career

The piece of advice I received the other day that stuck with me the most seems obvious in retrospect. Doesn't most good advice?

"As a freelancer, you have to consider hustling up work to be part of your job. Ten hours a week, you should be making phone calls and going to meetings".
A far cry from what we freelance lighting techs have come to consider normal. There's this combination of self-effacement and status-consciousness that riddles the culture of film freelancers. The idea is that you don't want to appear to need the work, it will make you look desperate or not in demand. I'm starting to think that that's a mask for shyness or inertia or complacency

After 13 years in the lighting business in New York, avowedly as a stepping stone to becoming a full-time DP, I sitll only shoot occasionally. Perhaps I could have hustled a little more? Just tell people what you want. The worst that can happen is they say no, which they probably will, but don't take it personally.

Had a chat recently with Peter Chernin who used to run News Corp. Liberal Arts grads, take heart. He was an English major and ending up running News Corp.