Hello and welcome to this next edition of the Mixing Light Office Hours. Happened to takes place on a Sunday late afternoon here, New York City time. A little bit unusual for us to hold a office hours on a weekend, but our wonderful Katie Hinson contributor and post-production person extraordinaire. This is her time that was available for us in the immediate future. You're in New Zealand, aren't you Katie? I am, I'm on vacation. That's how come I'm able to be available.
(laughs) Yeah, that's right. When we emailed back and forth, you're like, actually it would be way easier for me to schedule time now than when I'm back in the States. So we're accommodating her. And so it's Monday morning where you are on a blustery wintery kind of almost spring day. Yeah, is it cold? It's cold, but it's really beautiful. So I am, here we go. I'm in rural New Zealand. (laughs) Yeah, there you go. Refreshing, renewing the spirit and the soul. That's right. That's right.
Yes, that's excellent. And so today we're here to talk about a couple of different things, including, you know, we've got some intrepid people who've shown up, some members, thank you all for showing up on a Sunday. And so, you know, feel free. Like this is a great time for us to just have a round table discussion. If you have questions, if you want to jump in, raise your hand, we'll try to keep it kind of organized and I'll call on you so it's not a total free for all.
And, but we want you to participate. And so we're going to be talking about a couple of things today. Mostly we're going to be talking about Katie's salary-- I call it the salary survey because I think that's what motivates people to take this survey is I'll share, I'll share what I'm making in the hopes that I will then get other people sharing anonymously, of course, so I can see how I'm stacking up based on my experience, based on my role. And I get a sense of how I sit in the market.
If you're new into this business, it's a great idea. Like how much should I be charging on an hourly rate if I've got two years of experience and I'm editing or I'm a colorist, right? And so if your entry level, this keeps you from undercutting everyone and also helps keep our pay rates at a healthy rate. So I always promote it as the salary survey, but Katie, you actually give it a slightly different name. Yeah, I just started calling it the post-production survey.
I think we were calling it the rate survey for a while. We're nine years in now. I've been doing this for nine years, every October. It's kind of cool, but it's really important. It's a snapshot, right? It did start, as Pat said, it did start because when I started the Blue Collar Post Collective, we had a very active Facebook community. And the number one most common question people asked was, hey, look, I'm starting a new gig. What should I be asking for?
Like how much should I be getting paid? While people wanted to help each other, they didn't want to be broadcasting what they get paid. And that's pretty fair. So I thought, well, what if I did an anonymous survey?
Everyone can just put in their info, like what they're working on, how experienced they have, so everyone can compare apples to apples, you know, and then just kind of say how much they get paid and it's all anonymous, but you can see that somebody who's working on the same kind of thing as you, same kind of experience, they were all doing the same kind of job.
You can kind of see what other people are making and kind of make your own determination of how much you want to offer for your own services because otherwise it's how long as a piece of string. And there's not a lot out there that does that for people. Some parts of our industry have union rates, but again, not everybody's entirely sure what all of that means sometimes. So sometimes it's just easier, especially for folks at entry level, but not just at entry level.
If you haven't actually gone for a new job for a while, even I've found that, even I've used it for that. I don't change jobs that often. So I'm like, oh God, what's the market right now? Like, you know, what should I do? And I find now that a lot of hiring managers like myself now actually use it as well. So I tend to get in there and say, oh man, I'm trying to, I need to hire someone. Now I have a comp team that decides how much market rates are for things, but I don't entirely trust them.
And I like to look at this as well and say, okay, well, what are people getting paid? To, you know, what should I be looking at, paying somebody for their services on a production? And I think that actually being able to have, and I encourage production managers as well, or producers who want to hire crew up on something. You know, when I was running, I was running post houses for quite a while and you know, we all probably know how it is.
We get to post all the budgets gone away and everyone says, oh, can I get my film colored? Yeah, sure. How much money have you got? Well, I've got about $1,000 left in my budget. That is definitely not gonna happen. But I think by encouraging producers to get in there early and say, well, what should I be budgeting for a colorist? I think it's really helpful. And so there's lots of different uses for the data and that's why I make the full raw dataset public every year as well.
So you can actually just sit there and take the old, take the Excel or the Google sheet and just start filtering and start looking at it and understanding kind of where you sit and comparing yourself to other people. I think that's really, really useful because there's also questions in there about how people get paid. So, you know, because a lot of colorists in particular who work at facilities get, you know, get commission on top of their salary.
Other people charge out their equipment fee and kit fee. So I think, you know, that stuff is also captured and I think that's really useful. And some folks get bonuses, which are outside of their, outside of the salary as well. So I think, you know, even that information is useful for people to understand how they compare and maybe what they should be doing and asking for and advocating for themselves as well. Now the survey is open right now. It is through the month of October.
For the month of October. I'll admit I have not yet done the survey. So I'm going to ask you though, as an owner operator myself, like I don't consider myself a freelancer and I'm certainly not staff. So the questionnaire will capture if I dig into the raw dataset, like, all right, as an owner operator who runs my own equipment, depreciates my capital, has to renew that. Like that is getting captured in there as well. So I can compare myself to other owner operators. It's an interesting thing.
I don't capture owner operators necessarily as a specific data point within the overall post-production community. But what, you know, but I think how you are hired on a production is probably the way that you should consider it, right? So is your company hired and therefore you are staff? Or are you hired and therefore you are, you know, a contractor, a freelancer?
Or are you somebody who has a loan out deal and you're consistently at a facility or on a production, but you don't work for that company, then you would be a perma-lancer or something like that. So those are the three categories because I try to be as broad as possible. I think a lot of people, you know, try to be more specific and say, but I'm not quite all of these things.
