In my old life in the film industry, we all worked for free; on short films, music videos or low-budget features. It’s how we gained experience and credits on our CV, as well as supported our fellow filmmakers on projects we cared about. I’ve done my fair share of free stuff over the years, but there comes a point when you just have to say “No” - my time and contribution has value, no more freebies!
So I was pleasantly surprised when I joined Rabid and found out they had a policy of 20% time projects as part of the working week. At Rabid, this generally happens on a Friday. It’s when we can choose what we’d like to work on; perhaps some training or professional development, our own project, a startup or that really good idea we’ve had for a while and we want to see if it flies, or not. It creates a bit of space where clients know we are not available to give us time free of other commitments to control our own priorities.
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