Walking out on jobs

M

Movie_Dude_3

Well-known member
So back in July, a buddy of mine called to ask me if I'd be a camera guy for his new music video. I agreed on the terms that I'd be a 2nd Camera Guy (the director being the first) and that the producer would pay me $100. The producer, who's starting up his own studio, always assured me that he'd take care of me. I knew these guys from meeting up a few times before, so I felt safe.

The music video in question was a hip hop video for a 17 year old rapper. He had supposedly landed some local talent to drop a verse in the song, but they never showed up.

So I went to the first 12-hour shooting day and we got a good amount of work done. A lot of sweat and hard work was put into it, definitely a long day. The talent was about an hour and a half late, and towards the end, we had a large crowd shoot. The director was often distracted with a lady friend of his, and a lot of the extras were caught complaining. I assured them shooting would resume soon...but ultimately, I ended up taking a power nap, as the shoot resumed hours after it was supposed to.

The next day, however, was cancelled, because the talent didn't have a car or a license.

Then the third shooting day came, taking place on location at a club. I was told to show up at 4, and I did. No one showed up until 6-6:30. We shot until about 11-11:30, and then wrapped production.

I don't hear a solid answer from the director for another two months. I prod him about the pay and he never answers, says only when the shoot is done. Recently, I find out that reshoots are necessary, which took place today. I also found out from one of the director's good friends that he got paid the $100 for shooting it, and that he's getting another $250 for editing it, along with a guy who showed up the last day of the shoot. The producer doesn't answer a single one of his texts or messages.

Now, am I wrong for walking out on this production? It feels like no one knows what's going on, and the fact that I still haven't been paid while others have been really irks me.
 
Just my two cents:

I would have walked out long before. That is one sloppy as hell production, and it sounds shady from the start with a director who can't direct and a producer who can't do his job. There are much better ways to make $100.
 
Run don't walk away from these people. They can do you no good, in fact associating with people like this can do serious harm to your reputation.
 
Update on the story, which pretty much reassures me in skipping out on the reshoots this past Saturday:

I see that the talent posted on Facebook that he's 'late to the shoot, as usual LOL'. Ten minutes later, he posts that the shoot was cancelled...about 20 minutes after the shoot was scheduled.

So glad I skipped that one! Lesson learned.
 
Not a surprise to see this kind of behavior. It's sad that it's this common but you did the wise thing by walking out. I think one of the most important skills anyone can have is the ability to know when to walk when pay, working conditions, those basics (the sane things that keep us going) don't line up. We sometimes get blinded by our passion for this industry, terrible thing huh? It's a shame it's so easy to get taken advantage of but you'll probably be more discerning now and see about 5 minutes in that these things aren't worth it. I don't think this would be worth the hassle if they were giving you a full day rate let alone a hundred bucks.
 
haha, wow, what a Mickey Mouse outfit! That's pretty bad dude, sorry to hear about that.

I only ever walked out on one shoot, and it was a total joke of a shoot, so I didn't feel bad at all. It didn't hurt me, but it hurt the guy who hired me because experienced, veteran DP or not, I would never hire him after the way he treated me and my future (at the time, and former now) business partner, so bad move for him considering I am in the position of hiring crew on a regular basis and he may have been a good contact if I liked him, and I'd have been a great connection for him. But nobody thinks that way when you're "the kid" and he's the veteran. They need to get over that because just being old doesn't make you good ;)

It was this DP who owed a friend a favor, and so that friend asked if he'd do his other friend a favor and shoot an "apology video" for this guy trying to win his girlfriend back. I wish I were joking. But the guy was acting in this "film" (I call it that only because it was shot on 16mm short ends, lol) and he was also the producer and the director. There was no discernible crew whatsoever, it was simply the DP and a grip / whatever, and then two PAs, me and my business partner. That is already pretty funny when half the crew are PAs. We shot a feature and I don't think we ever had more than 2 PAs on set at one time and our crew was like 20-25, haha. No pay either, we were just there for experience. Early in the day it was ok, little was expected of us, and it was just sorta whatever. It took forever to find the guy's place even with GPS because he didn't know his own address, one of those, "I'll tell everyone it's Blueberry road," even though it's actually North Blueberry road or whatever, and the two are quite far apart so it's completely inaccurate and not the same street whatsoever.