But the thing is that when you're comparing yourself to 4,000 other people, you know, unfortunately you're not a special snowflake and it's actually not as useful for the dataset to have something that's very specific in there. If you're looking at the overall dataset, the way that people are gonna use that, they're gonna look at, you know, trends more than anything else, more than wondering what Pat Inhofer specifically has going on.
They might wanna see what somebody who's highly experienced with very, you know, a lot of levels of experience, a lot of years of experience, who is hired out on a production for something. You know, what does that look like? You charge a kit fee, okay, cool. You know, this is your rate plus a kit fee. This is how much you're working, the kind of work you're doing, those kinds of things that are far more useful, I think, to the large. You know, it's interesting too.
And when I filled it out in years past, the way I handled it was as a solo owner operator, I kind of know what my freelance rate is, right? Like if someone called me up and said, can you come to my place and work for me on an hourly basis and quote me that out? Like I know what that hourly rate is, right? I will tell you that I also know that it hasn't changed in 10 years, right?
So even with all the inflation going on, like my base freelance set, you know, hourly rate is static and has been, in fact, when I look at editors, you know, I was a freelance editor before I was a freelance colorist and that rate, when I looked at what freelancer editors are making now, that hasn't changed in 15, 20 years. You know, they're losing, we're losing our purchase, our kind of power in the market.
Yeah. So we do have the overall trends since 2018, you know, to 2023, because I can't tell you this yet, because we're only a week into in the survey for this year, is that pay versus inflation, the inflation adjusted rates are actually, inflation's going up faster than pay. There is a small overall trend upwards in pay rates. It's not a lot. Over the entire post production industry, the overall sort of rate of inflation that's gone up is about $5 an hour.
But, you know, and if you kept up with inflation, it should have gone up by about 30. You know, so, you know, I did all of that, that's the analysis that I do every year. So we have the raw data set that goes into the survey and everybody can use that and look at their own, you know, their selves. But I also do this full analysis and put out a report every year. And again, on the website for the, you know, for this on postproductiondata.com, are all the reports.
And last year's report, we actually looked at pay versus inflation. And funnily enough, the only time it actually was equal was 2020, which was interesting. I think the thing that changed in 2020 was that fewer people were working and only people who, you know, probably were at a certain level were working. So that's probably why the pay, you know, the pay versus inflation actually, you know, kissed each other a little bit that year.
But otherwise, I think the general trend was that, you know, inflation went down and only people, the other people working were more highly paid in 2020. But otherwise, yeah, things aren't keeping up with inflation, but that's pretty standard across all the whole workforce in the United States. So we're not special. Pay is usually a lags inflation is typically what happens. It does. Now, and to finish the thought as an owner operator, because I know a lot of our members are owner operators.
That's right. The way I filled out that survey is, all right, here's if I was in my market down the street, hiring myself out as a freelancer, I'll put down my freelance rate. But then if you're gonna hire me in my room in this space right here, I know what that kit fee is. And so then I just add that on as the kit fee. And that's kind of how I kind of get all that data into the survey. I was gonna say people make their best guess at how they should fill it out.
And I think that generally the way that, and that's how we tend to capture how different groups work because different groups tend to have consistency in some way. So there are groups that just always have a kit fee that's kind of put into their rates. So they do tend to just add that some don't, and that's just generally quite consistent. So there is a thing that says that in addition, there is a kit fee, but yeah, that's cool. So yeah, you're showing it now.
I see you are showing last year's report, that's cool. Yeah, and so you've got it, you've got a lot of, because this has been in the news for the past four years, and I think this type of data here in terms of race, in terms of gender, that's all kind of new additions. I think you probably started picking that up about four years ago or so, five years ago, wasn't it? No, I started doing, no, I've been doing that. I've been doing that since about 2017 or 2018.
Okay, all right, so you were on that early. And yeah, and then there's also by, location, and I love the breakdown here of the various crafts that you're capturing.
Yeah, I think it's important, because I think there is a big difference, obviously, between whether you're in one of the major, the New York or LA versus the rest of the country, but I think it's really important for folks to see what the difference is, because one of the cool things that I saw was the change and how much that matters, whether or not you need to move to LA to have a career. And I think that was something that we really saw change.
And you can see there, a location affects pay, that in 2020, it really didn't matter where you were. And as you can see, kind of go back to the office, 2022, but then 2023, the strikes happened. And suddenly, again, it didn't matter so much. So I think there's, I'm really interested to see how those trends continue. Tony's got his hand up. Oh, Tony, yeah, come on up, Tony. Sarah, Katie, first of all, I wanna thank you profusely. You are my post-production superhero. (laughing) Thank you.
You are just stellar. And let me tell you why. I was in an interesting situation where a good friend of mine, his daughter is considering entering the post-production industry. And I didn't want to discourage them, given the situation, the way it is right now here in the States, particularly, I'm in Los Angeles. And I said, if I could only provide some, what I call Intel, some intelligence reports that would give them an understanding of like, what is the past and what is the future is?
And your report was it, was it, Katie. And I felt-- Oh, that's awesome. I felt that I could empower his child to, I don't wanna tell them, don't even consider this. It's not worthwhile. I said, give them the Intel, let them assess it and let them make a decision as to what's best for their future. The girl is, I think, 16 or 17. And I said, and so I'm constantly sending articles that I found about this, but yours was so comprehensive.
