Welcome to The Friends In Film Blog

If you want to get into the film industry, you’ll have to do some growing. It’s not hard, but you have to start believing that you are this go-getter, all-in personality. You have to become that person.

Simply being handed jobs in the film will not get you a career in it. Getting on set by the merit of your own efforts is what will give you the kind of reputation with professionals that will net you consistent work. They respect the people that are self-made and that image they have is where your success comes from.

If you’ve done our free training, you know that the fastest pathway into the industry is to volunteer on smaller shoots like student films, music videos, and indie projects. These are non-union projects which means you can get your hands on equipment and get a feel for set, build up your confidence, BEFORE you end up on paid shoots where your and everyone’s reputation is at stake.

Two of our A-listers having been using what we call The 20 Shoots Method to build up their network and experience and recently ended up on the same shoot! Here’s what one of them had to say:

Melissa is a mentor in our FIF Into The Industry Certification program. I wanted to get the full story of why she joined the program, what her first shoots were like, and where she is now! 

1. Do you remember what happened for you? When you started Into The Industry Certification, what was your first paid shoot?

I got my first paid shoot in April 2019. I had been scrolling through Craigslist looking for any indication of shoots happening and I found one that was looking for a camera person. It was happening in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is about a 3 hour drive from where I live. I was hesitant to send a want to work email because I couldn’t really afford to put myself up in a hotel at the time, so I didn’t. 

When you’re new to the industry, you want to be, at all times, attracting opportunities. You need to attract work, relationships, and mentors that altogether will propel you from the free shoots into the paid professional world. It is on those first shoots where you’ll build the confidence and industry street-smarts that will net you those opportunities.

Professionals want to help people who help themselves. Given how hectic their jobs are, they want to know they’re helping out someone who deserves and will appreciate being mentored. The question becomes how you transform into someone professionals want to take under their wing and eventually pass work to when they themselves move up into the next tier of work. Confidence will be key.

How do you make people like you, so they want to work with you again?

In our industry, it’s especially tricky. Film professionals are used to people in their lives trying to get something out of them, and this sometimes makes them wary of people they don’t know very well.

At the time of this call, Allyson had only been in the program for a few months. Through getting inside and standing out as a dedicated, burgeoning professional, she made some incredible connections immediately, getting pulled onto shoots – and acting roles – by the DP of Fox’s Empire.

It’s better to take the road less travelled. There are tens of thousands of actors trying to get roles right now. If you want to succeed as a new actor you could do what other actors are doing and compete for the same auditions as everyone else through the same path as everyone else. The vast majority of actors doing this get one or two roles a year at most on low, sometimes medium sized shoots. It’s extremely difficult for them to vector up into big budget shoots on the biggest commercials, shows, and movies using this method. There’s just too many people doing the same thing and it can be impossible to get the right connections to make this happen.

Isabel works as a digital producer and is a mentor in our FIF Into The Industry Certification program. Digital producers are the people who decide what shows get made and coordinate both the production of media and how/when/where it’s presented. She’s worked for big companies like CNN, the BBC, and AMC.

The film industry is in many ways a “who-you-know” industry. If you approach it the right way, this can be a huge benefit.

“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” – Mario Andretti

GUYS, it hit me big time on set last night. Standing there on set, filming a guy slapping his friends hands away from his french fries. (That’s filmmaking!) That’s comedy! :-)

Lately we’ve been bringing up your energy and confidence and how these things will lead to you making that critical jump from outside the industry to being on set. Once you’re on set, how will those things help you build a career?

If you can get really good at networking and making relationships, you will move fast in the film industry. This is both a simple and complicated thing to do. Knowing when to ask questions, what kinds of questions to ask, when the right time is to message people for more work, all of these things will have a drastic effect on your success as you’re trying to gain mentors and higher level work. You can make this MUCH easier for yourself just by having a positive, inquisitive attitude in all your conversations.