But then he started abusing us pretty quickly, and it was like, "Hey wow ok I forgot my boxing gloves across town, can you go here and pick them up? Tell so and so that I sent you, and bring them back." Umm... yeah... well, ok, I guess. So we go get his boxing gloves, and come back, having missed a bunch of whatever was being shot. Running errands is not learning filmmaking, and it's not running errands for a high powered producer who may be able to help you down the road. It's for some dude making a video for his girlfriend who has no ties to the film industry at all. There was no AD, so there was no real schedule, because any AD would have told this guy he was out of his mind. It was like four locations, starting in Hollywood, going to Pasadena, then to Marina Del Rey, then to somewhere in the Valley completely the opposite direction, all on a Friday afternoon (besides the first part in the morning). Then the DP asked if we'd go get him a Red Bull. I almost thought he was joking, but we figured yeah whatever we'll go get something to eat and get him his stupid Red Bull. We get it, and come back, and the grip (!) asks if we'd go back and get him something. We basically were like, yeah no not going to happen, sorry. Then we get to another location and the guy says this apology is really personal so he doesn't want us in the room at all, for any of the filming, and we are to hang out on the street until they're done, which was hours later. That is when I started to say this is absolute BS, I'm nobody's PA, this isn't going to help me in the industry and I'm learning NOTHING because so far I haven't even seen anything be shot, we've just been all over town doing errands and now we're standing out on the street. So when they went to move to the next location we just told them we had to leave and we didn't realize it would be such a long day, sorry, and that was the end of it. Never heard from that DP again, thankfully.

It makes a semi-funny story now but I'm sure everyone has their rotten stories of being abused or not paid by a production or where things just aren't what you thought they'd be. I didn't have a big ego about it either, I mean I just wanted to learn no matter what position I was in, but I didn't want to be an errand boy for a nobody. This DP was driving some beater of a car, the guy was like 55 years old, and it was his own duct-taped, barely-held-together 16mm camera, and I just remember thinking ok if you're working with this unprofessional guy making his girlfriend a video, and that's your car and this is your camera, you have nothing to teach me about Hollywood business except that it's a very difficult industry and most people don't make it, which I already know. Poor guy, if I worked in this industry for 30 years and had to make a video for that idiot, I'd probably slit my wrists, haha.
 
Jonathan, kudos to you! It reminds me of my experience, one that I've questioned at times but hearing someone else go through the same process vindicates how I feel. I was with a company at one point and learned tons off them. I spent a while with them, I was the right hand man on a lot of shoots it was great. I was doing what I loved and was learning. But they started rapidly expanding. They also started hiring lots of new people who weren't really qualified so to speak. But long story short it got to a point where I was doing nothing but running errands. It made sense, I knew the people and places I had to go to but it was always me or someone else who knew the locations as well because he had also been there for a while. Just because I know where something is doesn't mean I should be the one responsible anytime someone needs something to and from let's say facility "x". Taking stuff to an address isn't rocket science; it's messenger work. But I started missing out on a lot of shoots because I was tied up doing pointless things indoors or running errands. It went on for a while and I took a good hard look at myself. I wasn't happy with where I was at. I was on vacation at the time and I was sick on the way to the hospital because despite my early morning flight I had been in the office the whole day until very late at night working on a project I later found out was trivial. Mind you it was an hour commute home. This was the icing on the cake of a long weekend of working that lead to me getting sick.

I'd have days where I dreaded going in because I knew it would just be 10 or so trips back and forth to places; really miserable. How long can this go on I thought? So I was sick in bed, a few days into my vacation trying to catch up on projects on my laptop because I didn't have time to finish them while I was at the office because I was busy running around. Awesome right? I hadn't even left my room yet. Well it just hit me. I didn't need that. What kind of vacation was this?! If I could credit myself with one thing it's that I was able to sit there and honestly ask myself, "Do I need this? Is this actually helping me?" It's why I posted what I did about knowing when to walk out. I thought to myself, I had started there to work in this industry, to learn, and to advance my reel, but it had got to the point where me being there wasn't contributing to any one of those things. It was hurting me. In fact I was exhausted, physically and mentally and constantly sick. I'm one of the most dedicated people when it comes to working as a team and getting things done. I love what I do and live it. But I just wasn't doing what I loved. I was just doing for a lack of a better word, "***** work." I knew I could handle more. I knew I had the potential to go beyond that. Should I stick it out and wait for someone to throw me a bone? Or should I bite the bullet and venture out? I thought a grown adult shouldn't be subjected to that and that no one would take my career seriously until I did. And I knew then, that with where I was at, I didn't take myself seriously either.

