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Film Job-Hunting Loco By Evo Rondini There I was, nestled in the Connecticut woods just beyond my backyard with a knife in one hand and a chicken in the other. Twenty minutes earlier I was running around the backyard in frantic sprints trying to catch the elusive butterball which managed to squeeze by me in a ten-by-twelve coop. All the while my freshly earned diploma hid under a thickening layer of dust somewhere in the chaos that was my bedroom. Something didn't feel quite right. Could it be that I was spending the summer farming rather than working in the film industry, or was it the fact that long days of butchering blended into even longer weekends of plumbing? My father would stick a plunger in my hand and kick me into a deep, dark sewer shouting, "Get to work, Boy!" Certainly there came days during the summer of my discontent where I could plan my escape. All I had to do was mail a resume here, make a phone call there, and viola! An ideal job would certainly materialize! When days became weeks without a single response, I began to worry. Were my credentials not stated clearly? Did the words "Bachelor of Science in Cinema and Photography with internships in LA" accidentally read as "ignore me at all costs because I'm a stinky piece of shit?" Even the hundreds of resumes I sent via e-mail turned up nothing. Maybe my would-be future employers weren't logged on. My confusion was only matched by my naivetŽ, and the weekend would grow closer. I was hoping that my college education wasn't an expensive mistake paid to widely-grinning business-types whose numbers would impress even the most experienced cattle ranchers. It had yet to start paying off, and a nasty student loan was breathing down my neck. With no job prospects in sight, I angrily accepted defeat and begrudgingly set in to fix a leaky toilet. Then, my brain rescued me. Perhaps functioning in a desperate survival mode, my brain accessed a long and almost lost memory that had escaped it- it would have spelled my demise. It was a quote that one of my professors almost inaudibly mumbled under his breath to himself during an all-important lecture about loading film into a camera. * "You won't get a job unless you know someone." * Immediately after this ultra-conscious epiphany, I threw down the pip wrench, let the chickens run free and told my parents, "I'm going to Hollywood to get a job!" Then I realized I didn't know anyone, picked up the pipe wrench, and started working on the leaky toilet. Flash forward two months and see me smile. I'm currently working on the set of a TV show called "Action," and the leaky toilet is fixed. I live in a city named Burbank, and I'm only five minutes away from my Ithaca College LA program student friends (nestled comfortably between Universal and Warner Brothers Studios). How did I get here? It still amazes me. My part was relatively simple. I completed college with a 3.2 GPA, (which is decent considering I'm half moron and half hormones), I spent a summer interning in Los Angeles through the LA program, and I kept in touch with the people I met there. This is the stuff you do to make your resume look nice, but as I outlined earlier, resumes alone will not win you an interview in this industry. You need a reference from within to help get your foot in the door. For example, if my cousin's best friend's brother didn't work on "The X Files," I would still be at home doing you know what. When I was encouraged by my family to call this person who I'd never met or even heard of before and ask for job-hunting advice, he told me to send him copies of my resume, (remember that shitty thing that didn't work before?) He kindly distributed it to a couple places, and that alone sent it straight to the top of the pile. And believe me, the pile is large. I quickly received calls for interviews on a couple small jobs, which eventually led me to my full-time position as a production assistant. I owe a lot to my cousin's best friend's brother. It's hard to put into words the advice I'm trying to share with you prospective filmmakers, but hopefully my story can provide just enough insight to keep your post-graduation months from becoming as confused as mine. One thing that I learned is that Ithaca's film program isn't meant to teach students how to get a job in the industry. It teaches analysis and production of films. So, if you're in your second or third year of school and you think film is for you, I recommend the following: -- Attend job fairs. Even if you have to trek all the way up to Syracuse to look at what you want, it's worth a try. -- Think about Internships. Ithaca offers a good opportunity with the LA program. If that's too much, then perhaps the New York City area has something to offer. -- Maintain contact with the people you work with in the industry. When reference time rolls around, they'll be on your side. (Make a good impression!) -- Or, you can do what I did - Get extremely and unreasonably lucky. Risk takers, anyone? And by the way, nobody cares about what school you attended. You don't have an advantage over anyone else with equal qualifications but a different Alma Mater. So when the Dean of H + S and his crew start talking up the "Ithaca College Film Program," just shrug it off. You're learning THE BASICS of film. The most important lessons you'll learn will be on the job, and you won't start out in the director's chair either. Be prepared to do lots of grocery shopping and dog walking (I'm not kidding.) If you have a good attitude and use your time to observe how things work, you'll have nowhere to go but up...Unless your show gets canned. And I know there's more to film than just Hollywood, (thank God), but you want to start out making a living, right? Evo Rondini graduated from Ithaca College in May 1999. He just hopes his show doesn't get cancelled (it did. Sorry, Evo. --eds.). |
