RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2021
Mt. Freelance Podcast - Episode 104
Aaron Ruell
Commercial / Film Director
Aaron Ruell always wanted to be a filmmaker, but he got sidetracked when a friend asked him to play “Kip” in a little film called Napoleon Dynamite. Now a celebrated commercial director and photographer Aaron will share his thoughts on filmmaking, the challenges of being a dedicated parent during Covid and how he intentionally blew his chance of starring in the Transformer franchise.
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38 Min
Episode Recap
In our fourth episode Aaron James and Andrew Dickson welcome producer turned Oscar short-listed director Aaron Ruell, to the Mt. Freelance podcast.
Aaron is an accomplished commercial director and art photographer known for his beautiful art direction, intentional choices, and wit. But it took him a little longer to get there as he did his friend a solid, agreeing to play “Kip” in a little indie film that has become a beloved cult classic called Napoleon Dynamite.
In our episode Aaron will talk about the challenges of being a filmmaker and a dedicated parent during a global pandemic, share some of what he’s been working on, and open up on his creative process when it comes to both filmmaker and photographer and how he balances vision and artistry with how commercial filmmaking works.
He shares his desire to be more involved in the edit, his approach to collaboration and treatments and also how the unique visual aesthetic he’s developed came right out of the small town he grew up in versus a sense of nostalgia.
And yes, we go there and ask him all about what it was like to completely by accident become a cult movie star. Turns out it wasn’t quite what he wanted. So if you’re curious to hear how he intentionally blew the chance to star in the Transformer franchise this is the episode for you.
The Mt. Freelance podcast is hand-crafted by the producers, mixers and sound designers of Digital One, right here in Portland Oregon, and sponsored by Stumptown Coffee.
Aaron Ruell
Episode 104
Intro:
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(Theme music)
Aaron James:
That's a cool song. Is that the Mt. Freelance theme song, Andrew?
Andrew Dickson:
It sure is. I am Andrew Dickson. You're Aaron James. Aaron, why are we doing this podcast?
Aaron James:
That's a good question, because a lot of people said, "Don't do a podcast. There's lots of them out there." But we ignored them.
Andrew Dickson:
And we are hoping that our unique angle of bringing an experienced, savvy, creative freelancer into our studio slash virtual studio and interviewing them about their experience will be illuminating for you, our freelance audience.
Aaron James:
Well, and also for us, because we're still freelancers. One of the cool things is freelance unlocks opportunities of time, and if you do it right, money to do things that you don't get paid for, like the Mt. Freelance podcast.
Andrew Dickson:
So Aaron, I'm looking here at the Mt. Freelance website, which I believe you designed and I wrote. It says that Mt. Freelance is actually a course and a member community, and taught by us, and apparently we have over two decades combined freelance experience working for some of the biggest brands and agencies in the world. Is this true?
Aaron James:
Man, I think that is true. I mean, if it's on the Internet, it's true. Let's dig in.
(Transition)
Aaron James:
So today's exciting, Andrew. We have two Aarons on the show.
Andrew Dickson:
Is it going to get confusing?
Aaron James:
No, because we're just going to talk to him, and you can just call me Cool Guy.
Andrew Dickson:
All right, Cool Guy. So tell me a little bit about Aaron Ruell.
Aaron James:
Well, he is a commercial director, first and foremost, a passionate photographer, and an accidental cult movie star, playing Kip in Napoleon Dynamite.
Andrew Dickson:
Let's not ask him about that and just see if it comes up.
Aaron James:
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Andrew Dickson:
Well, welcome to the interview part of the Mt. Freelance podcast. We're thrilled and delighted to have Aaron Ruell with us today.
Aaron James:
Welcome, Aaron.
Aaron Ruell:
Thanks for having me, guys.
Andrew Dickson:
Is that the right order? We have a lot of freelancers that there are two things. So how do you rank them, and what's your elevator pitch?
Aaron Ruell:
I think it's director first, photographer following. It varies depending on what field I'm working more in, but I've put photography on the commercial side of things on the back burner for a while now. So it's definitely director first.
Aaron James:
What are some of the more recent projects that you're working on that you can tell us about?
