Ask LaBricoleuse/Meta: Thing$ I Like to Think I Know
So earlier today i was blibbering about how our 3rd-years are graduating, how they're my first class of students who are going out into the job market having taken craftwork classes with me, and generally getting all overwrought with questions like, What do i wish my professors had told me when i got out of school? What advice would i go back and give myself, if i could, and what knowledge do i want to impart that i haven't already?
I've started writing a big manifesto-ey sort of thing with exactly that slant. I'm writing it with the understanding that I don't know everything about everything in my field, that i'm only 15 years into my career and that my career is an ever-evolving creature pertaining ultimately only to myself and my own job-satisfaction. In those 15 years though, i've worked for world-class opera and ballet, regional theatre at all levels from tiny to internationally-known, for film and television production, theme park costuming, touring shows, university productions, you name it. As such, I do think i'm allowed some meta-discussion indulgence, especially now as i send some grad students out into the rest of their lives.
Take what i've got to say in the context and spirit that it's meant: the best of intentions, and without hubris--my experience and opinions are not universal, and in some things i fully acknowledge that i might be, in the vernacular, completely full of BS. (I'll offset my professionalism with my wine-drinking Opening Night icon. Classy!) So, without further ado, the first of several such posts to come...
Advice for Aspiring Professional Costumers, Part One: Jobs and Compensation
or
Shakespeare got to get paid, son
Let me start with a bold declaration, but by no means a unique one. In fact, it's trotting out a warhorse, and that is that
The First Rule of Professional Costuming: Never Work for Free
You will hear this bandied about a lot. People will tell you this in drama programs and at summer theatres and in costume shops and backstage, this statement, "Never work for free." By and large, it's good advice.
Of course there are exceptional situations--if you live in a small town and are in high school and it's a case of, "work free at the community theatre or do no theatre until you go off to college", well, clearly that's not what we're talking about here. When you are just starting out, when you are in high school and undergrad, certainly, you will do a lot of work for free. That's fine and completely appropriate to that time in your career. Anyone who says, "Never work for free," including myself, has worked for free. "Never" doesn't actually mean "never."
And, of course there's a fluid definition of what constitutes "free" as well--if you're offered the opportunity to work wardrobe on an independent film with some big-name talent but all you get is your name in the credits and the experience, well, the hidden perk there is that film gigs feed you three-square a day plus snacks, and maybe that's worth it. It's literally putting food in your mouth, and there's nothing shabby about that.
The thing is, this is a profession. Some people do it for a hobby and that's awesome, but if you mean to do it for a living, treat it like a career. Do you know any doctors who would agree to perform surgery on you for free just because they love taking out inflamed tonsils? What about any bestselling authors who'd be willing to take your idea for a story and turn it into a novel for you, just for fun? You might know a guy who works on cars who's willing to take a look under your hood, but if your engine needs rebuilding, he's probably going to want something for his trouble and it might be better off taking it to the shop anyhow. Point being, professionals get paid for their work so as a general rule, insist that you do.
Let me make something clear, too: I in no way mean to disparage the quality of unpaid or low-paid work, or the skill level or artistic success of such work. If anyone tells you that "only paid professionals are capable of top-level high-quality costume workmanship and artistry," they are being snobbish, not realistic, because that's just not true. This advice--the "never work free" advice--is applicable only if you want to put a roof over your head and food in your mouth by making costumes.
And you know, if you make a success of it, a costuming career, you'll get to the point where you hit the other side of this, where you choose to donate your time or to do a job for a greatly reduced rate (like, when a successful Broadway designer returns to her alma mater and does a show on a shoestring as part of a fundraiser or similar). Do you think the regional outdoor drama The Lost Colony pays Tony-winning designer William Ivey Long anything like the rate he got paid for The Producers or Hairspray? I suspect he either donates his time or does it for a nominal fee, just because he's from the area and loves the production so much. Or here's a citable personal example: I put in a much lower bid for Durham Academy's Audrey macropuppet arms than i would have asked for from a LORT theatre and why? Because i wanted to help out a colleague who was doing the set, i wanted to contribute to my local community and the appreciation of theatre by teens at the Academy, and hello, i wanted to make some huge grabby man-eating plant arms!