Well I can't advise anyone on anything but this worked for me because I just knew. I just knew that I'd be able to handle things on my own and knew that I had what it would take. I wanted to take everything I learned from these guys, who were really great people but that was life, and it was time to move on. After vacation I didn't come back. It was the end of my run there. I never looked back. There are times when I mellow out and think. But I only further justify leaving. I realized when I was there, they were living the good life doing what they wanted to do. People like me running around enabled it. If that much is enough for someone then great, but it wasn't for me. Not anymore. I finally admitted this to one of the fairest minded people I knew in the industry, a lady who had been through the pipes of production all her life and she looked at me and said,"You've paid your dues for sure. Get out of there and do something with yourself." She was right. She also put me in touch with NBC. Working with some sanity was really a morale booster. It was time to test my meddle so to speak so I ventured into freelancing. Nothing's easy. I don't expect it to ever be. And I'll always be learning and working towards something. But looking back, oh boy did I learn from these guys. I actually did learn from them, it just stopped after a while and the moral is that I was luckily able to spot it at some point when it became too detrimental. My buddy who used to run stuff as well is still there. Why? He's the most dedicated person I know, that's why. He's all work and takes nothing for granted. But what I wouldn't do to see him move up and do what he really deserves. I hear the, "you've put in your dues" stuff but truth be told, I always think, "no way, if anyone has it's him".

So I guess to end this little melodramatic rant of mine, never be afraid to walk, just do it when you're sure it's right. There's a difference between walking because you know for a fact you are finally ready to reach up and grab something more, and a difference between not wanting to bust your tail and looking for an easy way in. It gave me time to grow and learn and discover what I really wanted. I had the skills and it was all about making them work. It still is and always will be. I wouldn't change a thing with how I got here. All I need to know is I worked hard and did it everyday for a while and leaving wasn't a choice, it was my only option. I've had friends and family tell me to contact them or remain in contact but I personally thought if I did all I would say as of now is, "See you at the Emmies."
 
haha, love it

haha, love it

Great story, haha, I love it. You did the right thing, and I love the way you ended your post. Sometimes, you need to move on and never look back.

I personally have never subscribed to the whole "paying your dues" thing in the same way some people use the phrase, but I don't mean that in a brazen, arrogant way. All I mean is that I have approached absolutely everything I have done down here with the most humility I can muster, and have attempted to learn EVERY scrap of information I could. I didn't care what it was, I bought books on every position and tried to understand everything anyone was willing to teach me. But I have never wanted to slow down or stop anywhere, I'm on a mission and not here to smell the roses. This train left the station going at full speed and there are no stops until I get where I want, haha. I'm sorry but that's the way it is. Most people move very slowly and I am not comfortable moving slowly in life, I really don't want to be somewhere marginally acceptable in 20 years. I want to get there as fast as I possibly can, and I have the dedication to do that.

If I were to put in a few years as a grip, then I don't know maybe work in an office somewhere for a while as an APOC or POC or something, and do all kinds of other random jobs, I would be denying where I really want to be, which is a writer-director of studio feature films. I understand, and always have, that my goal was the most rarified and difficult I could have picked, and that the odds would be heavily stacked against me at every turn, and that I also had no clear roadmap of how to do this even, let alone any sort of guarantees of measurable progress. But at the same time, I have tried to spend a minimum of time between steps provided I feel ready to take the risk and move to the next level. That's why I only lasted in film school for eight weeks. I already figured out what I needed to know and it was time to move on. Did I learn everything I wanted? Of course not, and 50 years from now I better still be learning or there's a problem. There is no stopping the learning process. But I did figure out the film school had limits to what I would be able to learn there, and I wanted to move on to continue learning faster in the real world, a decision that has been justified by my path after that point.

I know a lot of people who started off years before I did doing film work, but they got stuck along the way at one of the rungs in the ladder or sidetracked completely. Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with this, if you find your niche and it's something different than what you had in mind. Other times, though, people have a tendency to choose comfort over risk. Maybe you have a relatively cushy job related to the film industry, but you always wanted to be a director, and you're reluctant to strike out on your own because the pay is pretty good, the economy is bad, and your life is pretty solid. Pretty soon you're justifying why you keep putting off that script you were working on, because your weeks are hard and you need those weekends to have fun with your buddies, etc. That's ok for a bit, but if you get stuck in that rut for 2, 3, 4, 5 years (and yes, I have seen it happen and have older friends in this exact situation), then pretty soon you're sitting there at 35 or so realizing you really haven't made any progress towards your goals in the last five or ten years. That's not where I wanted to be.

