You're known as the person with all the video gear. You have a growing reputation as
a creative type with technical know-how. So go ahead and admit it -- more than once,
you've been asked to "work for free." If you're somebody who still struggles with
making the decision of whether or not to work for free, Jessica Hische has a
handy flow-chart that will help you to make the right choice.

Check it out at Should I Work For Free? (http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html)

Wow, that about covers it, eh?

BTW, Jessica obviously has too much time on her hands to create all that, and you, Chris, have too much time on your hands to dig that up in the huge minefield that is the internets!
;-)

Hilarious...and so true.

Brilliant!

Whenever things get slow, we'll always find a good project to work for free. With only one exception, it's always led to more paying work. The time to do it is when you don't have anything else going on and when you're going to meet people who can send you paid work. One of the best moves we ever made was cutting a pilot for a film school grad who had Russell Simmon's attention. Russ didn't pick the project up so we didn't get paid, but a few months later, he had a meeting with an experienced filmmaker with a movie in the can. We wound up cutting that and it paid very well. The producers then hired us to cut three more feature length project - again, union wages. Four projects and a year of well paid work from one gratis two day edit. I enjoyed not worrying about the bills.

Again, you have to find worthwhile projects to throw in on, but they're out there.