"If in our earliest issues we valorized filmmakers recklessly putting their production budgets on their credit cards, Robinson in a 2009 series on filmmakers and their second jobs preached the necessity of a good side hustle, convincing filmmakers such as Barry Jenkins, Tze Chun, Joe Swanberg and Liza Johnson to reveal the wage labor they undertook before their entertainment industry careers took off."
"'If you don't crave risk on some level, then you're likely not a filmmaker,' she wrote. 'We can't let go of risk. Without it our movies won't get made, and if they do, they won't have what makes our best movies sing. But we must also make sure that the thrill of the impossible doesn't also sink us financially. And frankly, there's no way for us purely independent filmmakers to know what to financially count on from our movies right now.'"
Esther Robinson served as Film/Video Program Director at Creative Capital and produced the documentary A Walk Into the Sea about Danny Lyons. She contributed interviews and columns addressing artists' economic realities, including a 2009 series revealing filmmakers' second jobs and wage labor by figures such as Barry Jenkins, Tze Chun, Joe Swanberg, and Liza Johnson. After the 2008 financial crisis she published the 'Big Art/Little Debt' plan, urging filmmakers to balance risk and financial prudence. She proposed three commandments: make meaningful work, manage personal finances, and stay within financial limits. Her message has grown more relevant over fifteen years.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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