Average unpaid creative work per pitch. Every week. On top of existing commitments.
Report declining work year-on-year. The pipeline is drying up and the pitch volume keeps climbing.
Directors report existential anxiety about the future of their career in this industry.
Win rate on competitive pitches. Nine out of ten directors walk away with nothing.
You pitch blind.
Who are you competing against? How many directors are on the shortlist? What's the budget? They know but don't share.
You write your treatment blind, competing against an unknown number of directors, for a budget you have to guess at. The rules are disproportionately stacked. Knowing your competition leads to better and more competitive treatments.
This can change for free tomorrow.
Production companies sending the same brief to all the freelance directors and managers they know. How many directors are submitted total?
equals mgmt · 2026Your work vanishes.
You spend a week on a treatment. Moodboards, shot lists, a written vision for how you'd bring this script to life. You cancel other work. You go deep.
Then the brief dies. The client didn't approve the creative. The project was speculative the entire time, and nobody told you. Production companies lose hundreds of thousands yearly in bidding costs on projects that were never real.
This can change for free tomorrow.
Average annual cost absorbed by US production companies in bidding on projects that were never approved.
Industry estimatesYou carry the cost.
Architects charge for design work. Lawyers bill for opinions. Consultants have day rates. Commercial directors? Expected to deliver a week of creative thinking, visual research, and written work for free. Every time. Win or lose.
Salaried professionals setting the terms for freelancers who absorb all the risk. That's the current arrangement, and it's driving talent out of the industry.
There is a fairer system already in place internationally.
Unpaid work per quarter for a director who pitches ten jobs and wins two.
Calculated from industry averagesName another profession where you work a full week unpaid on a competitive proposal.
Reform isn't theoretical. It's already producing results in the countries that moved first.
The ADDP called a treatment strike. Directors collectively refused to pitch unpaid. The result: the ecosystem changed and directors chose to work with production companies who were invested in securing paid pitches. The industry adapted within months. The work didn't stop. The exploitation did.
The DRCT and German producers built a pitch cost share model. Directors and production companies split the financial burden of pitching. In 2024 only 13.5% of directors pitched without a pitch fee. The model is still evolving, and it's gaining ground.
The ACCP, ADA, ADDP, AIR, AIR3, DRCT, Swissfilm Association, and Werbefilmproduzenten are already in. Thousands of directors globally have signed on. The conversation is happening with or without every individual company's permission.
Join directors worldwide demanding fairer pitching practices. Your name, thoughts and stories add weight.