**The Boom and Bust Life of a Freelancer**

As I reflect on my experience as a freelancer, I can confidently say that it's not for the faint of heart. It's a boom and bust life, where one month you're swimming in clients and projects, and the next, you're struggling to make ends meet. This unpredictability can be stressful, especially when rent is due and there are no guarantees that the next paycheck will arrive on time.

When I first started freelancing, I realized that having a job was not just about getting paid for my work, but also about finding purpose and fulfillment. So, I treated unemployment or lack of work as a specific kind of job, where I would spend hours every day looking for new projects or clients to execute. I would call up old colleagues, have lunch with friends in the industry, and explore other fields that could be useful to me.

**Diversifying Skills**

One of my most successful ventures was window design. It turned out that this niche required my skills, and I was able to make a living from it. Another area I explored was toy prototype construction, which proved to be very lucrative. Toy companies often want to create prototypes that are indistinguishable from production pieces, and these projects could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

**Trade Show Design**

I also made a living designing trade show booths for companies attending Toy Fair in New York City. This experience taught me the importance of creating immersive experiences for audiences. One notable project involved designing an elaborate stage set for a toy company, which required my skills as a designer and builder.

**Creative Problem-Solving**

Another valuable skill I developed was creative problem-solving. When working on projects like these, I had to think outside the box to come up with innovative solutions that met clients' needs. This experience taught me the value of staying adaptable and open-minded in the face of challenges.

**Networking and Informational Interviews**

I've found that networking and informational interviews are crucial for finding new opportunities. When considering a new industry or field, it's essential to reach out to people who can offer valuable insights and advice. I once called up a company in Las Vegas that specialized in stage illusions, and we had a 15-minute conversation about their work. This encounter was incredibly informative and helped me understand the inner workings of the entertainment industry.

**Working with MythBusters**

Later on, while working on MythBusters, I realized the importance of connecting with people who have diverse expertise. While experts in specific areas are valuable, they often lack context for how that knowledge fits into broader fields. By talking to people from different backgrounds and industries, I was able to gain a more nuanced understanding of my work and make connections that might not have been apparent otherwise.

**Testing Membership**

If you're as sick of the ups and downs of freelancing as I am, there's good news! There are three tiers to Tested membership, each offering exclusive content and perks. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, Tested has something for everyone. To learn more about their membership options and what they have to offer, click the link below.

