Pro Tip #7 - Up your skills

This post applies to all sitting at home during the corona-virus with no job.
The best thing you can do in your downtime, not just the virus time but every time you are without a project is to up your skillset.

You never know what you learn today will come handy tomorrow. It does not necessarily have to be related to your field. But if it is so, it might help you better when you apply for your next job.

A few film-related examples: 

For a graduate just out of college and wants to be an assistant in advertising or filmmaking, master the skills of PowerPoint and/or Pages. If you have done so move on the basics of Photoshop or Indesign these skills will come handy when you are preparing your PPM docket.

An actor who thinks that only acting is needed, think about learning to sing, dance, play an instrument or even something like martial arts. You never know when that skill is the reason you win a role over someone else. Why stop there, learn direction or scriptwriting these will give you insights into how and why people get cast.

Directors learn how to edit or compose music, you may end up with a disaster of a project but you might learn a few tricks which will come in handy later when dealing with the professionals on your project.



Some learning comes from watching behind the scenes, or a director's interview or anyone from your industry. You could learn just by listening to their experiences on the project.


Look to learn other soft skills, like a new language, patience, personality development, leadership, decision making, etc. All these will help you grow as a better human being, it does not matter which field you belong to.

Every day is a chance to learn something new.

Check out more professional filmmaking tips here

Don't forget to read,

Pro Tip #6 - Portfolio Sending

Filmmakers Talk 18 - Life of a freelancer

Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List

Some past Talks: 

FT#17 - Sound Pj

FT#16-Filmmaking Dictionary: Deadline

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Tips on how to build your showreel

The biggest problem as a beginner is how does one build a showreel when no one is willing to give you work without an existing showreel. Read on to find some of the methods that you can try to build up your showreel and this applies not just to Directors but to everyone in this industry including editors, musicians, sound engineers, cinematographers etc.

Before I go ahead and give you the various options that you can try to build your reel, I first hope you have some idea of what you want to be and have assisted in that role for at least a few projects. For example, if you want to be a director, you should have assisted in at least 30 - 40 projects if they are commercials, or 4 - 8 mimimum features films or documentaries if that's the direction you want to take, same if you want to be an editor or a sound engineer etc. It's extremely rare that someone comes out of a film school and straightaway gets into a senior role, for almost all of the rest, the first experience you need is that of an assistant to the role you desire or at least have worked in the industry long enough to know what the role is about.

Here are some TIPS to build your Showreel:-   

1. Do your own work

2. Enter contests

3. Associate with an established professional

4. Join an Agency      

5. Get connected

1. Do your own work:-

If you have just started out or your career is stuck and not moving to the next level, having your own work is the best way to build a reel. Your own work could be stories, documentaries, short films or even mock ad films written, directed, produced, edited by you or a team, for e.g. if you are coming from a film school or a course you would already know a few people who are in the same boat as you and the best way would be to get together with them that way every one of you are making something to put on each of your reels. Of course, do not forget to try and get some good work while still in the film school, this helps cause you would most likely have all the tools at your disposal and that would mean at least one film on the reel.

Doing your own work could mean investing not just your time but your money as well in making your project. Remember usually free work comes at the cost of quality.

2. Enter contests:-

If you are not as inspired to come up with your own ideas the next best way to build your reel is to enter into contests (click on the link to see a few that I have listed, to begin with, Contest LINKS)
There are lot many more websites and groups that run contests, this applies to advertising as well as films. These contests or film festivals usually have guidelines and deadlines which help push you to finish your work which otherwise could take forever.

Hopefully, by this time you have been assisting for a while and your contact base should have increased a little more than just your friends from film college and even if not you can always look for people  willing to help by posting your requests on chat groups or on social media, you can post that you are looking at entering into XYZ contest and looking for XYZ crew to help with it, but please make it very clear in your post if your project is a PAID / LOW PAY / NO PAY project, cause if it is a free project you dont want professionals reaching out to you in response to you post only to find its a free gig and wasted their time. If you do have some money to invest it would only help get better resources.

Participating in multiple contests not only helps you showcase your work to different audiences at the same time builds your reel and your experience in the role to be ready for finally when you get your break. Of course, if you manage to win the contest it only helps as it makes your reel look even better and maybe noticed quicker.

