[Capt.FlushGarden]

Hello there!

I've been thinking, should I start to freelance or what? Is it possible to work for a game company or something like that abroad? Are there any companies with staff working in another country? If you are a freelancer, could you just tell me a little bit how it is to be one? That would be very interesting, I bet there are others who would like to know. Thanx!

[Loki]

If you're thinking about America, this is what you need to consider:

If you don't have citizenship or happen to have a greencard, you can't freelance here.
I company would need to hire you and provide the visa too.

But the whole EU is open for you - which is not a bad thing ... you can go to England or Germany if you wanted to.

[Sumaleth]

I live in Australia and come the end of May I'll have finished 16 months of contract work for a US production company (Fountainhead Entertainment). And there are two others on fulltime contract for the same company who are also outside the US.

I suspect that this is possible because it's called "contracted work", I'm not legally on staff of the company.

It's actually becoming more and more common these days, although I think it'll still be a while before it's widely accepted. Truth is that it's a harder way for a company to work - for it to work well, both sides involved (the contractor and the contractee) need to be quite comfortable using the internet.

We use email and IRC extensively. Particularly IRC which we use 24 hours a day. We basically sit in there any time we're working and if we need to discuss something we do.

It's an approach that works better for certain things and depends very much on the people involved from my experience. Personally I actually prefer this approach now; I much rather work from home in my own hours, and I doubt I'll ever go back to office situation again.

I don't really know how hard it is to find work like this because I've always been lucky enough to have it find me. Although come the end of May I'll be jobless for the first time in a long time.. I'm actually looking forward to it.

What sort of freelance work did you have in mind? Did you have a particular type of work in mind that you'd be most suited to?

Row.

[Capt.FlushGarden]

Thank you Loki!

Thank you, sumaleth. What I do now here in sweden is graphics for computer games, concept art, storyboard, 3d modeling/texturing blablabla...But I really would like to do anything that has to do with illustration and that gives most dineros hehe...

[Capt.FlushGarden]

quaternius. Thank you very much! Contacts! Yes I've got contacts, but I don't know If it's enough, and I know a very good manager who worked at our place.he said he would like to help me out and find work for me...he's very good at it too!

thanx again dOOd!

[quaternius]

hehe... why not take a little trip over to Oslo and go work with Joachim and Micke at Innerloop?

Seriously, if you're just starting you might want to at least "think" about working for a company before you jump into freelance - unless you know for sure you can't work for anyone but yourself. I usually tell people, even if you're talented, it will take you 6 months of hard work to make enough contacts to get you going in freelance. (Well, unless you're Craig, that is. If you can do this career development while you live at home, all the better. The only downside of freelance, assuming you get steady work and unless you have agents to handle most of the business end of things, is you may also have to spend a lot of time on the business/marketing side of things. I only "figure" 4 hours of working/billable time per day when I figure project estimates and project schedules. Obviously, there's plenty of days when I work 12 or more "billable" hours. Some days there's nothing and sometimes you take on a "rush" project and another project suddenly comes back for revisions - so you don't sleep for a day.

I'm just saying, when you're on your own you've got to plan for time to interview people, meet with people, write your job estimates and contracts, keep track of your clients and invoices, etc.
When you work for a company, you generally have more concentrated time to work on the "art".

Awww..enuf. Hey, what do I know. Someone with your potential should be snapped up by any number of game companies, especially in the EU, I would think. They can hire you cheaply (if you're just starting), and you'll get good real-world experience before you move on to whatever you ultimately want to do - like freelance.

Sumaleth - just wondering, how did you make your contacts at Fountainhead to get the contract work? That kind of long-term contract work can be very sweet if it's high quality work. Sounds more like temporary employee than "freelance". Maybe that's the kind of thing the Capt. (and others) want to know.

I mean, I occasionally hire some guys in Russia to do 3d models for me - I pay half what I would for the same service in California. I found them through an individual lives here, but who represents them and kind of acts as their agent. I found him because another client recommended him. And so it goes.

Just my rambling opinions - use some salt.

[edit]
OOPS Sorry Capt. - just saw your post -looks like you ALREADY work for a game company and "aren't" just starting out. So...the name of the game in Freelance is "contacts" the more and better contacts you have, the better your options. You've got the potential - no question.
Good luck.

[ May 18, 2001: Message edited by: quaternius ]

[Sumaleth]

Quaternius:

I won a pretty major online competition towards the end of 99, and that got the attention of the owner of Fountainhead Ent who asked me what other sort of work I did. As it happened she was looking for someone who could do a range of tasks (writing/producting/3D/2D) and that's how I got the job.

In other words; right place at the right time.

Capt: I guess the answer to the questions is this; it is possible to get freelance work over the internet, but it's still such an early 'industry' that it's very difficult to quantify it.

Right now it would depend a lot on whether you have a skill (or range of skills) that a production company would be so keen to make use of that they wouldn't mind you not being in house.

For things like game textures that is a job where simply being able to do it well would probably be good enough (and -good- game texturers are well sort-after these days). Although something like story-boarding would be something where experience counts for a lot since it would be risky to have someone doing them 3rd party if the results weren't spot on.

A year or two back, illustration work for web pages was actually pretty lucrative, but with the recent collapse in web advertising it's probably not an option any more (apart from for the experience).

A good portfolio would likely be essential, whichever way you go. I can't imagine any circumstances where anyone would get a great commission based on the chance that they "should be able to do it". The company will need to be utterly convinced that you can do what they want. And awesome portfolio would almost bring the work to you.

Row.

[quaternius]

Thanks Sumaleth -
Winning competitions... yep they can be a great boost!
Oh yeah... the Portfolio.
I carry a nice leather-bound letter-size one with me wherever I go. It's amazing how you can end up in casual conversation in the strangest places and be able to show your stuff.
I have a bigger size portfolio I take with me to show-and-tell meetings that can be tailored to specific clients.
Web-site portfolio is a definite must; especially as a backup to the hand-carried one.
I send postcards of my latest and greatest -on a regular basis (every month or two) - that always gets some new work. ($200 for 750 6"x8" cards)
emails to prospective clients also gets work too - as well as a few "don't ever email me ever again you *&*$^#@!" responses... goes with the territory.

Unless you have agents you're nearly always in some sort of sales mode. Only 'cause if there's no money there's no eating...hehe

[edit]
hmmm... double http - how'd that happen? thanks.

[ May 21, 2001: Message edited by: quaternius ]

[Lev]

(on a side note quaternius your site link has 1 too many https )