Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to Work I Hope

I didn’t intend to miss a week of my blog here and there, but tax time combined with my usual end-of-the-show, now-I-can-get-really-sick illness.  Somehow my body always knows when I can afford to get the latest flu and safely collapse into a total viral meltdown, which is just after a show wraps, when I am no longer required to get up early and toil like a rented mule for twelve to sixteen hours a day.  So now I’m dealing with going on two weeks of fitful bronchitis, which has left me with the energetic qualities of a wet paper bag.

Hard to think, impossible to write, and really, really hard to do math and add up receipts and figure out what is deductible and what isn’t.  But after looking into my finances and estimating my frighteningly meager tax return, what I have to do, no matter how bad off I still am, sneezing and wheezing and coughing, is begin job-hunting again in the Business.

Yep, my potential double digit tax refund isn’t going to be very helpful in paying off the truck and the cell phone and the little what-have-you’s like food and shelter, and the big HBO project I was counting on for work over the next few months has been pushed a year.  That leaves nothing on the horizon in the way of work, except for the TV adventure-caper series that has come to town for a second season.

By now, they’ve crewed up in the paint department, and probably for most of the art department, but they tend to need day players when things get crazy, and they get crazy all the time in television.  I want to record on this blog the next steps I’m going to take in my efforts to get a job in the art department, stepping out of or to the side of, my usual work.

I think what I am about to do in my next job search, here, from Plan A to Plan B and onward, should be helpful (or interesting or maybe just amusing, depending on why you’re reading this).  Besides, a friend of a relative of a friend of a friend (yes, that is the relationship lineage) just called me tonight and asked how he could get into the Business, so I told him about the TV series, gave him some pointers and said he should check out this site and all the blogs on it for some insider viewpoints on how the Business works for some of us.

Now he can read about my own methods for getting work on the same television show he is going to try to get on as a PA.  And maybe he can comment on this blog if he gets work on the show.  We could learn from each other’s experiences here.

So, for the record, the first thing I’m going to do tomorrow is call the television series production office and try to connect with someone there I know from other films.  I will then try to find a suitable person to address my resume to—the art director, probably, and I will email that in with a cover letter which will be clever and memorable.  But that will probably disappear into cyberspace, so I will make plans to actually put in an appearance at the production offices.  More on that later, as it becomes necessary, but if I do this, it will look like an afterthought, a casual decision, made because I just happened to be passing by (45 miles out of my way).

But I hope it won’t become necessary.  I mean, what I hope is that they get my resume, they read it, and they see that they need me to help out in the art department. I do set dressing, on set dressing, even sewing, pattern-making and design, as well as graphics and props, and somebody there will know that.  So, I hope the resume by itself will do the trick and I’ll get in as a day player almost immediately first, and then, of course, as is my way, become indispensable.

Okay, that’s a lie: Nobody on a film or television crew is indispensible, even lead actors (although they are a mite harder to replace in a hurry, but it has been done on more than one show I’ve crewed for).

I may be dreaming, but it would be nice to just have the resume do the work and get me on the show.  I will put a link in the cover letter to my portfolio and website, though, to help with my credibility, and make it easy—just a mouse click away!—to get to my work in beautiful color, presented with custom designed (by me!) website graphics.

So there you have it, my initial plan of attack on the next job search.  I would rather be at home working on my dolphin book and taking care of my wild hawk friend Tennerin (who is leaving on his spring migration in less than a month, so I value the time we have together this season), but I am, alas, not independently wealthy at this time, so the hideous necessity of working for a living has once again intruded into my life of blissful, important spiritual and creative action.

Oh well.  Thank heavens for the glamour of Show Business, or I could be feeling very disappointed right now.  I will keep you posted as to my progress.