I want to see what other fellow Europeans are doing, if you have social media or something feel free to put it down below.
I wont put mine here since I guess I'll get removed for self-promotion.
Filmmaker here who bought his first macbook (M1 Pro 2020, 16GB ram) back in 2021. Since then I have been abusing it through my college doing Graphic Design, Photo & Video Editing. Animations, playing Football Manager, having him turned on atleast 6h a day,etc... aswell as freelancing video production and editing a shit ton of videos throughout the years. Just realised that his cycle count is 965 and I am curious how much can I expect him to last? If battery dies on me what happens, will it affect all the data on it? Is it worth it to replace the battery and keep on using him?
He is perfect for like 90% of things that I do. Yes the 4K 10bit footage or bigger then that can definitly be felt but with proxies completely perfect still. I sometimes have a problem with lack of RAM and I have a feeling I should be getting a new one soon but:
- I love that this one is only 13 inches, I love going out for a coffee and using this guy rather then seeing my colleauges with massive 16 inch laptops.
- I wont probably be able to sell him for even 500 euros since physically it has many damages, even yesterday my backpack fell on concrete from my arm and it had a big impact, upon inspect my lovely little machine I saw at the side he was open a bit, also a lot of scratches on the bottom part and stuff, keyboard mouspad and monitor untouched...
- I dont think at this particular point of time that me spending around 3k euros on a new laptop would financialy be responsible, my wallet would definitly feel it. And also I still dont know which one next would be the best for value in my case.
Any advices?
Context:
8 seasons in, rebranded 2-3 years ago from my own name to AdamariFilms since I didnt want my name to turn out to be a wedding film brand, it already started happening and I was getting booked left & right for weddings without doing almost any marketing. Usually hot leads were coming from recommendations from different local photographers who loved my work or loved working with me, or fellow videographers who were booked on the same date so they were recommending me. Also word of mouth & a had a few trendy wedding reels that looked good. All of this was just local area.
I never planned on being a wedding videographer, tbh probably the least favourite type of gig, but I somehow became one because I needed money through school & college. People started associating my real name with weddings and I hated it because my dream and true passion is to become a narrative, doc. & commercial director. So I rebranded 2-3 years ago, opened up a new profile and been doing fine since.
Had one major burnout, did like 25 weddings in 3-4 months, while each wedding offer was around 4-5 different videos. At that point of time it helped me jump up to pricing range where 1x wedding = 1x monthly average salary. For a guy doing it through summer while also in a college, financialy it was amazing but when the backlog started pilling up I lost 10kg only in December, averaging a 4 hours of sleep a night. Since then I promised myself that I will do weddings because I now need to survive like everyone else but I am going to shrink my packages to 2-3 videos per wedding, and its mandatory for me that I atleast after all expenses earn one average salary per wedding.
Here is the problem...
I only had like 2 weddings booked this season, we are already approaching the end of May. This never happened till now, had a nice number of leads from Sept.2025 to Jan.2026 although most were windowshoppers, after sending my prices I was getting left on "seen" like 80-90% of the time. Whats the best thing to do starting right now to atleast book 10-12 weddings for this summer?
also, even bigger problem in my opinion...How do you manage to go through editing a wedding, even if burned out, without passing deadlines? I dont have extra money to outsource editing since my margins are not big enough for me to mathematically do around 15 weddings a year, pay myself a salary and pay editor despite me teaching my 18 year old sister editing for the past few months, hoping that I can provide her with an editing part-time position this season. Aaaand to be honest at this moment I have a wedding that needs to be edited and I feel like throwing up when I think about opening Premiere.
Bare in mind that I am doing this all in just a local market, which isnt an extremely rich country like USA, England, Germany, etc...I am in eastern european area.
So I genuinly feel stuck and except from seeing “grinding & hustling” as the only way out, I am not sure how to step up to the next level.
I guess I am seeking some kind of an online quick mentor type of advice from more expirienced colleagues.
For context: 23 y/o, graduated as a bachelor of Multimedia, been doing it for 8 years now.
Till now, I was earning great since I wasnt paying taxes or had legal expensess of owning a company. Gigs were either cash or contracts (clients were paying taxes, costs more compared to working directly with business).
Now, I just opened a company. Its registered as a “marketing agency” meaning I can do all types of services but I really want to be only a leading creative, “video director” & video production.
I am stuck at things like:
- Not having a portofolio for types of jobs I want to do, aswell as not being in a local market that offers a lot of those jobs.
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I know, creating spec commercials should be priority for this, but tbh I dont have enough earning to even save up for a low budget production, even if I didnt pay other key roles like DOP, actors, etc…
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In order to get more money so I can save up for these spec commercials & equipment, I need more gigs and I am struggling to get those. Tbh I need to earn probably twice as much or even three times more in order to be able to invest back in business, and I am struggling to get more clients.
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For reference I earned above average monthly salary while doing it for years, due to not having any legal expenses.
Average monthly income in my country: 850€
My monthly income divided after all earning through year: 1200€
Now after opening company this drastically changes, I am falling down to an under average income group, so apart from living expensess, investing back into business looks now impossible. Its around 700€ now after paying all company dues every month.
Majority of my incomes right now:
Weddings, 65% of yearly income (during summer season, I went down to doing max. 10-15 weddings a year due to me burning out at the end of year, bunch of editing backlog, etc…) I aim to take home atleast average local salary (800-1000€) after paying B cam, gallery costs, etc…
Freelance Services such as Camera Op, Editor, Videographer, Photographer, 35% of yearly income.
Its almost 50:50 between agency work & other working colleagues needing help. Usually those are 100-300€ day rates or quick gigs like social media reels, events, etc…
All Freelance Services work comes from “luck” I guess. It just happens that they need it & they sometimes remember that I exist so they call me.
I feel like thats a very vunrable position to be in, solely relying on luck & waiting for calls.
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Questions:
What are the actions I need to take to get more clients, preferably reoccuring clients that are not cheap 200€ retainer client like a coffee shop or restoraunt.
What should be the first systems I implement into business, what are the things I need to sort out immedietly.
If you genuinly see some problems in my situation and have a genuine advice on anything, just write it, I dont even know where to start with all the questions and I will be editing this post with more questions as I think about them.
Anyone ever outsourced sales? How did you do it?