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NOT AS EASY AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE
by Jenna Lyng & Mel McGraw
While a suffering economy slows production in Hollywood, film schools continue to be a booming business. Every year, more and more graduates flood Los Angeles in pursuit of a career in entertainment. After fruitless job searches, many aspiring filmmakers are realizing
their degrees aren't helping in a job market that relies heavily on networking and nepotism.
Even within the Caucus Foundation Alumni Network, award-winning graduates are struggling to find employment within the industry. One of the top complaints from CFAN members is that their education did not prepare them for entry-level work. Film schools are their own
micro-Hollywoods. Students work their way to the top of their respective campuses. They go from directing award-winning narrative work as undergraduate or graduate students to starting from scratch in the industry with little to no clue on how to proceed.
There are three typical approaches for the freshly-emerged film school graduates, each having their own sets of benefits and challenges.
The Desk: Many aspiring filmmakers opt for assistant jobs with close proximity to those in power. While this approach can achieve the objective of exposure to decision makers, the long hours required by these jobs leaves little to no time for developing personal projects. Aspiring
writers and directors wanting to expand and hone their craft, having chosen an assistant job, may lose that creative spark after several years behind a desk. They can become discouraged and jaded before they've even begun. On the other hand, a position in the right office may be exactly what
aspiring producers, managers, or agents need to jump-start their careers. That said, even a low-paying, long-hours assistant job is hard to come by, typically requiring several years of desk experience at a high-volume office.
The "Robert Rodriguez" Freelancer: Many film school graduates are "Jacks-Of-All-Trades" who create content as writers, directors, editors, and camera operators -- often times filling every role for small projects. This allows these aspiring filmmakers to fill a wide variety of low-budget,
day labor positions, as well as giving them the ability to drive production on their personal projects. However, much of the work produced at this level is distributed online, is generally non-union, and as a result pays very little if anything at all. Freelancers end up focusing on doing whatever it
takes to make ends meet with smaller, more commercially-geared projects, rather than working on the larger narrative projects they were trained to create in film school. Aspiring filmmakers who go this route may or may not be expanding and honing the skills needed to ultimately get where
they want to go.
The Day Job: Los Angeles is home to some of the most beautiful and witty baristas, servers, and valets. They are often also actors, writers, and directors. These jobs can be draining and demeaning to an artist's ego, but they generally leave time (and most importantly brain power) for that
passion project waiting at home. However that means the individual has only their own work ethic, time management skills, and self-discipline to make their projects happen. They have to be their own cheering section for possibly years until they can get their projects into the marketplace. They
must create their own support and feedback network so that their craft can continuously improve. And they must figure out a way to develop and maintain an industry network so that by the time their project is ready, there is someone to give it to.
All of the above approaches have led to success for some, and failure for others. It seems that whether or not an approach is successful is dependant on the individual having clear knowledge of the types of approaches that exist, and then synching up their short and long-term goals with the option
that will best help them achieve those goals. Rather than simply follow the paths of other "success stories," we need to gather all of the most up-to-date industry information we can, sift through that information in the context of our own individual objectives, and then identify and continue to
hone a strategy that will get us to where we want to go.
Even then there are no guarantees. Each of us must do whatever it takes to find our own way and not let temporary failure be a deterrent. It's certainly not as easy as we perhaps thought it would be. But in all honesty, are we doing this because it's easy, or because we are driven to do it whether
it's easy or not?
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