Aaron Ruell:
Well, this is a super weird year to freaking ask me that first off, right? I mean, I was thinking about talking to you guys and the thought occurred. I was like, this is not an exaggeration, I have no time to myself. This year has been so crazy where the window of time that I have is 7:30 when the kids go down, 10:00, I'm just ready to freaking peace out because I'm so F'in tired, and all I want to do is just like space out during that period of time because of the way the day's gone. So I just unplug and watch a film or a show, which leaves, if you do the math, absolutely zero time to do anything creative.
Aaron Ruell:
I live in Portland, for those listening that don't know where I'm at. I live in Portland, but primarily shoot in LA, New York, Vancouver. So I've never shot here in town, but this was the first year where we attempted to bring some jobs to town, because I was willing to shoot from home. So if I just had to travel from home to set and then back home, that was fine. But when it became a factor of getting on an airplane, living in a hotel, eating at restaurants, and then coming back home, that felt like too much. So we've attempted to bring some jobs to Portland. I've continued to bid on things, but in the end it always ended up going to LA or New York.
Aaron James:
That is a story that so many of us in freelance, we're all having bad years and all the limitations of that. Have you tried directing remotely?
Aaron Ruell:
In the early days, like March, April was when that was the thing to do. I haven't seen that since then. After that, it seemed like production companies figured out how to make it work and still follow whatever state laws were in place. The problem is just how quickly the laws, or the rules I should say, are changing from state to state. So you can start bidding a job and it looks good to shoot in Texas or Utah. By the time the job is greenlit and you're on a plane, things have changed because now they're a hotspot. So it's a little bit dicey. There's plenty of directors out there, especially at our production company and I'm sure every other production company, that are working nonstop and they're on set and doing their thing. It's just not for me.
Andrew Dickson:
Yeah. I mean, even regardless of the pandemic, being a photographer and a director, these are jobs where you're either working insane hours day after day after day, or you have a stretch of no work or just bidding. So maybe talk a little bit about personal projects in general, and even over the last, I know we're all dads. That complicates things when kids are home, but yeah. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the things that you've done lately or historically, outside of commercial work?
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I got into commercials in a roundabout way where I did the standard go to film school, graduate from film school, move to LA. LA, I got an internship at a production company at the time doing music videos, and then that lasted a couple months. I couldn't stand being on other people's sets and feeling as if I could perhaps do a better job. It killed me. So I ended up throwing the little bit of money that we had and borrowing some money from my parents, and threw that into a, I did three spots on spec. And then shortly after that though, got sidetracked and went and made this movie with a buddy of mine that turned into something really big, and then took me down a different route, and then those spec spots were just kind of still floating there.
Aaron Ruell:
I came back to those, honestly, a year and a half later, but I found myself at Sundance with two short films that I wrote. That is actually what brought me back into the commercial world, where an commercial executive producer approached me at Sundance and said, "Hey, have you ever thought about doing commercials and music videos?" I said, "You know what, a while back I did these spec spots." I dusted those off and showed them, and they were like, "Wow, okay." That started me off. And then so I continued doing commercials, shooting stills. The stills, they coincided with what I was doing on the personal side. So when I started directing commercials, I thought, "Okay, well, this is going to be my money maker. I'm going to keep photography to myself as my own personal thing." And then that lasted for a little bit, but then when you get asked to do it, it's hard to turn down.
Aaron Ruell:
So I did it, but then I felt really conflicted with that being taken from me in a way where that was all mine. I didn't have to alter my take on things at all. That was purely mine, the photography side. And then what I found was that started to affect the way that my personal work was showing up. The lines blurred for me, and I just felt less and less inspired to do my own personal work. And then just being completely transparent, I haven't honestly been inspired to put together a new body of images, though, that warrants either a show or a book, both of which I had previously. So all these years into it, I'm still learning how to balance that. I haven't figured it out, but that's sort of been where I'm at.
Aaron James:
When we get to the level that you're at, where you have commercial projects, you have feature films going, what type of a team do you have built around you?
Aaron Ruell:
Honestly, man, it's always been just me. I feel like that probably makes or breaks people and their careers. For me, it's always worked out. So to answer the question, I really don't have a team. I have a really hard time not having complete control on what I'm doing. I don't know how to parse out creative assignments that have my name on it. I can't really go and tell somebody, "Go do it the way that I would do it," or, "Go find some inspiration that's going to inspire me." It just doesn't work that way, for me anyway. I'm sure it works that way for others, and I'm envious, but I think everybody operates differently.
