There are a number of factors why producers choose to strike out on their own and live the freelance life. Likewise, there are myriad reasons an agency would elect to tap this skilled and transient workforce. Here we speak with seven leading freelance agency producers about why the self-directed life is so appealing, the struggles an independent producer faces and how the changing face of the agency landscape is creating such an appetite for their services.

Participants:
Steve Neely: Ex-head of broadcast of FCB, San Francisco; freelance for under two years and based in San Francisco. Currently shooting BMW in Berlin.
Johnny Chambers:Recent agency clients include Grip Limited, Bensimon Byrne and Downtown Partners; freelance for nine years and based in Toronto. Highlights include Bud Light Institute "Ulterior Emotions".
Leticia Jacobs:Recent agency clients include Crispin Porter + Bogusky, The Martin Agency and Fallon NY; freelance for four years, New York based. Highlights include VW, Burger King, MINI and Virgin Mobile.
Blythe Barger: Recent agency clients include Berlin Cameron United, Sugartown Creative and TBWA\Chiat\Day, SF; freelance for six years and based in New York.
Kevin Diller: Was on staff at Wieden + Kennedy, Portland for 10 years before going freelance in 2000; based in Portland. Highlights include work for Nike, Fox Sports NBA campaign ("Utah") and his six-month old daughter.
Erika Best: Recent agency clients include Amalgamated, Anomaly, Fallon NY and Berlin Cameron United; New York based. Highlights include Dasani with Wes Anderson and Virgin Mobile with Kuntz & Maguire.

Jill Andresevic: Recent agency clients include TBWA\Chiat\Day, Modernista!; worked on staff at TBWA\Chiat\Day, SF and Wieden + Kennedy New York before going freelance six years ago; New York based. Highlights include the launch of PlayStation2 and Hummer.

How did each of you come to the decision to freelance produce?
Steve Neely: I ran the department at FCB for a long time - around 27 years. I got into freelance because they wanted me to move to New York a couple of years ago and I didn't want to, so that ended that. I'm at the point where, if I can make it work, I don't want to work 12 months a year.

Johnny Chambers: Like Steve, I had an agency background and had been producing for about 18 years when I decided to make the move. For me it was more about the breadth of the clientele that we were limited to. I knew I could do so much more but I felt frustrated in the fact that there wasn't anywhere for me to go.

Erika Best: I was working at Hill Holiday in New York. It was my first job out of college so I learned everything there; I was there for nine years. Things were slowing down and one of our clients was going in-house and they wanted me to freelance for them. I took the jump and decided to leave the agency. I tend to, when I work, permalance at a couple of different places.

Kevin Diller: I was on staff at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland for almost 10 years. For me the quick version was that I was looking to take a bit more time off. That was the theory anyway. But when you keep getting offered jobs it's hard to turn them down and carve out that time off.

Blythe Barger: I had been on the agency side and then went to the production side, which opened my eyes to this world of freelancers in production. I missed the agency world, because I missed having my hand in all aspects of production. After that, I didn't want to go back to in-house.

When you made the transition from desk job to freelance did you have a moment where you felt at odds or out of place?
Johnny: The transition for me was great. The time off in between gave me a chance to get refreshed and get out there and talk to people without feeling like someone's watching over my shoulder. I think the management of time is at first a little shocking. But once you're on your own it's amazing how liberating it is to manage your own time.

Do you feel as though you have to worry about scheduling?
Erika: I think you do. Even though you're consistently busy and you get calls, there's always those couple of days in between where you get nervous. There's always that little bit of insecurity that you feel. But in order to freelance, you just have to ignore it.

Blythe: I have to say, it's worked out really well now, but at first I was a bit like, 'Oh no, I've made a horrible mistake. Here I thought I was breaking out and instead I'm retiring'. Sometimes when the phone doesn't ring you can feel like the girl with no date. It was definitely nerve-wracking at first but I'm really glad I made that leap and stuck with it.

