Case Study on the Film industry And Interview with Spencer Wilding.

Introduction
So, in the following article I will be delving into the employment side of the industry and how to get involved with the industry and what it is like to work within the industry. This article also contains what I'm certain will be the highlight and the main draw for you to the article and that is the incredibly insightful interview with talented actor and stuntman Spencer Wilding. But before you can get to get you have to read more of my slow and gradual decent in utter rambling madness as I transition from full sentences all the way to a series of growls and moans. So without further ado lets take a bite in to the pie so to speak, you know because this is a series of words typed onto a page and then posted on to the internet.  

Employment in the Film industry

So lets begin with talking briefly about employment in the film industry. Firstly when it comes to the employment in the film industry it is a lot more competitive then other big industries. The Film industry is larger than a lot of people think that it is. According to the BFI (British Film Industry) in 2016 the UK film industry employed around 80,000 people with 69% of those people who were employed working in the film and video production this means that 55,000 people in Britain work in film and video production. Now you must be wondering what about the other 25,000 people who were employed in the UK film industry. Well 7,000 people work in film and video distribution and 17,000 are working in film exhibition. These numbers however pale in comparison to the employment figures of the film industry in the united states of America, This is because the American film industry is significantly larger than the British film industry which is obvious since North America is larger than the UK. When it comes to employment within the film industry you have a couple of options and or choices with employment in the film industry, these are the following: Freelance, Permanent or Salaried.

 The difference between the three of them is that each of these provide their own pros and cons. Firstly I am going to be briefly bringing up the pros and cons of freelancing, now I am going to be especially brief with freelancing because my next section is going to be exclusively about being a freelancer in the film industry. So I am going to be brief the biggest pro of freelancing in the film industry is that you get to make your own ours and you get to name your own price, the reason why this is so intriguing to people is that free lancing allows you too dictate what you do, it allows you to pick and choose what you want to do and which jobs you want to take. The biggest con to freelancing however is that you won't receive any form of compensation like health insurance and other forms of medical compensation. This is a big deal breaker for a lot of people because this means that if you are injured while working as a freelancer then you will receive non of the benefits of health insurance meaning that you will be stuck using the NHS if you live in the uk or in a country where you have free healthcare or if you live in a country like north America where there is no pre established free healthcare system then you will be forced to have to pay your medical bills out of your own pocket. This can be even worse for freelancers who where injured not by their own volition or if the injury sustained was not their fault then this can be even worse as you have to pay the full bill and in an even worse scenario if the injury sustained is serious and the bills are high then their is the potential that the medical bills will be payed through the payment for the job meaning that in the long run the freelancer is left in many ways worse off as they are making less money which depending on how often they get work could hurt them crucially in the long run.

 Moving on another option that you can take is permanent, this could be part time and or full time. The benefit of permeant employment is that you will receive benefits like pensions and health insurance and other company standard benefits. A draw for a lot of people towards this is that you are consistently payed and the steadiness of a permanent job is something that a lot of people are drawn too as it allows to to not worry as much about financial issues. However a disadvantage to working a permanent job either full time or part time is that you will have a lot less flexibility when its comes to scheduling as when you work in a permanent full time job you don't get to decide what hours you work so you will most likely have a lot less free time. This probably won't bother most people but this could be an issue for some people who want to have more time to do what they want. Another pro of working a permeant job either full time or part time and this is that the company you will work for is likely to provide a positive atmosphere for you to work in, this will make your experience working there far more pleasant and this will intern make your job better in your eyes. Whereas another con that comes with having a permanent job is that you have the constant looming threat of being laid off/fired. this means that while working a permanent job allows for a steady income, all of that could be taken away at any point in time and this can mean that you are subject to having all the benefits from a permanent full job time one week and then have none of those benefits the next. This can made working a permanent job feel a bit pointless as at the end of the day rather than being someone who has control of what they do for work like a freelancer, someone who works a permanent job you will have lot less control of what you do in work, but that also means you have less responsibilities than a freelancer.

