How Do You Deal With Rejection When You Lose a Job To Someone Else?
What can you do except stay strong, keep your head up and move on. What I try to do is optimize myself and remember that I can only control the things that are within my control. Am I doing the best work I possibly can? Am I presenting myself in the best possible way. Are my resume and reel and IMDb as impactful and complete and optimized as can be? Same goes for my cover letter and any communications I may have put together to campaign for the job. And in those periods that I’m not working, am I capitalizing on that free time and using it to its fullest? To learn and grow and better myself. Make no mistake, there is alot of competition out there for these jobs. There is no shortage of camera operators or any other film crew for that matter. There are lots of people out there vying for these jobs. So what are you gonna do to rise to the top and be the best you can be? Moping and wallowing in depression certainly won’t get you there.
It’s going to happen. You are not going to get every job and other people will. It’s just a numbers game. At the end of the day, if there is a reason you lost the gig (we heard you were difficult) well, fix that. But most often it’s nothing more than someone knew someone, someone put in a good word, someone happened to be talking to someone. Don’t take the loss of a job perosonally. There will be other gigs. And in the end, the key to most of life is to simply let the things you can’t control go. You didn’t get the gig, move on to the next one. Thus endeth the lesson.
You deal with it. Everyone does. And it can suck and break you down but you need to find a way that this is not your entire life because if it is, when you don’t get the job, it will be crushing to say the least. Doubt creeps in like the fog and stays. It’s a mental game and a long game so start working on it early. If you are lucky you will be the hot commodity at some point, but that will end. If you are like most people, you’ll work, do good work, and never stick out, and even that will end. We love this business, but at the end of the day, it’s a gig, not life. Dont let it be your life.
It seems like there is a lot of rejection in this industry especially when you are up for a job and find out that someone else got it instead. How do you deal with the self doubt that comes with this part of the job?
I’ve landed jobs over people that were more qualified than me, and lost jobs to people who didn’t have as much experience as I did. This can be difficult to understand when you are starting out, when it is a dream project, or when it’s been a while since you’ve worked and you have bills to pay and a family to support. I’ve learned after 30+ years of doing this that the phone will always eventually ring, and that if I miss out on something I really wanted to do, either because of the people involved (director or DP), or the subject matter, someone else will call me, and another door will open.
I’ve been very fortunate in my career, and attribute much of my success to my attitude. While I’ve lost jobs to others just as much as the next guy, I’ve also landed jobs over people who had better credits and more experience than I did, and I chalk this up to my personality and attitude. I’m always happy to be on set, and I never make things about me or bring my own drama to work. I’m there for the sole purpose of supporting the DP, and do everything I can to make them look good – over the years, this has helped me stay working more than anything else.
This business is built on relationships, and it is important to cultivate them. Networking is just as important as an established operator, as it was when I was a green PA. Making those around you feel important and appreciated can do more than just ensure a happy set – in the past I’ve gotten jobs from PAs and other unexpected sources because (as an example) a DP from out of town was looking for someone for a project and nobody in their circle knew anyone – during this conversation, an unexpected voice spoke up saying they just worked with an operator who was good and made being on set a pleasant experience...this has happened to me more than once.
To conclude – know that the phone will always ring, and missing out on an important job will only open the door to something else with new people that may lead to another exciting chapter in your career. Have a good attitude and be pleasant to everyone you encounter on set – this makes you more desirable, in that it’s always better to work with kind people for 12 hours a day, and in my experience, if someone is choosing between two people of equal abilities, the nice person will always get the call.
