On the first day of school, I remember what someone told my classmates and me; “You’ll get out with as much as you put in.” That person was David Hauka, at the time Head of Department of the film program at VFS. Little did I know that this simple, but so brilliant, line would change my life the way it did.

One year ago, I was a young man living in Eastern Canada, wanting to make film, but without any experience, deep knowledge or even any opportunities. I still wanted to make movies, but without any of this I didn’t know how I would ever be able to do so. After looking around and looking at what many other filmmakers did, I decided to look for a film school to teach me what I needed.

Many people don’t know what to do once they are done with film school. Even through you get all those success stories about recent graduates finding work in big companies, the truth is that they probably have an uncle working in that company. But the rest of us have to find another way to get in the industry. So how do you do it?

The chances of you getting paid work just after leaving film school are very low, so now you need to get work on set.

There is nothing wrong, on set, in film school, or anywhere else, if you go ahead and ask the question you desperately want to know the answer to. Now, I’m talking about work, not wanting to know what kind of shampoo the AD uses.

So here we are. You got that phone call that you were waiting for and now you’re ready to get on set tomorrow morning for that 6:00 call. You’re getting ready to go out an celebrate the best news of your life. But wait, should you really go out tonight? Here’s the list of the main things you shouldn’t do before going and while on set.

I received a question, a few days ago, by email from Sarah (Austin, Texas) who is a Film School grad. Here’s her email:
I graduated from UCLA a while ago now, and didn’t know where to look for work. I managed to get my first job in the industry because of your posts. However, after trying and trying, I can’t seem to make a constant living out of my film jobs. I now have a part-time job and I can’t afford to spend as much time on set.
When will I …

In many previous articles I talked about connections and how you’ll find work with those. Now, I realized that many people out there don’t even know where to find those connections. So here are the simplest ways to find set work.