Aaron Ruell:
I think other people would be far more open to allowing, here's a funny project or here's a more dramatic project, and feeling okay about coming into it. Even if they weren't a hundred percent into it, or finding a way into that project. I just never had that experience. It wasn't a relationship that I was benefiting from, nor were they, because I kept just saying, "No thanks. No thanks. That's not right." I don't know how to put my voice into that, and so it just didn't work out. So to answer your question about the team, you are speaking to team Ruell.
Andrew Dickson:
Are you the rare director that actually makes your own treatments?
Aaron Ruell:
Listen, I write and I source images, but I will no way lie in saying that I don't have help adding to the images or making my words more clear. I have a way of writing that I just throw it out, but it's not the easiest to read, and so I get help cleaning that up. But, but yeah, I make sure that my treatments look like me.
Andrew Dickson:
Yeah. When I first realized, I actually have a friend who basically he is a high-end A list director treatment writer, designer, and it blew my mind that you would basically spend two days trying to say, "Here's what this director's vision is based on a one hour call." So yeah, I really appreciate that you're putting the time in.
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah. As I said, I have help, no doubt, but ghost writers are great for real broad strokes.
Aaron James:
I remember one of my first TV commercial shoots. Had this great connection with the director, it was a great creative process,, and then I never saw the director again after the shoot day. That always blew me away that the director wasn't really a part of the editorial process. Everyone works a little differently, but how do you feel about that?
Aaron Ruell:
I hate that. I wish I lived in the UK for this reason. The best work that I do is when I'm invited to the edit session. It just feels as if agencies and clients get cheated out of not having that direction from start to finish, and agency creatives are more than competent to put things together. I mean, beautiful edits day in, day out. I mean, we see this stuff all over the place. But if you're hiring someone to at least add a little bit of a thumb print to a project that you guys have slaved over for months and months, it only makes sense to have them honestly be responsible for it all the way through post. I found on certain projects that knowing that you're not in the edit, it's almost as if I'll give them enough pieces where this is all going to work out together, this is all going to be completely fine, but it doesn't really carry that one voice that started with the direction. Does that make sense?
Aaron James:
Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Dickson:
Well, one of the things that I think is remarkable about you is you have such an aesthetic that's unique to you. I mean, you really do. You are a filmmaker and photographer that has a vision, and yeah, talk a little bit about how you developed that, and then also how you've protected it. You even mentioned not doing commercial photography anymore, because I'm guessing people wanted to take your unique vision and all of a sudden turned it into a Tide print ad.
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah. That's a tricky one to speak to, because again, being completely honest, the beginning of my career as a commercial director was so tightly associated with the film I had come from, which was Napoleon Dynamite. They assumed that I was a comedy guy because I was in a comedy film, when in reality, I had just come out of film school and was helping a buddy out who asked me to play this role. But when you're getting your break, you go with how it's going. When you're starting off, you get a lot of work that's subpar, and so my aesthetic that came from that was something that was very art directed. My background has always been something that's very visually driven, so my personal preferences are things that are dramatically driven.
Aaron Ruell:
That's not to say that my visual world that I live in and prefer is definitely one that's very put together, from colors to angles to whatever it may be. Even in my day to day life, that's just my nature. Where that came from, I don't entirely know. I can say that I grew up in a very small town, kind of country style. I grew up around a lot of stuff that never felt like it was contemporary. It always felt like it was a couple decades old, and I definitely think that factored into the worlds that I would end up creating that kind of followed me into commercials. I like things that look good, but in the beginning stage, it was all a bit contrived. And definitely, the past however many years, have moved from that, in part because I've gotten scripts that are better written, and so it's allowed me to still have a visual aesthetic that is pleasing, but definitely not one that carries a certain artifice that I think in the beginning of my career did.
Andrew Dickson:
That's a fascinating answer as to why you dipped so early in your career. Bad scripts. These aren't the doors you're looking for.
Aaron James:
Well, I also hear small towns in there, and as someone from a small town, you really put it great. Hey, nothing here is new. So there is an aesthetic that's current. It's not retro because it's current, but it just feels like it's got some dust.
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah, that was the thing. That word was always being used like, "Your look is so retro." To me, it was like, this is not retro. This is how I grew up. When I go back home, this is what the shelf looks like. To this day, the biggest thing in my town is big hats rodeo day. I mean, there's a cowboy element to it. There's a farm worker element to it, because it's in the San Joaquin valley, which is the agricultural capital of the world. It was just a mashup of a lot of different things, but none of them were ever considered cutting edge in terms of art, design, nothing like that.
