Hello everybody, Janet here – Friendsinfilm and I have a great question that you guys probably also really wanna know. The question is “I’m moving to Los Angeles next year, is there anything I can do to get a jump start and to work out there”? So she’s trying to prepare herself, so that when she comes to Los Angeles, she has work already lined up or she wants to be able to come in and be working right away.
In my opinion there is something that you can do to make the situation just go really smoothly and have work lined up, basically, and that is to get work where you’re living right now. Right now you’re just probably within 2 to 3 hours driving distance of a major metropolitan area and all the work in the film industry, it’s really gone all over the United States. So there are shoots happening all over the United States. Now if you think that “oh no there’s not much happening, I don’t see it”, you know “I’m not finding it on Craigslist or wherever” that’s because it’s all happening and you won’t know about it. I mean people are quietly doing their shoots and the professionals – they don’t need the whole public to know about it. Only the big movies with the media picked up on. So there’re shoots happening all around you and I know this because I teach this stuff.
One the most exciting things is my mentorship students go out there and they do a magic list and they find all the people and all the production companies that are working in the area around them. So here’s why I am telling you this – you can get experience where you live, you can get acting experience, you can get production experience, you can really just start to know the drill, you can know how to talk to people so that when you come in to Los Angeles you’re just like , “hi here I’m, I’ve done this, I’ve done this, I did this film, I would love to meet you” and then you’re connecting more like as a peer. Very very important.
Most people coming to Los Angeles say “Oh I… you know I wanna show you my talent” and it just makes everybody in Los Angeles roll their eyes cos that’s what everybody says and there’s so much talent here. It’s not about talent, it’s about kind of just getting in there and getting relationships with people so that they know you, they know your type, they know what you can do, they know that they like you, they know they can trust you on a set. You know, how many times have you heard casting directors talk about “Oh we need to be able to trust that you will be able to handle yourself on set” and it takes years to build that trust.
You know, you got to start all over cos these people don’t know you, so how you can build trust much more quickly is if you done stuff already and you can say “Oh yeah I have worked on this set, on this and this” and they’re like “oh my god those are big movies.” So obviously, you know people like you, obviously you know your way around, obviously people are hiring you, paying you money and that’s like the biggest thing right there. When people are paying you money to be there, then they’re like okay. There in! They are one of us! And then it is much easier for them to feel comfortable, to send you out, to to bring you in for meetings, the whole shebang. Okay?
So the answer of your question is – get very involved where you live right now and get experience and start knowing what production is, start having those conversations and start learning the business where you live. Then come out here and it’ll be more like a walk in the park, just meeting more people that are very similar to the people you already knew, back where you are living now and you’re just meeting more of those people, you are just expanding, which is what you’re supposed to do. You know, we are all freelance, this is what we’re supposed to do. You are supposed to go out and meet people because we are all freelance so this is how we make our living and you just gotta get good at that. That’s like the whole thing about the business.
Okay great question thank you so much, talk to you soon.
