From Camera Assistant to Director of Photography: My Plan for Employment
It is the end of January 2020, and a new module has finally started: Professional Practice! As the aim of this module is to prepare us for entering the industry in our respective specialisations, I figured it might be good to start by voicing my intent and ideas on entering the industry. Thus, buckle up and enjoy the ride!
What Specialism?
It might not come as a surprise to you that I aim to enter the industry within the camera department (but if it does, shame on your reading skills!). After 2,5 years of focusing on cinematography, both technically and conceptually, anything else would come as an utter surprise.
As such, and in order to be able to secure a job within the industry with as high a likelihood as possible, I decided that I would not only apply for jobs surrounding camera assistances and traineeships, but also for technical jobs such as camera technicians for camera rental services such as e.g. Pannyhire and Picture Canning.
My reasoning for this is my goal to work as a Director of Photography one beautiful day. As I already blogged about in my blog entry “Job Roles in the Camera Department: How to Become a Cinematographer!”, and since this job is massively depending on a variety of skills that are attained over a long period of time and work experiences/work placements within the camera department, it is only obvious that either the career path as a camera assistant, camera trainee, or camera technician is the way to go for now.
Since no one will hire a self-proclaimed DoP straight off university – and especially not straight off a BA (Hons) Degree without a significant amount of work experience within the film and/or TV industry – starting with a entry-level job such as mentioned above seems the most reasonable solution. It not only offers more training and experience at a lesser level of responsibility, it also allows me to grow at a more moderate pace.
As such, my initial plan was to distribute my applications across a variety of TV stations and production companies – big or small – to ensure that I would be able to secure a job before the end of my studies and certainly before my graduation in July.
Germany, Sweden or the UK?
When I started studying, and up until the beginning of this academic year, my game plan for entering the industry was applying for any camera job or traineeship – be it purely technical or within the camera department, regardless of the country. Since I am now in the privileged position to call three countries my home, I figured that applying to jobs within these three countries would give me more of a safety net than only ever applying within one country.
But since I am also interested in travelling the world and getting to know as many cultures and nations as possible, especially the Asian ones, I decided that I would also spread my search even further and look for jobs around East Asia, such as Japan, Singapore, China but also the US as origins of big film and TV producers and consumers.
My Approach
So how did I do tackle this task? In order for this to work out as smoothly as possible, I followed the advice of my module leader who proposed using an abbreviated version of the Top 100 list – the Top 50 List.
As such, I created a list of my Top 50 employers across the world, containing their contact details and ordering them by my personal preference (since I needed to start somewhere and that criterion seemed to be the most logical to me at this point). As such, my list included information from the following categories:
Company name or name of Director of Photography
Telephone number
Address
eMail (possibly with contact person)
Job role to apply for, and
General notes
And although I would like to display an image of my list, I will need to refrain from doing so for reasons of confidentiality due to the collected and collated names, phone numbers and company details. This list will however be found in my hand-in documentation.
However, regarding the fact that major moves across the globe will be less likely than staying put close to home and gain a reputation first, I felt it was only natural that I would try keeping my current job as a freelance camera assistant with Digitalfire and see whether I could possibly gain a foothold there and either be taken on permanently or keep working as a freelancer.
Working as a Camera Assistant
As such I figured that applying for employment as a camera assistant would be the most feasible step to take next. Whilst I will still keep an eye out for any jobs that are related to camera technicians and camera trainees in general, I figured that camera assistants might be in a higher demand – both as a general assistant, 2nd AC, and 1st AC. The only problem that I might be facing is this:
There are already a lot of very talented, highly skilled camera assistants out there seeking for a job. So what do I do to find my unique selling point as use this to my advantage to gain employment?
Niche Markets – Scratching an Itch
Whilst this subtitle creates the impression that I might be able to lecture you on the topics of marketing and niche markets, nothing could be further from the truth. What I am rather referring to is the rough concept in order to outline my thinking in that regard and thus my strategy for seeking employment in the weeks to come.
So what’s a niche market?
Niche markets are markets of small audiences with particular needs or demands, thus referring to markets of specific groups of people. These are markets with a certain need that requires fulfilment and that could thus be providing you with a job, if you have the skills to meet these demands, that is.
In order to assess niche markets for their potential and to identify whether they could be a good avenue for your business, these markets need to fulfil all these categories:
They have to be identifiable.