So, scratch that: never work for free.
Because there are no absolutes.
You will start out and you will choose to work for free, and you should not feel guilty about it, or allow anyone to convince you that work is without value. You will get more experience, and you will get paying work. Seek it, avidly. Apply for work the way you applied for college--send resumes to dream-jobs, to middle-level gigs, and to sure-things; sometimes you'll get the big break with the dream-job. You may still occasionally take the volunteer job, the pittance-stipend job, the low-bid job, perhaps because you really really really want to work with the creative staff doing the show or the director making the movie or the script being produced. Even if you are working at the top of your game, you may still make decisions of this sort. The key is, once you are getting paid work, get paid what you're worth most of the time, and understand when and why to make concessions in earnings.
As a corollary to this first piece of advice, I'll touch briefly on the kinds of jobs that are out there for which you will get paid. There are three basic kinds of pay categories, and expect that you will do work that falls into all of them.
The first kind is bid jobs. These are jobs for which you are an independent contractor. These are the kind of jobs where typically you essentially name your price. Someone contacts you about a job (whether it be making a single item or several or doing a whole show) and you tell them how much you want to get paid to do it. That's your bid. They may try to haggle, they may solicit bids from several folks, etc. Once you agree on it and sign a contract though, that's what you are getting paid to do the work.
Bid jobs can be difficult to reconcile to your benefit, especially early in your career--you don't want to bid so high you never get work, but if you bid too low you don't make decent money for your time. If you have a good idea how much time it takes you to do things, you can do well at bid jobs, putting in bids that will compensate you justly. The less experience you have, generally, the more you will underbid yourself, because people almost always think they can do something in less time than is actually required. I didn't get a good handle on what to quote for bids til i was maybe ten years into my career--i took a lot of contracts for work where, by the end of it, i'd gotten minimum wage if that.
Underbidding will happen to you, i guarantee. It STILL happens to me sometimes. It's part of the process, always a risk, and life will be easier if you don't let it get you down or make you resentful when it does fall out that way. You can always talk to the contractor and explain the situation, see if they will allow you to rebid the job, and if not, finish it to the best of your ability. Depending on the gig, you might let them know the specifics, so they understand that if they come back to you with a similar job, you may put in a higher bid.
Be aware too that for bid jobs, you typically take legal responsibility for your own well-being while working--you usually cannot get Workers' Compensation for injuries sustained on these jobs, and OSHA regulations often do not apply to your work for the company (for example, the employer may not supply the personal protective equipment required for the job you are doing). Figure that into your bid if need be! Also make sure you clarify who's taking care of income taxes. Most bid jobs, the responsibility is yours, but sometimes you can draw up a contract where the tax is withheld.
When you work a job that is an internship or stipend-pay job, what you are essentially doing is working a reverse-process bid job--the employer is telling you what they are willing to offer as recompense, and you accept it or not. (Think of it like, instead of you bidding on the job, they bid on your work.) Lots of the bottom-rung-budget and middle-range summer theatres work this way--often they will provide things intended to "sweeten the pot" such as free housing and subsidized meals or transportation. You decide whether what's offered is worth it to you--don't let yourself get consistently screwed, but at the same time, don't get to the point where you think you are "above" summer theatre work or stipend-pay work. I no longer work at places where i get housed in barracks and paid in pocket money and cafeteria meals, but i've worked in those places in undergrad.
The upshot is, bid jobs are a good source of paid employment. Starting out, you might take a financial hit with them, but the more you work, the more reliable the pay will be because you'll get better about judging your output. (If you want to be a designer, love the bid job because that's common for design.) Bid jobs will never provide you with benefits; if you wind up making a living from a steady succession of bid jobs, you will need to look into securing your own health insurance and making your own retirement investment plan. If you are successful at getting steady work from bid jobs though, you can figure a percentage for your insurance premiums and such into your bids even, and you should keep an eye on whether the Freelancers Union is or becomes a relevant resource for you.