Anyway, I wanna thank you again, because I think together we made a difference in some young person's life, knowing what they're gonna do with their career. So thank you again. Oh, that's really cool, Tony. And thank you. I think it's so important to be able to, help, really help folks coming into the industry. I think there are a lot of young people today who are really worried, especially with all the headlines about AI and the end of creative careers and all that sort of thing.
And I think it's really cool for us to be able to, you know, those of us who are professionals, who have made a career, to be able to really speak to those thinking about a career in our industry, you know, with all of the information that we have, as well as the data we have from our own experience. So just to be able to help them and encourage them.
And the one of the things that I always like to say is that where you or I or any of us started or thought we were gonna be when we were 16, is not where we've ended up, for most of us. And I was pretty sure I knew exactly what I wanted at that age, I was that kind of kid. But there's so many roles in this industry that you don't even know exist until you get there. And roles that didn't exist when I started that exist now.
And so I think it's really cool, Tony, that you were able to provide that information and have that, you know, and have that information to be able to provide, especially for the parents. Just so that they can make that decision. Because I think it's a great place. I think this industry is a great place for everybody.
Yeah, the one thing I will add in closing, the reason that I always try to do that is because I felt somebody when I was 15, was able to guide me and tell me when I asked them the questions. I think we're from a generation where, you know, I consider I came from the analog generation. I think things were a lot more simpler to get in. You just have to be willing to prove to somebody that you were a worthwhile investment.
So I was looking at that at my age, and I encourage everybody to do this, is we have to pay it forward to pay it back. I guess that's what I'm looking for. But ultimately what it comes down to is knowledge is power, and power is the catalyst to positive change. We just got to go out and find that. So your report was part of it. So once again, thank you. Thank you so much. You are my superhero. Aw, thank you. That's really sweet. Look, I think this is why it's done.
I think the knowledge is so important, and the more that we're able and empowered to share with each other, even though we're fragmented in our industry a lot, especially freelancers, the ability for us to have a vehicle like this where we can actually share knowledge, and knowledge is power. I really think it is. And I think that we can empower each other to advocate for ourselves in negotiations, to get a good rate, to keep rates good, and nice and strong as much as we can.
I think that's really cool, and I love that we can use that for that. And the other thing in terms of knowledge being power and the transparency there is I also think that you can't improve what you don't measure. And I see that from a business perspective and from a community perspective.
And the reason why I do the analysis and put the information out there about where we can do better in terms of gender pay gaps, racial pay gaps, things like that, is because I think that a lot of these things are done the easy way. I think people look at encouraging people into the industry and not thinking about actually, and not actually acknowledging where exactly we can target those efforts to make more meaningful impact.
So one of the things that I like to show with my data analysis is, hey, look, here's somewhere where we actually need to target and maybe put more energy into making things more fair and equitable and encouraging people. And so that's something as well, I think it's worth looking at and exploring. So Pat is going to ask a question for Jamie. All right. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to fully represent what Jamie's asking. I'll give it a shot so because it gets a little complicated.
So Jamie asks, I'm experimenting with dropping my day rate for one client on the basis that I get more of a pro rata part time salary rather than my freelance day rate. If I say X dollars or X pounds per day times four days per week times four weeks per month times 11 months in a year, then I'm happy it's a competitive salary.
But if I take my pro rata half time, but it ends up being kind of ad hoc bookings, then my pound, that X, the dollars per hour is way lower than a competitive freelance day rate. Do these calculations seem a reasonable guide? Any thoughts? Maybe, Katie, maybe you want to restate that and then see if you can answer it. Yeah. I kind of get what you're saying. And it's something that a lot of people had to try and calculate.
And I strongly suggest that you actually look at those calculations probably a little bit more deeply. So what you're essentially saying is that if you lower your rate for this one client, you'll get more consistent work. And more consistent work, you know that there is more that you can kind of assume you're going to get. And therefore, you can kind of predict a little bit more of your income.
And if you do that prediction of what you assume will continue because you've lowered your rate, then it turned out to be a reasonable salary. However, if you were to-- and the risk that you're taking there is that it is not going to be that consistent. And you've gone and lowered your rate for something that's not consistent. And then that kind of sucks. I'm assuming that's the summary of what you're asking, Jamie.
And I think that that's probably a really good thing for this group as a roundtable to talk about. Now, I've given a lot of colorists in my specialty in terms of business advice. I think a lot of colorists have gone from being-- have been gone from being staffed to being-- there we go-- have gone from being staffed to being these solopreneurs. And it's a trend that we've seen over the last couple of decades.
And one of the things about that I learned when I went and studied business from being just in post-production was that a lot of people who start up businesses are not people who come from a business background but who come from being whatever they are. And I say, bakers start a bakery because they like to bake, not because they like business. And the same goes for colorists.
So the more I am able to share the education that I got in business and starting small businesses and running small businesses, the better. So there is an insight there where I talk about how to do your finances. And it's something that I've coached a number of people doing. But that's-- there's-- there are different ways to understand, you know, the calculations, how much you think you're going to get. So you kind of need to start with all these exercises.
And I guarantee you, Jamie's done that because he loves to-- he's good at following my advice. And then you're going to need to understand, you know, how you can have flex rates. So you can have these different-- now that you can look down here, we have Pat scrolling down. I do this with people. And it's usually where you can break it down to multiple different rates for different kinds of work.
So what Jamie can do here is understand that for this different client-- because some people will say, well, I've got these clients that I really like working for, but they don't have the budget. And then I get these ones that have big budget. So we might talk about commercials versus TV versus films, for example. You can see in this example, we've got a rate for commercials and films, different rate for TV clients, for example.