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Aaron James:
Andrew, is that all one word, all caps?
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Aaron James:
You know, we are consuming media so differently now than when you had your success with the film, and then now even commercials. How are you personally adapting to these changes, whether it's streaming, whether it's maybe more episodic opportunities, that type of thing?
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah, that's a good question, but I think that I'm so overtaken with the tunnel vision of getting my first feature made that that would be my most pressing project that I have the need to get done and make. I've truly not considered other mediums, whether it's episodic or anything else. Not that I wouldn't entertain them. I think there's a lot of great things that are obviously happening. But for me, my very small creative mind goes from commercial work that comes in, and then in the free moments, it pivots to my new script. There's really nothing in between for me. The reason for that for me personally is I just feel there's a clock ticking for me. It's a self-imposed clock. When I was a teenager, Robert Rodriguez did El Mariachi. I remember as a teenager watching this film, and made El Mariachi for $7,000, $8,000 by age 21.
Aaron Ruell:
So for me as a 16 year old kid, 21 was five years away and seemed like an eternity away, and then by the time I hit 21 and I didn't have a feature in hand or ready to be made, when I turned 22, I felt like I was a complete failure. I really did. So here I am decades later, and I still feel that clock that's just like, "Come on, man. Don't drop this." So for me, it's a very one track mind. I've seen a certain difference and, and I'd be interested in hearing your guys' take on this too, with different directors that you've worked with. I feel like it's pretty easy to suss out commercial directors who came into the commercial world with the end goal of being a commercial director. So as a kid or as a college kid, whatever it was, their end goal was, "I'm going to direct commercials. That's my career." Versus directors who didn't necessarily intend to direct commercials, it was always features, and then found themselves directing commercials. Have you guys noticed that? Do you guys see it? Can you tell the difference?
Aaron James:
I definitely can. I think one of the directors I had the pleasure of working with was Phil Morrison, and talk about a guy who brought cinematic vision to commercials, and personality, and developing characters in this little micro amount of time compared to the features that he's done. To me, I mean, I'm always trying to learn any time I'm around people that can do that type of thing. We got to work together for almost a month, and I think I learned more about filmmaking in that month, and really about how to communicate and draw performances out of people. It was fascinating. So I think that one sticks out for me.
Andrew Dickson:
Makes me think of friends in advertising who, a lot of creatives will want to make that jump, and I've had a couple younger creatives say, "I want to make a feature film, so I'm going to become a commercial director, and then I'm going to make a film." And I say, "No, don't." It's such a slippery slope, because the money's insane. I mean, I can remember an editor who worked on a Fincher movie who literally had to sell his house and move to a smaller house to afford to work on a feature for David Fincher, versus continuing to cut commercials. But yeah, no. Also, I came up similarly. I went to film school. Clerks and that whole thing. So actually, I did. I made a $25,000 feature in my early 20s. It's not very watchable, but I have to say, I did it. In some ways, it took a little bit of the hunger away, because I had that same feeling. I have to make a feature film before I die. And then I did. Again, not very good, but I did it. You can find it. It's 72 minutes, just long enough to count.
Aaron Ruell:
That's awesome, man. That's huge. I really think that is something. I'll tell you what, just trying to get these two features made, it is truly a near miracle when a feature is made. Unless you really have gone through the motions and the process, I think it's easy to misunderstand the difficulty of getting a feature made. There's also something to be said for the craft that comes with a well-made film. I don't mean to say that you need millions of dollars necessarily. It sounds awful, but there's a certain respect that's given to the craft that can only really come when you have time, and the only way you have time is if you have money, and even when you have money, you don't have much time. So having all of those things aligned to make something that's worthwhile is such a feat.
Aaron James:
Obviously there's certain DPs that you love to work with. What separates a great DP from a good one or an average one in your mind?
Aaron Ruell:
So one of the things for me with DPs is there's got to be a personality click. There's got to be some sort of overlap with the way that we operate just on a human level. I need somebody that I can relate to in some way. So somebody that's mellow, and then someone that takes it seriously. The very least we can do is show up and put our all into it. I mean, you get paid too much to do otherwise. So for me, there's that, and then what I really like are DPs who have a different take than what I came in with. So having DPs say, "You know what?" Changing the angle or the way that I had intended for the lighting cues to be. So that's a big deal to me, but yeah, all directors have their handful of DPs that they continue to go back to. I have mine, and they all share those qualities where they surprise me with their take, I love spending time with them, and they're good people. And they're extremely talented. I won't take that from them. They're all really extremely talented people.
