“Exposure’ for 3 Meals a Day: A Dietary Plan for Freelancers
A Self-Employed Woman’s Guide On How To NOT Freelance For Free.

“We were told that the project has been dropped on shooting day, via text. The company wouldn’t pick up our calls and we were left stranded in our hotel at night, with nowhere to go.”
Does this experience sound familiar to you? I am going to try and make some sense out of the most misunderstood job ever — a freelancer. Stay with me till the end where I guide you through contracts (with a free template vetted by a lawyer) and kill fee.
I am an independent filmmaker and I aspire to make the most of my earnest activism through the films I make. Ever since I ventured into filmmaking I have always respected the freedom of flexible time. So, with a one-film-a-year approach, I have made a handful of films that I am very pleased with. While I am happy making my films I am very picky with commissioned projects and corporate videos. For one, it is a nightmare to go back to a corporate having said goodbye to it; I loathe how their capitalist project ideas never align with my politics. So even if my bank account sports a perennial low balance, I have preferred to keep my conscience.
But I arrived here after stumbling, falling and biting the dust. Aside from the contemptible content I have said no to, I did some freelance work for a few non-profits who ripped the very soul out of me. This NGO in particular, working for the welfare of domestic violence victims, really pushed me over the edge. Appealing to my “politics,” the CEO smooth-talked me to working for free for about two months. I had to spend my own money which I thought would be paid back. When I brought up the contract, she would make it sound like it is a trivial chore and promised to get to it eventually. Long story short, after a lot of prep work, she cut me loose and gave some bullshit answer as to why.

What I learned from this unpleasant experience is that NGO or corporate — supporting a particular cause can’t be taken for granted. It does not correlate with how they treat you — a mere vendor, an individual, a fucking freelancer. Their very intent to make the world a better place seemed suspect to me. To add to this loss of time and effort, they dared to tell me that they took a chance with me — by seeking my services despite knowing that there were some alleged restrictions.
Since then, I have never worked without a contract, nor do I get swayed by people who have tried to cash in on my feminism. It doesn’t stop at the contract though. Their lawyers will find loopholes to get out of it, no matter how ironclad you think it is. So after a lot of trial and error, I have formulated a way of going about offering my services as a freelancer; and I hope this would help all you freelancers braving it in the wild.
For design and writing, you must charge a ‘kill fee’ when projects get called off at the last minute. But it is tricky to arrive at a figure for a film because it involves a lot of people and the distribution of such a fee becomes complicated. It is also difficult to quantify creativity.
That being said, you need to be able to identify discrimination when you see it and be in a position to call it out. You are flexible, non-bureaucratic and hiring you would mean a lot less paperwork. No company can discriminate against you simply because you do not own or represent a company. If they reject you because of your individuality, you have the right to question them.

If you are being hired as a freelance filmmaker, follow these steps meticulously:
- Carefully plan and come up with the project’s invoice; use any of the free invoice software that is available in your country.
- Set up a contract and sign it as early as possible. Make sure you add a contingency fund. You can always submit invoices as you spend them, or come up with a “net amount” towards the end.
- Compulsorily add a “kill fee.” That would allow you to recover any loss if the production has been called off. Now, this is tricky but talk to your crew members in advance. Or based on the project, and the work involved, come up with a percentage of the production cost. You can even have a kill fee for every stage that a project could be scrapped. I was recently hired for a project that got shelved at an early stage of scripting. So I charged them the kill fee that I would have included in the budget as scriptwriting charges. But if it is well into production, write down terms by marking stages. I have pre, production, and post. NEVER give away original footage without getting paid.
- If tax is going to be deducted at source, make it a point to mention that in the contract and that the Form-16 (if you are in India) must be provided. It might take a short while for the Form-16 to be processed, but ensure that there is a timeline mentioned in the contract.
- Try and get everything via bank transfer and avoid cash exchange. If you do, take it in writing the amount you took as cash.
- Make transcripts of all verbal conversations and slap them on an email thread to the client. Never accept verbal agreements, no matter how trustworthy it sounds.
- Keep vouchers for when you can’t get an invoice, for example, if you hire assistants, make a voucher and get it signed by the members of your team. Do so even if you are not asked to submit.
- If you can get a lawyer to draft an elaborate contract, even if for the first time, you can alter it for your future projects. Now I know how hard it can be to do that, so I am including a free template that you can add on. You’re welcome!
- Lastly, if you are a woman, don’t let anyone make you under-quote yourself. Enough fights are being fought to break the ceiling, let’s not build on the broken ones!
Being a freelancer is the best decision I have made in my life. I can never go back to the drudgery of 9-to-5. It comes with its fair share of pros and cons, but for me, the change my films bring about in the community is way more rewarding than any cons there are.
Good luck, and I hope these points and links come handy to you. What was your biggest freelancing nightmare? How did you counter it? Write to me. I’d love to hear.

