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.

Career

Hm. Seeing a way out makes the walls seem more confining. Up until now, I've never been able to imagine a clear route to doing anything other than the movie biz; it's all I'm skilled at. The thought of jumping ship and starting over completely in another field has always felt abhorrent, so I put a brave face on it and enjoyed the good parts of this career. I've always enjoyed the freedom of being freelance, I love the constant stream of new people, I like periodic travel jobs, I like the occasional rigging problems that I have to solve. But. Overall, much of what I do in the lighting end of the movie and tv business is not challenging, is not interesting, is not socially redeeming, is not all that great. Yesterday an infomercial, today an interview with a goole exec, Friday reality tv, next week the Playboy channel. This is why I bailed out in 2006 and went traveling. The earnings called me back. Keep in mind, it's not as though I'm getting rich. Decent, comfortable, middle class money, but I'm not getting rich.

The source of the sudden new career anxiety is this: I'm in discussion with my mother in law about joining her company and eventually taking it over. She wants to retire, and pass her company to one of her children, or the next best thing. She runs three centers for speech, language, and occupational therapy in California.

It's a little later now, I decided not to do it. Why switch from one thing I'm only halfway interested in to something else I'm only halfway interested, but years back in experience? Would that really be better? I might get restless there too. I toured the operation for a week. It's all female employees and a lot of people with speech problems. Not convinced that' the right environment for me.

Reality

I do much of my work in reality television. I have very mixed feelings about this. I pretty much hate the product, by and large. I think I've worked on two shows that I might enjoy watching. "Can't Get a Date" certainly, and possibly, "The Apprentice". I make at least half of my income in reality television. It's hard to walk away from that. And they're never my shows. I never have my heart in the product, I just light them, so I don't feel like I'm selling myself out completely.

But is this what I'm capable of? Lighting silly, vapid, shallow reality TV?

The thing about it is how little reality there is to it. The actors are real people, who aren't reading scripted lines, but all of reality is heavily, "produced". In court, they would call that leading the witness. Write a plausible story for the selected cast members, and induce them to act it out and talk about it. The only thing unscripted is the dialogue.

I met a guy today at the restaurant where we were shooting who went on a rant about how stupid the contestants sounded. He told me that a lawyer friend of his was preparing a class-action suit against some of the networks for making America into a stupider place.

It's us. We're the ones buying it. Watching the shows, giving them the ratings response that keeps on churning them out, keeping me gainfully employed, paying for my books and my New Yorker subscription and all the other things that make me feel superior to the Reality-watching masses.

How is watching silly girls talk about boys, clothes, and nightclubs that compelling to listen to? It just boggles the mind.

But I enjoy my craft. I like trying to make things look nice, in a way that accomodates multiple camera angles and still works. I like my income. I like lots of the people I work with.

Sigh.

Feeling a drought of work, but more than that, wondering when I'll move up in my field. Calling my basic work strategy into question. Work, know people, be recognized for my ability, promoted thusly. Represent my interest in advancement when possible. Dont miss an opportunity. Wait. I am unsure how to promote myself more.
For those of you who dont know, i'm a lighting technician who's trying to become a director of photography. If I look at it, my strategy isn't really working all that well. Ten years into new York, and I'm not yet where I want to be professionally.
Not to say Ive achieved nothing, not at all. But.