Hi Stephen,
I took no offense at your post. I would respectfully disagree with you though - and so would John Williams by the way. At the level that most people are at on this board, working for free is a matter of building relationships. In the long term that can be more lucrative than the limited dollars you might make from an indie filmmaker for a low budget project.
Case and point: I had a friend in college who was a film major. I met him because we both played in the college symphonic band together. He went looking for someone to score a student film he produced. All my friends wanted him to pay them. I, in turn, asked him how much he would charge me for the opportunity!
A few years later, he did a film starring well known actors Tippi Hedren and Troy Donahue. He called me and provided me an opportunity to score the film. The main theme won best theme at the Milan Italy Film Festival that year. And, it all started by doing something for free.
My basic position with indie filmmakers is - if your project makes money, I expect to receive a "share" of the profits. If it doesn't, then no harm done to anyone and we've all learned something from our experience and built new relationships for future projects.
By the way, as I mentioned earlier, I heard an interview with John Williams about a year or two ago. He was asked, "what do you recommend for musicians who aspire to score films?" He generally responded by saying to build relationships with filmmakers so that you can grow with their success. At the "indie" level, I don't think there could be any better advice. In fact, despite my paying projects, I recently offered to do the score for a junior high kid's student film. Although he never completed it, I would have gladly scored it.
While I respect your position (the same thing they told me to do in college) I have chosen to adopt a different strategy that has served me well. Sure, our work is worth pay. In fact, so is the work of the cast and crew on an indie. But free work can be an excellent "investment" for the potential future opportunity to work in larger budget projects.
Regards,
Hutch DeLoach
www.digitalsoundtracks.com