Posts

Sole Proprietor vs Incorporation

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It happens often. A production corporation in a contract “requests” I be incorporated to do their work. I never have and never will be incorporated. Maybe, never say never. The request happens because the corporation wants to limit their responsibility-liability-to take me on as an employee. As a confirmed ronin, I do not want to be taken on as an employee, but these contracts are boilerplate and sometimes those plates need to be shifted. I have resisted being “incorporated”- as in becoming a separate body or “corpus” for those who know Latin. According to my long time and very astute accountant, it doesn’t really pay until one is making consistently over $300K per year. While hope springs eternal, so far, that’s not me. There are benefits to being incorporated, just not for my circumstances. Why do these production bodies ask a freelancer to be incorporated? Because they don’t want to take on the burden of a contractor as an employee with all the benefits and liabilities that impo

Freelance Storyboard Series Questions (and some advice.)

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Freelance Series Storyboard Questions from Caswell Design Illustration <img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="1311"

Negotiating: Breaking Your Word

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“So I am on a 3 month contact w [Studio Y] as a storyboard artist. It ends right before my [Studio X] contract starts. But the thing is, for X I’ve agreed to work as a revisionist, so do you think I should stick with X or try and stay at Y? Which do you think would have a better opportunity? I also haven’t signed anything yet. X is waiting for my work permit.” I’ve received similar questions for a number of years during my full time at a famous college. I’m reformed but not dead, so I thought to examine the problem and write my thoughts. It’s negotiation and a problem of reputation management. Dear [New Artist,] This is on X as they didn’t commit to you when the revisionist opportunity was offered, but we need to understand the shifting COVID rules, opening of studios, and the exploding job opportunities especially for board artists. Most employers understand these are busy times and have to adjust from previous hiring practices, but they will ask: you good for your word? Remem

"If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself."

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Insight 001

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Doing Ronin 002

Ronin Pricing

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Ronin need to understand how much to charge for their services. It may be referred to as “free”lance, but that means your sword/talent is free to be hired, not free to use. Someone on Twitter suggested the term be changed to “charge”lance.    Calculating an hourly billable rate are is essential. An hourly rate is how much $ you burn to survive and hopefully live to charge another day. Guard that close. It is not for your client to know. (Unless of course they will open their accounting to your close scrutiny too.)    Take your burn rate (your fixed and variable cost) per month. Divide by how many days a month you will work. Divide by how many hours in a day you plan to work. Be reasonable as to how much time you think you will work. Example: $3000.00 per month/ 20 days/  5 hours (you won't have 8 productive hours.) That equals your billable rate. $30 bucks an hour in this case.    So, if you are doing a commission for $60 bucks, spend 2 hours or less on it. After that,