The second kind of professional costuming job is for an hourly wage. Nothing's written in stone, but usually hourly workers are stitchers, cutters, crafts assistants, anyone working union contracts or non-union shops that nevertheless run on the union model. Most freelance/overhire work in regional shops will be hourly wage work, as will most of the labor in commercial profit-driven shops. Generally speaking, if you come to their facility and work on their equipment, you'll be an hourly wage-earner, and if you do the work in your own workspace or studio and ship back a finished product, that'll be a bid job...though i've worked on-site in as an independent contractor and done hourly work in my own studio as well.
If you are paid hourly, make sure you track down a copy of the labor laws for the state you are working in, and make sure you are treated fairly. Most hourly jobs are limited by law to a 40-hour work week. If you work more than 40 hours a week, you are entitled to overtime (usually, time-and-a-half). In some places, Sunday hours are double-time. Most places, hourly workers are guaranteed regular breaks (something like, a ten minute break every two hours and a meal break every four to six)--sometimes these are formal breaks where everyone takes them at once, and sometimes you are responsible for taking your own breaks. Know what you are legally entitled to as an hourly wage-earner and make sure you get it. Hourly workers are protected by OSHA safety regulations (unless you sign some kind of contract waiving those rights); generally, employers withhold income tax on behalf of hourly workers as well, and sometimes hourly jobs come with benefits packages.
Don't believe anyone who tells you that "theatre is just like that," meaning 18-hour workdays and no days off, whatever--some theatre is like that, sure, but it's not the default for the industry. If you thrive on that kind of hyperdrive work atmosphere, frankly, my advice is to think about joining the union and going into film, because film IS like that but they feed you like grandma and pay fizzabulous. But i digress; i was talking about what to expect from hourly wage costume work.
Know your rights and insist on them. Conversely, know what you cannot do with respect to hourly jobs as well. You are not legally allowed to work through your breaks "just to get this project done." You are not legally allowed to take something home to finish it off-the-clock, and if you do, you are actually screwing over your shop because it'll throw off their labor tracking system. You need to get permission from your manager to come in extra hours--your overtime pay may not be in the budget, and if you just clock in and work it regardless, you will get in trouble, maybe even fired. Many shops with hourly staff have an actual end-of-day whistle or similar--when the work day ends, you put down what you are doing and leave or if need be, you start a cleanup detail ten minutes or so before quitting time. I think these kinds of strictures are hardest for costumers to adjust to who have been previously accustomed to working in university and community theatres, where because of their love of the art (or, desire for the grade), folks sometimes work HUGE amounts of hours on projects. Hourly jobs are good to work for this exact reason--they put you in a position to confront your rights as a worker. A dedicated work ethic is a good thing! So is equitable treatment and workplace parity, to which all skilled artisans are entitled.
The third type of job i'll address is a salaried position. With salaried jobs, you are paid the same amount no matter how much (or how little) work you put in--the salary is compensation for whatever it takes to fulfill the requirements of the job. The good thing about salaried jobs is, if the workload is light, you are still guaranteed a paycheck. The bad thing about salaried jobs is, if the workload is heavy, you can sometimes find yourself being abused by your employer with little legal recourse to fight for parity. Salaried workers are protected by OSHA regulations as well, though the onus of following them may be on you (i.e., you may have to set up your own respirator program if your job requires them, or you may need to put in a purchase request for updating ergonomically-outmoded office furniture, etc.). Salaried positions are more likely to come with benefits packages, though that's definitely not a given. Your employer is usually going to withhold income taxes for salaried positions as well.
Expect to do all these kinds of jobs in the course of your career. All of them have their pros and cons. Even if you have a salaried staff position somewhere (like i have with UNC/PlayMakers), chances are there will still be portions of the year in which your contract is fallow--summers, most often, in academia or the traditional fall-to-spring theatre season. You will still have that time in which you can take bid jobs or hourly work in other shops, in other cities, states, or countries even. Me, i like having the opportunity to travel all over for work a couple times a year; if that sounds uncool to you, plan to live in a production hub city like NYC or LA or London or whatever, or plan to wait tables or make lattes or hem tux pants or paint houses all summer.
