What I'd like to accomplish with The Motion Exchange

As a newly transplanted freelancer in LA, I've seen my credentials emailed out routinely to various shops in the area, and I've seen the same shops posting for jobs looking for people with my exact credentials. As I've seen over and over, there is a lack of cohesiveness to the motion design industry that connects those that need talent to the talent that is out there. There are forums and Linked-In and portfolio sites like Behance. But they all try to be everything to everyone and miss the details in between, the area of motion design being one of the details that has slipped through the cracks on this.

There needs to be cross communication between users. Users should develop rings of designers they trust and an forward design jobs to. They should be able to offer others feedback on their experience with clients. Are they awesome? Are they cheap? Do they expect too many hours? Do they use hacked software?

Also, most portfolio sites are passive. There is no active outreach to studios to tell them, "Hey, you should search here for your next freelancer." Just having a passive billboard for users to say "Here is my reel" is not enough. We need to embrace the open, real-time, free-flowing Interweb and use it to its full potential. We need passionate, connected individuals to spearhead this and connect with everyone out there to bring the community together, be it at motionpool or wherever.

This is my humble attempt at doing this.

Our first step need to be to grow the database. The greatness and usefulness of this site will directly relate to how complete this database is. Please spread the word. Make it grow. Be a part of something awesome.