In this YouTube talk, veteran freelance crew member Rob Perkins argues that the film industry’s post‑pandemic landscape has fundamentally shifted and the old “wait for the phone to ring” freelance playbook is no longer viable. He begins by presenting Q2 2026 Los Angeles production data: commercial production is down 21.5% year‑over‑year, television down 27.7%, while FilmLA’s “other” category (online content, shorts, documentaries) is up 10%, illustrating that work is not disappearing but changing shape. Perkins reflects on his 25‑year career, noting that past periods of predictability—when good work and reputation kept the calendar full—are fading. He shares an on‑set anecdote from a Ford Mustang commercial where his first AD stopped unnecessary overtime, highlighting the value of sound judgment. From there he introduces a new “playbook” for freelancers, focusing on two phases: delivering value on set and staying visible between jobs. The core of the between‑jobs strategy is the “Them, Value, Availability” (TVA) outreach framework: personalize a message about the recipient (Them), articulate a concrete benefit you bring (Value), and state your specific availability. He built a free tool, TVA GPT, to help craft such messages. Perkins stresses that a sustainable freelance career is about control, not predictability, and proposes a five‑level model of freelance film careers that viewers can use to identify their current stage and next focus. He concludes by urging freelancers to shift from reactive waiting to proactive, controlled career management.
Chapters
The film industry has changed, and after 25 years of producing and hiring freelance crew, I've realized that the playbook a lot of us learned to build our careers around has to change with it. If you're looking at more blank days on your calendar and wondering where your next job is even coming from, waiting for everything to go back to normal might be the wrong move. And here's the strange part: one of the best things a crew member ever did to get more work for me was actually pretty upsetting. More about that in a few minutes. But first, Here's what the numbers are actually showing. In Los Angeles, the 2nd quarter of 2026, commercial production was down 21.5% from the same quarter of last year, and television was down 27.7%. But Film LA's other category, which includes things like online content, short films, and documentaries, was actually up 10%. So this isn't as simple as nobody's shooting anymore. The picture isn't just less work. Some of the work is changing shape. And if you built your freelance career around where the work used to be or how often that phone used to ring, we all need to pay attention to this change. I've produced all over the country for years. So work moving from one market to another isn't new. What I notice now is how hard it is to assume the next job is going to look anything like the last one. And maybe that's the word I keep coming back to, is predictability, which is kind of a funny thing to say in freelancing because we were never really swimming in predictability. But there were stretches where if you were good and people knew you, you could stay pretty busy without much thinking about what was holding your career together. I think it's gotten harder. And here's where the story stops being about industry statistics and starts affecting what you do on Monday morning. A lot of us learned to freelance in a business where the phone ringing could almost be your career plan. Waiting for the phone to ring is not much of a system. My dog Bailey has a better system for knowing when dinner is coming. Probably unnecessary B-roll, but he's so dang cute. But yeah, you do go to work, and sooner or later somebody remembers you when another job comes up. And when there's plenty of work around, that can feel like enough. The trouble is, when the phone rings less and less, you find out pretty quickly whether you actually had a system or whether you just had a busy stretch. You can do everything right on set and and still find out that do good work and wait for the next call wasn't much of a career plan. I think that's the part we haven't really adjusted to yet. The business changed faster than the way a lot of us learned to freelance. But I also don't wanna make it sound like everything about the old playbook has stopped working. Remember that crew member I mentioned, the one that upset some folks on set? We were shooting a Ford Mustang commercial in downtown Los Angeles, and our permit ended at 4:00 PM because we had the street closed and the 9-to-5ers had to leave their office buildings. And as we got close to the end of the day, there was pressure to squeeze in one more thing, a clearly unnecessary thing that the client didn't even want. Can we just get one more? My first AD shut it down. He knew exactly where this was headed, and he wasn't going to let the whole day end sloppy with unnecessary OT and trouble with us with the city in the future just to squeeze out another shot we didn't need. We had to be out, and I respected that. He wasn't trying to make me happy. He was protecting the production. That's the kind of judgment I remember when I'm hiring again. And here's where I think the new playbook starts to come into focus. It has to work when you're on the job and when you're between jobs. On set, you're giving people a reason to want you back. But between jobs, you can't really wait until you desperately need work before anybody hears from you again. And actually, that's the simplest version of what the new playbook sounds like in practice. Instead of going quiet and then reaching out when you need something, you show up before that with something worth reading. Something as simple as, hey Russell, I haven't worked in a while and I wondered if you had anything coming up. No, not a great message. There's no value to Russell. That's just as bad as the old just checking in message. To be remembered, to stand out, you need a different approach. That's them, value, availability. You send something about them, like their BTS from a recent job or vacation photos on Instagram, so they know it's not just a cut and paste text. Then what value do you bring? Do you have a new special skill that will make the production better? And finally, your specific availability, which gives a sense that you have or had some stuff going on. Now you've actually given them something to respond to. I built a free tool called the TVA GPT that helps you write messages just like that without staring at your phone trying to figure out what to say. The link's below if you want it. You're not waiting until the phone stops ringing and then scrambling for work. You're staying visible before you need something. And being somebody I'd absolutely hire again still doesn't guarantee the phone is going to ring next week. That's the distinction I think gets blurred. Being valuable on set doesn't automatically give you a steady career. For years, I mostly looked at a successful freelance career through what happened once somebody got hired. Were they good at their job? Would I want them back? But from a crew point of view, there's another question that matters just as much now. What happens when there isn't a job? That makes me think of the word sustainable. It doesn't mean you're booked every day. I'm not even sure I'd want that. It means a slow stretch doesn't suddenly make you wonder whether your whole career is falling apart. And this is where I think there's actually some good news. You don't have to make the film industry predictable to build a more sustainable career. You just have to get more intentional about the parts you actually have some control over. And maybe that's a word I've been looking for— control. I can't make the film industry predictable. I've been doing this more than 25 years, and if you have the spreadsheet for that, I'd love to see it. But I can build a career that leaves less of my future to chance. That's a very different goal from trying to predict when the next call is coming. I have no idea exactly what this business is going to look like 5 years from now, but waiting for the old version to come back puts way too much of your future in the hands of something you can't influence. So what should you actually be working on now? Well, that depends a lot on where you are in your career. There's a bigger system behind all of this, but what you should focus on first depends on where you're starting from. The new playbook starts with knowing where you stand. I broke freelance film careers down into 5 levels. Figure out which one you're in because that's going to tell you about what you should be focusing on right now. Watch that one next.
