Last summer, I graduated with a BA Honours Degree in Film, and since have spent most of my time as a production runner, a photographer and an intern. To say the least, it hasnโt been easy, and isnโt likely to get any easier in the near future.
While studying for my degree, I was met with the usual questions thrown at students, my favourite being the inevitable “What are you studying?”, that is spoken with such an air of expectancy and temporary interest, that would then quickly be replaced with mildly patronising tones and hesitant facial expressions. For example:
Distant relative whose name I never remember: โOh youโre at University now? Fantastic! What are you studying?โ
Me: โFilm.โ
Distant relative whose name I never remember: โOh. How… lovely!โ
In her head: โOhhh, one of those degrees.โ
Oh, I heard your judging all right.
And Iโm sure that 90% of my fellow Film Graduates/Current Film Students will have heard it too.
The thing with doing a degree in Film, or even pursuing a career in Film is that, yeah, itโs not rocket science. Itโs not Law, or Medicine, and itโs nowhere NEAR the realms of academia that other subjects delve into. However,
It. Is. Bloody. Hard. Work.
Filmmaking isnโt difficult. It is just hard work.
The reason so many people never make it, isnโt because theyโve failed a course, or a degree. Itโs because theyโve given up. Half the time, successful filmmakers don’t even have those credentials. You don’t really need a degree, or any kind of other certification in film to make it.
What you need is balls, and persistence.
Anyway, for all my filmmaking friends, and friends of filmmaking friends out there, here are fifteen fail-safe signs that you studied film at University.
1. When you left University, you felt incredibly motivated and 110% ready to take on the world.
2. This quickly changed as you started looking for jobs and realised that job hunting is possibly the most depressing thing on the entire planet.
3. You’re signed up to MyFirstJobInFilm, ProductionBase and countless other jobsites that give promise of a ‘break’ into the industry, slowly drowning your CV and Showreel into a pool of unwanted and unread CVs and Showreels…
4. You are currently working several jobs, both full-time and part-time, while simultaneously attempting to kick-start your own project(s).ย
5. Hearing about your one friend finally getting the funding for her PhD, and your other friend looking into putting a mortgage down on a house, makes you want to curl up into the fetal position and die.ย
6. Whenever you meet someone new, you dread the question, “So, what do you do?”
7. Your “weekly” life-update phone call with your parents is rife with reassuring adjectives and positive thinking, when you actually feel like this:
8. You see lots of opportunities online in the form of short-courses, film-related competitions, or even Master Degrees, and wish you had your Student Loan again, or essentially a ‘Free Money Service’.
9. You watch endless amounts of TV and Film to “get ideas”.ย
10. You buy a notebook that you promise yourself will be full of brilliant and award-winning ideas, but instead, ends up amounting to nothing more than the likes of your grocery list and the fiftieth draft of your New Years Resolution.ย
11. You attempt to network and force yourself into situations you aren’t used to.
12. You contemplate the idea of getting a “normal” job, but then are immediately shut down by your fears of failure and the inability to follow your dreams.
13. But then, alas, a glimmer of hope when you bag your first film related job, and it feels like a complete success. The sun is shining, the grass is green and your life is now (temporarily) made.
14. You turn up to your new job and feel the need to come across as professional, yet enthusiastic at the same time, but end up spending most of your time feeling like this:
15. And finally, after your first string of successful film jobs, you realise that you need to do the entire process again.ย
Then, the cycle repeats.
Stay strong, my fellow Film Grads!
So true this Lol! Just gotta keep on keeping on and yelling "ACTION!" ๐
Loved the visual style of this piece – telling it like it is. Good Luck! and keep believing in yourself.
Loved the visual style of this piece – telling it like it is. Good Luck! and keep believing in yourself.
I hear you ๐ But so long as we enjoy the "journey", there's really nothing to worry about. Anything that belongs to us would eventually find us ๐
ergh so true
without destiny all winds are contrary… written in school of navigation in portugal around the time of the circumnavigational world discoveries.
This is brilliant, so true…..keep the faith !!
Lovely and funny montage – made my morning. Isn't every competitive type of ambition this same story.
Wow, nothing about having anything worth saying to the world. It's all about being a cog in the machine. Yay. …Typical.
so true
so true
While this is funny, I think you need to ask yourself what exactly you want to do in film. Do you have a great story to tell? If so, get it written or get someone to write it. If not, then the film business is still just a job, perhaps more demoralizing to a certain extent than most office jobs, but you chose it.