Im hoping that by writing this all down it may help my decision easier to make in regards to what the hell I should be doing with myself at the end of this year. Over the past few weeks, you'll have noticed a number of posts have been about my concerns over my impending doom due to arrive at the end of 2011. A time when I officially step back into the real world. I say step back as opposed to stepping into because I feel I have done my fair share of industry experience in the past. The unfortunate reality of this situation is that besides moving to a more profitable area for jobs, I have essentially put off my career by 3 years doing my degree. Don't get me wrong. It's been great. Fantastic even. It just hasn't been the amazing boost my career needed.
So back to square one again. Where no one knows who you are, your resume looks about as stale as last week's newspaper and The Loop has become your new homepage. It's a scary place. To help me try to figure out what the fuck to do with my life, I've asked every person I've met over the past few weeks to give me some insight into the pathway they took to get to where they are now in their careers.
My mentor who got me all my jobs in Perth recently moved over to Sydney to begin a new career at Film Finances Australia as a trainee film guarantor. As I was here, I knew it was about time I caught up with her to see how things had been going for the past 3 years. In particular, I wanted her advice which I have always respected on what she thought I should do with my life next year.
She asked me what I wanted to do and I said that eventually, I wanted to end up owning my own production company for Australian film and television projects with the intention of broadening the company overseas. She then asked me what my original plans were for straight out of uni and I explained that I don't have that desire quite yet to make my own stuff and thought my time would be better spent learning from others on their sets as a production manager or producer's assistant until that desire strengthened. Her response makes so much sense. She said that what tends to happen is people who get into those roles stay there. The reason for this is because when they eventually decide to make their own work, everyone has placed them in the 'producer's assistant' role and they don't take them seriously as a producer.
Seriously scary stuff. Making the problem more complicated, she acknowledged the benefit of work experience in this industry and knew how important it would be for me to just get a foot in the door to meet the right people.
My response? AGHHSGSJABAHHHJGHAJAHHAHAH!!!!!! In a nutshell.
So rather than helping me make my final decision, she's added another option for me to consider for next year. This is the list so far:
1. Move back to Perth to start at the very bottom again with the few contacts I have over there (not supported by anyone)
2. Apply for a traineeship with the BBC
3. Apply for a graduate program with MacQuarie or Deloitte (not very appealing but it'll pay the bills)
4. Apply for the VCA producing Postgrad course
5. Apply for the VCA directing Postgrad course
6. Work casually and try to get work experience with film and tv production companies
7. Make my own stuff with the hope that it gets some notice and my company develops from there
Ugh! Too many decisions as you can see and not enough time to consider all the pros and cons. I think I'm kinda lucky in the sense that hopefully 6 and 7 can blend together so that I can work on my own stuff during the downtime between working on other people's productions. My friend did warn me about this however as she said that when you're working on other people's projects, your own work gets left on the shelf. Crap.
So basically I'm not one set further to figuring out what the hell I'm going to do with my life next year. But I do have more confidence within me to reconsider my many, many ideas which have been building up over the years and start to develop them into real films. The road ahead is still not paved but I've found another brick to get one step closer to the process.
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