Continuing on from this I am going to be talking about the pros and cons of the third option you could take when working in the film industry and that is salaried. Now the biggest pro to salaried employment is that you receive the same benefits as someone in a permanent job as a full time worker or a part timer, but whereas with a permanent job you are paid hour by hour with a salaried job if you finish early or if the day is cut short your pay is not affected in any way. Another pro to salaried pay is that as a salaried employee you have more flexibility as being able to shift your hours allowing for your work to work with you schedule rather than dominate it. However a con to salary pay is that you won't receive holiday bonuses or any other pay incentives like overtime. Whereas a permeant worker can earn up to 3 times their standard wage, a salaried worker doesn't receive that. No matter how much work the salaried worker does their wage remains the exact same. Another con to salaried pay is that you don't get paid as often as someone who works a permanent job gets paid weekly where as someone who works a salaried job will get paid once or twice a month. This means that if you work a salaried job you must be able to good at managing their finances and be able to manage your finances so that the money gets you too the next month comfortably.                                   
                  
Freelancing in the Film industry

Following on from this I am going to be going into freelancing within the film industry, Now a lot people who work within the creative side of the media industry will work as freelancers. People within the creative side of the industry who will work as freelancers are Writers, Directors, camera operators, Journalists, photographers, Cinematographers and Animators. The biggest pro that attracts people to freelancing within the film industry is the freedom that it provides and the flexibility of your schedule which allows you to have more time to yourself as well as being able to adapt your work hours to your schedule. Another Pro to Freelancing is that you are able to set your own prices so that you are able to charge the prices that you want for your services and work. Being able to set your own prices allows you to avoid being cheated out of money. Due to being able to set your own prices means that hypothetically you have unlimited earning potential. A third pro to freelancing in the film industry is that you get to pursue your passion projects as well as being able to pick the projects that you want to make rather than working on projects that you don't have an interest in making. One more pro that incentivises people to work as freelancers in the film industry is that you are self employed, the benefit of being self employed is that rather than having to answer to a boss but rather you are in charge of yourself and your career, another benefit to being self employed is that you cant be fired, this means that you decide the fate of your job. However one of the biggest cons to freelancing in the film industry is that whereas with a permanent job you are given consistent work and in turn a consistent income, whereas when your a freelancer you have to find all of your work yourself. The downside to having to find all of your work by yourself is that you will have times where gigs will slow down and you will spend some time without work, during this time you have to be able to manage your finances and keep yourself stable until you start to get work again. Another con to freelancing in the film industry is that while you are self employed this does lead to having to deal with everything that your employer would deal with if you were working in a permanent job. Probably the biggest downside to being a freelancer in any industry let alone the film industry is that you receive no work benefits. This includes payed leave, health insurance, dental care and maternity/paternity leave. One last upside to working as a freelancer in the film industry is that you are able to control every single aspect as your work and your business, the chance and ability to have complete control of your work allows for you to market yourself and your work the way that you want and control the way that your business is presented. However the Last downside to freelancing in the film industry is that if you become ill then  your business will stagnate and so will your work, if you become ill then there is no one else that can keep the business going and keep the money coming.
  

How to find Employment in the Film industry

When looking for employment in the film industry their are three very popular and commonly used ways to enter the film industry. The first of these is that you could go through university or a film school and through making contacts you can enter the film industry as an independent filmmaker and work your way into the industry by making a name for yourself by working on small films and building your career up. This method takes a lot of time and work as you have to consistently create quality projects and try and make something different and even offer a unique and original experience that will make you stand out from all the other independent filmmakers. The Second popular route that a lot of people will choose when trying to get into the film industry and that is by working your way up through the ranks by starting in a permanent job and working your way up by working really hard and then upon getting yourself to a point where you are able to go freelance and branch out into other things and projects. The downside to this method however is it will take a very long time and isn't guaranteed to work. Finally the third popular method for entering the film industry is through making connections with those already in the industry, what I mean by this is that you go into the indie circuit and make connections with people and then go through and as you make more connections that will send you up the ladder and eventually you will get to the level where you want to be within the film industry, Now you may be wondering what the difference is between method 1 and method 2, well the difference is that method one is where you go into the industry with people who are also just getting into the film industry while the third method is where you go into the film industry and make connections with people who are already in the film industry and already have their foot in the door.      






Interview w/ Spencer Wilding