They have to be measurable.
They have to be contactable.
They have to be harvestable.
Now, since I am still at the very beginning and thus not yet in a position of offering any particular skills or any business plan (mostly due to the lack of capital), the only assets that I could currently use are my time and the skills that I’ve obtained over my years of study and employment.
But there is one other asset that I have that might help me out here (at least for now).
And that is my gender.
I’m aware that this sounds baffling to read at first but please bear with me for another brief moment.
The film industry has always been male-dominated. Even in recent years, when camera technology became much lighter and thus easier to handle for the average female filmmaker, men used to gain more ground and advantages, due to the mere fact that they were in the game longer, thus able to gain more experience. And experience is still selling.
However, ever since the increased debate surrounding #MeToo and the inequality of women within the film industry (please refer to my blog entries “On the Subject of My Report Subject”, and “Survey Preparation and Emailing Female Cinematographers” for further information), this has changed, and increasingly more companies and employers are leaning towards making a more informed decision about hiring female camera assistants. This is also further aided by grants and funds that are increasingly accessible for film and TV productions and aimed at promoting women within the industry.
As such, and for now, promoting myself as a freelance camera assistant and showing myself openly might be a possible solution to the problem. I will however have to ponder over that a bit more, as it also makes me more assailable in the eyes of those who do not support the promotion of women in the industry or who consider it unfair treatment.
My Game Plan
So having stated all this and settled on displaying and promoting myself as a freelance camera assistant, what do I need to do in order to ensure that I will be able to have secured employment by the end of this academic year?
Since promotion and being seen – especially with your skills – is the most important part, my promotional material will have to cover a lot of items. Some of these items are (not an exhaustive list as of now):
The Top 50 Company List
Professional headshots
An updated CV
A professional bio write-up
A professional website
Business cards
Professional social media accounts (FB, Instagram, and Twitter)
A Youtube and Vimeo account
Media Job Search accounts (such as Xing and Linked-In)
A showreel, and lastly:
A film poster for my FMP
My Schedule
So in order to make sure that I will have my documentation ready not only for hand-in at the beginning of April, but also in time for my round of applications, I decided to create a schedule to ensure that I would meet the deadline with all the necessary paperwork.
As such, this is my timeline/schedule as of now:
Applications
Another vital step that I haven’t covered yet is the fact that I will have to apply for jobs. And since I already do have a part-time job, I figured that starting to ask for a permanent job there would again be the most logical step to take.
Thus, I asked my boss whether he would consider taking me on permanently…
And what shall I say?
He was very much up for this idea and looking into sorting out the precise details of how our future employment relationship could look like.
Whilst I cannot publish the entirety of our conversation on this public platform, I will ensure to have the evidence of our conversation included into my hand-in documentation at the end of my module.
With these game plans, schedules and lists set in motion, and especially with the prospect of further working for Digitalfire in the future, I think I am off to a good start.
Let the games of self-promotion begin!
References:
Digitalfire. (2020) Homepage. [online] https://digitalfire.co.uk [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
My First Job in Film. (2016) Camera Trainee. [online] https://www.myfirstjobinfilm.co.uk/resources/careers-guide/detail?page_id=5[Accessed on 30 January 2020].
My Job Search. (n.d.) Cinematographer Job. [online] https://myjobsearch.com/careers/cinematographer.html[Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Pannyhire. (2020) Homepage. [online] https://www.pannyhire.co.uk [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Picture Canning. (2020) Homepage. [online] https://canning24.tv [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Svea Hartle. (2017) In the Spotlight: The Cinematographer. [online] https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2017/11/04/In-the-Spotlight-The-Cinematographer [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Svea Hartle. (2019) Job Roles in the Camera Department: How to Become a Cinematographer! [online] https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2019/02/13/Job-Roles-in-the-Camera-Department-How-to-Become-a-Cinematographer [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Svea Hartle. (2019) On the Subject of My Report Subject. [online] https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2019/02/25/On-the-Subject-of-My-Report-Subject… [Accessed on 30 January 2020].
Svea Hartle. (2019) Survey Preparation and Emailing Female Cinematographers. [online] https://sveahartle.wixsite.com/sveaexmachina/single-post/2019/03/04/Survey-Preparation-And-Emailing-Female-Cinematographers [Accessed on 30 January 2020].