Being Freelance

View Original

Find Your Mentor - Motion Designer Stu Denbigh

Motion Designer & Creative Editor Stu Denbigh took a step back to move forward.

Despite being a motion designer, he became a runner at a top production house so he could learn from the best.

He chats about the importance of continually improving, finding a mentor and cash-flow - all part of being freelance for 10 years.

Here’s some of the key takeaway points:

  • Sometimes you need to step back in your career to move forwards

  • The importance of referrals in getting new work

  • Even though his agreements say he’ll charge interest on fees not paid after 30 days, he’s never done it in case it harms the client relationship

  • Ask your bank for you a big overdraft to help your cash flow be less painful

  • How hard it can be fitting in to a company’s culture when you’re working on site as a freelancer

  • The challenge of re-do loops for designers

  • The benefit of working with other freelancers and learning from them by seeing how they work

  • The importance of finding a mentor, someone to pull you up a level

  • When putting together your portfolio, ditch your oldest work and show the most recent, it forces you to keep improving

More from Stu

Stu on LinkedIn

Stu's site

Useful Links

Video CoPilot

Film and TV Pro

Mandy's Film and TV Production Resources

Dazzle Ship

"How to be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy

See this content in the original post