I got a Cricut cutter to make some vinyl labels for a side project, seems like it can cut a bunch of stuff including some thicker material like acrylic and thin craft wood.
Anyone by chance play around with one to make cuts with to print with? sorta like a polymer plate? (sorta of course)
Backstory
My small production company is based in a rural region on the East Coast, we do G&E rentals, I gaff/DP/CamOp so a lot of production companies producing stuff for networks, and major streamers find me when trying to sort gear and support for reality and documentary crews doing shoots in a 2 hour radius from my home office.
What I'm running into now more than I'm tolerant of at this point is, crews basically pinging me to get a quote on rentals, asking for crew suggestions, but then never contracting with me for G&E or anything else, so what extra consideration I'm offering in goodwill in hopes to build a relationship with someone new is pointless and they get free work out of me. I know it's probably not their initial intention but they defiantly don't circle back or seem to care too much that I save them time and money setting up their shoots for their producer/production coordinators. I get budgets are tight at times, but that is a, not my problem issue. My time is valuable, if you aren't hiring me for other services I offer, I have other thigns I need to do to keep my company afloat.
Our state film office is basically pointless, all they do is process tax incentive requests for huge films, they have crap resources which is a common complaint when crews get to me.
I'm basically going to make this a paid service to create value in the network of people and knowledge of this region I have built over a decade and politely tell the ones who are like, "oh, we're planning to rent your gear so can't you just help us out for free?" to F off.
Main Questions
1: How did anyone who dealt with similar handle it on their end once it became routine for people to never circle back once you handed over a lot of free info that saved them time but didn't hire you.
2: what do people charge to be a local fixer/ local consultant / local production coordinator for out of state crews looking for things like, gear, skilled and reliable crew members, and other things that ultimately save them time? (I'm thinking of having a starting consulting fee paid up front that includes up to x amount of time, then after that, hourly billed net 30)
Happy to hear any other personal stories of the same since it would be nice to know I'm not alone in this experience.
I was bored a couple days ago, watched one of Swappy P's Insta videos of him ripping down the boardwalk, dangling like he does and decided to head out to my local park with a street stick, a green biscuit, and my inline skates and did some hot laps around the road that loops the park and had a crazy amount of fun. Been out a couple days just this week. I'm a rubbish stick handler and skater but don't care.
But it made me curious, of course doing this on busy streets in popular cities midst traffic, does anyone else do this on for training or just for fun on any closed streets, greenways, board walks for long distances, or is this just a attachment grabbing thing for the internet that mostly only content creators do?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTBXK8QCe0a/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==