Working for little or no money is no anomaly amongst the creative and media industries. In fact, as one Wellington actor snarked in response to my Twitter plea for interviewees, the real story is in creatives who haven’t – especially at the starts of their careers.
So let’s get this out of the way: as problems go, struggling to carve a career out of the creative industries is a great one to have.
The chances are you’re young, you’re artistic, you’re passionate, maybe even talented. The society in which you live values the arts high enough – maybe not highly enough, but high enough – for it to seem possible that, one day, you could make a living from them.
And, of course, it goes without saying that every writer, designer, photographer, whatever worth their salt is bound to spend some time honing their craft to a point where it’s good enough to pay for.
But, as we’re increasingly seeing in the United States and Great Britain, a culture that reinforces the exchange of unpaid labour for “exposure” and “experience” can be a damaging one to find yourself in, especially if you’re just starting out.
As I write in my feature on unpaid internships in the creative industries, to take working for free as a ‘rite of passage’ is to leave bigger questions of morality, economy and value unexamined.
It also suggests it’s for a finite period, which will eventually give way to bountiful and well-deserved riches – and, as any full-time, practicing creative in New Zealand will tell you, that’s not the case.
“It’s all about getting to the point where it’s sustainable; I don’t want to be working obsessively for free forever,” my friend, playwright Uther Dean, told me when I interviewed him for Saturday Morning last month. “No one can make a living off theatre in this country. Roger Hall does it, literally no one else. People have to remember that Bruce Mason was supported by his wife to tour his shows. …
“Really, for me right now, it’s about building a body of work … so I’m not just another shlub.”
So where do you draw the line at working for free?
Melbourne-based artist Kelly Thompson, a freelancing success story, shares how she’s turned her interest in illustration into a business.
Find out about the legalities behind internships in the creative industries, and how companies that receive hundreds of applications for every vacancy choose from a pile of potential interviewees.
And hear about what it’s like to work at some of the country’s most innovative and desirable workplaces – as well as those that have a poor track record of caring for their staff.