Andrew Dickson:
Any advice for someone who's considering accidentally becoming a cult movie star?
Aaron Ruell:
Man. The advice that I have, here's something that's entirely honest. I struggled so much the first handful of years after that movie came out and my association with it. If I could give myself some advice back at that time, I wish that I wouldn't have let it affect me the way I did. The way that it affected me is that I was almost bitter with my association to that film, because you got to remember that I was attempting to be a director. That was my career path, and then I was known as an actor. So when all of a sudden you're known as something other than what you have spent your short life intending to do, it really throws you.
Aaron Ruell:
I was always constantly trying to fight against this "Actor Aaron Ruell tries his hand at directing" headline that was always the conversation starter, and it just killed me. So I think that carried over into that film, how big it was, and I just wanted to distance myself from it. But now it's an entirely different thing. I wish I could go back to that version of Aaron and just say, "Man, lighten up. Just lighten up. It's all going to work out." Yeah.
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Aaron James:
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Andrew Dickson:
Yeah.
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Aaron James:
As freelancers getting into the career, whether it's photography, design, account side, strategy, whatever these things are, everyone is working towards a little bit of fame. I mean, enough where your career starts to go a little smoother, you start getting the calls, that type of thing. You had something entirely opposite, where you had the fame for something you didn't really want the fame for, and now it almost inhibited you from really developing the career that you wanted.
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah, it was so strange. There was just an avalanche of baggage, emotional baggage that came with it, because consider this. I had recently moved to LA and then we bounced and made the film, came back, and from the time that we made the film, we made the film in the summertime and then went to Sundance in January. So within six, five months from making it to being at Sundance, and it becoming and being sold to a major studio. So such a short amount of time, and then I found myself on the acting side of things with same deal, managers and agents and that sort of deal, living in LA, which is a city that's full of aspirations, most of which are never met.
Aaron Ruell:
Here I was being sent these big studio films to be an actor in, and having zero interest in it. Thousands of people would kill for this opportunity, and here I was with no interest in it. So I felt a bunch of guilt for that, which is also why I pushed away from that film and everything else. It was just a weird time for me, to be honest. It was really strange. But I did come away with some fun experiences, because I would be sent these scripts, and because I could care less, I wasn't willing to put myself on tape to audition, but I'd be willing to meet with the director. In looking back on it, it's so ridiculous because I still am like a nobody, and to make those demands of like, "Hey, if you're interested in me you got to sit down with me, but I'm not going to audition. I'm not going to read these lines." It made for some really interesting opportunities.
Aaron Ruell:
I can't believe, in retrospect, the doors that had got me into, the people that said yes to it, but one of the craziest was sitting on a couch next to Michael Bay. That dude, bless him, he actually said okay. It was probably just more for his own entertainment, but it was for the launch of the Transformers series that he was doing. It was just the most bizarre situation, and I was loving every minute of it, because like I said, I had zero interest in this actually working. I was there for the experience and just going, "Man, okay, remember all this, because this is so crazy." Just sitting on a couch with that guy and just shooting the crap with them, and after about a half an hour, he finally said, "I don't mean to impose this on you, but would you mind maybe reading the scene?" Again, looking back on it, it was like, of course he'd asked that, but for me to be so blasé about, "I don't know." It was just pretty great. It was pretty great.
Aaron James:
So you have had more time this year, as a lot of us have, to maybe reflect and hunker down a little bit less of the work that we're used to getting. What do you do to stay inspired as you're working on your feature, and not on as many commercial projects? Where do you get that inspiration or that creativity when you're in a rut?
Aaron Ruell:
This year, I've had less time to myself than any other point in my life. Like I mentioned, I've got four little kids. My youngest just started kindergarten. So they're all in front of a computer in all different grades, aside from my fifth grader, who's my oldest. She's the only one that can kind of do it on her own. The rest need either myself or my wife sitting next to them at some point or all throughout the day. But it's something that I am addressing, actually, because I was just talking to my wife about this, where this is the first year where I've not really done something creatively worthwhile by my terms. It's pretty soul crushing. There's something. I've been feeling it, but I didn't recognize it that that was the catalyst for the feeling that I was having. It's been going on for months now. But I think that's the reason behind it.
