GoldRoseMedia wrote:
... is the fact that you never do any?

I have one coming up that's the one I'm referring to.

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

Two hours each way?

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

Mark Salo wrote:
Two hours each way?

Mousseline wrote:
It's two hours tops, round trip.

So $50 per hour travel time and $100 for a one hour shoot?

Mousseline wrote:
It's two hours tops, round trip.

That's nothing.

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

I've just got to ask, how much do you feel your time is worth?  There are people who would die to make $50/hour.

Koryn wrote:

That's nothing.

I agree!

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

Then you shouldn't have agreed to the rate and negotiated a better one.

JQuest wrote:
Then you shouldn't have agreed to the rate and negotiated a better one.

$100 an hour for a 1.5 to 2 hour shoot seems reasonable. If I charged higher I'd feel like a greedy capitalist. It's just upsetting when you don't have much to show for it later on.

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

Is that all you are going to do is drive or is this the usual Mouse Post where you say one thing and expect us to know everything or we are retarded?

$100 an hour is not bad at all. Television is a luxury, if you can't afford it then cancel the service. I don't even own one, just rots the brain.

Robsphotographics wrote:
There are lots in Australia do it for $200 for a 2 hour shoot, with travel included in that however if its an issue for you you could ask for some travel time at half your shoot rate.

This is interesting, what do you mean?

PhillipM wrote:
Ditch Cable

done.

Agreed.

It's still $200 for a half day's work. To put it in perspective, if you did five of those shoots a week, and took two weeks off, you'd still make $50,000 a year, before taxes.

LA is expensive, but $50,000 for 2 1/2 days of work every week is still pretty good there.

So the problem isn't the gig - it's scale.

Glass half full

Mark Salo wrote:

Mark Salo wrote:
So $50 per hour travel time and $100 for a one hour shoot?

No, it's an hour each way for travel time and than the shoot would take 2 hours, 4 hours total.

Zack Zoll wrote:
Agreed.

It's still $200 for a half day's work. To put it in perspective, if you did five of those shoots a week, and took two weeks off, you'd still make $50,000 a year, before taxes.

LA is expensive, but $50,000 for 2 1/2 days of work every week is still pretty good there.

So the problem isn't the gig - it's scale.

Glass half full

If only I could get 5 paying shoots a week, what a luxury that would be.

Mousseline wrote:

Mark Salo wrote:

Mark Salo wrote:
So $50 per hour travel time and $100 for a one hour shoot?

No, it's an hour each way for travel time and than the shoot would take 2 hours, 4 hours total.

I don't get paid for my drive time too and from work. I drive 1 hour to work and 1 1/2 hours home and I don't make $100 an hour, if I did I wouldn't complain about it.

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

Then you are getting screwed dry by your cable company.  Maybe do more shoots and watch less TV?

Mousseline wrote:

If only I could get 5 paying shoots a week, what a luxury that would be.

I am a strong believer in karma, even if it usually comes in the form of referrals.

I also believe that while it does happen, falling into a fully-formed business model is about as likely as winning the state lotto. A business usually needs to be grown.

If you take these sorts of jobs every time you can, they may lead to more of them, and then you have a decent income. Or they may not, and they'll always be a pain in the ass.

But if you don't take these sorts of  jobs, they will always be a pain in the ass.

For what it's worth, most of the models I've paid in recent years have had to drive an hour or a little over each way, and I usually paid them $100/hour. So, the same as you. Most of them also had part time jobs, but between modeling and part time jobs they did pretty well - to the point where a few of them lived somewhere with very high rent for the area, without a roommate, and with lots of free time.

Not everyone I shot of course, but some people are making out pretty well with $200 modeling gigs and a part time job as a temp or something else equally solid but unglamorous.

If they took on a roommate, or got married, or wanted to work more hours, they'd have a pretty good amount of money to put away. Not LA good, but then again you have way more potential customers than they do.

Good Egg Productions wrote:

Then you are getting screwed dry by your cable company.  Maybe do more shoots and watch less TV?

I have Time Warner Cable, the bill is usually $126 but I had to get something extra this month, that's why it's $200.

Zack Zoll wrote:

I am a strong believer in karma, even if it usually comes in the form of referrals.

I also believe that while it does happen, falling into a fully-formed business model is about as likely as winning the state lotto. A business usually needs to be grown.

If you take these sorts of jobs every time you can, they may lead to more of them, and then you have a decent income. Or they may not, and they'll always be a pain in the ass.

But if you don't take these sorts of  jobs, they will always be a pain in the ass.

For what it's worth, most of the models I've paid in recent years have had to drive an hour or a little over each way, and I usually paid them $100/hour. So, the same as you. Most of them also had part time jobs, but between modeling and part time jobs they did pretty well - to the point where a few of them lived somewhere with very high rent for the area, without a roommate, and with lots of free time.

Not everyone I shot of course, but some people are making out pretty well with $200 modeling gigs and a part time job as a temp or something else equally solid but unglamorous.

If they took on a roommate, or got married, or wanted to work more hours, they'd have a pretty good amount of money to put away. Not LA good, but then again you have way more potential customers than they do.

How do I have way more potential customers?

Mousseline wrote:
How do I have way more potential customers?

You live in LA. These other people live in Upstate New York.

I would bet that there are more people connected to the film, photo, art, and art school scenes in LA than the entire year-round population of my town and the two biggest towns near me.

R80 wrote:
Two hours round trip???
I used to do that five days a week.  Many large cities take an hour or better to get from one side to another and that's often with good traffic.

Up until I retired, most of my photography gigs were anywhere in the US or Canada.  When I was shooting in Europe I worked mainly in England, Germany or France.

Two hours is too much to put towards your profession? 

Wow.

It's not my profession, it's a hobby that occasionally pays. It's not even really a hobby.

Jules NYC wrote:
You need to learn how to hustle and enjoy the hustle if you want to be in this business.
I drove 2.5 hours each way to L.A. and back from San Diego for 6 am acting call-times.
Then I moved to Hollywood and lived on Beachwood Drive and worked my ass off and enjoyed it.

When I wanted to live in Manhattan, I got up at 4am, drove to the train in Brewster from CT, worked a full 8 hour day in Manhattan, looked for apartments after work then moved to Manhattan.

Once I lived in big cities, I worked very hard to do what I wanted to do, with no complaints, just hustle.
I know what it's like to be in your 20's and do all of this; I did it.

That's because you're a grownup.

Mousseline wrote:
I have to drive for 2 hours for $200, which is only enough to pay my cable bill.

But still you spend 2 days discussing it a forum thread for $0.

George Anchev wrote:
But still you spend 2 days discussing it a forum thread for $0.

I don't need to be paid to get something off my chest.

Zack Zoll wrote:

You live in LA. These other people live in Upstate New York.

I would bet that there are more people connected to the film, photo, art, and art school scenes in LA than the entire year-round population of my town and the two biggest towns near me.

Upstate New York, for the last two years, was where I made the most money as a model. Far more than anywhere else I've visited in the US - ever -  except for possibly the more rural areas in New Jersey.

Rural New York was the easiest, most consistent money ever. Far better than anywhere I ever worked in CA, and about a million times better than NYC.

But then again, I always did best and got booked the most in rural areas and suburbs. Big cities never had much work for me and when I did schedule shoots in big cities (like Philadelphia, Kansas City, etc) I got a lot of cancellations.

Mousseline wrote:

I don't need to be paid to get something off my chest.

The question is how is this whole thing rational as you are obviously discussing the business side of things.

If you hate what you do or you hate the way you do it - just change it. What's the problem? Anyone forcing you? Anything we can do about it?