And doesn’t talent- although you hint that it does not- matter in sticking out of the crowd? Like with lucas and the gang who did the college thing and got noticed and then produced by someone. Talent can make a difference?
‘You want a script with those fries?’
I double majored in Journalism and Communication Studies. Half technical, half theoretical analysis. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
But anything media-related is a damn popular field, and it’s hard to get work-- maybe harder than in some other fields-- because there are lots of talentless people willing to work for free in order to get connections.
All those interns at national morning shows? Volunteers, each and every one of them. Volunteers who spend the summer in New York earning no money just to put down “I volunteered at Today” on their resume.
I don’t know if it’s fair to call them ‘talentless’. Anyway, one good thing about people working for meals, screen credit, and a copy of the finished project (or ‘deferred payment’ :belly laugh: ) is that it helps people like me and my friends keep costs down.
Oh, you want to screenwrite?
I wouldn’t go to film school just for screenwriting. They don’t teach much of it, and what they teach varies wildly. Your peers are going to have little use for someone who isn’t interested in the nuts and bolts of film and there is no such thing as an “independent screenwriter”. A lone filmmaker and her buddies can make a movie and do something with it, but nobody can do anything with a screenplay on their own.You will always be dependent on others and frankly thats not worth banking on.
I’d major in something else, join a writer’s group, take all the screenwriting classes I can and get one of the big netflix accounts.
Nah, some of them are pretty talentless. For every person like me who has a degree and actual on-air experience (both behind the mike and production work) and management experience, there are dozens who think they can be DJs and who do an “aircheck” into a tape recorder. And this is for a part-time $10 an hour (if that) job with a strong likelihood of getting fired within six months.
That said, I’m getting my BA in communications/journalism this December. I know it’ll take time to get my dream job, so I’m starting my job search now. I’m also willing to take a job out of radio to support my family until I get my dream job. I’ve also looked into the possibility of doing independent radio production for syndication.
I think the key to surviving in such a major is to go into it with the understanding that jobs are scarce, and to be willing to explore other avenues, like the possibility of self-employment (and believe me, there’s grant money to be had if you’re willing to go that route), or employment in a related but non-glamorous aspect to the field, like, say, producing training videos. It’s possible, and people make good livings doing that.
Robin
I have my first degree in Film Studies. Almost all theoretical. (Its actually most of a degree, I never wrote my senior paper).
Watching movies and writing papers was a fun way to get a four year liberal arts degree. I do the same thing with my Film Studies/Art History major as I do with my History minor, my concentration in Women’s Studies, etc…witty repartee at parties. And it taught me to think.
I’m now an IT Program Manager going back to school for a BA in Accounting. Did do some Marketing work early in my career where I was the “business side” producer for tv commerical and industrial videos. Hated it. Pay was bad, far too many prima donnas, far too many clueless idiots, far too many people who really really wanted to be the person making the decsions.
Self-employment=Me.
Right now I’m more or less starting an independent production company with a buddy of mine. It’s peanuts now, but the plan is to move into website development as well as weddings, music videos, etc.
Also, if one can find a specific niche in which to work there’s usually excellent money in that too. Videography is wide open.
Me too. One niche that we’ve found is to use better (i.e., broadcast) cameras than anyone else in town. This allows us to accept jobs such as the one we took earlier in the month, where we went out live on FOX. It’s also a good selling-point for weddings, since we ‘look serious’. (While prosumer cameras are perfectly adequate for the job, they don’t look as ‘sexy’ as big cameras; which impresses clients.) We also take care in post to make the images look excellent. Everyone in town uses Final Cut Pro, but no one else seems to use its capabilities as much as we do.
We need more cameras though. A job I’m pretty sure we’ve got in the southern part of the state requires five cameras, and we only have three. We’ve arranged to rent a pair of prosumer cameras from another studio, but we need one more camera so that we don’t have to rely on anyone else when we double-book weddings.