bit of a weird position to be in and curious if anyone has been here before. ive been freelancing for about 18 months doing mostly cinematography work, music videos, some commercial stuff, and i finally feel like things are starting to click and my rates are going up. then out of nowhere a mid-sized production company reached out and offered me a full time staff position as their in-house drone op. salary is decent, not amazing, benefits are good, basically i'd be flying and editing for all their productions.

the thing is i kind of like the freedom of freelancing even when its stressful. like i can turn down jobs i dont want and take on passion projects. a staff job means i lose that but i also stop having the anxiety of wondering where the next paycheck is coming from. the company seems solid and they do interesting work. ive been going back and forth on it for like two weeks and i honestly cant decide. part of me thinks maybe i take it for a year or two and build savings and then go back to freelancing from a more stable foundation. or am i just rationalizing because im scared of commitment lol

i took a staff position after freelancing for two years and i dont regret it at all but i think it really depends on where you are financially and what stage of life youre in. for me the consistent paycheck was huge because i had some stuff going on personally and the mental load of always hustling was just too much. that said i do miss being able to cherry pick projects. the stuff you get assigned as staff isnt always interesting, sometimes youre flying the same warehouse inspection for the fifth time that month.

the way i think about it is staff jobs are great for building specific experience fast because youre flying constantly on a real budget with real clients. freelancing builds your business brain but it takes longer to rack up hours on serious productions. if this company does work you actually respect the tradeoff might be worth it for a couple years like you said.

the year or two and then go back to freelancing plan sounds good in theory but like... i feel like a lot of people say that and then five years later theyre still there. not saying thats bad just something to think about. also what does the contract look like, do they own footage you shoot on personal time or have any weird IP clauses? ive heard of people getting burned by that with in-house positions