Shooting as a sideline: agreeing job, time and discretion

The normal case in this industry is not the full-time performer, but the person with a main job who shoots two to four days a year or a month. Anyone who wants to shoot porn as a sideline therefore has no exceptional situation, but the most common pairing of all. It brings three building sites that should be settled before the first acceptance: the employment-law side towards the employer, the simple diary question because shoot days sit on working days, and discretion in the circle of colleagues. All three are solvable; none of them dissolves by itself.

A sideline: what applies and what cannot be said across the board

The principle is clear: what you work in your free time is your affair. A general ban on sidelines is ineffective, because occupational freedom stands against it. From that it does not follow, though, that there are no duties.

Very many employment contracts contain a notification or approval clause: you have to report the sideline, and the employer can forbid it if they have a legitimate interest. As a legitimate interest typically count competing activity, exceeding working-time limits, impairment of your performance or damage to the employer’s reputation. The last point is the one on which it can hang with this activity, and it is a weighing in the individual case.

On top of that come rules that apply independently of the contract. Working time from several activities is added together, and holiday may not be used for a gainful activity that contradicts the purpose of the holiday. In the public service and in a Beamtenverhältnis stricter requirements apply, often with a genuine approval duty.

Why we give no blanket information here: the answer depends on your concrete contract, on your position, on the industry and on how recognisably you would appear in public. Anyone who needs a robust statement has the employment contract looked at by a specialist lawyer for employment law. A one-off appointment costs less than a shoot day brings in.

Shoot days are working days

The most common false assumption in practice. Productions shoot Monday to Friday, because studios, crews, makeup, technology and locations work on working days. Weekend dates exist; they are, though, the exception and usually on smaller productions.

For you that means: you need free working days. Holiday days, flexitime, time off in lieu, part-time with fixed free days or shift work with free mornings. Anyone who has a full-time post with fixed office hours and no flexible days rarely gets beyond two to four shoot days a year.

The second time question is the notice. Enquiries often come one to two weeks beforehand, sometimes shorter. Anyone who has to apply for holiday three months in advance can barely say yes. It has proved useful to hold one to two free days a month without planning them — then you can answer an enquiry instead of declining it.

And calculate with the whole day. A shoot day lasts eight to twelve hours, often with travel beforehand. Anyone who has to be in the office at seven the following day should not put the date on a Thursday. How such a day runs in concrete terms is in the article on the shoot day from arrival to wrap.

The tax side in outline

On shoots you do not work as an employee, but self-employed. There is no payslip and no automatic tax deduction. Four points are enough for the start.

• Registration. A single production out of curiosity is not yet a trade. Anyone who shoots lastingly and with an intention to make a profit is commercially active and registers that at the Gewerbeamt.
• A sideline is not tax-free. The widespread sentence that under a certain amount one does not have to declare anything is false. Income is taxable from the first euro. Anyone who is employed and shoots beside that has income from two sources and files a tax return.
• What is taxed is the profit, that is income minus business expenses. Deductible is what is incurred for the business: journeys, overnight stays, kit, tests, training, tax advice.
• Setting aside. The tax is not deducted continuously, but becomes due after the return, often with a year’s delay. As a rule of thumb: 30 percent of every fee onto a separate account that is not touched.

On sideline income a point comes in that is easily overlooked: additional income can raise your personal tax rate, so that on the sideline a higher percentage falls than on the first income. The full account with Kleinunternehmerregelung, invoice required details and deadlines is in the article on trade registration and tax for performers.

Discretion towards colleagues

The practical rule is: a piece of information that two colleagues know is no longer one. Anyone who shoots as a sideline should tell nothing of it at the workplace — not even the one person they trust, not even after the third beer at the Christmas party.

Technically a consistent separation belongs with that: own email address, own phone number, own profiles for the work, no work devices, no company WLAN, no booking emails on the work phone. Most identifications arise not through research, but through carelessness.

One point that is often forgotten in this: colleagues who know nothing also see your calendar. Recurring free Thursdays without an explanation stand out. A simple, unchanging reason for the free day is less conspicuous than a new story every time.

On top of that comes the stage name that stands in the publication, while your legal name appears only in the contract and in the non-public age documentation. What is possible beyond that and where the limits sit is in the article on working anonymously. In short: you can lower the likelihood of an identification considerably; to zero you do not get it.

When a sideline reaches its limit

There are three points at which the construction no longer carries. The first is the quantity: from about two shoots a month the effort for dates, tests, travel and bookkeeping becomes so large that it can barely be placed beside a full-time post.

The second is the visibility. If you regularly appear with a face in well-marketed productions, the likelihood rises that it will be noticed in the work circle. That is not an argument against the activity, but the moment at which the question of the notification duty becomes practical.

The third is the exhaustion. Two shoot days a month beside a full-time post mean two days without recovery. Anyone who does that over months notices it first in the main job. Tell us if it becomes too much — we do not book anyone full who needs a break.

Anyone who reaches this limit has two options: reduce or switch. The change into a full-time activity wants calculating, because the flow of commissions is irregular and a reliable monthly income from it only arises with continuity. The figures on that are on our page on earnings.

Note: This article provides a general overview and is not a substitute for legal or tax advice. Whether and how a sideline has to be notified in your case follows from your employment contract and the circumstances of the individual case.