I currently make money twoish different ways. I work a full-time day job as an executive assistant in post production, and I have a writing/directing business that I have run since 2003. Recently, my blogging has been becoming more profitable, leading to my beginning to conceive of my blogging as job #2 and my more aspirant writing/directing work as job #3. That said, to be clear, the blogging remains part of my writing/directing business for business/tax purposes. All that work continues to overlap to such an extent that it would be inaccurate to pull it apart.
Reader Jim questioned in the comments on my post, Working 9 to 5... Really?, whether I can in fairness say I am "working" at directing. Specifically, can I consider that work a "job" and "directing"? This made me think of a larger question - am I a "director"? I will attempt to discuss both of these issues in this post without too much meandering and without writing a novel of self-examination. I always have personal interest in taking a good look at my processes, though. Hence, this post.
I am a director. I am trained to be a director, and I have directed four film shorts and a public service announcement. I have shadowed on hour-long dramas, and when I did, I learned that my instincts were correct - television directing is a great fit for me. It's also extremely difficult for anyone to break into television directing, and sometimes I feel like I'm working with the world's smallest ice pick. But, everything I do, I do with that goal in mind, even if what I'm doing seems not to directly relate. I navigate by examining my options at a point in time, picking one, and working at it. Baby steps.
Early on when I'd recently moved to L.A., I went to a large dinner. When people asked me what I do, I'd say, "Well, I'm a director and I also work in post production." (I was trying to downplay my writing at that point.) A woman at the dinner kept saying, mockingly, "I wish I could just say I'm a director; I'll just decide I'm a director and say I'm a director." It was very strange to me, but it introduced me to the perception of one "putting on airs," for lack of a better way to put it. If I say I'm a director, then perhaps it is perceived that I am a working director, and if I'm not, then I'm lying or misleading.
Hardly my intent. I was always very clear about what I meant and what I had directed. But I started saying, "I'm an aspiring director." I tend to be fairly comfortable with this statement, as I specifically aspire to direct television, and clearly, I am not doing that.
But then I met significantly more people in L.A. who believe that to use the word "aspiring" is to belittle yourself and hold yourself back. These people tended to be the more positive, happy, and confident people - the exact people I am slowly but surely surrounding myself with. And at the end of the day, I absolutely consider myself a director, and I don't generally entertain the thought that I might not someday become a paid director, since I'm never going to quit working at it, and I firmly believe that I will be a working director before I die. Time may prove me wrong, but at 36, I do believe that if I continue to work this hard, it's not unrealistic to expect that I will be a professional director by 50 or 55. For one thing, I'm scheduled to be out of debt (credit cards, not my school loan) at 40, so at that time I will be able to fund more production, or at least buy a damn camera and an editing system.
So, am I a director? I say: Yes.
But is the work I do every month (not weekly, as Jim points out, but monthly) the work of directing? What is the work of directing? Well, clearly anything involved with production and post production of projects one is directing counts. From there, I would go to development and preproduction of projects one hopes to direct - so my Desert Storm film short I can't get to a good draft of, the television show I'm developing with a partner (who I met purely through the blogosphere, BTW), my feature script (although, hells yeah I'd just sell it to pay off debt - money leads to the ability to shoot, which leads to directing, which is always goal #1). When I go into pre-pro on my next PSA, that will obviously count. One might also include work I occasionally do on other people's projects, since it's the most solid way to build and nuture relationships with other filmmakers, and it's production.
Now, I also include my networking and all educational efforts in with my "directing" work. This includes screenings with Q&A, reading, classes, conventions, applications, correspondence, professional memberships and subscriptions, etc. I consider my blogging of On The Lot to be part of my "directing" work. I had hoped that it would be a more productive endeavor than it is turning out to be, but I couldn't know how it would go, and since I committed (albeit simply to myself and my readers) to blogging the show, I will blog the entire show to the best of my abilities, for better or for worse, even though the benefits to me have turned out to be beyond slight.
A bit of an aside: One thing that's important to note is that there is no legal burden for a business to be successful when determining its legitimacy. That mostly comes into play when considering one's taxes and such, but it is a truth. I run my writing/directing business as a business. I run it, and I do all relevent work, with the express desire to one day get a paycheck and a DGA card. If I fail at that for the next ten or fifteen years, it does not mean my business is not a legitimate business.
Now, Jim's point/question is this:
Are you classifying going to screenings and such as part of this directing job? I don't know if that would really count. If you did, well, I go to movies, too, and watch "Shootout" on AMC with Peter Bart and Peter Guber and read books about the industry, so I guess I could say directing is my second job, too. I hope, though, that you're only classifying actual directing duties/functions as part of your "directing" job, regardless of whether or not you get paid for it.
...
I disagree with your assertion that being a member of various networks, attending conferences, reading books and the like qualifies as activities to list your third job as a "director." If I wanted to be a professional golfer, I could attend conferences on golf, join the PGA, read books by Tiger Woods but until I actually go out on the golf course and play (and play frequently) I'm not really a golfer, now am I? And really the only things that actually count towards me being a golfer are the times I'm out on the putting green, driving range or playing nine to eighteen holes. Everything else is purely supplemental to those actual moments. Regardless of of the fact that you're running an aspect of your life as a business, it seems cheap to include the network memberships, industry screenings, books read, etc. as proof that your third job is as a "director."
Were I a working, paid director (or golfer for that matter), then absolutely networking and continuing education would be part of my "work." You can bet working directors are deducting all the same things I am off their taxes, and they're not qualifying it as something else on a separate Schedule C. Part of being a director is continuing to learn and study (one hopes) and networking. Going to conferences and networking opportunities. Maintaining professional memberships and subscriptions.
Further, directing a production is not a matter of taking an afternoon to do some golfing. I, like many people, have time and financial constraints. While it's painfully common to hear "just get a camera and shoot!" I want to direct one-hour episodic at a professional level. I learn most when I can approximate that experience, whether by shooting a PSA on 35mm with a full crew, like I did for WIF in 2004, or by producing a smaller production but shooting high def (a new experience for me), like I did with my film short "Hammer" in 2006. Further, I don't have my own camera, or my own editing system, so that's limiting. It is the most important thing though, shooting, so I have set a personal goal to shoot something in every even year.
Sigh, that does sound pathetic. All I can say is that I'm trying to get myself in a better financial situation so that that depressing ratio gets better. I do need to shoot more; I just don't believe there's a benefit to shooting crap. I may be wrong about that; it's something I think about a lot. I believe a better financial position will help, so I have to do the work that will get me there.
So beyond that, as a director, I do what I can. Work on my storyboarding. Study shot design. Take classes. Read. Write. Study television shows and track production. Write letters. Send applications. Meet people.
There's also an entire skill set, that's so important to television directing, that can't be judged at all by looking at someone's reel, as important as the reel is. Unfortunately, the industry really doesn't have a system in place that recognizes or seeks those skills. I've never met a television script supervisor who didn't have a horror story about a really bad television director who gets work every season because he's already in the system. But, that's a whole 'nother post.
So I put myself out there. Blog. Question. Observe. Help other people whenever I can. Cheer their success. Learn everything I can and share everything I've learned with anyone it might help.
And when I do these things, I do them as a director.
I suspect that Jim and I will have to agree to disagree on his points. I see my "directing" work from a wider view, as everything I do that relates to my directing. He sees the "work" of directing to be the more hands-on, set-oriented work of directing.
And that is certainly all I really want to do. Every week of my life.
Until that day, I do what I can, when I can.
Recent Comments