We all know COVID-19 has wreaked havoc the U.S. economy, so with all of that madness and uncertainty, what does that mean for the photographer & videographers out there? How have creative artists and freelancers fared? How are they adjusting and what are they doing to get through this crisis?
Nicholas Chee, an executive producer in Singapore, told Vice, “The freelance industry is unique because the projects we are involved in are very visible. But the people behind them? We are very invisible.”
[Related Reading: These Companies Are Helping Photographers During The Coronavirus Crisis]
With all of this confusion, Soundstripe decided to find out how you’re doing because they want to give your stories the attention they deserve. They surveyed over 320 freelance videographers and agency creatives to ask them a few questions about how they’re dealing with and adapting to this historic challenge. In this new report, Soundstripe gathered what appears to be some pretty bleak information…
Here are a few highlights from the report:
- Over half of respondents have lost 76% or more of projects scheduled for the next three months
- 50% said COVID-19 has created some setbacks, but they haven’t laid people off yet
- 24% said the pandemic has caused them to shut down their business
[Related Reading: 5 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Slideshow Music]
But, there’s still reason for hope! Just because the results were definitely not great, there were also stories of hope and inspiration among those surveyed. There are people shifting their business to adapt to the current situation, finding new ways to create revenue streams and stay afloat, some even thriving in the lockdown. There will be a lot of training and enhancing your skillsets under the quarantine via practice and tutorials, as well as taking this forced downtime to focus on the ever so exciting “business” side of things to get better prepared for when we come out of the lockdown. Basically, there’s a lot of potential along with the scary from this.
For the full report and all the details, be sure to head over to Soundstripe’s blog here to read everything, including the list of resources just for creatives to help out. These range from new projects to keep your skills sharp or grants and other types of aid you can apply for if you need financial assistance.
