Why is it difficult to get into the industry?
This is a paradox. Let’s face it, when you are new to the industry, you probably don’t have that much experiences or a very impressive portfolio to tell people to give you work and pay you for that, Just you need to land a project to gain experience, which you won’t land it if you don’t have any….. and so on. More importantly is that, most people who are looking for a skilled crew member would prefer to work with someone they already know or someone their friends know. Which is why many people says that film school helps a lot because it helps them to get to know more filmmakers in that area, it helps to build the connections. You need to build the connection.
I’m just an aspiring filmmaker and videographer who just moved to Manchester from a far ground thousands of miles away, so I know well what new filmmakers would be struggling when trying to start getting jobs. And I would like to share how am I doing it so far.
Nothing impressive, this is just what I have been doing in the past 3 months, the struggles and the outcome.
The experience.
One way to gain experience to through film school where you can happily make mistakes and know people around you, and also participate in different projects because in most colleges, there are always something going on. You just need to learn how to participate in those, then you will have no problem building up your portfolio and gaining more experience. Especially the film club. They are usually pretty good for familiarize yourself to the production work flow and get on set experiences.
(And I am that one fool who didn’t take a opportunity to learn something from it. Don’t be like me.)
How to get over it?
If you’re like me, sorta confidence with your skills, just don’t know where to start to get yourself into something, it’s time to be more creative and be confidence. Here’s the tool I used to start building up my portfolio. (Again, it’s not a massive portfolio, but it’s a start.) The Internet.
- Upwork
- Upwork is a freelance work platform for freelancer to find job in their field, believe it or not, I landed my first job as a videographer on this website. But you do need to take your time to build up your profile on there, otherwise, it’s not that easy to land a decent job on there, and tbh, many of them are not paying enough to pay any bills… But it’s a place to start.
- Instagram/Facebook
- For this Meta (like matter…), these two platforms are still playing a pretty significant role if we want to land a job. When people are interested in hiring us for any projects, they usually would like to see our portfolio, or get our instagram, so having our work on social media to create some digital footprint would be helpful to help our potential client to learn more about us.
- Furthermore, this is also a way for us to learn about them! There are many small business around you that you don’t know of, and many of them struggles with creating digital content to promote their business. Look them up! Check out their social media and you will see if they are trying to put more work on marketing, ask them if they need your services! If they do, get to work! (I’ll also write a post about how to get to work in that “meta”.)
- Bumble Bizz
- I know, I know, Bumble is a dating app. But it does also have a business section called “BIZZ”. Although it sounds pathetic, there are many small business owners and artists on that platform, I actually made my first music video with one of the artist on there (I did that project for free cuz I needed to build my portfolio desparately… but I also learned a lot from that project). Build a connection with those people can sometimes help with your business (if you’re lucky…)
- The downside is that, there’re also many people who probably can’t pay you well for what you do for them in any short time, many of them are just starting up, and don’t necessarily have the fund/budget for hiring other people, so what they usually expect would be a collaboration (which means you don’t get paid….sad), you probably should learn some negotiating skills before talking to any of them. (Gosh… I really should develop my people skills)
- Starnow
- This is where you can find some projects going on. It is mainly a casting platform for actors, but sometimes, you can find them casting for their film crew. One time I sorta became the best boy for two days in a short film production, pretty exciting stuffs. If you have started a project but don’t have a crew, you can also try that out.
- Meetup (We have a Group in Manny)
- Meetup is a app (or a website? I don’t know) that let people host event and create groups for local activities. Well… I‘ll be honest, I only bringing this up to let you know that me and my friends are hosting a filmmaking social group in Manchester, where we will toss around ideas and build connections. My friend started it because he could find something similar in the Manny area, so we started one. We are supposed to have a meetup every Sunday night (but it isn’t settled yet). Perhaps we will be pitching our ideas and see if we can throw something together to start a production, or productions (hopefully if things go well). If you are interested, here’s the link to signup! (https://www.meetup.com/Manchesterfilmmakersandcreatives/)
- I think you can also achieve something silica on Facebook as well, but I haven’t tried that, so I couldn’t tell how well will that go…
Anyway, this is what I have been doing to overcome my struggles on getting into the video production industry, please leave me a comment to tell me what you think or what you’ve doing in this matter. This is my first blog post officially, so I know there are a lot that I could’ve done better. If you are still reading this, thank you for baring with me til the end. I hope to see you around. Take care 🙂
Half-Impulse Media Production 