A word or two (or 5 or 6 or 818) on value.

Part of the danger of having a degree in any performing art and then trying to make a living doing that art is how to attribute monetary value to what you do.  There are, of course, union rates to help us do that, but for those who are not in a union, deciding how much to charge for work can be extremely difficult.  It becomes especially vexing when the people who are purchasing your work refuse to pay a fair amount for it. 

More often than not, the “talent buyer” does not view the performing artist’s job as “real work.”  As a result, they throw out some lowball quote and expect the artist to just accept it.  After all: “it’s not hard work and the artist should feel lucky that I am willing to pay them anything at all.” 

While it is true that we are not out in the hot sun digging ditches; implying, or outright saying, that what we as artists do isn’t real work is insulting in the worst possible way.  Many, if not all, artists have spent years and countless dollars training and building the equipment, expertise and reputation required to compete in their field.  A lowball price basically tells the artist that they have wasted their time and money and what they bring to the table has no value.  Ouch.

If you are not a performing artist and you are reading this, put yourself in our shoes for a second.  Imagine that what you have spent your life doing and building was suddenly considered worthless by a huge part of the population.  When you try to work to keep a roof over your family’s head and put food on the table, you are told that your skill isn’t worth enough to do these things.  Yet those people who are telling you that, keep coming back and asking you to work, demanding quick turnarounds and being generally unreasonable.  How would that make you feel?

People are constantly asking me what they should charge for their services.  It is honestly a very difficult question to answer because in this new age where there is a glut of non-union work, the rates are all over the board.  I have recently heard of a major company offering someone $30 per COMPLETED radio spot.  Not just the VO that they can take and have someone put into a produced commercial, but the entire thing.  They expected this actor to record the VO, edit it, and fully produce the spot.  All for $30.  That is potentially hours and hours of work for what amounts to pennies.  Needless to say this is not a good rate.

So what should you charge?  Well, that all depends on you.  If you want to take a ridiculously low rate for whatever your services may be (music, visual arts, acting, editing, whatever…) and you can still look yourself in the mirror and be ok, that is your call.  But by doing that you are effectively depressing the market for the rest of the people in your industry and making it harder for us all to eat and pay rent.  I advise to stick close to the union rates for your industry.  With union work, there is usually a charge for usage of the material, IE you get a fee for just showing up and doing the work, but then if they want to use that work, they have to pay to do so.  With non-union work, it is usually done as a buyout, basically allowing the client to use the work as much as they want for an agreed upon length of time.  If you keep your non-union price quote close to the union rates, but cut a discount on the usage, you can help the entire industry from getting screwed.

I recently had an issue with a contract.  A company signed a contract with me for a certain amount of money and when it came time to pay (after the work had already been done) they said that I was charging too much and refused to pay.  This is, sadly, typical of the attitude that is taken toward performing artists.  If the project came in over budget, take advantage of the artist.  But listen artist, don’t let yourself be taken advantage of!  Always make sure that you have a signed contract in hand, you are a vendor and deserve to be paid for your services.  If someone refuses to pay, you can point to the contract that they agreed to and hold them to it, the law is on your side.

YOU ARE VALUABLE.  WHAT YOU DO IS VALUABLE.  Don’t let anybody ever tell you that your work is not worth anything, because they are simply wrong.  Stand up for yourself.  We will all be here applauding you when you do.