This is one origin story you won’t want to miss. Back at the start, Steven Bussey didn’t wait around for help from recruiters - he hunted down the gigs himself. Now, with 10 years of experience under his belt, he’s worked on countless blockbusters on both sides of the Atlantic, but insists that the secret to freelance success is to never stop learning.
Interview by Bernard / Blog written by Teri
April 14, 2022
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I’m a freelance UI and screen graphics designer, focusing creatively on film and TV. A lot of my work centres around VFX and storytelling devices. I studied at University and completed a 4-month internship back home in Denmark, then moved to London 10 years ago.
I started out with a full-time job as a junior digital designer for a massive marketing company called Empire Design, which does posters and marketing for film and TV. That was my first job, and I worked there for about two and a half years until I decided to go freelance.
I actually managed to enter the freelance world the ‘safe’ way. I had always wanted to work in UI screen graphics design for film and TV, so while I was still working full time, I started building up my portfolio with personal projects.
Then I started reverse head-hunting the companies I wanted to work for - I looked up the few who were leading the industry back then and reached out to them here in the UK. My portfolio didn’t really fit what they did, but I kept chasing them. I did some digging and found out who did what, followed them on social media and started trying to get to know more about these studios while working on personal projects. I wanted to show them that I am passionate about what they do, and capable of being part of the team they are a part of.
All of a sudden, I was given the opportunity to do a trial project on a freelance basis. I took one week off work to get that done, and about a month later they offered me an eight-week contract. That’s when I decided to quit my full-time job and go freelance.
I think it’s my ‘keep on going’ attitude at work. Once the design is locked and ready to go into production, I’m really good at hunkering down and knocking out a huge chunk of work at once. That’s how I work best.
My job is to understand how we can take a style frame and implement it across the whole platform, or the entire set. So, let’s say I’m working with the creative director and he’s got one set of designs signed off - we’d need to make another 10 or 20 designs based on that set. I can turn that around pretty quickly. So I’d say that my strengths lie in my efficiency, and in understanding a design and implementing it over a wider range of formats, sizes and animation styles.
I mostly use Illustrator, After Effects and Cinema 4D, but there are some interesting new apps coming up in terms of 3D that I really want to dive into as well. Cavalry which is much like After Effects that’s just been released, for instance, is a strong contender for making procedural vector based graphics. It is really powerful in terms of animation and motion graphics too from a procedural point of view. Unreal is another one that will get big pretty soon, which will be able to solve a lot of interesting challenges in the near future.
There are a lot of interesting developments happening in the field, but it’s impossible to be familiar with every tool available. I'm not necessarily afraid of being left behind, but I think it's important to know what's out there.
Right now I'm learning X-Particles, Cycles 4D by Insydium and RedShift, for example. Many of my peers are also using Houdini to create particles, simulations and fluid simulation which is incredibly exciting to me. It's super complex, but the work you can do with Houdini is just fascinating.
I do enjoy learning new things, but this pandemic has definitely taught me that it’s important to have a few different basic techniques in your arsenal. The more you know, the more doors you can open for yourself and ‘learn by doing’ in those challenging projects, but without overselling oneself when the opportunity for a real project comes up.
I was very fortunate during the pandemic. I worked from January 2020 through to January 2021, which was extremely lucky considering that I work in movies and TV and many of those upcoming productions were put on pause for a considerable amount of time. At the end of January 2021 a TV production had to halt production due to COVID which was a bit scary at first, but it wasn’t too bad because I had worked all year leading up to that. So I embraced the situation to take some time off and learn new things and focus on getting better in the design process. I also co-founded an online boutique (www.vktrkrft.com) where we produce and sell different vector assets and textures that can be used in all kinds of projects from film, TV, Advertising, art or just personal projects. This was a huge learning curve – and still is – but I am super excited about it and what we have learned from it as a team.
The studios I usually work for in London, like my work because it fits some of their client base - It is to be a part of and very much storytelling oriented. I thought I had done that for 10 years, and I’m good at it, but after a while I that I’ve been pigeon-holed instead of being put into the same role every time.
So during the lockdowns I contacted other agencies and studios stateside and around Europe which does a different level of highly-detailed and complex work which I wasn’t too familiar with. They looked at my work and liked what they saw, but some of them asked me whether I was familiar with Houdini, different render engines or X-Particles. Those are the tools they use either in their pipeline on a bigger or smaller scale and they’re completely different from the ones I’m used to in my own personal skill sets.
