Growing in the film industry is a daunting prospect for most people. Me included. I had next to no on-set experience before moving to L.A and I’m still not satisfied. This is a broad topic with a lot of technicalities to pay attention to so I’ll be speaking broadly and post more not the various facets of knowledge and skills in later posts where I can go into more detail.

When I first came to L.A I started working for free on a small reality tv show. This was a difficult experience but useful for gaining confidence in working under pressure and in multiple roles. The benefit of working for free is you get to ask questions. My advice is always prepare and do your best because impressing people when you’re working for free is a good indicator of how great you’ll be with a little monetized incentive. I say that because I met two others who both invited me to work on their projects, one paid and one for free. My point is use gigs where they may not offer much and turn them into invaluable opportunities to help set you up for later projects. Ask questions and be less stressed about messing up and you may even be surprised by how much more seasoned people are willing to teach you.

This leads me to a very important point. Do not be afraid to go beyond your limits. If you always stay within your parameters you’ll never grow. I entered a new position for free as a script supervisor on a short film by reaching out to someone on Facebook. Now I was honest, I had never worked as a script supervisor and I was lucky because they really didn’t need more than someone to slate and then write down the scenes being recorded. Where it gets interesting is when the writer and star on that project sent me an instagram post on a job for a feature. This is also a long winded way to say networking is important but like I said earlier I talk more on that another day.

I got brought on to my first feature by being recommended by people who vaguely knew I had been a script supervisor. I’ll be honest (especially now that filming is done) I did not have the experience they were probably expecting. Did I tell them that? No, no I did not. Instead I told them yes I will be there tomorrow at eight, printed off the pages and script and spent the rest of the evening watching YouTube tutorials on how to do my job. I not only did my job but impressed those who had never met me before and waled away with a good reputations and a lot of recommenders. So, never lie about yourself but don’t be afraid to take a chance on yourself either. I promise you are more capable than you think.