I think that's enough gassing for now, so next up, maybe tomorrow, i'll address exciting topics like "Job descriptions: Apprenticeships versus sole-artisanships." If you'd like to comment on anything i've covered, your own experiences, agreement or refutation or clarification, please do. I'm speaking from the hip here as it were!
I've started writing a big manifesto-ey sort of thing with exactly that slant. I'm writing it with the understanding that I don't know everything about everything in my field, that i'm only 15 years into my career and that my career is an ever-evolving creature pertaining ultimately only to myself and my own job-satisfaction. In those 15 years though, i've worked for world-class opera and ballet, regional theatre at all levels from tiny to internationally-known, for film and television production, theme park costuming, touring shows, university productions, you name it. As such, I do think i'm allowed some meta-discussion indulgence, especially now as i send some grad students out into the rest of their lives.
Take what i've got to say in the context and spirit that it's meant: the best of intentions, and without hubris--my experience and opinions are not universal, and in some things i fully acknowledge that i might be, in the vernacular, completely full of BS. (I'll offset my professionalism with my wine-drinking Opening Night icon. Classy!) So, without further ado, the first of several such posts to come...
Advice for Aspiring Professional Costumers, Part One: Jobs and Compensation
or
Shakespeare got to get paid, son
Let me start with a bold declaration, but by no means a unique one. In fact, it's trotting out a warhorse, and that is that
The First Rule of Professional Costuming: Never Work for Free
You will hear this bandied about a lot. People will tell you this in drama programs and at summer theatres and in costume shops and backstage, this statement, "Never work for free." By and large, it's good advice.
Of course there are exceptional situations--if you live in a small town and are in high school and it's a case of, "work free at the community theatre or do no theatre until you go off to college", well, clearly that's not what we're talking about here. When you are just starting out, when you are in high school and undergrad, certainly, you will do a lot of work for free. That's fine and completely appropriate to that time in your career. Anyone who says, "Never work for free," including myself, has worked for free. "Never" doesn't actually mean "never."
And, of course there's a fluid definition of what constitutes "free" as well--if you're offered the opportunity to work wardrobe on an independent film with some big-name talent but all you get is your name in the credits and the experience, well, the hidden perk there is that film gigs feed you three-square a day plus snacks, and maybe that's worth it. It's literally putting food in your mouth, and there's nothing shabby about that.
The thing is, this is a profession. Some people do it for a hobby and that's awesome, but if you mean to do it for a living, treat it like a career. Do you know any doctors who would agree to perform surgery on you for free just because they love taking out inflamed tonsils? What about any bestselling authors who'd be willing to take your idea for a story and turn it into a novel for you, just for fun? You might know a guy who works on cars who's willing to take a look under your hood, but if your engine needs rebuilding, he's probably going to want something for his trouble and it might be better off taking it to the shop anyhow. Point being, professionals get paid for their work so as a general rule, insist that you do.
Let me make something clear, too: I in no way mean to disparage the quality of unpaid or low-paid work, or the skill level or artistic success of such work. If anyone tells you that "only paid professionals are capable of top-level high-quality costume workmanship and artistry," they are being snobbish, not realistic, because that's just not true. This advice--the "never work free" advice--is applicable only if you want to put a roof over your head and food in your mouth by making costumes.
And you know, if you make a success of it, a costuming career, you'll get to the point where you hit the other side of this, where you choose to donate your time or to do a job for a greatly reduced rate (like, when a successful Broadway designer returns to her alma mater and does a show on a shoestring as part of a fundraiser or similar). Do you think the regional outdoor drama The Lost Colony pays Tony-winning designer William Ivey Long anything like the rate he got paid for The Producers or Hairspray? I suspect he either donates his time or does it for a nominal fee, just because he's from the area and loves the production so much. Or here's a citable personal example: I put in a much lower bid for Durham Academy's Audrey macropuppet arms than i would have asked for from a LORT theatre and why? Because i wanted to help out a colleague who was doing the set, i wanted to contribute to my local community and the appreciation of theatre by teens at the Academy, and hello, i wanted to make some huge grabby man-eating plant arms!
So, scratch that: never work for free.
Because there are no absolutes.