I'm willing to take the big risks and sort of take a gamble faster than a lot of people are comfortable with simply because I figure to get where I want, I need to take the riskier path. I guess it's up to each individual person in this industry to figure out what path makes sense for them, but if you always choose comfort and ease over risk and hard work, you can't be angry at the world that you didn't get your big break, haha. It's like you said, you want to be willing to do anything and everything it takes, but at the same time those hard days and that great work ethic has to mean something, it has to get you somewhere. I know every day I work really hard, I'm that much closer to having a finished feature that we believe is going to be pretty special. I would have trouble putting in that much hard work into meaningless tasks, personally. To walk away from things like that when you've learned what you can isn't careless or irresponsible, it's simply your duty to yourself and your goals.
 
This is absolutely music to my ears! It's how I feel about my path. One of the things that also freaked me out into leaving was just what you mentioned; I saw myself at 35 still doing some half acceptable job trying to scrape by or working under someone with a salary having them decide what I'm worth. I thought, no thanks. The guys running my old studio were in their mid 30's and I knew if I wanted to do anything close to that I would have to start as soon as I could. That's why I feel so bad for my friend who's still there. Amazing guy, great work ethic, but he's stuck in that place. Sure he could live off it and stay in an industry he loves but personally I'd much rather jump off a bridge than stay somewhere like that.

Leaving them let me do just that, learn more. I also studied everything I could, read the sites, books, videos, anything I can get my hands on and it all made sense to me. Luckily I had that studio experience and it was a starting point for me to decide which information was solid and which was written by someone who never stepped foot on a set. That's also my beef with film school. I've always done what I can to learn what I can on my own. For the money spent on this place I didn't learn anything. I had an idea of how things actually worked and quickly realized it sure wasn't the way they were selling me it. They wouldn't let me borrow any real gear unless a professor reserved it months in advance and the gear they did have was a 5 year old little Sony cam. Their real light kits remained tucked away while anyone else got a broken down two 750 tota light set, gee just what I've always wanted! It makes me sad to see so many peers spend 4 years and enough money to buy a Ferrari studying "directing" then come out and realize they have to start at the bottom and learn how things actually work. Then somewhere along the way discover what it's really like. And I say this from seeing friends stumble around and it's always made me really upset. Something like Uva's grip book teaches you things you'll never learn in film school, unless that book's in the curriculum. I do see people coming out with a solid education but it's not for everyone.

I've always told myself, the only person who knows when it's time for a promotion is you. And the only person that promotes you, is also you. I knew I wouldn't go anywhere in that place and knew it was the right time. I don't care how crazy everyone thought I was for walking out on a studio but to me it made sense and that's what mattered. I made the opportunity and gave myself that chance and nothing says you can't. It's just that when you do take the plunge you actually do have to know what you're doing or else you'll sink. I don't claim to be some production whiz either, I fudge stuff up, learn new things, it's never going to stop. I've always told myself eyes open, mouth shut and I still stick by that today. Anytime I get to work with or read something a veteran of the industry or someone who obviously knows what they're talking about is around, I try to learn from them as much as possible and I don't want that to change. It's just that by learning from others and trying and screwing up I've started to develop a better internal compass. I look forward to seeing your feature, I completely agree that it isn't worth the time to put so much effort into meaningless things when you could be doing so much better and especially things you love. I just started rolling for a documentary and it's my first doc and it's been something I've really wanted to do for a while, but I just wanted to wait and do it right. I know I'd be chained to a desk or 15 pass van if I hadn't taken that plunge. I know those guys didn't get to where they were by doing that. They all dove for the big networks as soon as they could.
 
Absolutely. There is a myth that I think the people in power love to propagate, for good reason, that you need to "work your way up" and "pay your dues" for this long period of time before you get to do what you want. I'm really not sure where that is true -- who are these people they speak of? I've studied all of the great directors, none of them worked as PAs, grips, gaffers, and other low level positions then gradually moved their way up, haha. That's just not how it works. Nobody says you're an amazing grip, now I'm going to make you cinematographer, oh you're an amazing cinematographer, how would you like to direct? Directing jobs go to people who are actually directors, haha. It's not hard to understand if you look at it, but if you believe what a lot of people want you to believe, you'll be stuck at the bottom forever. Any of the best directors did their first feature young, some even younger than me and I'm considered young for a director, but I don't see any of them spending 20 years working their way up and doing their first feature at like 40-45. Most of them have very well established careers by that point.

