How to get a job in the film industry

Get­ting a job in the film indus­try is hard. Like a lot of cre­ative indus­tries, it can seem impen­e­tra­ble if you don’t hap­pen to know the ​“right” peo­ple. Many posi­tions are adver­tised through word of mouth, which is part of the rea­son why women make up only 26 per cent of the UK film indus­try, and peo­ple from BAME back­grounds just 5.3 per cent of pro­duc­tion crews, accord­ing to new research by Film and Data Education.

But there is hope for all those who have so far been left frus­trat­ed by a lack of oppor­tu­ni­ties, or sim­ply don’t know where to start. Aware of the obsta­cles fac­ing young peo­ple try­ing to get a job in film today, the British Film Insti­tute have intro­duced a £20 mil­lion plan to recruit 10,000 new employ­ees, with the promise of fill­ing 30,000 jobs. This recruit­ment process, the exact details of which remain undis­closed, will be need to be rig­or­ous in order to ​“reach out to the broad­est pool of tal­ent across the UK,” seek­ing to cre­ate a more equal and diverse UK film industry.

A response to cost­ly film cours­es and unpaid work, the scheme will intro­duce more devel­oped and var­ied film edu­ca­tion in schools to push prac­ti­cal skills with equip­ment into realms of acces­si­bil­i­ty for all. An online cre­ative hub has also been promised, to func­tion as a ​“trust­ed and reli­able careers infor­ma­tion ser­vice,” con­nect­ing more young peo­ple to Baf­ta Guru, Into Film and oth­er sup­port organ­i­sa­tions, allow­ing them to apply for upcom­ing jobs, train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and seek gen­er­al guid­ance and information.

Lucas­Film is the first big pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny to endorse the BFI’s project, tak­ing on 28 paid trainees to work on the as-yet unti­tled Han Solo project, proud­ly announc­ing that ​“75 per cent of these trainees are women, 45 per cent come from BAME back­grounds and 68 per cent were recruit­ed out­side Greater Lon­don.” Along­side hourly pay­ment, the new BFI bur­sary scheme ensures sup­port for their trainees from low­er income fam­i­lies who wish to work in film, but could not pre­vi­ous­ly afford to. In light of the BFI’s 10-point action plan, here are some essen­tial steps you can fol­low to kick­start your career in film. 

In the dig­i­tal age, there’s no excuse in not being able to reach out to com­pa­nies and make your­self known. Email­ing tal­ent agen­cies like Hamil­ton Hodell and Unit­ed Agents, or Regan Man­age­ment and Pic­cadil­ly Man­age­ment for offices out­side Lon­don, could get you rub­bing shoul­ders with the right peo­ple. Check out the Cast­ing Direc­tors Guild for cast­ing direc­tors look­ing for assis­tants, pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies like Focus Fea­tures, stu­dio spaces like Pinewood and post pro­duc­tion hous­es like Envy and Tech­ni­col­or for the lat­est intern­ship opportunities.

Fur­ther to this, many of London’s top pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies recruit their aid from Soho Run­ners and Tiger Aspect offer nine-month con­tracts to their run­ners along­side an inten­sive trainee scheme. Adapt your CV appro­pri­ate­ly for each job you apply to, and while you may land a job in a sec­tor out­side your ulti­mate goal, you’ll gain expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of work­ing in the indus­try, as well as an expand­ing set of contacts.

Applied for an intern­ship and didn’t get it? Applied again and still got reject­ed? Like in any cre­ative indus­tries, you’ll find many clos­ing doors along your way. Reap­ply­ing for posi­tions shows per­sis­tence and pas­sion. There are a lot of dif­fer­ent jobs in film: edi­tors, direc­tors, writ­ers, pro­duc­ers, showrun­ners, agents, cast­ing direc­tors, art direc­tors, pub­li­cists, the list goes on. Apply for every­thing and any­thing that inter­ests you to increase your chances of employ­ment and to gain a broad­er under­stand­ing of the indus­try as a whole. Online cre­ative hubs such as My First Job in Film, Mandy, Shoot­ing Peo­ple are con­stant­ly post­ing upcom­ing posi­tions in all sec­tors of film across the UK. These are also great sites to use when look­ing for crew for your own shorts.

The UK boasts film fes­ti­vals across the year, so there are plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to vol­un­teer. Work­ing at fes­ti­vals like London’s East End Film Fes­ti­val, Rain­dance and the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val are great ways to meet oth­er like­mind­ed film enthu­si­asts and build cre­ative con­nec­tions. Exec­u­tive Assis­tant at Lion­s­gate, Annie Loth­i­an, tells LWLies that fes­ti­vals were her entry point into film: ​“At first I found it dif­fi­cult to get even entry lev­el jobs to respond to me or to get an inter­view. Tak­ing unpaid work is a good way to make con­tacts and how I end­ed up in the job I’m in now. It can some­times seem like a nev­er end­ing cycle of unpaid work, but once you final­ly have your foot in the door it becomes a lot eas­i­er to get peo­ple to respond.” Check out the British Coun­cil Film Fes­ti­val Direc­to­ry to find out which fes­ti­vals are tak­ing place near you.

