Produced By - Insight #26 - George Lolov: Filmmaker’s Insight Into Starting on Fiverr as a Freelancer

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

George Lolov is a freelance filmmaker from London who currently works as a filmmaker and VFX artist with the goal of becoming a director. Born and raised in Bulgaria, he moved to London to attend university and pursue his passion for film. He explored various roles and projects before focusing on screenwriting in his final year to hone his storytelling skills in preparation for a future in directing. Although a global pandemic affected his last year, he had a great start to his career as a freelance filmmaker and VFX artist. Along with working on projects for other businesses, he has been doing freelance work on Fiverr using his VFX skills that he acquired outside of school. As we delve more into his Fiverr experience, George provides some helpful tips on what to focus on to stand out. Then we talk about George’s preferences for particular films, TV shows, directors and VFX. Listen to this episode to gain helpful advice for aspiring freelancers, learn more about special visual effects that you can create on your own and discover more about the state of the Bulgarian film industry.     Connect with George: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-lolov-4607b315b/⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/georgelolov_/⁠  https://www.georgelolov.com/   Episode quotes: “The most important thing would be to get in contact with your classmates and make connections, maybe even with your lecturers. Especially in the film industry, connections are going to open many doors when you leave film school.” “I love changing and I love doing everything. That's why I'm interested in filming, editing as well as VFX and I think directing combines all of them.” “I remember growing up with the original Star Wars trilogy. I think even my father is a big fan and that's probably what got me into it. It was a really influential movie for me because I remember when the prequel trilogy was coming out. I was too young but I remember all the video cassettes and the VHS and I was watching it.”   Connect with the podcaster: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tomasloucky.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/TomasLoucky⁠     Follow the podcast: 🌐 Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🔗 Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   💬 Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com/contact⁠⁠⁠ 📷 Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/produced_by_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  🎥 YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT5LHnM6YCaeVzIr0WatOsw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  🎵 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@producedbypodcast⁠  👾 Discord: ⁠⁠https://discord.gg/8j3zNzwqJg⁠ ⁠ ✉️ Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Spotify: ⁠https://lnkd.in/e5Y8Wscx⁠  Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/produced-by/id1684669642⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📨 Newsletter: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065 ⁠   If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it on ⁠Patreon⁠. ❤️ 🤩 If you enjoy listening to the podcast, please, leave a review on your podcast app, subscribe or share it with your friends. You can also send us a message and share any feedback, advice and tips for guests. 📭 Subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠ so that you don't miss out!    #producedbypodcast #producedby #enterthespotlight     Enjoy! Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So when you started on Fiverr, I wonder how hard was it for you basically to stand out from there? Because I can imagine there must be plenty of people offering such services. So how did you find it? Well, at first, like all the tests, like renders that I've done in animations, I've compiled into like a portfolio for Fiverr and I created account. But at first, of course, there were no orders coming through. You can read it and maybe view your portfolio, maybe like your CV or show you

how it's called, maybe make it more engaging. And also on Fiverr, you can pay for an ad. Your profile gets recommended and that's, I think, how it happened. Because the first month probably had in zero orders and then after the first one that came through.

When you finish an order, also like the client can give you a review. You can give like out of five stars review and then they can write something. So it's really important to have good communication and to do the job that they want you do because the end if they give you a good review you I think it boosts your profile because every time that I had a new client coming in my profile would get recommended to more people

because the first time that I got the client more and more people started coming in and it was to a point where I couldn't get all the projects like that they wanted me to do. You are so busy yeah it depends on the time but for example do you know like last year when there were an if t thing that it was everywhere. Yeah. During that time, a lot of people wanted me to create commercials for the NFTs and like ads. And that was like the busiest time that I've got.

Oh, I see. So can you say what kind of clients did you get? Is it like people from all around the world, individuals or companies? Most of the time it was individuals. Sometimes they might be in a company, but they contact me through personal profiles. and they are usually all around the world. I've got clients from India, from France, from China, from the United States, from the UK, like everywhere. And can you share some details about some interesting or exciting or challenging projects that you did?

Yeah, I've had a lot of projects because it depends on what the client needs. So there was one time that you wanted a very specific kind of tree that reads out like stars. and it was quite the journey to get to the final result. It was a lot of drafts. A lot of back and forth. Yeah, a lot of back and forth to get to the final look that he was happy with. And to get an idea how long do you spend on such a project? Well, for this one, I think I spent probably like five days doing it or something like that.

Usually I would say like three days, two days. It depends on what they want. But I have like five, six days of work when, we do like a couple of drafts and it's important to get more the client wants at the end. Yeah. And obviously you don't have to say specifics, but can you say how is it with money? If it's like you do a few projects per month and it's enough to live and save some or you need to work a lot or what is it like? The most important thing is to get projects, to get clients.

That is the most difficult thing. If you get clients, it's actually really good with money-wise because you can charge for what you're doing. After you've done it probably like 50 times, it's easy for you to do it because sometimes they would want me to create something similar to what I've already created that they can see in my profile. So for me, I can do that in a couple of hours, sorry, on one day and they can pay me like, I don't know, it depends on what their budget is. but sometimes they've paid like for one single 20-second video or something like that. They've paid like $600. That's everything is indoors. So if you get like a couple of projects per month, yeah, you can live off of that.

But if you get a lot of projects, you can live all of that and save money. And it's cool. But again, it's difficult to have clients constantly coming. That's the difficult part. Yeah. But I guess it can be a good advantage for someone who wants to, let's say, work from anywhere around the world. right because you just need your laptop and time you need like a powerful computer

you know to do it because and then there's like for days yeah so I guess you don't do it on a laptop yeah I do it on a laptop but I've had like times where I was limited because then I had to like pay to render farm to do it online otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it and do still do the work on cyber yeah I do it I still I still do it but I think and now I'm not as busy as I I used to be last year when the NFT exploded. But yeah, still do it. Whenever I get new orders, I always do it.