So you just need to understand, you know, if you don't make it in the lower rate and the number of days per month you have to do the TV work or the lower work in order to get the amount that you need for your salary that you do want to pay yourself, then you know that you're going to have to go out there. And if you're not doing the work for the steady clients, it's going to get you a lower rate.
You're going to have to go hustle and get a higher one in a month to make the amount of money you need to make to pay yourself the salary you want to pay yourself. So that's how we work it out and we look at it in terms of... Because it's really common. It's really common. Most people, I think, have this kind of situation. They'll have a steady client that they get a lower rate for, but it's worth it because it's fairly steady.
It'll be like a TV show or something that's, you know, a lot of people have a reality show, for example, that they just do for years over and over again, and it pays about half as much as their normal rate, but they know it's always going to come in. And they just know that if they're going to do that, they need to get a certain amount of other work or that work in order to get the salary that they want to pay themselves.
So I think that's kind of the calculation that you need to do to work that one out. And it's always got to start from how much your expense and your depreciation and all of those other things, and then how much do you want to pay yourself? Because a lot of people forget when they start running their own business to pay themselves a salary. They forget about the costs that they have to go out, and they think they've got to pay rent and they've got to do all these things.
But they actually forget to pay themselves, and they forget to give themselves insurance, and they forget to give themselves things like retirement planning and savings and all of those other things. And equipment replacement. Exactly. You've always got to think about those things. And that's how you need to work out what your rate is. That's how you need to figure it out. You need to figure it out by starting with those things, and then you go, "Well, I have to charge this."
And you can have these multiple rates, like Jamie's talking about doing. I think it's a really good way to do it. It's very, very common. They have multiple rates because you want to be open to be working for different kinds of clients. You can't just have a single rate, and you know that you're going to end up suffering, that you can't always take on every kind of client, and sometimes you need to be able to be flexible in that way. So once you do that kind of...
If you do that kind of calculation, you can understand where you can be flexible and what that means if you do need to be flexible. The other thing I always recommend having is what we call a runway in business, which is a specific savings that is... The runway is how long could you last, paying yourself and all your bills, without work? So your runway in life is very useful, as is in business, but your runway is how many months can you survive without work?
So it's good to have a minimum three-month runway, just in savings, and that includes paying your own salary and your expenses and everything else. So if that cost per month, once you've done all your calculations, is say $5,000, for example, then you need to have $15,000 in savings. That's your runway. And some people might have six-month runway and are very comfortable. Some people have a year runway.
One year... I knew that I had a year's runway and it was great, and so I decided to take a sabbatical just to see how long it took before I got bored and wanted to work again, which was nice. Folks who had decent runways were able to get through COVID and through the pandemic shutdowns without freaking out so much. It's a really good anxiety reducer when you are a small business or a freelancer. And I think that's a really, really useful thing to have. So you don't freak out when you take risks.
And it's great to be able to take risks creatively, I think, especially. You know, sometimes you'll say, "Look, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make any money on this show, but I really love it. It's a film that's really cool and it might be really valuable to me." Then if you have the runway, then you can take that risk. So I think that's a really valuable financial bit of advice that I like to give to people who want to start their own business or go through that.
Jamie, did we manage to help you when I rambled on about different ways of organizing your finances? Yes, thanks. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that insight too. Good. That insight is brilliant. I went to it in the chat. And I'll also link to it when this insight goes up on the website. And the Google spreadsheet I showed there is embedded in there.
You just want to download it, copy it yourself, and then start filling out those numbers because, Jamie, I will tell you, I kind of summarizing everything Katie said there, if I had to take that and turn it into a Google summary of two sentences. Go on AI, Pat. Yeah, I'm going to go AI on you.
So ChatPat says that, "No, you should not take that hourly rate and multiply it times four weeks, times five days a week, times 52 weeks a year, because you are not going to be working that much and you will be kidding yourself. You'll end up way short. You need to make it... It needs to reasonably reflect the reality of your situation. And that Google spreadsheet will get you there.
But it will also allow you to take that risk that you need to take, because that is completely normal that you need to take those lower paid jobs to have the certainty of more work. But you need to understand what that means, that if you've got a rate that's going to allow you, if you work that many days in the year, to be just fine, but you need to know that if that takes a turn downwards, here's how you're going to make it up. You're going to get one commercial.
So you're going to go out there and you know, you know, because you've done the calculations, that if that starts to dry out, you just need to do one commercial. Cool, I can do that. I can hustle, I can get one commercial, and then I'm good for the month. You know what that actually takes. And you don't have to go, because what most people do is they go, "Oh, shit, it's starting to dry out. I'm going to need 10 commercials. Oh, shit." Right? No, you don't.
You've done the calculations and you know you just need to do one. So that's what's really valuable about doing that and doing it proactively, is that you know what you need to just live comfortably, get your savings and do all of those other things you need to do. You need, say, four of these jobs that you're thinking about taking in a week, or one commercial, or one class, you know.
And that's the cool thing that you can just work out and you feel a lot less freaked out about taking the rest of your life on those other jobs. So that's my advice to you. Cool. Now, does anyone else have any questions? Feel free to just open up your mic and jump in if you have questions, especially on this topic of pay, setting your rate, kind of... Yeah, money, anything related to money. Katie's great on this.
I mean, and Katie, I guess, you know, one of the things that makes you so good on this topic is you're both an artist, you've been the artist, and now you've also been management. And you see and understand the decisions of management, how they see the artist versus how you thought... When you first got into that, when you made that transition, were you surprised by what you learned, or were you already pretty sophisticated about how you set your rates and all of that stuff?