**Conclusion**

As a freelancer, I've learned that there's no substitute for hard work, creativity, and adaptability. With a strong network of contacts, diverse skill set, and willingness to take risks, you can navigate even the most turbulent periods of your career. And if all else fails, there are resources like Tested membership to help keep you going.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enah interesting all right Norma Wright asks a really interesting question on the feed here uh are you able to separate yourself from what happens to your products after they leave home I find myself still emotionally attached and am hurt when they are mistreated interesting yeah I totally feel you um I talk a few weeks ago on this channel on the live stream about uh how vulnerable we make ourselves how how our work passing out of our hands is a moment of vulnerability I think that's the ultimate thing that I wanted to communicate back then and now um but what happens to your products okay so there's a couple of things about products um I I had this old girlfriend who was really uh scared about painting something she was a painter and then selling a painting and then seeing it at a garage sale like years later like to her that was that was her vision of hitting bottom as an artist and I'm not I don't think I have that um to be fair I have found some of my father's old paintings on eBay for 25 bucks and 150 bucks and stuff like that I've bought several um and to me if I I if I was if I was able to go on eBay and find some old piece of mind that someone was selling and it had clearly been mistreated the seeing of it would be like welcome home that that to me would be my prevailing feeling it and it look all of this is what you're asking is kind of the Serenity Prayer right you you you can't control that stuff after it leaves and um that is easier and harder depending on the thing uh you know it's still it's still difficult to me I still want to uh uh uh guide and affect the trajectory of my kids at times uh and I have no you know they're 25 they're adult human beings um yeah that look I I I go both ways on this because Tom saaks is always talking about how you know making his work is like me making a Blade Runner Blaster and selling it and I'm like I could never sell that thing I spent so much time on it and he's like that's exactly the point and I that that's why I will not I am not that kind of artist that is not the kind of that's that's a little too intense in terms of letting my stuff go uh I much prefer in the transferring of my stuff I much prefer trading uh uh and I do a lot of Trades with people over the years I've got a lot of pieces that I've traded for and I love trading stuff away uh frankly I love giving stuff away um and if I trade something away yeah I really Let It Go I mean yeah I don't think I had any sort of real answer to your question and I apologize um Norma but it's a complex little area there that letting your stuff go s ipx asks is there one prop that you did let go and regret is there one prop I did let go and regret yeah yeah um when the Matrix sequels came out I was mildly disappointed I worked on them I worked on them for a long time with a lot of amazing people they were a super fun movie a pair of movies to work on the wowski are so important and so insanely creative and so Innovative um they're just my heroes they are my heroes and to have been able to spend time working in their art Department with uh production designer Owen Patterson uh was just such a treat Davis and I spent more than a year in an office fixing a laser cutter every other day um but one prop That Got Away uh uh uh no I don't have one that I did let go and regret now um all right let's see here I've got oh this is great Lee Marsh hi Lee asks uh as a model maker how did you mentally prepare for the next job when you would not know where what it might be um I was I was heavily free I was freelanced entirely from 19 1990 until 1997 I took a job with a toy company for a year and a half and then I was freelance again from mid 1998 all the way until uh then I worked at ilm uh and ilm wasn't a job that was freelance it was a Union Gig but you know it's job by job so I was freelanc all the way until MythBusters arrived um and so look freelance is boom and bust life it's a boom and bust life it's not for the faint of heart it uh it can be really stressful and it was uh because it doesn't matter that You' got rent paid this month what's going to happen in three months Etc um so I very specifically by the time I was living here in the mission which was like uh 94 I treated being out of work or not having any work as a specific kind of job so if I didn't have something to execute if I didn't have something to execute for a client I would spend a couple of hours of every single day excuse me excuse me I don't know why I'm coughing a bit um I would spend a couple of hours of every single day trying to drum up work I would call Old colleagues I had worked for in the past to check in uh I would have a lunch with Jamie heinerman at M5 once a year just to sort of see what was going on and catch up um and I I would also think about other industries that would be useful to me or that I could be useful for um specifically uh window window design turned out to be something that uh requires my skills uh I've went through all sorts of different ones obviously theater uh Toy design and specifically toy prototype construction is a very lucrative model making Niche um because uh toy companies often want to take a toy that is not in production to a trade show and they want something that looks exactly like a production piece um that is a very very high level of model making prow and those prototypes can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars um there were these uh spinny flying toys called flower fairies I think um and J I remember Jamie made an elaborate spinning based flower fairy launching platform for the toy company and that was tens of thousands of dollars for that for that toy prototype um Trade Fair Booth design I made a living for a couple of years making uh trade show booths for companies going to Toy Fair uh interior stage and set design I designed a home of the future for a an internet magazine back in the mid 90s uh it's like there's no Avenue I'm not trying to look down magic effects I actually once called uh a company in Vegas that made stage Illusions and I sent them a resume and asked if I could chat with someone on the phone and they gave me a call um this is actually a great thing to do is to call an industry that you're thinking about working in and reaching out and saying Hey listen I'm wondering if I can bend your ear for 15 15 minutes for informational interview about the industry I have this kind of skill set and I'm thinking about applying um let me know and if someone's willing to take that call they're going to have useful information for you um I can't remember who told me to do that it might have been my friend Bob zakaran he said just call someone you want to work for and say I want an informational interview and I did this with Ideo back in the in the late late 90s probably 99 or 2000 during some downtime at ilm um and you know I had gotten to ilm I I felt like I I felt a little uh you know felt I could reach the place so I called up Ido and I was like could I have an informational interview and just talk to you guys about how you do your hiring and they were fabulous I did I talked to two of their people for 30 minutes um and got a wonderful overview of how they think about hiring and they had this great metric where they thought about uh hiring what they called mushroom people if I remember correctly that person with a strong foundation and the thing that they like to do but a wide range of interests at a high level uh in other things um and by the same token later on while making MythBusters I found the same people were the most useful to us when we were calling around for experts often the world's expert who's the expert only in the thing you want to talk about is often not the person who's going to have the most information for you you want to talk to the person who knows how that thing fits into other stuff and oftentimes like the the the the most important expert is only like so focused on this thing they don't know how it fits into other stuff I don't know another way to say that I I think there's a better way to to get that across um thank you for watching that video are you as sick of the tosses to membership as I am good because here's a