Steve: The only potential downside I've seen in the freelance world is when you're ready to work you may or may not be able to. But the other side is enormous - you can actually say you're not going to work.

Johnny: I think the more you freelance, the more secure you feel in what you do. What I would worry about is not so much the relationships I've made with people over time, it's with clients moving from one agency to another. That's generally where you might face a bit of a challenge, because once you get in with a certain agency, they tend to swallow you up. So sometimes it's tough; when clients move place to place you're not always as welcome in the new [agency].

Who are you making relationships with, the clients or the agencies?
Johnny: I've experienced much more one-on-one with clients than I ever did in my previous relationships with them. Most time is spent with the creative people but I think that the exposure to clients...those are the relationships that you build. It's great because in the agency hierarchy, when you're there full time there are rules and layers you have to go through. When you're freelance it's a little bit easier for you to walk into the creative director's office and not feel quite as restricted.

Why is that?
Johnny: I think it's just a confidence level. When you're an internal employee there's often a certain protocol in terms of how things get done. In my experience as a freelancer, your only concern is to get the job done and not have to worry about if people like each other or not.

But if you're permalance or if you're trying to get repeat work from an agency, how are you able to stay outside of the politics?
Steve: Well, you're on one job, not a multitude of things, so that's helpful. And like anything, if you do a great job, you'll get asked back. It is that simple. That said, you have to come in and gain the trust of a ton of people; if you don't get to know them really quickly, that can be a challenge because they're counting on you to bring quite a bit to the table.

Do you ever feel as though the people within the agency feel threatened by the presence of a freelance producer?
Johnny: I would think only in the situation where they may not have enough senior people in the agency and there are juniors or an intermediate who really wanted to get on that particular project. I've never personally experienced it. I can see it happening though because I think in the traditional agency world there are certain layers and everyone's vying for the best jobs - that's what drives us to do what we do.

Steve: I think it depends on the agency itself. If the agency's got six to eight producers and they have to bring a freelancer in, it could be looked at as 'Oh, I have to work with the freelancer'. If it's an agency that's set up with very few producers and they operate in the freelance world big-time, there's less likelihood of that.

Kevin: I've only had the opposite experience, where people are happy to have me there, primarily because you're a new resource and have a new perspective on things and a different view on directors.

Leticia Jacobs: I agree. I feel it's more like a breath of fresh air when we come in.

Steve: We're just warm bodies...

I've heard that sometimes it's not obvious when there's a freelance producer on a job...
Steve: That should be the way it is. As far as they're concerned, that producer is representing that agency for that piece of business, end of story.

Johnny: The reason for that is that you become a team player so fast, and you really do know who you're working for. Often people say, 'You're a freelancer. Are you more aware of production concerns than when you were on the agency side?' In other words, do you feel as responsible to the film companies or the post companies as you do to the agency? The answer is absolutely not. I don't think there's any question that as a good freelancer you're always 100% in your agency/client camp.

Are you able to ask for more from a vendor than you could if you were in an agency?
Kevin: Absolutely. For me, that's one of the main things I can bring as a freelancer. If I go work at a small agency, I've got relationships that were built over the years when I was working at a big agency. I can call on vendors for a favor, and they often do things they wouldn't have done for an agency.

Who needs freelance resources these days? Is it any one type of agency?
Erika: I think that smaller agencies don't usually have a producer on staff and they often can't afford it or maybe they're not busy enough. Definitely for me, the smaller ones have kept me busy.

What about large agencies?
Steve: GSD&M. They have 600 to 700 people and they probably have 10 to 20 freelance producers at once.

Leticia: I think a lot of that depends on location. I work with Crispin in Miami a lot; sometimes they need someone to come in when they don't have enough bodies to cover the work. I think it's sometimes hard to get people to move to those locations.

Steve: When I ran a department, I didn't like freelance at all. We had a big enough staff and enough work, so it's just easier that way because invariably something comes up later and no one would know anything about it and the producer was onto the next deal.