Not so much surprised, but I loved having the information as power, and I loved suddenly getting insights into why things are done the way they're done. So there was that side of it, and then there was also the fact that I also studied business. I went kind of back to school and studied business, and particularly focused on small businesses and startups, because I thought that they had a lot more alignment with the post-production industry, small businesses and startups.
In fact, the way that startups are funded is exactly the way films are funded, which is fascinating to me. So, you know, I had that, and I also had the insights, and the cool thing was that the way Colorists are paid is, I think, the most interesting part of our business. And now that I have the power of knowledge, I spend as much time as I can coaching Colorists to get paid better.
I love it when Colorists are... especially the big Colorists that are at the big shops, because the way they're paid is super complex, and there's a whole bit of math at the back end on how much we want to offer a Colorist and how they get paid. And because Colorists for post-houses today are the commodity. The Colorist is the commodity. So if you're at a post-house, know that. You are, unfortunately, a walking check. You are. And that's the way you're saying.
You are the thing that they are selling. And so it's really interesting to frame it that way, and to understand how Colorists in those situations, once you have a certain amount of billing in a year, you become the commodity. And it's a different way that you get paid. And knowing that, and being able to say to go out to... I go out to Colorists now, and I say, "You actually are at a point in your career where you can start getting paid this way."
And that's why there are these Colorists in Hollywood that get paid this stupid amount of money. There's a different way that they're paid. There's a totally different economics. And so I love to go to these people and say, "You know, you're actually good enough for this. You are, and if you're not paying you this way, you need to start to ask them to pay you that way."
And the math behind it, and helping people negotiate really much better rates, knowing what it looks like from both sides, and what it looks like under the hood at the back end of how it's calculated, then I can say, "You can actually ask for up to this amount," because they will say, "Yes," because of the economics behind it. So being able to just get people that information is so cool.
Now, we've talked about with you on Mixing Light in a previous insight, exactly how this happens with the big facilities, how the commission structure and all of that. Yeah. But from the facility side, though, are they willing to do that because the Colorist brings in the rest of the job? It's bringing them in from pre-production, and they know that by locking down the Colorist, they're kind of getting the whole pipeline, or is it just simply... No, it's not. It's not. No, it's not.
It's because they can command the money. It's both. It tends to be that the Colorists have the relationships with DPs. And so the best bit of sales that you can do is to have the right Colorist, who has the relationships with DPs. Or there'll be a Colorist who's just so good a DP wants to work with them. And I think as you all are as Colorists, you make relationships. A lot of the Colorist work is all about relationships, as editors are as well.
You know, if you're in the room with somebody with a client, then you have relationships with clients. That's how you do your business. So if the facility has you, the facility has your clients. So that's the thing. They don't have to go out and get clients. The clients are going to go with people they like. So when they buy a Colorist, they buy the Colorist's Rolodex or contact list. And so that's really what it comes down to.
And there is a point where it's really worthwhile for a facility to buy a Colorist. And that is when you have a billing, total billing in a year. So exclusive of costs or anything like that. Just full on account. Gross billings. Gross billings had about a million dollars a year. So now that sounds like a lot of money, because not everyone's making a million dollars a year, but neither are they. It's how much over a whole year. And that might be three or four feature films.
That's not a whole lot. So really, once that gross billing can potentially be a million dollars a year, that's when you become somebody who is extremely valuable to a larger facility. Smaller facilities, if you're billing gross under a million, you are still valuable to a smaller facility, but you won't necessarily get paid with that commission structure. So the commission structure is where they know they see you as a million dollar check.
And when they see you as a million dollar check, then you have a lot more power to be able to make those kinds of negotiations for really good pay. I noticed in the last 2023, I think it was a 2023 pay survey or survey, there was a differentiation between the type of work you did. So when you were doing commercials versus long form versus serial television, there were some pretty significant, especially for commercials, right? When you're working on commercials, you get paid a lot more.
Do you find that within that pay structure, if that's what you're aspiring aspiring to be able to make that kind of money and really give up what you need to give up in your life to fit into that system, right? Do those colorists, are they like focused on making sure they have a lot of commercial DPs or is it like anybody in any one of those slots can fit into these big post houses and start working off a commission and or do you really need to focus? Yeah, no, anybody can.
And I think everybody when they get to a certain level in their career, it starts to focus on a certain kind of client, you just get really good at certain things. You really enjoy doing a certain kind of thing. There are some people who just really freaking love doing commercials and music videos, and it's their specialty. And it's what they really love doing. And they're really good at it.
And so a post house that wants to do or does a lot of high end commercials will come and invite you to come in and work for them, for example. So when I was developing post houses that do like wanted to get into Super Bowl commercials, you go find the colorist that does super well commercials. And if you are doing feature films, there are also indies versus there are colorists that make massive amounts of money doing indies. That's their thing.
And then there are the ones that do the big Hollywood tent poles. And there are actually ones who do really good high end television. They tend to be more technical. People like Rory Gordon, who is a color scientist and colorist when it comes to specialized for streaming shows, the high end stuff, because she can handle the HDRness of it, all of the different those different things and do really beautiful things within a very technical thing. Like that's her that's her specialty.
So she has a great amount of value to people as well. So it really depends. Everybody specializes in something and has their niche. We also as we mature in our careers. So there is a place for everybody at the high end. There really is even in even in reality shows there is a place for everybody at the high end of everything. Where there's money, there is a place for people at that end of where the money is. And I think it's really about what you enjoy because what you enjoy, you'll get good at.