Aaron Ruell:
So I'm going to adjust that, and the beginning of this next year, remove myself from the house, knowing that that's the only way that I'll be able to get that little selfish bit of time to creatively produce something. So that's the goal. But how I find inspiration is the same way I always have throughout my life. In the moments that I do have during the day, it's music. It's film. It's books. I do read every night before I go to bed as well, so it's always that sort of thing. But I'm telling you, this year, time-wise, I've never been busier. It's just not in a way that's making me any American dollars, but I'm hoping that it pays off in what comes from this as far as our family dynamic. If I could do anything, it would just be hanging with them and making them laugh in whatever way I could. But 2020.
Andrew Dickson:
Yeah, I can relate. I've got friends who are sending me plays they've written, and novels they've written. I've got one friend who wrote a play and a novel, and yeah. You're like, "What am I doing?" I'm like, "Yeah, right, I'm in seventh grade. I'm the chauffeur, the cook, and dishwasher."
Aaron Ruell:
Yeah, absolutely man. It's funny. In the early days of this, I had some of my single friends, some of the first notes I got from them were like, "Man, are you going to finish that script right away? I mean, you're going to have so much time now, right?" I'm just like, "Guys, you are so clueless. You're clearly single without children. You have zero idea of what this now means for my life."
Aaron James:
Well, and then they get a dog and they tell you how much work it is.
Aaron Ruell:
Man. Yeah.
Aaron James:
Single friends. It's okay. We understand. We're a little jealous.
Aaron Ruell:
Absolutely.
Andrew Dickson:
Aaron Ruell, thank you so much for coming on and sharing these great stories about your journey as a filmmaker, and excited to see what 2021 brings from you creatively.
Aaron Ruell:
Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Aaron James:
All right. We have the exciting part of the show where we get some questions from some of the great folks that listen to this podcast.
Andrew Dickson:
I can't wait.
Sarah Rhymer:
Hi. My name is Sarah Rhymer, and I'm a full time freelance graphic designer and marketer based in Ridgedale, Missouri. My question is, what methods do you use to obtain consistent freelance work?
Andrew Dickson:
Sarah, that's the question.
Aaron James:
It's the main one.
Andrew Dickson:
Yeah. So the easiest thing to do is to keep your current clients happy. The less time you're looking for work and the more time you're working, obviously that's freelance nirvana. It's so much about over-delivering to your existing clients, but then maybe you can offer something that they don't know that you have to offer. So maybe you can realize, "Hey, I'm working on their website, but their social needs some help. I can help with that." Or better yet, "I know someone who can help with that."
Aaron James:
Yeah. I think building out these project SWAT teams is actually a great way to build your network, because let's say they need motion design, and they need some film editing or something like that. That may not be what you do, but you could bring in the right person, and all of a sudden there's some synergy on that. Now all of a sudden you're really kind of spidering your network out that way. I think that's actually kind of a limitation. We always just think about what we do, and that's all the jobs that we can take are just exactly what we do. I think that's a limitation that we don't have to have, because your network that you're building is not only within your clients, it's also within other freelancers. That's a big reason Mt. Freelance exists. We're putting all of us together and collectively finding, And staffing and moving through different jobs. I think that's actually a fresh way to look at it.
Andrew Dickson:
And then as far as getting new clients or maybe someone who's just starting out and doesn't have clients, I think it's really important to remember we can be proactive. Often as freelancers, we field offers and we wait for our email inbox to fill up. But there's no reason you can't put a list of the 10 clients that you dream about working with and then approach them. Do your homework. If you can find them, find people who might hire you on LinkedIn, or you might collaborate with there. It's what ad agencies do, you know? As freelancers, we can and should be just as proactive and go after the work and the clients we want.
Aaron James:
Yeah.
Andrew Dickson:
The Mt. Freelance podcast is handcrafted by the producers, mixers, and sound designers of Digital One, Portland, Oregon. Executive producer, Eric Stolberg. Post producer, Kelsey Woods. Assistant engineer, Tristan Schmunk, who also created the theme song and instrumental music. To learn more about Aaron, Andrew, and Mt. Freelance, visit mtfreelance.com. Thanks for listening, and may your day rate be high and your vacations long.
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