3. Associate with an established professional:-

Another way to build your reel is as you assist your way through the industry, either by staying with one company or through freelance working with multiple people you should make friends with the senior's in the role you wish to work in, once you have gained enough experience and their confidence that you can match up the skill set of them, either they might give you a chance or you can request an opportunity to move from assistant to associate for a suitable project. It may mean that you might be given just one shot to direct (or shoot or record etc) or it may be that you handle a B-crew all by your self if you are lucky enough. Not all senior people will let you associate with them as at the end of the day the project responsibility is theirs and it would be their choice to give you opportunities or not.

DO NOTE: Associating does not give you the right to showcase the work as your own and if you have to please make sure that you first have the permission from all the concerned parties before you go ahead and add it on to your reel. Most of the times they will be ok for you to put it on your work, given the fact that they were ok with you associating in the first place or they might let you use it, so long as you add the word "Associate" printed on the reel. However, if they do refuse you to use the work in your reel just be thankful that you got the experience to do some hands-on work but respect their decisions and not use that material. 

4. Join an Agency:-

Sometimes the best way to get your work is to join an Agency - in case of advertising or a Movie House / Lable -  in case of filmmaking. Here while most of the times your "hands-on" work goes down and "coordination" increases it gives you an opportunity to understand what clients are looking for when they hire production houses and there will be opportunities that come along where you can suggest that you do the project instead of sourcing it through a production house to do so, this of course will only happen if you have won the clients confidence over time and/or the budget is a low one and they are ok to experiment with.

Here same as with making your own work sometimes it's the agency that takes the initiative to do some small side projects to impress the clients and those are the ones that you could work on or even pitch ideas to the agency to get done. Of course, once you have a few on your reel and your confident enough it would be time to branch back into the mainstream.

Do remember that this route is a long one and your experience of the actual role will be based more on observation of how other people go about doing the job, so it is important to find an agency that is doing a lot of work in production or this process might drag even longer. 

5. Get connected:-

The most important thing to remember that people change their roles all the time and making friends with all should be the most important thing you do as you progress and this should never end, cause you never know when some junior becomes a senior or an agency person becomes a client and will look for you just because you are friends with them. I don't mean you literally have to go out and be friends with each and everyone but being nice to all who work with you on projects goes a long way. If you cant do that you should find the right person who will do it for you, like a director should find the right producer who will go pitch and win him work, so the friend making skill is left to him.

Here there is also the case for "favours" or "bribes" and I do not believe in this route at all, just remember once you go down this path there is no turning back from it. Doing a project free in exchange for another is something that happens all the time, but let me warn you out of personal experience that despite doing a good job and even winning awards on the project the favour may not be returned, plus you become the person they remember only when the no budget (free stuff ) comes up. So never do it saying this will be a one-off case, cause as the saying goes "Once a liar always a.."



The most important thing to remember is finally its the quality of the work that gets judged, no one will see or know that you had a lot of money or no money to make this project, what is on screen will be your mark sheet, So the more work you do the better the chances for you to get better and to succeed.

Remeber to continue working as an Asst during this transition phase to Senior as that will not only keep the connections going but also keep your mind at ease. Take breaks or multitask to work on your own projects while you are working on others projects.

All the best to everyone trying to make your mark in this industry.

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Filmmakers Talk 16 - Filmmaking Dictionary: Deadline

How many times has this happened to you on projects where the deadline has come and gone but you are still making changes.. leave a comment below to let me know if this happens to you..


Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List


Some past Talks:

FT#15 Casting Director

FT#14 Director at PPM

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

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Filmmakers Talk 13 - Agency Comments

Most recently came across this agency that asked me to zoom into the shot but without loosing any information.... Please help if anyone know how to do this..

Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List

Some past Talks:

FT#12 Creativity Ends

FT#11 Fix In Post

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

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Best compliment received from the client on Chevrolet Trax

One of the best compliments I have received from the client on this..

"What we require is the edit - A version, but after we saw this edit, we will go with this version" 

So earlier this year I was given this promo to cut, the brief given was to keep a liner story (a sort of cut down from the TVC) which I did make, on seeing the result I was not very kicked by it and it did not give me a feeling of a video that people would want to watch at a Autoshow.. So I sat with the editor and redid this edit.

