News Article: the treacherous world of freelancing in the arts and creative industries [edited 17/01/2010]

To read this article in our local paper or read it here.

Survivor: Singapore Freelancer

Welcome to the treacherous world of freelancing in the arts and creative industries

FOR the past four years, Oon Shu An has been making a career out of being a juggler.

Not with ping pong balls, clubs or knives, mind you, but acting roles.

The 23-year-old recent graduate from LASALLE has played a wannabe film director's muse in Becoming Royston and Cordelia in the post-modern Shakespeare piece The King Lear Project. She's also popped up on your TV screens in commercials for Mocca, Starhub and Maybank, among others.

But as she continues her impressive juggling act (sometimes handling four to five acting projects at a single time), the freelance actor's most important role right now is that of taking part in the reality contest we've dubbed Survivor: Singapore Freelancer.

In the country's newest boom sector, the arts and creative industries, Shu An is one of roughly 29,000 freelance talents (both artists and non-artists) jostling for attention. And it's a lot tougher, less glamorous, and more confusing than an actual reality show.

FISHY FINDINGS

Recently, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts RAdm (NS) Lui Tuck Yew highlighted a 2007 MICA-commissioned study on freelancers.

It was shown that freelancers make up around a third of the manpower in the arts, design and media sectors.

What's even more revealing were the kinds of woes this sizeable portion of the industry were facing: Not being paid on time (68.2%), being paid inadequately (62.3%), lack of benefits (59.8%) and vague industry price benchmarks (54.5%).

These well-known but rarely discussed findings have prompted a grassroots look into the problems that Singapore's freelancers - from TV actors and theatre folks to writers and visual artists - face.

Nominated Member of Parliament and The Substation's former artistic co-director Audrey Wong has teamed up with online network Arts Engage and Six Degrees, a community for independent members of the creative industries, to hold roundtable discussions to tackle this issue.

According to Wong, horror stories of artists not getting paid and other forms of exploitation are nothing new (just check the occasional rant or warning on the Artscommunity online group). But most of the time it just ends at ranting - with no solution in sight. Which is a problem.

REAL-LIFE HORROR TALES

"There are going to be more and more people who will choose to (freelance) as a job option. They will be writing, acting, crewing, producing full-time as the creative industries grow," said Wong.

Right now, the semi-regular monthly discussions Wong is having with Arts Engage and Six Degrees concentrate on fact-finding. And the "horror stories" that make up what may seem like dull statistics to many are coming out.

Shu An, who's been attending the meetings, may be one of the luckier ones. But she has friends who have gotten the short end of the stick - like one who took on a TV commercial gig where he was supposed to go rollerblading, except that they didn't tell him until the day itself that he was supposed to have an "accident".

Her friend wasn't a pro and there wasn't any medical insurance provided. Luckily, nothing happened.

Gregory (not his real name) was not so lucky. The former part-time actor or calefare for comedies and "re-enactment" scenes for local TV once had to do a fight scene and got hit in the face by a 2x4 wooden plank. They didn't have a fight choreographer.

Freelance writer Yu-Mei Balasingamchow has been at it for four years (and recently co-authored The Singapore Biography).

She's also heard stories of fellow writers who, after finishing a project, called up the commissioning company only to discover they've "lost" their invoice six months later or worse, disappeared off the radar completely.

Yu-Mei knows people who "chase for a small sum of money for one to three years". As for herself? It once took her an entire year to get paid $200 for a small writing job.

MAKING THE GRADE

All this isn't new, of course. Theatre veteran Yeo Hon Beng has been around for 13 years and he confirmed that most problems these freelancers face revolve around payment - whether it's delayed or reduced without discussion. Plus, fees haven't changed in 13 years.

"When I started, lighting design can go for $800. Right now, there are still people who approach you for $800 - with 13 years of experience. It's ridiculous," he said.

Meanwhile, when Gregory started acting in 2003 as a "Grade D" actor, he remembered getting "20-over dollars" for a full-day shoot, where he also had to pay for his own meals.

He eventually progressed up the ladder until he was a "Grade A" actor getting $80 a day. But he reckoned the fee system is "stagnant".

"I'm pretty sure it's still more or less the same, although it may have been upped a bit," he said.

MediaCorp's Ann Kwok, director for casting in Chinese Drama, however clarified that freelancers "are not placed in any job grades". Kwok declined to give the official job rates.

As for other issues like insurance, MediaCorp vice-president for human resources Yvonne Ee pointed out via email that freelancers are "covered under our third party insurance for injury on site (terms and conditions apply)".

