For Recent Grads: The Insider’s Guide to Landing Your Second Crew Production Job

Congratulations!  You’ve already gotten your first crew production job. 

In addition to calling everyone you knew in the biz to get job leads, if you lived in Los Angeles or New York, you bought a copy of either the Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday or Daily Variety on Friday when they publish their production listings, and you found the movies in pre-production and in preparation in your area.  If you lived somewhere other than LA or NY, you contacted the local film board to find out about productions in town. 

You cold-called every single one, always being polite and friendly and not being thrown off by the sometimes-abrupt phone manners of the production personnel on the other end of the line.  You emailed or faxed your neat, well-written resume to everyone who said they might be able to use you and then you called to follow up until you heard a no or, finally, a yes.

How do you get your second production job?

On your first job, you follow instructions to the letter and do every single thing that is asked of you, you solve problems yourself if you can and notify your supervisor if you can’t, you jump in and help anyone who needs it, and you don’t complain ever to anyone.  You make friends with the other crew members, especially the assistants in the departments you might want to transition into (the bosses are probably too busy to be your friend), and you stay in touch with everyone who might be able to hire you in the future and everyone who tells you they might know someone who can use you.

And, in case you’re wondering, that’s also how you get your second production job.

Add comment August 26th, 2008