So I think I think what I'm hearing from you then is as you're developing your career, you know, focus on relationships, find the DP you like to work with and then get that and then work with that DP to keep coming back as they grow, you grow and and then and then have a couple of those. And then while doing that, figure out what it is you love to do. And it might be a mix of everything. It might be a subspecialty. And then just keep going down that path.
And all of those things are valuable to post houses, to the high end post houses. It is it is important to have a mix of colorists so that you get a mix of clients and so you don't put all your eggs in one basket. And that includes colorists that are really awesome at doing lots of different things and colorists that are really awesome at doing one thing. You know, there are colorists who are just known as one director's colorist, but that director only does hundred million dollar films.
And there are colorists who are just known as you can throw anything at them and they'll be amazing at it. And that's also important because just like I was saying to Jamie before, you have to have that you have to understand the economics of of variation and what you do as well. And I'm guessing this also applies to editors, VFX artists, audio mixers, people like that. Right. It does. For the most part. Yeah, I think there's a there's a place at the high end where everybody.
Even folks that that, you know, whose careers have changed, there's always a place for the high end of everything. So, you know, I like to remind people that I started out as an online editor in the 90s when they were the rock stars because there weren't colorists and online editors were where the money was. Right. Yeah. And then the industry changed because of technology. Funnily enough, doesn't that sound familiar right now?
And it essentially wiped online editors off the map and it became a fairly low end job for in many cases. And so online editors went up and did different things. But a small number of people stayed online editors and sat at the top end of the market. It's always a place for that bespoke, very highly skilled stuff. That's what I did ended up keeping on doing. Actually, Jamie was was one of them as well.
Jamie and I both, you know, continued at that high end of being online editors of the few that continued for many more years. And we're able to make a decent living that way and continue to be the rock stars. You know, the online editor is so cool. Right. But, you know, but the thing is that there is so there is always a place for, you know, for that as well. It will continue. There's just less of it.
And so I think it's important to remember, especially as there's a lot of uncertainty now about change because of technology. The job you do today may not may not continue to be the same, but we're also not going to be the same person and you're not going to enjoy doing the same things and technology changes and changes and everything changes. And there is we're always going to evolve.
Yeah, I mean, I also you know, those of us grew up in this business in the 90s and I started in this business in late 89. In fact, Ken Sirulnick on the call, he and I started it was our first job in Manhattan, Northeast video, I think it was 1989. And so I'd be we both in our own ways, we follow different paths, became online editors. And it was really actually a pretty straightforward transition into colorist because the pitch was I know what makes pictures look great. Right.
I've been delivering straight to broadcast for a decade. And so now if you want to hire someone who can get something out of, you know, a Symphony or Final Cut Pro or whatever it was at the time, we were able to naturally just step into that role. And now we're about to go and I'm going to now morph this into the second part of our discussion. We have 15 minutes, which is the next big transition I see.
I mean, we've had some technology transitions over the last 20 years since nonlinear editing computer based editing came out. I think color management and digital cinema cameras are the two that kind of grew up side by side. One kind of begat the other. And so we're seeing all of that kind of come to fruition now that we've now we've got high dynamic range and wider color gamut. So now the palette is starting to grow for digital colorists and artists. But and that's a transition.
But I think the next transition we're really going to see like, is there something equivalent to online editing to nonlinear editing, you know, analog to digital? I think without a doubt, machine learning has to be the big like, you know, there's a siren going off and you need to be looking at that siren. If nothing else, keep paying attention to it. Right. I'm not saying that you right now need to become a prompt engineer for whatever. Right. That's yeah, exactly.
That's not what I'm saying needs to happen. But Katie, you've you've been around this. You've written for Mixing Light on this several times. You know, right now, October 2024, where do you see this happening? And then kind of in your mind, if you can hook that into like the the post-production survey and how you think it's impacting those trends or what we should be looking for in this year's survey.
Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent, excellent challenge for me, Pat, to talk about two very different parts of my knowledge base. No, that's very good. Look, I've been you know, I started out my career as this plucky smart kid who got thrown all the new technology stuff. I now I'm a plucky, smart, older kid or who still gets thrown the technology stuff. But it's you know, it's always been a big part of my my interest.
And I think we're all here because we're all curious about things and we're all we're all creative technologists. We all are, I think, to an extent some more creative, some more technologists, but we're all creative technologists and what we do is we use technology to make art. That's what we do. And whether that technology is film strips or whether technology is computers, that's what we do. We we manipulate science to make art. And I think we will always do that.
There is one thing I can say for 100% sure is that computers by their very nature, by the very nature of being a computer cannot be artists cannot be creative. But they can be a tool to make art. And the other thing I can say for being very deep under the hood of a number of these AI companies is that they all want to make money.
And if they want to make money off artists who are the users of those tools, they're not going to put those users out of business, they're going to start at least by at least by making things that we want. And that's really interesting. So it's actually so it's actually what you're saying is actually in their interest not to put us out of business is what you're saying. Because we are their customers.
Okay, you think about if you think about all of these NLEs, if you think about Adobe and we are their customers, why would they put us out of business? But so they are going to, you know, they are going to make tools that benefit us. Now obviously, that doesn't mean like any technology, no technology is neither inherently good nor bad. It is what you do with it. And people are always going to do good things and bad things with technology. We know that we've seen that look at the internet.
I mean, is it inherently good or inherently bad? It is neither, but people do good and bad things with the internet. So it's going to be the same with with AI, machine learning and all the things that come out of it. Cognitive computing, whatever else is going to be good. It's going to be people that do good things and people that do bad things. It's already the case. So it's what we do with it. And certainly, these companies are going to make tools for us that they want us to buy.