RIPE FOR EXPLOITATION?

A workforce sector as flourishing and chaotic as this can be ripe for, at the very least, neglect. At worst, exploitation.

Wong and the folks behind the freelance roundtables think it's time for rules and guidelines to be set in place for, among others, issues of contracts (er, what's that?), payments (wait a mint ... am I being shortchanged?) to legal recourse or advice (you mean I can actually go to the Small Claims Court?).

Likewise, it's also time for freelancers to see their collective worth as productive members of society - and insist on it.

Aside from a lack of awareness of the presence of a Small Claims Court, some people just don't want to ruffle the feathers of their prospective employers for fear of being blacklisted (which is why "Gregory" declined to reveal his real name).

"It's a small circle and people know each other, and you don't want to lose your job because of someone not treating you professionally," said Wong.

But that's exactly what they're pushing for - freelancers are professionals.

Hon Beng recalled how a friend of his once made the tactless joke of comparing his freelancing ways to "prostitutes in Geylang".

"There's the misconception that people think artists just do this 'for the love of it' or as a 'hobby'. Some people don't believe in paying creative fees," added Wong.

"If you want something that's really good, it takes time and effort. There has to be some kind of investment in it."

PAT ON THE BACK

The entire arts scene may be at stake.

Terence Tan, a theatre producer and Wong's assistant, points out many theatre practitioners have "a relatively short five- to six-year career span, resulting in a perpetual loss of experienced and trained artists" who may get disillusioned. "If we really want to move forward, I think freelancers are the lifeblood of an arts scene."

In the land of television, Ee agreed on their importance.

"Freelancers will continue to play an important part in beefing up the strength of an ensemble cast. Freelancing will provide a good avenue for aspiring actors to test themselves in the creative industry. (A bit of trivia here: Channel 8 household name Henry Thia started off as a calefare.)

And hey, it's not like they're demanding to be treated like kings. Like any nine-to-five-er, they want to be loved.

"Gregory", without a sense of bitterness, compared his stint as a freelancer to being part of a production line.

"If I do it good enough to get noticed then I get pulled out of the production line. But if not, I'll still do the best I can. You just hope for some kind of pat on the back, lah. Like: 'Eh, good job'."

Afternote:

This article came in timely. Yesterday, a friend called me to tell me that her daughter is 16 and wants to go into this industry and asked me for my opinion. So I told her honestly to advise her to complete her studies through the university and during the span of time she can work as a freelancer to see if she will adept to this environement. It is hard to tell anyone not to go for their dreams and its even more pointless to tell them about the practicality. At the end of the day, we all want to pursue our dreams and we often think our life will be "different" and we always tell ourselves that if others can't make it, I will put in extra efforts to make sure it works for me... yes if only life was that easy. It isn't. There are many dreams... why choose this one..pick a different dream. No no, I'm just kidding, how to tell anyone to give up when I haven't myself.

I've been in this industry for more than 16 years... so ask me. If I unfold my own life journey in the arts and creative industries then the story has to go back to 1993... and we had the same discussion back then too. I'm not surprise that they are still on it, this article doesn't resonate anymore, its old story.

Can the authority do anything about it?

The answer is largely the finance management problems within the companies, there is no legal protection for non payment or late payment for freelancer in the industry on a whole. Well even if there is such a law that serves as guidelines or a statutory regulation, there is still the issue of the poor financial state of some of the theatre companies that render them unable to fulfill their promises. Of course, this doesn't explain why some foreign artistic talents were able to be paid a higher fee and received thier payment promptly while its the reverse for the local entities in similar capacity, its an issue of two legs good four legs bad, this is the revelation of exploitation and also favortism in play. Obviously, some elite species enjoy higher previlieges in the society of Singapore Freelance Artists and Artistes world.

Other issues

The above news publication only dealt with the monetary issue, but there are other issues that are worthy of discussion as well. Initiately singaporetheatre.com was set up with a section to highlight the plights of the local talents. But as time passes, I think we got tire of the discussion. An  "Association for Singapore Actors" was set up to help actors but its website hasn't been updated since 2006. A technical theatre association of singapore was also set up to hope to contribute to the improvement of the technical artistes in Singapore but its dormant right now. I was one of the pioneer committees who did absolutely nothing because even among ourselves there was a lack of cohesive process thought. Also honestly there is no personels with full time commitment and leadership qualities that were able to help manage the association.

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