Maybe that's how a lot of TV directors or unknown directors did it? I have no idea, I can't comment, but since that's not my goal, I'd prefer to be more ambitious and take more risks. It's like if someone gave you $1,000 and said turn it into $10,000 by this time next year. Obviously, you can't put it in bonds, or put it on an index stock fund, you're going to have to think outside the box and take some pretty big risks to make a 900% return in a year! But if that's your goal, you know what you have to do, which is take risks, not take the safe path where maybe one day it'll be $10,000 like 30 years from now. The same is true with the film industry. You can move up very slowly and just sort of drift along, and maybe one day you will get to where you want. But I'd prefer to try to skip a few levels along the way and if that doesn't work, eh, I knew the risks! lol.

I just never really understood the way the system was being explained to me, and it didn't make logical sense, so I rejected that explanation as nonsense. The whole "put in your time, take any job you can get, even if it's not what you want, just be hungry." I kept asking, so wait if I take a job as a script supervisor for $50 for some student project for a day, how is that going to help me become a director? Then it's like, "Well you will learn and every job is a learning opportunity and you keep learning." Well, great, and learning is awesome, but that's not my question, again how would I ever actually get a directing job by being a PA or being a grip or a script supervisor? Nobody answered that question, and I rightly concluded that's simply not how it works and these people just don't get it. To be a director, you have to direct. Bottom line. Nothing else is going to help you become a director, other things may help you become a better director or a more knowledgeable one, sure, but at the end of the day you need to prove you can actually direct by having done it before. There are lots of people who have worked in the industry 20 years, and me only a few years, but if all they've done is misc. odd jobs or they've mostly just edited or worked as script readers or whatever else they've done, if there's a directing job that is open, I'm going to be the one who has a real chance because I've been there before and have something to show for it. They don't, no matter how much more "experience" they have in the industry, I'll have the reel and the product to demonstrate my abilities. So it seemed pretty obvious to me early on that if you want to be a director, you have to direct, not mess around with every position under the sun hoping one day someone will give you your "big break."

I don't actually think that anyone gives you a big break. I think you create your own luck, under the definition "luck is when persistence meets opportunity." I wrote a script that I believed in, repeatedly refined that script until I had it very polished, then I set about finding a producer to help me make it into a reality. I happened to meet a very professional producing team that was fresh off a $10 million feature with A-list stars and loved my script. We made a movie together and pulled together a pretty amazing crew and mostly people who have done films with way larger budgets than mine. Was it lucky I met them? Well, yes and no, it was fortunate that we both happened to be in the same place, them looking for potential projects and having a few months to spare, and me looking for a producer or producers at that time, but it wasn't luck that I was ready to take that meeting and had the script, passion, and knowledge to make it a reality. I had an opportunity and I didn't miss it.

I guess to all of the people who are waiting for their big break, or paying their dues, or working a lot of jobs unrelated to what they really want to do, all I can say is keep waiting, but I'll be seizing the opportunities I have and actually doing, and at the end of the day I know my path is the right one. Also, 4 years in film school is far too long, and an absolute waste of money. I haven't even lived in Los Angeles for 4 years let alone been doing film professionally for 4 years and I already have, as of tomorrow, picture lock on my first feature and I've gotten a lot more education along the way than any film school could possibly offer, and I've made money doing it too. I never liked the idea of 4 year film school because as I said, I have places to go, and don't have 4 years to mess around with student quality filmmaking. I know a few friends who did that, and they're behind where I am now; they also don't speak to me anymore, haha, that's Hollywood! You can't be too surprised when you strike out on your own and do it your way to have the people who think they did it "the right way" a bit miffed that your way is paying off after all. It's human nature.

I'm sure you'll do great with your documentary! I think it'd be really fun to do a documentary one day... I have a few ideas but nothing solid, and for now I think I'll stick to narrative filmmaking, but it is a lot more expensive and I can imagine between projects it might be fun to do some relatively cheap documentary and just see what happens, haha.
 
