Creative Project No Budget
By: Jon Kuhn
Tags: Getting Started, Creative, Productivity, Projects, Creative Process

Photo from my last client project with Indy Maven

I have been trying to “make it” as a professional creative off on for a decade. I was in a band, I used to do poetry readings, I was a stand up comic for four years, and now I am having some success as a freelance film maker. To be frank I never really worked super hard at my first four attempts at being a full time professional creative. The voice inside of my head that says, “be realistic, get a real job, too many people have already done that, the market is too saturated, so on and so forth,” is really loud at times. My work ethic or lack there of is a story for another time.

After being in several creative fields off and on for a decade I have noticed several patterns that work and even more that do not.

First, what does not work. I have seen this time and time again. Creatives like to think big picture. That is what makes them so wonderful. It is also what keeps them from achieving bigger goals. You see this on YouTube if you start clicking on people’s profiles in the comment sections. I saw it in my years doing comedy and in different writers groups. People will have a massive project that takes up a lot of time and resources. They will film a sketch or a short film. It will be really great. It will have a team of multiple people who helped to execute it. The project gets released and you never see another project from this promising group. The reality of this is that the project took up a lot of time. It may have been fun, but after it is over the all to harsh reality of time being lost without any “reward” starts to set it. Yes it is rewarding to make something with your peers. Yes you are getting better as an artist. However, it is hard, very hard in fact, to find a dedicated group of people that are willing to show up week after week and work for free. This is what it takes to start from zero and to work your way up. Has this model worked, absolutely, but the probability is super low.

Think about being a band. In highschool I had a band, but after we all started getting girlfriends and moving out of our parent’s house practice stopped happening. Getting people to go on tour was out of the question. Yes many people have prevailed, but if you read a lot about bands as they were coming up many of them have members who had to quit. Poor Scott, the original drummer for Blink 182.

All hope is not lost. You can continue to generate quality content on a regular basis if you have no budget. You need to have the come to Jesus moment and accept the reality that you live in. If you have no revenue, and no fan base, that is fine, but at this point in the game you have no trust established. Without trust and money it is going to be next to impossible to get people to commit for the amount of time it will take to start making money.

Have big dreams. If you want to have a sketch comedy show, go for it. If you have no fan base or budget, great. You are going to have to show up often. So start small. Really small. Write your own script, film yourself, and publish your work on YouTube and advertise to friends, family, and potentially new fans on your social media accounts. Just do the work. To be frank once the excitement wears off that is when the real work begins. Do not quit. Too many people quit too early.

I currently have a very small audience on my YouTube channel. However I have been making content, own my own, consistently for the last half of the year. I engage with the people who show up. I personally message and respond to everyone who is nice enough to take time to comment on my work. This November I held a fundraiser and I had people donate to it from all around the world. It honestly blew my mind.

If you are reading this. Keep going. No one is ever going to hand you your dream job. Be realistic about what you can do consistently and do the work.