The end of last week had me on the west coast with a New York based production company. Early Thursday morning through a red-eye flight Sunday night I was a second camera on a project shooting in Portland and Los Angeles.
“So I’m writing this week’s blog post from an airplane.”
-me (absolutely true but I’ll never be a big enough deal to say something like that and not sound like a d-bag)
Part of freelancing is constantly working with different people and more often than not I’m on jobs with people who’ve been part of some extremely interesting things. This trip alone had me working with someone who was previously an Army sniper; a producer who was working on Mt. Everest a few years back during a deadly avalanche; and a DP who worked on a project in Antarctica.
“I’ve been at it long enough to have my own stories, but I’m pretty sure it’s still better to listen more than you speak.”
-me (again, the guy writing this post that still probably talks too much)
There's always some kind of down time during shoots – especially when you're traveling together for multiple days at a time – and seems like small talk always circles around to stories of previous jobs and time on the road; I'm all about it BTW. This line of work has brought some rad life experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’ve got my go-to stories that I just know everyone wants to hear about. That's basically the point when I've stopped listening to what other people have to say and just wait for my turn to try and one up their stories. That's pretty much the worst and I'm awful at not being that guy.
Basic Life Tip: contribute more than you consume.
Never be the most important person in the room. You have an awesome story? Rad. I bet someone else does too. You finished with what you're doing and able to be helpful to someone else? Get to it. Are you causing more problems than you're solving? Hey dummy, stop it. No matter how good you are at what you do as a freelancer, if people don't like being around you you’re not helping your chances of getting hired again.