That was quite a good eye opener for me. I realised how important it is to keep learning and evolving as I go, both for the work I could take on now and also so that I’d be able to segue myself into new and different jobs in the future.
It’s not easy in the movie business. Bookings sometimes extend to six months or even a year. During that period, you’re only doing one kind of work. It’s a good deal as a freelancer, because long bookings mean that your level of security is quite high. But as a result, your portfolio is laser focused and lacks diversity.
Once a project ends, it's good to take some time off before jumping onto another production though. Naturally I’d be pretty tired so I take some time off to travel or relax, but I also try to take on different projects for a couple of weeks in between bigger bookings. I do prefer bigger and longer projects that fit my skill set however, but I think it’s also important to diversify my current portfolio moving forward.
I love it. I can work for 6 months or a year full-on, but then I need to take a month off. I’ve been to Japan and Australia for a month at a time which really helps me recover from massive projects and sort of reset a little bit after that.
Taking time off like that feels really good because you can totally detach yourself from work. It takes some time to get off that high after a big project, but it’s even better if you know that you can come back to find a new gig waiting for you - that’s the ideal.
Not at all! Freelance is all about freedom. I was reminded of that a few years back before the pandemic when I had to take a three-month contract because of the IR35 regulation. During that quarter, you’re allocated four or five days off which is not bad at all but I felt bad about booking holidays if the project I was on was getting busy or if the deadline was hectic. I prefer the flexibility of working hard and then just booking your own holidays or time off after it is properly finished.
You don’t have that issue as a freelancer - you tell them you’re available for say, two months, and during that time you might have to take a day or so off. The company is usually fine with that because they get to save a little money (since they don’t pay you for the days you don’t work) and you’re making more money on the day rate anyway, so it’s a win-win for me most of the time.
I’ve been really lucky with getting work throughout my time as a freelancer, but there have been a few cases where you’re ‘promised’ work that doesn’t come through. Back in February, for example, I was in touch with an American company filming a car commercial. They offered me the job, accepted my day rate and I got really excited about it. Then nothing really happened - weeks went by and every time I chased they’d give me an odd job to do for the studio, but the project I was meant to work on kept getting pushed back until I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. It was not the studio's fault at all, it just happens sometimes.
That doesn’t happen with full time jobs I feel, because even when there’s downtime in the studio, you’re still getting paid and there is always something to do internally. But I don’t really like say… making other studios' showreels or promotional material or something similar.
The social aspect of working full time is something I miss though. When you’re full time, your studio is your second home. You’ve got colleagues and friends to spend time with. I have freelancer friends of mine living nearby and we tend to meet up after work for walks or a beer to hang out. That gives us a bit of a studio feeling by the end of the week which is good. Other friends of mine love working in a coworking space which seems super cool, but I’ve never had the chance to do that yet. So there are ways around it, but it’s still different to being part of a team full time that works together year in, year out.
I’ve only started thinking about financial projections recently, probably because of the pandemic. I’m 37 now and I’m starting to think about my pension. I'd also like to buy a house - whether here or in Denmark or somewhere else I’m still not sure. But I never really knew how to make the most of my money or savings until recently.
I think it’s super important that freelancers think about these things early on, or have help available to discuss their options. I’m looking into private pension schemes and investments, mostly getting advice from friends of mine who’ve sorted it out. Googling it is useless - I was so confused by all the hundreds of options available and I didn’t know which ones were legit. So it’s great to have someone you trust that you can talk to about these things.
Back when I first started freelancing, I didn’t really think things through. I started charging the day rate, just as I was told to by friends of mine, but before I knew it, 6 months had gone by and I found out that the tax year was almost up.
It was quite overwhelming for me to figure out the tax system and I wanted someone else to do it for me. Some of my peers and friends actually handle it all by themselves, but I did not want to do that. I want to focus on creative work and have a proper discussion about tax with someone who knows what they’re doing, without having to worry about it. I need to understand what I can deduct in taxes, how much I should charge clients, how much I should put aside from every invoice - stuff like that.
One of my friends had been a freelancer for almost a year so I asked him what I should do, and he recommended Mark at Accounts Studio. He seemed like a great guy that you can just reach out to whenever you needed to, so I just went with him. I’ve never looked back.
Movie buff? You’ll want to check out Steven’s work. Visit his website stevenbussey.com or follow him on Instagram.
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