#10: How can I get someone to help me break in?
You can best get someone to help you by helping yourself then offering to help them.
This is a business of know-how and know-WHO. Spend time learning everything you can, at every level you achieve, and helping everyone you can, whatever level you are at. Your peers are your greatest resource; cultivate them! Unless you’re an Oscar winner yourself, Denzel and Julia are not the people you need to meet; they already have a pile of people they already are indebted to and taking care of. Instead, do everything you can to help your circle of peers achieve because when they do, they are going to open the door to bring you in with them. And if you are the one who gets through a door first, bring the people who have taken care of you in with you – at their level of competence. Don’t offer or accept jobs that greatly surpass someone’s (or your) ability; everyone loses.
Don’t let your opening line to anyone be “Can you do ____ for me?” Ever. This is not a taker’s market. It immediately sets you up as an energy drain, and it shifts the balance of power between you and that person. Equally as awful, don’t ever have a conversation with someone and not know who they are and what they do if there was time to find out. Go see their film or watch their show or read their book or visit their Web site before meeting them. When I’m on a speaker’s panel, I spend the days before researching my fellow panelists so I can draw their experiences into a discussion point or have a conversation with them afterward about something they’ve done that I’m dying to learn more about.
Don’t think I don’t know that mentors are wonderful. But they are not the people to break you into the industry! Your mentor(s) will show up when you are already just in the door, working your hardest, making everyone’s life easier around you. Believe me, someone will approach YOU to offer you assistance and guidance. You have to earn a mentor and an advisor just like you have to earn everything else in this industry.
If you want to break in and have no contacts, you are going to be a production assistant (PA) somewhere. That is our industry’s entry-level position, and it pays about $500/week. YOU WILL NEED A CAR. So work all you can to get some savings a buy a car of some kind before you jump in. And once you battle your way into that PA job, be the best PA that company has ever seen! You are being evaluated on your work ethic at every level of this industry. Learn new stuff on your own time, not the company’s. You will get a shot at a promotion because of your attitude, not your skill set. Show them you are a person who invests in your company and its projects, and they will want to keep you around – or give you a great referral for your next position.