dctx
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Jun 9, 2005, 10:37 PM
Post #1 of 6
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Low end to high end? If so, how?
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Hi, I was wondering if anyone out there ever successfully crossed the bridge between the relatively low end of video production (i.e., low/no budget internal media departments and government cable access -- not public cable access, mind you) to either a high end production company or at least a smaller mid-level production company -- particularly in mid-career. If so, I'd like to know how you did it, how you networked and what type of people you networked with, and how you convinced them that you could compete in their company, despite your limitations in budget, in time, and of course in equipment and software. (Obviously you're not going to find Avid Symphony or Adrenaline with all the plugins in a government access TV station!)
Basically, here's what happened in my career, to make a long story short. I have 15 years overall experience in production. From the start I've pretty much had positions where I had to do just about everything, since they were small internal media departments. That of course is different from the production company environment, where they hire more or less strict shooters, editors, writers, producers, etc. But I do feel my greatest strengths are in editing and motion graphic design. I'm also a pretty good shooter.
Basically, early in my career, I worked for a major cable company operating master control part time while I was still in college. While there, I learned mostly live studio and remote camera, audio, and later I edited 30-second commercials for local clients. I did internship after internship with a production company, a multimedia company, and an A/V company, among several others. Then when I finally landed my first full-time job, it was at an internal video department at an Army post (I was a civilian contractor). The projects were kind of basic, to put it nicely, but my co-workers and I did our best to make them professional without a budget. Then in 1998 I finally landed a job with a corporate media department, with the promise of learning multimedia design and development. Hooray! I thought I was finally there. Turned out there was little demand for my services, the equipment was fairly primitive, and as I feared I would be, I was laid off in 2001. Despite my best efforts to generate both video and multimedia products, again without any budget or support from my department or any other department, I could hardly get any bites. After begging my boss and illustrating the benefits of a nonlinear system, he finally reluctantly bought a mere $5000 system for me and made me feel guilty for spending that much of the company's money. And this was a fairly big global corporation, mind you! After my layoff in 2001, I (fortunately and quickly after just a month and a half, thank God) landed my current job with the government access channel. I am truly thankful for having a job now, but of course I've now had it for 4 years.
My main question is, how will the private sector "real" production companies look upon me for a full-time or even side freelance job? (By the way, I can't just quit the government job; I need steady work with benefits for my family, mortgage, and two car payments.) As professional as I try to make my products in the government sector, it just doesn't compare to those cool high-end videos you see coming from a good production company. Even if I mastered the graphics skils and by some miracle we upgraded to a state-of-the-art edit system (right now we use two Avids, the newest of which is still 6 years old), how would I have the time to really work on stuff? Oh, and by the way, we can't relate to real deadline pressure, budgets, clients, etc. because they just don't apply where I am. Is my career toast, or is there still hope?
dctx
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