You will start out and you will choose to work for free, and you should not feel guilty about it, or allow anyone to convince you that work is without value. You will get more experience, and you will get paying work. Seek it, avidly. Apply for work the way you applied for college--send resumes to dream-jobs, to middle-level gigs, and to sure-things; sometimes you'll get the big break with the dream-job. You may still occasionally take the volunteer job, the pittance-stipend job, the low-bid job, perhaps because you really really really want to work with the creative staff doing the show or the director making the movie or the script being produced. Even if you are working at the top of your game, you may still make decisions of this sort. The key is, once you are getting paid work, get paid what you're worth most of the time, and understand when and why to make concessions in earnings.
As a corollary to this first piece of advice, I'll touch briefly on the kinds of jobs that are out there for which you will get paid. There are three basic kinds of pay categories, and expect that you will do work that falls into all of them.
The first kind is bid jobs. These are jobs for which you are an independent contractor. These are the kind of jobs where typically you essentially name your price. Someone contacts you about a job (whether it be making a single item or several or doing a whole show) and you tell them how much you want to get paid to do it. That's your bid. They may try to haggle, they may solicit bids from several folks, etc. Once you agree on it and sign a contract though, that's what you are getting paid to do the work.
Bid jobs can be difficult to reconcile to your benefit, especially early in your career--you don't want to bid so high you never get work, but if you bid too low you don't make decent money for your time. If you have a good idea how much time it takes you to do things, you can do well at bid jobs, putting in bids that will compensate you justly. The less experience you have, generally, the more you will underbid yourself, because people almost always think they can do something in less time than is actually required. I didn't get a good handle on what to quote for bids til i was maybe ten years into my career--i took a lot of contracts for work where, by the end of it, i'd gotten minimum wage if that.
Underbidding will happen to you, i guarantee. It STILL happens to me sometimes. It's part of the process, always a risk, and life will be easier if you don't let it get you down or make you resentful when it does fall out that way. You can always talk to the contractor and explain the situation, see if they will allow you to rebid the job, and if not, finish it to the best of your ability. Depending on the gig, you might let them know the specifics, so they understand that if they come back to you with a similar job, you may put in a higher bid.
Be aware too that for bid jobs, you typically take legal responsibility for your own well-being while working--you usually cannot get Workers' Compensation for injuries sustained on these jobs, and OSHA regulations often do not apply to your work for the company (for example, the employer may not supply the personal protective equipment required for the job you are doing). Figure that into your bid if need be! Also make sure you clarify who's taking care of income taxes. Most bid jobs, the responsibility is yours, but sometimes you can draw up a contract where the tax is withheld.
When you work a job that is an internship or stipend-pay job, what you are essentially doing is working a reverse-process bid job--the employer is telling you what they are willing to offer as recompense, and you accept it or not. (Think of it like, instead of you bidding on the job, they bid on your work.) Lots of the bottom-rung-budget and middle-range summer theatres work this way--often they will provide things intended to "sweeten the pot" such as free housing and subsidized meals or transportation. You decide whether what's offered is worth it to you--don't let yourself get consistently screwed, but at the same time, don't get to the point where you think you are "above" summer theatre work or stipend-pay work. I no longer work at places where i get housed in barracks and paid in pocket money and cafeteria meals, but i've worked in those places in undergrad.
The upshot is, bid jobs are a good source of paid employment. Starting out, you might take a financial hit with them, but the more you work, the more reliable the pay will be because you'll get better about judging your output. (If you want to be a designer, love the bid job because that's common for design.) Bid jobs will never provide you with benefits; if you wind up making a living from a steady succession of bid jobs, you will need to look into securing your own health insurance and making your own retirement investment plan. If you are successful at getting steady work from bid jobs though, you can figure a percentage for your insurance premiums and such into your bids even, and you should keep an eye on whether the Freelancers Union is or becomes a relevant resource for you.
The second kind of professional costuming job is for an hourly wage. Nothing's written in stone, but usually hourly workers are stitchers, cutters, crafts assistants, anyone working union contracts or non-union shops that nevertheless run on the union model. Most freelance/overhire work in regional shops will be hourly wage work, as will most of the labor in commercial profit-driven shops. Generally speaking, if you come to their facility and work on their equipment, you'll be an hourly wage-earner, and if you do the work in your own workspace or studio and ship back a finished product, that'll be a bid job...though i've worked on-site in as an independent contractor and done hourly work in my own studio as well.
