What Is Your Superpower?
You can’t put money on a reputation. Skills are great, and connections are a lifeline in this industry, but all of that gets trumped by people knowing who you are and what you can do in the alchemy of filmmaking.
When you’re first starting out as a filmmaker, before you ever set foot on set, ask yourself this: What do you know how to do? What is your edge, your gift, your hidden talent? What is the thing you can do that no one else can? You might not have a clear answer right now, but understanding your edge helps you connect and rise through your career.
Are you able to hop in and out of different roles on set? Do you have a contact sheet of crew/vendors/businesses/social media followers? Are you detail oriented? Are you cool under pressure? These are the traits that producers look for when making hiring decisions. The pressure cooker that is production will push you to the limit, and the filmmaking team will need good vibes, flexibility, professionalism, a good dose of humor and kindness, and super prepared people around them to lift them up to be better filmmakers themselves. Your goal when starting out, and really throughout your career, is for people to hear your name and go, “Them? Yeah, I’ve heard nothing but good things.”
Once you know what you can do, it’s time to practice and hone that skill so that it becomes something more. If you’ve got a list of contacts for any scenario, now you have to foster those relationships and earn favors. That way, if you ever have to make that emergency call, you know the answer at the end of the conversation will be YES. If you own some specialized equipment, you need to know how to make it sing. If you’re a taskmaster and logistical wonderkid, take on bigger projects and show your peers how it’s done.
Building a reputation—showing off your superpower—takes time, and it requires HARD WORK. If you want to get skilled, you have to practice. If you want to get discovered, you have to get out into the world. If you want to build a career, you have to start climbing from the bottom. So how do you make yourself known?
First, before we even begin, give yourself permission to make a mistake. Remember that nobody can predict with 100% certainty what career is going to fit their skills, their wants, and their endurance. You might think you’re destined to be a brilliant director, only to discover that you hate that job and prefer the comfort of sitting in a dark room writing screenplays and drinking too much coffee. If you have a skill that you enjoy, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to turn it into your job for life. Changing lanes is okay. Think of all the roadblocks and adversity that Frodo Baggins had on his way to destroy the One Ring in Mordor…it was not an easy journey. Oh wait, hobbits aren’t real? “Ok Jon, that’s Middle Earth…any real life examples?” How about Ke Huy Quan who won Best Supporting Actor for Everything, Everywhere All At Once"? His path to that Oscar stage was not easy at all, he was a stunt coordinator, dialogue coach, 1st AD, he did everything he could to stay near Hollywood so that one day, he could get back on set….it only took 35+ years!
Now, let’s say you want to be a director. There are a ton of skills that you’re going to have to learn over the years, but it’s all for naught if you never get behind the camera and actually direct a film. So, the first thing you should do is write a script. It doesn’t have to be amazing—and it most likely won’t be—but you have to practice your craft. If you have a friend who writes, ask to take one of their stories and adapt it for film. If you’re starting on your own, then break out Final Draft and get to typing. You can’t get better if you never try. You should also enroll in an acting class. There truly is nothing worse than a Director who doesn’t know how to speak to actors and elicit an authentic performance.
If you want to be a producer, you need to be reading scripts to develop taste, create conversations with directors/writers, and learning how to give good story notes. Invest in a nice set of books from Syd Field, Robert McKee, and SaveTheCat! More to the point, you need to read them with an eye toward realistically bringing them to life. This is, believe it or not, a really tricky skill to master. See, writers love to put all sorts of enormous set piece events in their screenplays. They want to WOW the reader with explosions and special effects and superheroes punching planets at each other. Then you, the producer, have to figure out how much that will actually cost to create. Try reading a script with the mindset that every scene needs to be shot. Do you know where to rent the necessary equipment? Do you know VFX artists, or stunt people, or location scouts? If you were tasked with bringing this to life, what connections would you need to make it happen?
Building these superpowers isn’t just for top of the line positions. If you want to work in wardrobe, you should start building connections and relationships with costume and prop houses (much easier if you live in New York or Los Angeles, where they are easy to find). If you want to work in props, find a local shop and ask to start an apprenticeship. What do they require? Reach out to young directors and filmmakers and offer your skills for their next project so you can show off what you can do.
When I was starting out, I remixed trailers and posted them on YouTube. It taught me about editing and selling ideas before I had even a penny to put toward a project of my own. Don’t be intimidated by the road ahead, and don’t be ashamed of taking shortcuts. This isn’t a competitive sport where you need to play fair. This is your career, and you should use every advantage you can to get ahead.
Finally, what do you do if none of the above seems to apply? What if you don’t have a clue which path you should take, and you don’t feel skilled in management or direction? Well, let’s get even simpler. Do you own equipment?
When I was in school, there was a kid who owned a professional boom mic and sound system. That’s it. He wasn’t a people person, didn’t have a rolodex of contacts, and couldn’t sell a story to a cold room. All he knew how to do was use a particular tool that EVERYONE needed. And so, when people were making movies, they called him. He was necessary, which meant he always had work. He didn’t necessarily want to be a sound person on set, in fact he wanted to be a writer but he knew his asset of buying sound equipment would put him in a position to hear what works as good dialogue for a scene and he would hear the director’s notes and comments through the wireless mics he had setup. Clever guy.
Don’t overthink what it means to have a superpower, and don’t be so proud that you won’t take work when it’s available when you are just starting out. You are always learning, always building yourself.