Be fun, Be Interesting, Be Memorable.
It goes without saying that in order to keep working in this industry you have to be good. Knowing your job, being dependable, being able to kill it in a tough situation, that is all extremely important. But having said that, you don't have to be the best, rather, you have to be good, and be someone that people want to be around.
We spend 12-14 hours a day 5 days a week on set with people we otherwise rarely see. On many shows I see my assistants for more time out of the week than I see my family. As a result, the people that I want to be around are the people who keep it interesting. These are people who are fun, are easy to work with, can laugh and make me laugh, have interesting additional sides to their lives, and people I won't mind dealing with at the end of a long week.
There have been many times where we have needed someone for a job and a name has come up who is great but is a person that is, in some way, not the person you want to be around all day, all week, or all month. I’ll take someone good with a great personality long before I’ll take someone great with a mediocre, or worse, annoying personality.
Now, this is going to be different for every person and I can guarantee you that those people who I find annoying are the same people that others find endearing. There is no magic recipe, but in my experience, the following can’t hurt you: Be kind. Be easy. Be malleable. Be able to seamlessly fit in without upsetting the apple cart. Be interesting and have something else that interests you besides film. Be respectful. Be intuitive and respectful. If these things happen naturally, your’e gold. If not, work on them. There is always room to grow. But at the end of the day, you need to set yourself apart and you need to decide how that will play out.
Eons ago, one of my best friends was looking for an internship with an engineering group. He sent out his resume to numerous groups but rarely got a call back. He looked it over and realized that, while his qualifications were on par with others seeking the same gig, his resume needed to stand out. So he looked into it and realized there was a way to print his resume on something called T-47 Aluminum, and thats just what he did.
The phone started ringing.
Why? Because his resume stood out - it was different; people realized this was someone who thought outside of the box and would be fun to be around. I honestly can't recall if it landed him a job, but I know it got him a lot of interaction. At the end of the day, you can’t control the job market, but you can control how people remember and think of you.
Make it so.