So they're going to make tools that are really useful to us. And they're engaging a lot with the creative community to see what it is that we actually give a shit about wanting to buy. And they're saying, oh, we're going to do something that colorist never have to be colorist anymore. Everyone's going to go, but I like being a colorist. Why would I not want to be a colorist? I don't want to buy that. But in theory, though, this tool that's going to make it.
But the pushback on that, the pushback on that is, well, I'm a producer and I don't want to pay the colorist because they make so much money that they actually make commission off of what I'm paying the big post. Absolutely. So I can speak to that too. And that's something that I've looked at a lot because that's something I tend to look about 10 years in the future. So about for the last 10 years, I've been looking into that. So there's it's just like everything else.
When producers got their hands on final cut pro, did we stop having editors? Producers were able to. The time was we'll be able to get it done in half the time. And what really ended up happening is you just cut twice as many versions. That's all that happened. That's right. So I think what I think what happens is that there is going to be a lot of auto color correct. There already is. Right. There's a whole lot of auto grade my shit.
But is that the audience knows the difference between the good stuff and the bad stuff. They can see it. And there's always going to be a place for the for the beautiful and the bespoke. And it's always going to be a place to auto correct. And there is now and there has been for a while and it's going to continue like that. So we're not going to have a producer of a major feature film or even a small feature film doing an auto correct.
They're always going to want to - shove a LUT on it is not new. And there's not much that AI can do. That's not that's going to be any any more or less touching your world than those things touch now. So you know those things that exist now, LUTs and auto correct and filters and things like that. And how should they really affect your world? Probably very little.
So really there's not a lot else beyond that that is going to be used by those same people that's going to say make it look like Michael Bay film. Well, they're doing that today. It's just going to be easier for them to do that. But yeah, it's true. I mean, it's like, you know, I want the Michael Bay LUT, right? Or they see a commercial. Can I get the LUT for that commercial? So now they don't even have to actually how that happens. Yeah, exactly.
They're just going to make it easier for that because there's always going to be that stuff at the low end, always. So when it comes to that, when tools get better and they can, I don't know, edit themselves a commercial, they're still going to get themselves a commercial with just whatever crap they do today is similar. It's the very different markets of the professional market.
And it just means that a lot of non-professionals are going to be able to do stuff and they're going to be do see how to do stuff that looks vaguely okay, that emulates a professional look. But the audiences can tell we can always tell. And there is going to be, I think I've said this for a long time. I think that the audiences, especially when these technologies start to impact people, the middle class, everyday people, they're going to start also seeing the value in the handmade stuff.
We're going to stay going to start seeing because it's the same as what happened when when people were able to stream media for free. Suddenly, suddenly there was a difference between the stuff you had to pay for. There was a bigger value on the stuff you had to pay for than the stuff you get for free.
So as people start seeing that there is less value in stuff that is generated by AI because they can just do it for free, you're going to see that there's more value on the stuff that is generated by people and that is very human done. I've predicted for a long time, I think there'll be a rise in this bespoke aesthetic and bespoke value on things that are bespoke.
I think there'll be additional value placed on things for people where people feel like there's something that reminds them of a time when everything was done by hand. We don't know what that's going to look like, but there's probably going to be a version of the newspaper, the radio. I think we see podcasts reminds people of listening to the radio.
I think there's going to be versions of these things that people put value on and pay for because they stop putting value on the things that they perceive as having no value because it's created by a computer. When all commercials start looking the same because they're all computer generated, people are going to go, "Well, that's kind of dumb and we know that they did it for free." They're going to put real value on the stuff that looks like it was done by a human.
So true creativity is going to start having greater value. In the same way as people are starting to see that there's greater value in the human touch in things like healthcare and childcare and schooling and teaching and all of those things, I think it's going to happen the same in creative and the creative arts. The audiences are going to start demanding the stuff that is more creative and not looking the same as everything else. The weird, which is why we're here.
We love it because we're all a bit weird, but I think the weird stuff is what really shows that it's done by a human and not by a computer because it's not the same as everything else. You can already see it even in the box office. The Tent Poles are starting to get less empty. They're called superhero fatigue.
What that really means is that it sounds to feel a bit the same because people aren't taking risks in terms of what we're starting to see is that people are really paying money to go to the movies to see something weird. Those are the movies. Yeah, something they weren't expecting. They want to be surprised. Those are the things that are getting the Oscars. That's what's getting the Oscars now. I also think with the rise of machine learning and machine learning technology, a couple of things.
One is I think what we're running into is that the easy 80% in terms of what machine learning can accomplish has been accomplished. Now we're at that top 20% where we want to take it to that next level where we really want it to do actual work that replicates what a human would do. That's the 20-year challenge.
It's like all of a sudden what looked like it was two years away is forever two years away for the next 20 years because every percentage incremental improvement takes way more resources, way more effort to get there. What I'm observing is really happening in terms of some of those advances. I don't think colorists are going to be that impacted, to be honest. I think you guys are pretty fine.
I think the visual effects industry is where there's a lot of opportunity for AI machine learning to contribute. It already is. It already has been. They're also big adopters of technology. What I'm observing is that where that stuff is actually being focused in terms of research and tool development is that it's actually not replacing the artists in Hollywood. It's replacing the artists in the sweatshops.
We all know, I'm very honest and very transparent about this, but I think we all know the unspoken secret about visual effects is that a large portion of visual effects work is done in sweatshops. It's done in third world countries in actual literal sweatshops and sweatshop labor. I think there's a really interesting moral discussion to be had and there's probably another insight at some point around what is the real moral choice?