brand new one that I recorded today and it's nice and short there are three tiers to tested membership and they all offer awesome stuff find out about it by clicking the join link below we'll see you thereah interesting all right Norma Wright asks a really interesting question on the feed here uh are you able to separate yourself from what happens to your products after they leave home I find myself still emotionally attached and am hurt when they are mistreated interesting yeah I totally feel you um I talk a few weeks ago on this channel on the live stream about uh how vulnerable we make ourselves how how our work passing out of our hands is a moment of vulnerability I think that's the ultimate thing that I wanted to communicate back then and now um but what happens to your products okay so there's a couple of things about products um I I had this old girlfriend who was really uh scared about painting something she was a painter and then selling a painting and then seeing it at a garage sale like years later like to her that was that was her vision of hitting bottom as an artist and I'm not I don't think I have that um to be fair I have found some of my father's old paintings on eBay for 25 bucks and 150 bucks and stuff like that I've bought several um and to me if I I if I was if I was able to go on eBay and find some old piece of mind that someone was selling and it had clearly been mistreated the seeing of it would be like welcome home that that to me would be my prevailing feeling it and it look all of this is what you're asking is kind of the Serenity Prayer right you you you can't control that stuff after it leaves and um that is easier and harder depending on the thing uh you know it's still it's still difficult to me I still want to uh uh uh guide and affect the trajectory of my kids at times uh and I have no you know they're 25 they're adult human beings um yeah that look I I I go both ways on this because Tom saaks is always talking about how you know making his work is like me making a Blade Runner Blaster and selling it and I'm like I could never sell that thing I spent so much time on it and he's like that's exactly the point and I that that's why I will not I am not that kind of artist that is not the kind of that's that's a little too intense in terms of letting my stuff go uh I much prefer in the transferring of my stuff I much prefer trading uh uh and I do a lot of Trades with people over the years I've got a lot of pieces that I've traded for and I love trading stuff away uh frankly I love giving stuff away um and if I trade something away yeah I really Let It Go I mean yeah I don't think I had any sort of real answer to your question and I apologize um Norma but it's a complex little area there that letting your stuff go s ipx asks is there one prop that you did let go and regret is there one prop I did let go and regret yeah yeah um when the Matrix sequels came out I was mildly disappointed I worked on them I worked on them for a long time with a lot of amazing people they were a super fun movie a pair of movies to work on the wowski are so important and so insanely creative and so Innovative um they're just my heroes they are my heroes and to have been able to spend time working in their art Department with uh production designer Owen Patterson uh was just such a treat Davis and I spent more than a year in an office fixing a laser cutter every other day um but one prop That Got Away uh uh uh no I don't have one that I did let go and regret now um all right let's see here I've got oh this is great Lee Marsh hi Lee asks uh as a model maker how did you mentally prepare for the next job when you would not know where what it might be um I was I was heavily free I was freelanced entirely from 19 1990 until 1997 I took a job with a toy company for a year and a half and then I was freelance again from mid 1998 all the way until uh then I worked at ilm uh and ilm wasn't a job that was freelance it was a Union Gig but you know it's job by job so I was freelanc all the way until MythBusters arrived um and so look freelance is boom and bust life it's a boom and bust life it's not for the faint of heart it uh it can be really stressful and it was uh because it doesn't matter that You' got rent paid this month what's going to happen in three months Etc um so I very specifically by the time I was living here in the mission which was like uh 94 I treated being out of work or not having any work as a specific kind of job so if I didn't have something to execute if I didn't have something to execute for a client I would spend a couple of hours of every single day excuse me excuse me I don't know why I'm coughing a bit um I would spend a couple of hours of every single day trying to drum up work I would call Old colleagues I had worked for in the past to check in uh I would have a lunch with Jamie heinerman at M5 once a year just to sort of see what was going on and catch up um and I I would also think about other industries that would be useful to me or that I could be useful for um specifically uh window window design turned out to be something that uh requires my skills uh I've went through all sorts of different ones obviously theater uh Toy design and specifically toy prototype construction is a very lucrative model making Niche um because uh toy companies often want to take a toy that is not in production to a trade show and they want something that looks exactly like a production piece um that is a very very high level of model making prow and those prototypes can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars um there were these uh spinny flying toys called flower fairies I think um and J I remember Jamie made an elaborate spinning based flower fairy launching platform for the toy company and that was tens of thousands of dollars for that for that toy prototype um Trade Fair Booth design I made a living for a couple of years making uh trade show booths for companies going to Toy Fair uh interior stage and set design I designed a home of the future for a an internet magazine back in the mid 90s uh it's like there's no Avenue I'm not trying to look down magic effects I actually once called uh a company in Vegas that made stage Illusions and I sent them a resume and asked if I could chat with someone on the phone and they gave me a call um this is actually a great thing to do is to call an industry that you're thinking about working in and reaching out and saying Hey listen I'm wondering if I can bend your ear for 15 15 minutes for informational interview about the industry I have this kind of skill set and I'm thinking about applying um let me know and if someone's willing to take that call they're going to have useful information for you um I can't remember who told me to do that it might have been my friend Bob zakaran he said just call someone you want to work for and say I want an informational interview and I did this with Ideo back in the in the late late 90s probably 99 or 2000 during some downtime at ilm um and you know I had gotten to ilm I I felt like I I felt a little uh you know felt I could reach the place so I called up Ido and I was like could I have an informational interview and just talk to you guys about how you do your hiring and they were fabulous I did I talked to two of their people for 30 minutes um and got a wonderful overview of how they think about hiring and they had this great metric where they thought about uh hiring what they called mushroom people if I remember correctly that person with a strong foundation and the thing that they like to do but a wide range of interests at a high level uh in other things um and by the same token later on while making MythBusters I found the same people were the most useful to us when we were calling around for experts often the world's expert who's the expert only in the thing you want to talk about is often not the person who's going to have the most information for you you want to talk to the person who knows how that thing fits into other stuff and oftentimes like the the the the most important expert is only like so focused on this thing they don't know how it fits into other stuff I don't know another way to say that I I think there's a better way to to get that across um thank you for watching that video are you as sick of the tosses to membership as I am good because here's a brand new one that I recorded today and it's nice and short there are three tiers to tested membership and they all offer awesome stuff find out about it by clicking the join link below we'll see you there\n"