist can focus exclusively on the art.

But the business of art is very important. After all it is with money that food and shelter are procured. In the theatre the business of the art is at the fore. Unlike disciplines like painting or sculpture that one might do in seclusion and then, once completed, present to the market, theatre is done from the beginning in collaboration and those collaborators must agree on what fees are paid, to whom and when. They must agree as to who controls the rights to what and under which circumstances.

Working in the theatre it is necessary to be at once a “money person” as well as an “art person.” But often one is a “money person” without much actual money. Or at least with an income with as much fluctuation as the stock market. Since all my work is on a contract basis and my checks(portions of the total design fee) are paid on an irregular schedule it can be very difficult to organize this financial situation.

I am a big believer in saving and investing and find the typical American’s reliance on credit cards as a “cash reserve,” or worse yet supplemental income, to be reckless at best. At the same time, due to the often inconsistent nature of my work, I have at times been forced to use this less than ideal “cash reserve.” But how does one save and invest reasonably and responsibly with such a fluctuation in income?

What I have found to be of greatest use is to treat everything I make in terms of percentages. I do have fixed expenses, things like rent and utilities, so there is a minimum I must make each month. But after that, everything can easily be scaled to the amount of money I take in. I put away a certain percentage for taxes, and another percentage for savings. Then what is left over is free for all other expenses.

By dealing with my money on a check by check basis(as opposed to yearly or even monthly), I am able to save money during the leanest times. If I try to save ten percent of my income, when a thousand dollar check comes in I can take out one hundred dollars and this is not noticeable in the regular flow of things. Certainly not when compared with attempting to gather thousands of dollars at the end of the year to put in savings.

Breaking finances down to small easily manageable increments makes the whole thing a lot easier to understand. This is why I enjoy sites like Get Rich Slowly. It takes a reasoned approach to personal finance and breaks everything down into components that are easy to manage. So much so that almost insurmountable feats like paying off credit cards is broken down into five easy steps.

The business of art need not be something to fear. With a little planning and research even the most organizationally averse can practice the art of money.

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From the Archives: Freelance Finances

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Note:This post is originally from July of 2008. While my system has been modified somewhat since then, the basic structure and ideas are the same.

I left the piece unedited from the 2008 version, but upon a new read am aware how much my writing has improved over the past year.

Enjoy!

Of all the classes I took in gradschool not one of them focused on how how to organize your finances. We had a CPA come in one day and talk about taxes, but nothing on day to day cash flow management. It is surprising since that is rather central to freelancing. And given that this is what a large percentage of their students end up doing, it surprises me there was no discussion of it. I had to make this system up on my own, via some help from talking with friends and colleagues. My system will not work for everyone, it may only work for me, but perhaps some of the ideas will be useful to others about to begin the freelance design experience.

One of the trickiest things I have found freelancing is budgeting my money. The switch from regular to irregular income can be quite a shock to the system if not prepared. It has taken me a number of years to get the system I have working with most major kinks ironed out, but it seems to be doing well currently. Since some months I will be working constantly with a fairly high and regular cash flow and other months are like a river evaporating in the desert I have adopted a system that works no matter what volume my monetary intake is at. Most of it is based on percentages and that allows my budget to expand and contract as the intake does.

Obviously I have fixed expenses like rent, gas, electricity, phone, student loan payments and internet. Thus there is a minimum I must make each month to not go into debt. By and large making those minimums is simple. Everyone has these expenses. They are obvious. There are a few other less obvious expenses that stung me a few times through my not considering them necessary.

For the system to work, taxes, savings and a “dry month buffer” should all be considered necessary expenses. By looking at these as necessary expenses I make sure I have them covered rather than waiting until the end of the month or end of the year only to find out I spent all my income.

Since I do not get W2′s there is no income withholding which means I must do that on my own. I am also under no illusion that I will “strike it rich” as a theatrical designer, so I have an IRA that I feed regularly. Both the taxes and the IRA follow the same model. As soon as I deposit each check for a project I take a percentage(currently ten percent) of that and put it towards my IRA(and to a savings account for taxes). So if I get a hundred dollar check that’s $10 to my IRA. A $3,000 dollar check and its $300. Simple.

The “dry month buffer” is less precise. Rather than a strict percentage I simply try and maintain about 1-2 months worth of necessary expenses in my savings account. This has been the most recent addition to my system and probably the one most needing of refinement. My next major tweak to the system is to make this more precise and methodical.

By doing all this before I even look at balances for necessary spending I have been able to save a decent amount of money on what can, at times, be a very meager income. There are two things that make this successful. One is knowing that almost anyone can adjust -10% of their income. It’s just enough to notice, but not significant enough to truly impact daily life.

One further trick I picked up from a friend of mine who uses a similar system has to do with money for taxes. In March he takes all his savings for taxes and puts it in a 9 month CD. In June does the same in a 6 month CD. And again in September with a 3 month.

It looks like an online savings account actually provides a higher rate of return than a short term CD. So this afternoon I will be opening an online savings account to hold my tax money until the end of the year.

The final element to the percentage system is discretionary spending. I give myself a monthly allowance, alternately called a flexible budget or spending plan, for excess income every month. By again treating it as a percentage of income I am able to allow it to expend and contract based upon earnings. And since all my credit card spending is accounted for in that spending plan I am able to pay off credit card bills at the end of the month(or weekly when I am really on top of things) to prevent that from getting out of control.

This all may fall into the over sharing category for some. But to me I would have loved to have this information at my disposal when I started working regularly on 1099 income. I hope this might help you out.

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