Each job you take you have to ask what you're really going to get out of it. If the answer is abuse, lo/no pay and how to use a walkie and lock down a set, whats the value. Nothing wrong with learning set sense, I did it for about eight months but I stopped. I had a blast doing standin work, casting, a bit of pa/grip, pm on a small budget feature, etc. The budgets ranged from under 100k to 40mil and it gave me a sense of what I wanted to do and what I didn't. On some of the lower budget stuff I had days I helped the cowboys with the horses, gave a hand to the grips and a couple of times helped out the stunt team. A year later I was in Montana cowriting a feature script for a soon to be A list actor(it didn't get made but we landed more work over the next few years from him). Sometimes you have to know when enough is enough and you're on a dead end street getting farther and farther away from your ultimate goals. Pt Anderson and Steven Soderbergh both did a bunch of production work before they hit it but they both at one point took bold chances and made films on their own. After a point if you don't have creative input on a film, and you aren't getting great wages, for me it's a waste of time.
 
JonathanLB said:
There is a myth that I think the people in power love to propagate, for good reason, that you need to "work your way up" and "pay your dues" for this long period of time before you get to do what you want. I'm really not sure where that is true -- who are these people they speak of? I've studied all of the great directors, none of them worked as PAs, grips, gaffers, and other low level positions then gradually moved their way up, haha.
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I've noticed this too...and also how almost no director you've ever heard of did the "film school" thing.
 
I'm not talking about undergoing a proper film program at an accredited university, I'm talking about "film school"!
 
subtleinspiration said:
I'm not talking about undergoing a proper film program at an accredited university, I'm talking about "film school"!
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That's because, I think, school is a waste for these individuals. You learn what you already know, or you'd just learn much better out there on the field.

Not saying I'm a world class director - definitely far, far from that - but I'm taking a production class as an undergraduate (last year of undergrad college for me). I've barely taken notes in that class. The professor lectures about how to use cameras, FCP Express, etc. All of it I've learned, and will most likely use it the following day on a video job I have to do.

School to most people is redundant. The only good thing about film school is connections and hook ups to professional equipment. Both can be done other ways - start working and word-of-mouth will spread, and you'll make connections. As for equipment, make friends with people who go to film school. That's what I did, got to use a jib.
 
I kept hearing that film school was a great way to get connections and how you're going to meet all of these people who will help you out down the road. Well, let's see here guys, I quit after 7.5 weeks, and I've ended up hiring several former graduates (of my class of 35, only 18 graduated, and I've hired the only two I thought were good) and worked as a partner with another former drop-out. So the only good "connection" these people got was me, and I quit almost immediately! ;) Two other guys I liked and thought had some talent, they both moved back home to other states and no longer work in the industry. They are trying to make it back, and I hope they do, good guys for sure! Great guys. But it's a tough reality and for the most part I wouldn't hire people as inexperienced as I am. Not to be mean, but few people with 3 years of experience in the industry are of much use to me, except as PAs. I understand it's like the pot calling the kettle black, but there aren't that many DPs, for instance, with 3 years of experience who are good enough for me to want to hire them. I prefer to hire people much more experienced. So I don't see how people in my own class or anyone's own class are going to be all that useful to them, unless they are immensely talented.

And there are only a few people who are that talented in any class.

I told someone I thought film school was great for people who want to learn film but aren't disciplined enough to force themselves to learn what they need to know themselves by reading lots of books and doing lots of projects, and that person said, ".... uhh, ok, but anyone who doesn't have that discipline will never make it anyway." I laughed. "Good point!"
 
Those that are bitching about school clearly receiver really mediocre education or didn't really take the advantage of what school is for. It is NOT to teach you a craft (unless you are going to a trade school to become an electrician or such) but to expand your horizons. Anyone can learn about 3-point lighting but not anyone knows about philosophy behind lighting as for that you need to study philosophy in general first. Anyone can put two clips together in FCP but not anyone understand psychological connection about those two clips as for that you need to study general psychology (or whatever editors study on the side). Yes, you can eventually learn by doing it on actual jobs but actual jobs are just that "actual jobs" thus getting it done is more important then trying to discover the reasons, meanings, connections etc. See the pattern? The trade you can learn easy, the meaning behind it all - takes the real effort.
 
JonathanLB said:
Absolutely. There is a myth that I think the people in power love to propagate, for good reason, that you need to "work your way up" and "pay your dues" for this long period of time before you get to do what you want. I think you create your own luck, under the definition "luck is when persistence meets opportunity." .
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I loved all of your posts in this thread... You provided some wisdom and stark reality. Good for you, you seem to really have it together and have mapped out your destiny.
 
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