Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.
“
| — | John Ruskin |
good things happen to those who hustle. - Anais Nin
when i first started trying to get jobs in film it became quite clear very early on in my endeavor that i would need to hustle my ass off if i wanted to work in the business. not only work in the business, but meet the right people so that i could continue working in the business for years to come.
i did indeed hustle and i have been working steadily for the last two years. (there was a 3 month stint where i wasn’t working, but not only wasn’t i the only one in nyc not working, but 3 months as a freelancer isn’t unheard of. unfortunate, but not unheard of.) but during the last two years i haven’t felt that deep drive to hustle like i did before, probably because i’ve been working. but damn, not working for three months, and then having two months of solid work in two productions has reinstated that drive in me again…and pow!! i’m emailing strangers out of the blue, knocking on doors of people with three degrees of separation between us and working on the most amazingly beautiful resume ever. i’m never going three months without work again!
fuck yay!
c
to quit or not to quit
that is the question. it’s not really, because i’m not going to quit the film business anytime soon, however, i bring this up because i had a conversation today with probably the 10th person since i started in film tell me to “get out now.”
granted, these are straight up veterans of the business; i mean people who have been doing this for 20 or 30 years. and by this i mean, set decorating, teamsters, art directors, producers etc. everyone keeps warning me about time flying by, ending up with no family and nothing to show for all the hard work. and honestly, a lot of these people are old, unhappy, haggard and lonely. yikes. i don’t think that will happen to me. i think starting in my late twenties has helped me in that respect. i’m not sure how, but that’s what my gut tells me.
anyway, as of this month, i’m going to become an art department coordinator and learn all i can about budget now, when i’m young, so when i produce documentaries (and i will!) i’ll be prepared to deal with the most important aspect of production: money.
c
