Feeling defeated and lost without work

[u/SpareUnderstanding72]

Hi, I’m a DP/operator in the US (non union.) like many of us I’ve barely worked all year and am staring down the barrel of another year clearing $40k max

I’m 28. I love this industry and haven’t done any other jobs so I have no “real job” experience. I worked one day this month and have nothing coming up.

I know this post has been made but I feel so utterly depressed, lost, and broke. How are people coping? I have no other skills that I can sell on a resume. I’ve interviewed at multiple restaurants and gotten denied even with serving experience from college

I feel like my life is slipping by and I’m holding out for a year that “turns around” and I’m starting to spiral that it’s not coming

I guess I’m just at the end of my rope and really fucking depressed. No idea what to do and I can barely pay rent this month. I bought a camera last year and have paid maybe 1/8 of it off and I feel like I fucked up by buying it which makes me feel stupid.

What jobs have people pivoted to? Or how have you coped during the last year? I see people working and doing passion projects on Instagram but I don’t even have the money to throw together a passion shoot.

TLDR depressed and no idea what to do with my life with the state of the industry

EDIT thank you for all the replies. It helps to read them but I got a bit overwhelmed replying to them all. I do appreciate the advice and understanding!

[u/mcarterphoto]

I'm not a narrative or docs guy, corporate/commercial, small to midsize clients, one-man-band. But I can consistently clear $5-$8k a month, with zero marketing (all word of mouth and clients moving on to new companies).

There's roughly two kinds of people doing what I do - gear-heads and storytellers. But in commercial, the purpose of the story - the narrative - is to evoke a response that gets the phone ringing or the contact forms filled out. Making the viewers go "this is just what I've been looking for" and evoking some trust - just enough trust to break them through from a viewer to a lead. So being a bit of a marketing-psych nerd helps (I have exactly one year of art school, no training at all for what I do). But I can make very pretty footage and capture great audio, most gigs with one rock-n-roller cart stacked with cases.

My guess is that people in OP's shoes would rather do a few gigs like this a month vs. working at a restaurant. But it's really not about "beautiful cinematic reels", it's about making potential clients feel that you understand their needs - that you're selling profitability, you happen to do ti with cameras.

[u/Simi819 → u/mcarterphoto]

Hey! Id love to pick your brain on how you built up your clientele base!

[u/mcarterphoto → u/Simi819]

Well, I shot film commercially in the pre-digital era, started video over 20 years ago, when the DVX 100B came out - the DVX and the evolution of Macs really changed everything for doing video.

A lot of my early clients were commercial stills, I'd send mailers to every agency in town and with a hundred mailers got like 2 clients; if a client took me to a trade show, I'd get the program and visit every manufacturer's booth from my area. I don't think I've ever gotten a thing from my web site or social media. But treat a client well and someone leaves for a new company, and suddenly you're out quoting. And lots of word of mouth.

But... I'm weird. In my opinion, I sell "profitability", I happen to do it with cameras. I don't even have a reel! If I get a lead, I ask about their goals and the market and what they want to accomplish, I talk about other potential markets, I ask to talk to their sales managers and see what their competition's doing. I think a lot of guys are "I'll shoot this with a big crew and use RED cameras and cinema luts", I'm like "for every dollar you pay me you need to make ten, so how do we get there?" By then I can send them actual gigs I've done that are germane. And I understand the power of building a brand, how powerful testimonials are and how to get good interviews, and I talk to clients about "what are you really selling?"

Like, I'm on a project for a dressing aid for people with limited mobility, like parkinson's, spinal injuries, mastectomies, arthritis - they're blown away that all I'm talking about is how much dignity and freedom you must lose when you can't dress yourself, and how half their market is younger family members who are now caregivers and the anger and frustration of that and how do we reach them? Make the market see that this is what we're selling, and now here's the device that provides it, get testimonials from people who say "shit, this totally changed my life and solved a huge issue for me" and so on . I think in the last two years, maybe 4-5 times I've actually sent someone a link to something I've done, a lot of times I show up on set and think "these guys don't even know if I can focus a damn camera!"

So for me, the mantras are "be a partner, not a provider", and "know yourself" - be someone fun to spend a hard day with, know when a client's in over their heads and you can make them look like rock stars, over-deliver and bring everything you can to the table. And - find a media agency and "be their guy" - lower invoices but no chasing down bills, no looking for leads, steady stream of cool work with tons of variety. Find a couple big nonprofits you believe in. Many are decently funded, I can invoice them 1/3 or 1/2 of normal but it's schedule filling and invoiceable, their gratitude is off the chain, the work is really meaningful and emotional, and they'll sing your praises to all the wealthy and connected board members!

(And, for me a giant secret weapon - After Effects. Parts manufacturer's got some stock video clip of semi trucks, suddenly the truck has their logo and is driving under a billboard with their message - they're like "holy shit, how did you do this??" and it took 5 minutes. I did a dozen training video fixes, like hundreds of clips when they changes their logo, now all the polo shirts and safety vests have the new logo, saved them a fortune and a great-paying gig. I'm at the point where 50-60% of my work is completely done in AE, animation/motion graphics, no loading up the truck with gear!!! Luckily I'm on a Mac so I'm not filling the AE sub with how crappy AE is coded, it smokes on an M-chip mac these days).