If you are paid hourly, make sure you track down a copy of the labor laws for the state you are working in, and make sure you are treated fairly. Most hourly jobs are limited by law to a 40-hour work week. If you work more than 40 hours a week, you are entitled to overtime (usually, time-and-a-half). In some places, Sunday hours are double-time. Most places, hourly workers are guaranteed regular breaks (something like, a ten minute break every two hours and a meal break every four to six)--sometimes these are formal breaks where everyone takes them at once, and sometimes you are responsible for taking your own breaks. Know what you are legally entitled to as an hourly wage-earner and make sure you get it. Hourly workers are protected by OSHA safety regulations (unless you sign some kind of contract waiving those rights); generally, employers withhold income tax on behalf of hourly workers as well, and sometimes hourly jobs come with benefits packages.
Don't believe anyone who tells you that "theatre is just like that," meaning 18-hour workdays and no days off, whatever--some theatre is like that, sure, but it's not the default for the industry. If you thrive on that kind of hyperdrive work atmosphere, frankly, my advice is to think about joining the union and going into film, because film IS like that but they feed you like grandma and pay fizzabulous. But i digress; i was talking about what to expect from hourly wage costume work.
Know your rights and insist on them. Conversely, know what you cannot do with respect to hourly jobs as well. You are not legally allowed to work through your breaks "just to get this project done." You are not legally allowed to take something home to finish it off-the-clock, and if you do, you are actually screwing over your shop because it'll throw off their labor tracking system. You need to get permission from your manager to come in extra hours--your overtime pay may not be in the budget, and if you just clock in and work it regardless, you will get in trouble, maybe even fired. Many shops with hourly staff have an actual end-of-day whistle or similar--when the work day ends, you put down what you are doing and leave or if need be, you start a cleanup detail ten minutes or so before quitting time. I think these kinds of strictures are hardest for costumers to adjust to who have been previously accustomed to working in university and community theatres, where because of their love of the art (or, desire for the grade), folks sometimes work HUGE amounts of hours on projects. Hourly jobs are good to work for this exact reason--they put you in a position to confront your rights as a worker. A dedicated work ethic is a good thing! So is equitable treatment and workplace parity, to which all skilled artisans are entitled.
The third type of job i'll address is a salaried position. With salaried jobs, you are paid the same amount no matter how much (or how little) work you put in--the salary is compensation for whatever it takes to fulfill the requirements of the job. The good thing about salaried jobs is, if the workload is light, you are still guaranteed a paycheck. The bad thing about salaried jobs is, if the workload is heavy, you can sometimes find yourself being abused by your employer with little legal recourse to fight for parity. Salaried workers are protected by OSHA regulations as well, though the onus of following them may be on you (i.e., you may have to set up your own respirator program if your job requires them, or you may need to put in a purchase request for updating ergonomically-outmoded office furniture, etc.). Salaried positions are more likely to come with benefits packages, though that's definitely not a given. Your employer is usually going to withhold income taxes for salaried positions as well.
Expect to do all these kinds of jobs in the course of your career. All of them have their pros and cons. Even if you have a salaried staff position somewhere (like i have with UNC/PlayMakers), chances are there will still be portions of the year in which your contract is fallow--summers, most often, in academia or the traditional fall-to-spring theatre season. You will still have that time in which you can take bid jobs or hourly work in other shops, in other cities, states, or countries even. Me, i like having the opportunity to travel all over for work a couple times a year; if that sounds uncool to you, plan to live in a production hub city like NYC or LA or London or whatever, or plan to wait tables or make lattes or hem tux pants or paint houses all summer.
I think that's enough gassing for now, so next up, maybe tomorrow, i'll address exciting topics like "Job descriptions: Apprenticeships versus sole-artisanships." If you'd like to comment on anything i've covered, your own experiences, agreement or refutation or clarification, please do. I'm speaking from the hip here as it were!