Is it keeping people in sweatshops or is it displacing them with AI? Right now it's both because AI is the joke in the AI community is that it stands for Absent Indians because it's also generally done. I haven't heard that. Mechanical Turks, most of AI is actually a bit of a smokescreen anyway, but as it gets better, it stops being so much that and it is going to displace sweatshop labor.
I think there's something really interesting in terms of talking about that and understanding the economics and the morals of that. That's really where our industry is going to be the most impacted by AI. The jobs that are going to be impacted by AI are the sweatshop workers in third world countries that are doing a lot of this work for us. I think it was in a discussion with Jamie this week.
I think Jamie and I chatted earlier this week and I think Jamie, you were the one who introduced me to Strata, which is Michael Cione's new endeavor that he's working on. I took a quick look at their YouTube channel. I took a quick look at their product. It's a machine learning product.
It was really interesting because I came to the conclusion they seem to be focusing the product on multi-cam productions that are generating thousands of hours of footage where the problem is it overwhelms humans. Humans literally can't get on top of all the data. You just can't hire enough interns to watch everything, to tag everything, to make it usable for a story editor to come in and start finding stuff.
Then the video editors start looking for the right B-rolls and coverage and all that stuff. The machine learning in that instance seems to be from the public side that I could see on their YouTube channel where there's overwhelm. That's another good place for these types of tools. Although, I got to say, I wouldn't mind some AI normalization and maybe some AI shot matching. That stuff exists as well. But is it good? I don't know. Tony, jump right in here.
I just want to add one thing that I learned early in my freelance career. I think this may apply to those working at boutique facilities or your owner-operator and to some extent to your working at a Company 3 or whatever. I think early on when I learned when I was working as an online editor back in the 90s is when I would ask the client, "Why do you want to work with me?" The client told me, "Well, 30% of what you bring to the table is your technical execution. How fast are you?
How quick can you get this job done?" But 70% is personality. The reason I wanted to work with me over the senior day editor was because he was a little anal and he wouldn't want to put in over time at five o'clock. He's like, "I'm out of here." I was accommodating to say, "I love working with you. I want to invest in this project." Now, working as a colorist.
When I play down the shows that I work on, I take note of the names of the people so that when I refer to them, instead of saying, "Oh, you want to go to the shot of the person wearing that funky tie? No. You want to go to Joe blah, blah, blah." That's cool. That's cool. It shows to the client that I invested the project that I actually know the characters who are in whatever my documentary feature from or whatever it might be.
But that too, I think is very important because in the end, when you look at what does a client want to work with you, the question you got to ask is, "Well, what is the value added we bring to the client? Is it a combination of your personality, your technical and creative skills? And also, is it a willingness to accommodate their own creative and technical needs?" The best comment I got from a client recently is they wrote and said, "Tony was very accommodating.
He was more than willing to do the little things that went out of his way." Part of it was because they wanted me to re-edit some of the stuff in the timeline. And usually, if the colorist, it's like, "No, the picture is locked. I can't do that." But I'm like, "It's no big deal." And they even said to me, "You can do that resolve." I said, "Oh, yeah, it's got a little edit page and I can go in there and change stuff around."
And the way I look at it, it's like maybe someone else in a higher position would have said, "Nope, that's getting hit back to the colorist assistant or the conforme artist or whatever." And the way I look at it is, "I'm here right now. I have the God-given skill sets to do this. Why would I not do it?" But when she... I think, Tony, what you're describing is I like to call it a partnership.
I think some people see it as a relationship of power and that you are a servant or you are a master, essentially, to your client. And you can be one of either or both. But rather, I think the best... The people who build the best relationships and have the most success in building those relationships are those who treat it as a partnership.
And if you truly treat it as a partnership and you go in there and set those expectations and lay it that way, that this is a partnership between artists and artists, you end up just getting so much amazing feedback and you end up building those kind of relationships that you can help each other's careers grow, which is really cool. Exactly. And I think... Yeah. And Tony, I'm going to wrap us up here because we are at our hour and Katie is on vacation.
This is a perfect place to wrap up with Katie on vacation. So Katie, I know it's chilly there, so kick on that fireplace. Yes. Warm up your hands and thank you very much for carving time out for us. I ask all of you one thing, please. Please, if you have not taken the survey, take it, Pat. Yes. And please do me one favor and make sure that the important thing is we make sure people know about it. So please, encourage your networks, your friends, your colleagues.
Anybody who is in post-production should be taking the survey. It's pretty quick. Every year there are bonus questions that are relevant to what is happening and what is important to people this year. And this year is no different. We have new bonus question for this year based on some of the big conversations. I like to keep it a secret, so it makes you go out there and actually do the survey. Things that are really in the conversation, they're in every conversation.
And those things we measure in the bonus questions. I think that's interesting because people want to know what everybody else thinks. And that's really what this is. This is a community building exercise. This is making our industry a better place and it takes you two minutes. You can contribute as well. So I put the link up in the chat. Postproductiondata.com is where you'll get all of the information from every other year, every report, and the link to the survey is there.
You can click right through and take the survey and then explore some of the other data. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. We'll have the links on the website. Mixing Light will be sending out emails to its email database reminding people to do this. And I'll probably take a snippet of this conversation and maybe do MixiLite's first YouTube short. Cool. Talking specifically about this and see what happens on that. So who knows, you know, old dog learning new tricks. So thank you, Katie.
Thank you, Jamie and Tony and everyone else in the chat today. Thank you for coming out on a Sunday. This is Patrick Inhofer from MixingLight.com and we will see you in our next Office Hours Live.