I'm inexperienced, and ponder this question myself, but somehow I've networked a bit already. Definitely meet people through your college. School's an excellent place to meet people in any case, and even if the people you meet won't get you a job or anything, they'll probably be people you could work with in the future.

In my city, we have a "filmpool cooperative," which is pretty much like a filmmaker's association. The opportunities I've received through my participation in their events and my membership has been invaluable to me, and I've met some cool people along the way, people I'd be comfortable calling to for anything related to this industry. If there's something like that where you live, jump on that opportunity.

Those are my suggestions. 🙂

Get a film internship. Introduce yourself to everyone you can, espeically those working in the same field that you are. Try and be a social with them as possible, make sure they remember your name and face. If they don't ask for your contact information, on each shoot there will usually be a "crew list" that has the phone numbers and emails of everyone that worked on the shoot. Grab one of these and send emails to the people you think will help you out the most when the current project is completed.

However trying to exchange contact information in person(if they ask for it) is the probably the best because then you are at least sure they were impressed with the work you did.

I've only had one internship and I already have a bunch of possible contacts that could help be get work along with another interview that I got myself through craigslist.

Tryin' to live the dream, any advice?

If your not doing it already then I would advice you to make your own productions and put them up on youtube as ?Ive made loads of different contacts through that as well as facebook, myspace and other film production forums. So Id advice you to seek as many like minded people online like you are now and see what oppertunities do and dont arise from simply talking to people, giving and taking advice is the best way that you can get your self out there.

id also adive youn to get in touch with your local film authority and ask them what events are goin on and do exactly what you already stated in your post and talk to people in person and see what their all about?

Hope this helps, Cleary.

www.myspace.com/michael_mccleary_films www.youtube.com/cleary82

quote:

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Originally posted by naviobb

Hi,

Many people have told me that if you want to become successful in this business, you need to have contacts. So how does one exactly make contacts when you're just starting out? Festivals? Local film club? My college has a film program, so I think my first stop should be there, right? Also, people say that it's business at the end of the day. How should I approach my career by keeping this thing in mind?

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The first question to you is "what do you specifically want to do?" There are a lot of different jobs in this industry so it is impossible to hand out a single piece of advice and expect it to work.

What SPECIFIC "career" do you wish to build?

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com
http://www.realfilmcareer.com

I'd like to also add this grain of truth to the discussion. The vast majority people who wish to have a career directing movies or writing them or producing them or acting in them... don't.

There are various reasons for that, of course, but what's important to note is that A) most people who DO have one of those "top" careers worked very very hard to get there and/or were very very lucky. B) There are more jobs doing OTHER things in the industry than any of those "rock star" jobs and most people wind up doing those instead for a living.

So yes, in general, the key to "making it" in almost any job in the film industry is "who you know." More importantly, though, it's about who knows YOU and that they know what you are capable of doing. So yes, networking is important, but you have to network with the right people. Who are the "right" people? Well, again, that depends upon what it is you SPECIFICALLY want to do. For instance, do you want to be a Director? Great! What do you want to direct exactly? Feature films? Episodics? Commercials? Sit-coms? Infomercials? Each of those requires a different skill-set, even as a Director, so knowing the specifics of each and the politics that occur to get into position to do that job and to maintain a career in that arena is vital.

It all starts with the question, what do you really want to do? Specifically. VERY specifically. THEN you can get advice and begin to work along that path.

In a podcast I listen to about filmmaking they had a guy who successfully networks and his advice was to use xbox (or the PLaystation equivalent) as an icebreaker and a way to keep the group together. He suggested adding an xbox handle to business cards and then talking and playing with them online. Becoming friends outside of the film industry and at some point that sort of thing would pay off.

Of course the podcast failed to mention how he is finding these folks in the first place but it sounded like a reasonably good idea to keep a group of names together assuming they all play online games (and this guy's circle certainly did).

Of course you would want to add details to your xbox profile/name that remind people you are a screenwriter or director or whatever and remember that you're reputation could rise or fall on how big a jerk you are online.

RJSchwarz