One of the most complicated aspects to freelancing is managing one’s calendar. A full year can include 20-30 projects easily, averaging around two projects a month. In a world of Platonic ideals this breaks down very simply and easily. The real world of freelancing is never so simple. In the real world shows pile up back to back, there are awkward gaps between projects, shows fall through randomly, and new projects pop up at the last minute.
A few month ago I got an email from the producer of a show I lit three years ago. The production is going to be remounted in Connecticut next summer. This is fantastic news. I truly enjoyed the project and my collaborators, it is a strong piece that deserves a wider audience. This also means I have at least one show definitely scheduled more than 8 months out. I have soft offers going well into 2012, but uncontracted and thus not yet firmly placed in my calendar.
When dates are uncertain and contracts are unsigned it is important to keep an awareness of projects without letting them be firm limiters on one’s calendar. This is an almost constant dance of finding out which soft offers and potential contracts (if only we can get the funding!) become real and what new concrete projects will come in the meantime.
This December was mostly free for me as few days ago. My last show of the year opens December 3rd. The following few weeks would mean a nice bit of downtime from production to get my bookkeeping and paperwork in shape, start preproduction work on 2011 projects, and generally get a bit of rest. Then the phone rang two days ago. A play. In Dallas. Focuses on December 6th. That’s three days after my last contracted show opens and eliminates much of that downtime I had previously thought I would have in December.
This is the way of things. It can be a roller coaster at times. Sometimes nerve wracking. Sometimes thrilling. Never boring.
I remember November of 2007. I had almost my whole year penciled in in my calendar. It was going to be awesome, filled with a wide array of regional and Off-Broadway projects, a season with a dance company, and several experimental pieces. Then the bubble burst. One by one I got calls from producers that they were unable to secure funding for such and such a project and it would be postponed indefinitely. By January 1st 2008 over 80% of the projects I had lined up were gone.
Over the course of that year new projects slowly filled gaps in my schedule. I made it through the year, scraping at times, but pulling through. Freelancing is never easy, but the Great Recession sure makes it that much more challenging.
Even during good economic times the schedule of a freelancer is never easy. You sign a contract for a project because you have a hole in your schedule to fill, it’s not the best, but its work. Then, two days later, your dream project falls in your lap and the dates are identical. Managing the overlap is an art unto itself.
Many designers hire assistants to carry them through the overlaps. Fees being what they are, one must calculate if the overhead of hiring an assistant is worth the value of the contract.
Managing multiple projects artistically is the easy part. We learn tricks for finding inspiration so we can keep moving ahead with our design work. Managing multiple projects logistically is a whole different beast. As a freelancer I can manage my preproduction work largely on my own schedule. But the one thing I can not manage is when the show opens.
Being a freelancer you share many of the same skills with a project manager. You are in charge of making and maintaining multiple projects on numerous timelines for a variety of clients. It is very different than simply running a small business. You have, at times, the administrative workload of managing a large business and maintaining a full time creative life.
No one ever said freelancing was easy. But as a student, and before I freelanced full time, I tended to think of the difficulty coming from an artistic direction. Relative to the administrative and scheduling aspects of the work, the art is the easy part. Add the increased volatility of our current economy and the roller coaster gets a lot steeper, faster, and jolts your around harder.