That's ironic. How much of a commitment do you all feel to a job once it's done?
Steve: Yeah, that's a weird one. It depends on what kind of staff the agency has. I worked at a very tiny place for five months at the end of last year and I got 57 phone calls from them after I was done because of little things that popped up. I tried to help them as much as I could while ultimately saying, 'You guys, you're going to have to figure this out.' With [larger agencies] there are other people there, so once a job is finished there's someone to deal with it.

Blythe: I would actually say that's an issue. Sometimes at small agencies I'm the broadcast department and have to be accountable for ongoing talent issues and things. That's a little tricky because you are responsible for the job you've produced but you could already be on another job.

Johnny: It's all about how well the job's wrapped. If you have a system in place whereby you can wrap it up properly with all the critical information... It's part of the gig as well, especially if you have a good relationship with smaller agencies; you want to be a team and help them as much as you can.

It seems that an agency that puts themselves at your mercy is more vulnerable.
Steve: They don't have a choice, especially if they're small - they just need the help.

Johnny: I wouldn't say they're vulnerable because I think they know you're there.

Jill Andresevic: I've always found that whenever you do a great wrap, they usually don't have that many calls.

What's your perspective on the general state of production departments?
Jill: I think everyone is running lean and mean. Truthfully, the only reason anyone hires a freelancer is because they need someone to step in and do a project they don't have the staffing for.

Steve: I think you're right but a lot of agencies have cut back. The whole business has changed dramatically in the last half dozen years or so. Leaner is a kind word. Tons of places have been trimming back and adding freelancers.

Do you think the trend will continue?
Steve: Yeah, I do.

Is that a good thing?

Steve: It's good for me [laughs]. Put it this way, if there's a large freelance pool of really good people to draw from, you can use it to your advantage. Whether it's good from head of production's point of view...

What was it like when you were on the other side of the coin?
Steve: It was horrible. We went from 14 producers to three from when I left. It was three rounds of telling your friends you can't work here anymore. It was a nightmare.

Johnny: For people who are permanent employees, I don't think there's anything worse than having to be laid off. But for producers in general I think [this trend] is great. It's not so good for producers who aren't very good. But those who love what they do and are confident, they'll do well.

How intense is the job as a freelancer?
Jill: It's more intense. You're hired by the day to deliver, and you're only as good as your last project. You have to deliver on time and on budget and they should be great. Otherwise you're not going to survive.

Leticia: I agree. It's how you survive. You have to care about the work in order to be successful at it.

Blythe: It can be like you have something to prove, like you have to kind of justify your day rate every day as opposed to someone who's on staff.

Based on that, you could extrapolate that more freelancers could be positive for the industry, because there'd be no room for anyone to hide within a department.
Steve: That's pretty true, as long as you're not one of the few agencies that brings in a freelancer that screws it up.

Johnny: Whereas if you're at an agency and you fuck up a few jobs, you might be able to survive without too much trouble. But if you make one serious error as a freelancer, you're pretty quick to know about it.

OK, last question. What in your mind makes a good producer and what makes a bad producer?
Leticia: A bad producer doesn't listen.

Steve: What?

Leticia: If you don't listen, you can't be a good producer. It's about visualizing what people want and helping execute that.

Jill: I think that really good producers try to communicate and make sure all the information is flowing properly as opposed to trying to control things. We can only make sure that everyone understands the situation, and then we can guide it.

Blythe: Being a good producer is doing whatever the job takes. In every job it's different. You just have to take your ego out of the equation, because there are so many other egos involved, and do what it takes to get the best quality possible.

Steve: I think a good producer looks at the big picture and not just the 10 things he or she has to do. For a communications business, it's amazing how poor the communication can be within an agency. The best producers have an excessive load of great taste, great tact, great judgment and great intuition.

Johnny: I think every producer should know how to count [laughs].