The UK is full of cre­ative tal­ent, but it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that every­one has to start some­where, and that some­where won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be where you end up. Even top direc­tors have paid their dues at some point. While tak­ing unpaid work is fine when start­ing out in film, it’s vital not to let your­self be exploit­ed. Be wary of work­ing for free for an extend­ed peri­od of time. See Arts Council’s handy guide to intern­ships in the arts for what to do if you think you’re being exploited.

One route to on-set work is being an extra. Although not exact­ly behind the scenes, extra work will pro­vide insight into work­ing in film pro­duc­tion – and may even help to con­nect you to the right peo­ple. Any­one can be an extra, thanks to the likes of Uni­ver­sal Extras, Cast­ing Col­lec­tive and 2020 Cast­ing. Sim­ply sub­mit a few pho­tos of your­self along with your skills and phys­i­cal attrib­ut­es. You’ll be request­ed to work on projects shoot­ing near you, and the pay isn’t half bad either.

Amid all the run­ning, vol­un­teer­ing and part-time jobs, nev­er lose sight of why you joined the indus­try and take the time to build up your port­fo­lio. If you want to be a direc­tor, get out and shoot with any cam­era you can get your hands on (your phone will do); if you want to write, get writ­ing! Build a small crew with con­nec­tions you’ve made along the way, or pro­fes­sion­al con­nec­tion sites such as Hiive, The Dots and LinkedIn.

You don’t have to have a film degree to work in film, but attain­ing and main­tain­ing cin­e­ma lit­er­a­cy is a must. There are end­less film cours­es offered at places like Brighton Film School and Nation­al Film of Tele­vi­sion School, and for a less cost­ly option there’s the BFI Film Acad­e­my, aimed at 16 – 19 year olds, offer­ing prac­ti­cal, hands-on expe­ri­ence in film­mak­ing for across the UK for only £25.

Anoth­er excel­lent source of edu­ca­tion is Mas­ter­class, an online course con­sist­ing of lec­tures from indus­try experts. For £95 you can get over 30 class­es on screen­writ­ing with Aaron Sorkin or lec­tures on film scor­ing by Hans Zim­mer, with the chance to upload videos to get class feed­back and cri­tique. If you don’t have the time or mon­ey to com­mit to a course, there’s plen­ty of use­ful tuto­ri­als on YouTube and oth­er video-shar­ing plat­forms. Check out DSLR guide, Film Riot and Film­mak­er IQ for end­less tips and how-to guides on edit­ing, light­ing, shoot­ing, spe­cial effects and more.

Often what stops peo­ple going out to film is mon­ey, but if you have a project in the works, why not try and raise some mon­ey for it? Check out the BFI Film Fund, which sup­ports emerg­ing direc­tors, and Lon­don Call­ing, which com­mis­sions at least 20 short films and awards up to £15,000 for BAME film­mak­ers. A sim­ple way to try and secure fund­ing for your lat­est project is by using sites such as Indiegogo and Kick­starter. Spread the word about your lat­est project among friends, fam­i­ly and social media. Make a sep­a­rate page for your film and gen­er­ate buzz. What’s it about? Where will you shoot? Who are the team work­ing on it? Crowd-sourc­ing and fundrais­ing can be more effec­tive if you give some­thing back to your donors, per­haps a pre­view screen­ing of the final cut, or a thank you cred­it at the end of the film. Don’t let mon­ey restrict you creatively.

After vol­un­teer­ing, intern­ing and work­ing on set, you’ll even­tu­al­ly build a net­work of peo­ple with the same dri­ve and ambi­tions as you. Film is all about team­work, and find­ing an aspir­ing writer, or com­pos­er or edi­tor along your way will ben­e­fit both you and them when build­ing a port­fo­lio. Plac­ing your­self around the right peo­ple will lead to great and broad­er oppor­tu­ni­ties. Give help, and you’ll always receive it back.

If you’re proud of your lat­est film project, why not sub­mit it to a com­pe­ti­tion or fes­ti­val? This will expose your work to a broad­er and poten­tial­ly more inter­na­tion­al audi­ence, and may even attract inter­est for fur­ther fund­ing. Damien Chazelle, direc­tor of Whiplash and La La Land, ini­tial­ly had dif­fi­cul­ties secur­ing fund­ing for his fea­ture-length debut, so instead shot a film from the script and sub­mit­ted it to Sun­dance, where it won the Short Film Jury Award.

The BFI have put togeth­er a list of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­vals for young film­mak­ers, and also check out this list of Baf­ta recog­nised Film Fes­ti­vals that you could sub­mit it. The same pro­to­col goes for all the writ­ers out there, sub­mit a script to the BBC writ­ers room or the Blue Cat screen­play com­pe­ti­tion offers writ­ten analy­sis too all script sub­mis­sions! If you think your work is ready, why not sign up and sub­mit to The Black List, the lead­ing net­work of script writ­ers with incred­i­ble suc­cess sto­ries. Top­ping the 2016 list was first time-screen­writer Elyse Hollander’s Madon­na biopic Blonde Ambi­tion, which has now been pur­chased by Universal.

There’s no set path to a suc­cess­ful career in film, but a lit­tle per­se­ver­ance and a lot of pas­sion can go a long way. Explore the indus­try and try out dif­fer­ent sec­tors along the way, but focused on your ulti­mate goal, whether it be as a writer, a direc­tor, in cast­ing or in tal­ent, your oppor­tu­ni­ties are end­less, so don’t be afraid to explore them all.

If you have any tips or advice for get­ting into the film indus­try, share them with us @LWLies