When There’s No Work, Everything Feels Like Zero—How Do You Cope?

I can’t help you with finding jobs because my day job has nothing to do with cinema (i’m a school teacher) , but i’ve been in a similar situation in the past in other contexts and perhaps i can understand you.

A couple of things you may consider:

– your job is not you, it’s what you do for living, support family, pay the bills, buy nice things that make you feel better, etc. You are yourself even when there’s not work. There’s zero work at the moment, you are not zero. They are different things.

– when your job is what you like to do in life and make you happy, congratulations! But it’s not so common. So: if you dream of a career in cinema but the moment is a bit complicated, you may consider finding a new job while waiting for new opportunities in cinema. You can use this time to deal after some personal project, shot your own things in the spare time, learn and study.

– from what i’ve been reading for at least a couple of years, jobs in creative industries (cinema, vfx, games, illustrations, music, etc) are fewer and fewer. I am afraid this is the first immediate effect of AI. Why hiring a [insert human artist category here] when you have AI? I used to do some illustrations jobs time ago, before having kids (i worked at school at morning and spent hours drawing at night) : the same small editors i worked with are publishing their things with AI generated images. It’s happening everywhere and the better the AI the worst for the humans.

Be realistic but don’t give up. Quoting Calvin & Hobbes : “when life gives you lemons throw them back to it and add some other lemons by your own.”

I photographed over 20 short films at CalArts, all in 16mm. They were mostly masters degree thesis films.

A year after graduation I shot a 35mm feature as a DP for a fellow CalArts graduate, a non-paying job. I paid the bills by working part-time at a sound effects company as a data entry person; the owner liked to give jobs to CalArts students.

A year after my first feature that I shot another feature because a fellow graduate introduced me to the director.

Another year passed and I shot another feature because the same fellow graduate introduced me to the director for a short film and then this feature that followed.

Another year later and I was introduced to the director of my fourth feature by the editor of the second feature.

The producer of that fourth feature hired me for six more features.

These were all very low-budget non-union jobs in Los Angeles. I shot 23 features before I joined the union. For a decade I barely earned enough money to pay my bills.