The agency was a bit unsure of showing this version at first, since it was not what the client wanted but after a few viewings and a bit of convincing them that there is no harm in showing both versions.. they agreed to present both.

We presented both versions to the client, the first one edit - A, had everything from the brief and then we presented this version, all the clients present in the room had a long silence after they watched it and a little bit of discussion followed as to the positives and negatives of what they saw.. they ended with  "What we require is the edit - A version, but after we saw this edit, we will go with this version" 

I think that was one of the best compliments that I have received from the client, goes to show sometimes you just have to follow your gut and do it even though its not in the brief..

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the list, and to be in touch hit Like / Follow on the blog button on the right hand side or hit Like on the Facebook page Auggielicious for information, latest news and events beyond the blog..

Filmmakers Talk #3 - The Editor

If you have never done "post-production" you would not have heard this...

Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List

Some past Talks:

FT#2 - Director

FT#1 - Producer

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.




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Careers in filmmaking - Post Production

"We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!" - Gollum, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. (2002)

Career Choice – Post Production

Pre-Production not your cup of tea, so here are some of the things you could do in post-production.

POST - PRODUCTION

Post Production Supervisor – Key link in coordinating the entire process from after shoot till the project ends. Does not need to know how to operate the various systems, but some amount of technical knowledge does help. It could be freelance or inhouse with either a production house or even a Posthouse.

Offline Editor – the person who cuts the rushes to a viewable sequence in accordance with the director’s vision. It could be freelance or associated with a post-production studio.

Assistant Offline Editor – Assists the editor, main job role would be digitising the rushes, sorting it, sound syncing, making subclips  etc. Usually a trainee who wants to become an editor.

Online Editor – works on high resolution systems, not so much for cutting the film but used for compositing, tittling, cleanups etc. mostly is associated with a studio very rarely do u find freelance online editors. 

Colourist – sets the colour tone to the film. Is always associated with a Post Production House.

Machine Room Technician –  works in the machine room of a studio, is responsible for connections from offline, online rooms to recorders, players, hard disks etc.

Booking Manager – the person who manages the booking to all the rooms present at the post house, job done by more than one person at bigger studios.

Studio Manager – handles all the client and editor related complaints or suggestions and making sure that work flows smoothly. Mainly like a P.R. role.

Visual effects supervisor  (Vfx) – Usually the head of the graphics department, or the person who is heading the project, could also be the expert on that particular job. Knows how to work the software mostly.

3D Graphic’s – person or a team of people who work on 3D graphic software's.

2D Grpahic’s – person or a team that works on 2D graphics, sometimes the person knows both 2D and 3D. 

Music Director – the person who controls the direction of the music on all levels, not necessarily the composer of the piece.

Composer – the person who could use both instruments and software's to compose a music track, background score.  

Arranger – has to make sure that every aspect of the music piece is well harmonized. Could work on an original or an existing piece of music. Sometimes the music director or the composer also plays this role.

Sound Engineer – records voices at dubs, lays tracks from the music director mixes it all down to a proper balance that is required.

Foley Artist - Creates sound effects that cant be captured during film making, sounds like footsteps, clothes rustling, door closing etc. its any sound that could be part of the scene.

Singer – Sings either the main voice or in a chorus.

Voice Over Artist (VO) – the person who dubs the voice either in place of the actor or the voice for the product window like in advertising. Short forms are MVO and FVO for males and females respectively.

Language Co-ordinator for VO – a person who co-ordinates and arranges for VO artists in different languages according to the requirement at the recording studios. Sometimes also arranges for a language supervisor.

Language Supervisor – Someone who supervises the language pronunciation, and also makes necessary to the translations if necessary. Sometimes the language scriptwriter also doubles up as the supervisor.

Of course, most of these titles have assistants to them. There are more jobs to post-production, like a Promo Producer in a Television network or Publicist in a feature film. Still can't decide what to do then maybe its journalism, advertising agency, channel, etc is where you need to be.

Auggieism:- What do you say when Auggie is overeating?

Ans:- Hoggie..

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