There are a lot of productions out there asking for cast and crew with no pay. In a perfect world, all work would be paid, but in a perfect world, the WGA and SAG wouldn’t be striking to get fair pay.
I made the decision to stop doing free work over a month ago and to be more selective on my projects. Since then, I picked up one free role but it’s a passion project of a friend of mine and I am cast as the lead. I read the script first before committing and I think it’s worthwhile to be a part of this project.
In my eyes, there is only one reason to not pay on a project and that is a student film.
PEOPLE OFFERING FREE WORK
Free Work Is Least Prioritized – If I was booked to do a free project and was offered a paying role that conflicted with the free project, I backed out of the free project to do paying work. If you are producing a free project, you will need to expect people to back out last minute.
Copy, Food and IMDb Credit – This is the bare minimum you get on any project. Offering it as “compensation” is ridiculous.
Let the Talent Read the Script First. I no longer take roles until after I have read the script. If I don’t like it, I won’t do it. If you need actors to sign an NDA, then get one in place before sending out your script. I have seen so many scripts that are poorly written that I won’t commit until after I read a script. If won’t allow that, then your project isn’t worth my time.
Deferred Payment Isn’t Payment – There is only a slim chance that a small/no budget film will make money after its release. Offering payment on the backend is basically asking for free work. Cast and crew are expected to give up lots of time in the small chance that your project might make money. Backend points should be given on top of small pay, if you can’t afford to pay actors and crew their full day rates.
Film Festivals – Almost all short films and independent features will be submitted to film festivals. If it’s submitted to a large, well known film festival, there’s less than a 1% chance it will be accepted. The smaller the film festival, the better the chance. But also know that small film festivals carry no weight and have very little chance of helping an actor’s career. Which brings me to my next point.
Award Winning Filmmaker – unless I have heard of you or projects that you have done, I don’t care if you won an award at the Hackensack Film Festival. It means nothing to me if your project doesn’t pay.
Actors do free work to build their resume and their reel. That’s why I did it. It is the filmmaker’s responsibility to get the footage to their actors in a timely manner. It is the filmmaker’s responsibility to get the IMDb created and credits up in a timely manner. If you expect us to work for free. We expect you to keep up your end of the bargain. I have heard too many horror stories of actors who have had filmmakers ghost them or have never gotten a frame of footage from projects they have worked on for free.
Simon Shih 