Freelance FAQs

A freelance employee or independent contractor is one “who follows an independent trade, business, or profession in which they offer their services to the public.” It is also one who can determine his or her own schedule and the work that he or she does. “The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the person for whom the services are performed have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.” (Source)

We screen our freelancers to identify like-minded goals, ambitions, work-ethic and service to our clientele. It is important to us to have a high level of trust between ourselves and our freelancers.

Everyone who applies with MovingImagesNW is eligible for a position with us. Once a potential videographer has completed our screening process and we feel comfortable and sure that they will fit in well with our team, we place their name and email on our “availability list” and will notify you of any future video shoots requiring additional videographers. These events may be weeks apart and may be one to four days long.

We notify all of our videographers on our availability list via email of up and coming video shoots and videographer requirements. It is your privilege to accept or turn down any particular shoot or any specific date. We appreciate notification if the you are not interested and will respect your desires by not re-asking your to work that particular event. At any time our videographers are welcome to browse our website calendar to see our upcoming events and can request to work a specific shoot ahead of time.

After we send out the mass notification email, we schedule people on a first-come, first-served basis. The people who respond the quickest get first pick on dates/events they would like to work. Since we schedule our videographers in this fashion, you will need an email address that you check frequently if you would like to get first pick on our video shoots. We will always confirm with our team regarding specific dates/times they have been assigned and expect our videographers to honor their commitment and have the courtesy to notify us as soon as possible should a change of plans take place.

All freelance videographers are paid a daily rate and at the conclusion of each video project that they have been scheduled to work. Wages depend on quality of work as well as if equipment was provided or not. Taxes are not withheld, and it is the videographer’s responsibility as an Independent Contractor to fill out necessary tax forms at the end of the year. Since we average one to four days for each video shoot and three to ten projects per month, one should not expect this position to be a full-time, bill-paying job! Videographers may be issued a bonus check for above average to excellent video submitted for editing. Editors' pay is determined by the contract for a given project.

We do all of our editing in our home office in Rochester, WA. Any trusted videographer who shows an interest and/or desire to edit is welcome to learn the process but must be willing to travel to our office to do the work. Once they are comfortable with the software (we use Adobe Premiere Pro), they are free to come when their schedule permits. Anyone interested can add “editor” to their list of skills!

No. We do not compensate for gas or mileage. However, if an Independent Contractor keeps track of their mileage to and from video shoot, they can declare this as a business tax deduction on the appropriate tax forms. Prearranged gas stipends may be issued if the driver of a “car pool” lives more than 100 miles one way from a video shoot. If a videographer is scheduled to work at a shoot requiring an overnight stay, lodging will be provided and paid for by MovingImagesNW.