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Freelance
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The ultimate goal of film is to make money at it. There I've said it. What's that? You're in it to produce amazing visuals and portray compelling stories? Me too but I can't reach larger audiences or even produce real quality without funding. Welcome to Capitalism, now go out and get money doing what you love. It doesn't matter how crappy you are at making film, all that does is decide your price range. Once you can get yourself out there you'll find alot of people just want their clips but together or something that shows what they do on their site and they'll gladly use you. But I guess you want to know how to get yourself there. The first thing you need is a couple of videos and a demo reel. As much as I support getting into the business early and unprepared there is too early and too unprepared. Now that you have that all you need is a video resume and a standard cover letter. I spent about a week putting together my resumé, basically anything I ever did with video. I won't spend today's blog telling you how to make a resumé, there's about a million sites out there that can do that (just google it). Same goes for demo reels, even poptent.com has a helpful guide for demo reeling somewhere in there. I will tell you that no one wants to read a resume longer than 1 page unless you're steven spielberg; and even then they won't stand more than two pages. So keep it at one, keep your wording technical (not flowery) and keep your font at a readable size. Once you've done all that it's time to go on craig's list. email every job offer that fits you and almost fits you, if you're feeling daring email some that don't fit you, especially if they've been up for a while. Your email needs to say what you've done that relates to what they want done (even if it's already in your resume). It needs to say where you saw their ad, where you are, how you'll work with them and how they can contact you. You'll also need to motivate them to contact you so ask them something simple that they'd know so they can give you an easy response. If you get a response or not 2 to 3 days later you NEED to send a follow up email with some excuse for bothering them again. If they gave you an email back then it's easy, you're responding to that and asking more questions, if not then you may need to provide other venues of contact, extra info about your schedule and/or updates to your channel (youtube or otherwise) or resumé. After you've exhausted your local listings search around elsewhere, the great thing about craig'slist is it's so expansive it can be a daily activity FOREVER. I recommend cataloguing every person you're contacting so you can get all of your follow ups on time and giving up after the 2nd or 3rd follow up if there's no responses at all. There are dozens of other sites (studentfilmmakers is one of them) that contain classifieds, forums, and call outs of people offering services and requesting them. The internet, while a convenient and ever replenishing resource of jobs is by-far the least likely vector to get you jobs (but you should still try it often). The most likely is personal contact referrals, these are your friends, family, and coworkers. Tell your friends you're passionate about film, that you've been making lots of videos and you're looking for work on the side: they're probably your best source for jobs; referring you to their friends, their friends friends, their parents, coworkers, siblings, etc... Before you do this you might want to develop a good pitch on the phone. You may not always know the caller personally even though your sister told him/her about you. Practice with your wife, husband or friend; whoever can give you constructive criticism about how you sound. Make them ask you stupid or unexpected questions and get good at answering them. Remember all those for hire ads you saw either online or in classifieds? Call them and hear their pitch and ask them questions, see how they answer. Most importantly visit professional company's websites, people who film weddings or make dvd's, give them a call as if you were a customer and take notes. Let's say you almost got the job but they wanted someone proficient in the next version of whatever you're working in, or a program you don't have. Maybe you got the job and now they're pressuring you to get (and learn) some expensive program. If ever the only lockout is an expensive program, and you can justify the program expense by the money you'll make from the employer then go out and buy it (after you get the job and say that you have the program)! I know it sounds bad but there is no better way to learn a program then with the pressure of a deadline and a demanding boss. This way you can increase your own skill and your pay. Working freelance is hard because it requires continuous self advertising on your part but it's a good skill to posses. One last thing, when you get a chance write up a contract; I don't care how nice or understanding they are you MUST ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY have a contract. just a simple this is how I work and this is when you receive each invoice and this is what you'll get. I ran into too many problems going without a contract. And it's a big red flag if your employer doesn't want you to have one. But more on red flags tomorrow...