Networking
and Preparation

A friend of mine said that if there were
no computers someone would have to have invented
them for me. It has nothing to do with my plans,
my smarts, whatever, it just happened naturally
because it is just who I am.
—Ryszard Horowitz

One thing that is true of any journey is that it will be easier to start and maintain your momentum if you do a little planning. Sure, we want to allow for the joys of the unexpected, but the role of planning is to set us on a course and to keep us focused on our goals. When we start off to build on our careers, it is essential to research what we are getting into, so we can be flexible and change according to the ways the winds of change blow.

I remember reading that when Captain William Clark’s contingent of the Corps of Discovery left on the historic journey to find the Northwest Passage, they departed Camp River Dubois in the middle of the day. It seemed odd to me that such a momentous trip would start so late. I imagined that, given the enormity of the event, they would all want to leave as early as possible to get off to a rousing start and cover as much territory as possible. But then I read on. The reason they left midday was that, if they had forgotten anything, they would know it when they pitched their camp that evening, and they would not have to travel far to go back and pick up the necessary supplies. In addition, Captain Lewis met up with the rest of the party in St. Charles, Missouri, after gathering information from fur traders and acquiring maps. In other words, they recognized the importance of their adventure, they assessed what they would need to succeed, and they planned for the unexpected.

And equally important to the planning for the trip was the trust captains Lewis and Clark had to have in the unique talents of the individuals that made up the Corps. On top of that, they had to have faith in the members of their party who would introduce them to the indigenous people along the way, people who would allow them to get up the rivers, across the plains, over the mountains to the far Western ocean, and back again safely.

To some of us, starting or reshaping a career seems no less formidable. We have heard tales of others who have carved out an existence that allows them to enjoy the richness of their lives, but we are not sure we can follow in their footsteps. Could it be that those stories are just myths? Could it all just be some cruel joke that something better is out there for us?

Prospecting

We have already studied a little about ourselves and the dynamics of risk. And we have established that risk can be minimized by transforming it into calculated risk. In this chapter we will dig a little deeper. There is a term in the sales and marketing worlds that describes the process of looking for the perfect customers or, in our case, the perfect clients. The term is “prospecting” and it implies just what you would imagine. In prospecting for gold or other precious metals and stones, you go out to some lonely place and dig around for your treasure. You could just walk out into the wilderness and start digging, but your chances for finding anything worthwhile are heightened by studying the terrain and its geological makeup, having a map, having the right equipment, familiarizing yourself with the problems you may encounter, and teaming up with an experienced crew with expertise in areas you lack. And so it is when we go out looking for the golden clients—the ones who need what we love to create. Finding the golden client can be accomplished two ways, through referrals and research.

Referral

Referral is by far the best way to find clients because when someone refers you, there is a built-in level of trust. If you can present yourself by saying, “So-and-so suggested I call you,” then the other party automatically gives you more credence than someone she doesn’t know. That kind of introduction can shave several degrees off the proverbial “six degrees of separation.” It can warm up an otherwise “cold call.” When you introduce yourself that way, the other person will probably say, “How is that old so-and-so?” and you have already broken the ice.

As my co-instructor Jean Mitsunaga says, more than 80 percent of job referrals come from “the hidden job market,” which includes those unadvertised jobs that are offered through a network of people who have something in common. That sure beats picking up the phone, calling a receptionist at an anonymous company, trying to explain that you want to show your work to any creative-department person, and ultimately getting transferred to a voicemail that will be ignored. In that case, you are just another one of countless requests that have no direct connection to answering what the company’s professional needs are. You may have the good fortune to talk to someone, only to find that the company has a policy of seeing unsolicited portfolios only on a drop-off basis—you leave your book on a Tuesday and pick it up on a Thursday, and you have no idea if anyone looked at it on Wednesday.

You quickly find that you have to be as creative with your marketing as you are with your own work. But don’t try to get too tricky or you may be blacklisted from showing your book at the company. I have heard stories of artists and reps who have gone beyond protocols and done something so egregious they are no longer allowed on the premises. You don’t have to claim to be a long-lost cousin to get in the door; you only need to have a lot of perseverance and the right work to show.

Research

Good old hard-core research will not only get you to the right people, it will help you familiarize yourself with who is doing what kind of work and who are the best prospects. I tell my clients to go to a newsstand, sit in front of it for a while, and just look at the variety of magazines that are on the shelves. None of those magazines can exist without photography. Recently, while at a local Barnes & Noble, I noticed three monthly magazines on ferrets, those weasely little creatures that are actually outlawed as pets in my state. And there was a monthly magazine dedicated entirely to pizzas! They had stories about pizza dough, pizza sauce, pizza ovens, pizza-oven mitts, pizza history, the future of pizza—if it had anything to do with pizza, that magazine had it covered. Photography drives people to pick up the latest issues. Someone has to supply the photography and that someone could be you.

Now, once you become part of the pizza, or weasel, or fashion, or automotive fraternity/sorority through your remarkable photography, your name will be passed around as someone who can be trusted, and your research will turn into referral. Is it easy? No. Will it take time? Yes. But research and its positive effects will get you recognized by the peer group to which you wish to belong. Your career will become your lifestyle and visa versa.

Networking

You must never overlook the importance of becoming involved with your trade organizations and the trade organizations your clients belong to. One thing that happens when you work alone is that you lose a sense of community. That community can offer support, and information that can lead to job assignments. Every trade organization has an annual event where you can showcase your work to other people who are interested in what interests you. I had a student who offered to shoot the portraits for the local advertising club’s annual event. He ended up doing portraits of the top creative directors and art directors, and did such a good job many of them invited him to their agencies to show his book to the other personnel, which led to job assignments.

Building Bridges

It’s all about preparation, research, proving yourself, putting yourself in a position to get referrals, and staying visible. This is a lifelong endeavor; from the time you first enter the field through every career reincarnation. A very good example of this is the following story from Dean Cundey on how he got into the film business. I teased you by giving you some of his story earlier, and now I am fulfilling my promise to give you the rest of his interview:

I was determined that somehow I was going to [get into the cinematographers union]. Determination is the main thing, because there are so many creative jobs, but certainly in the Hollywood film industry there are constant roadblocks to getting somewhere. A couple of my buddies from UCLA had talked Roger Corman into producing a low budget feature. They had already assigned the camera job, but I had done makeup before [so I took the makeup job] because it was a chance to work on a real feature, and once again observe the whole thing.

My first actual paying job, my first professional job, was a result of the networking. When the job was over I sat down and said, “I wonder what I do next; how do I get a job?” The phone rang and it was Roger Corman, and he said, “So you did makeup on that film and it actually looked pretty good. I’m directing a movie; do you want to do makeup on it?” I thought, this is pretty cool. I don’t even have to go and look for work. They call you up and there it is.

So I said sure and I did makeup on Gas-s-s-s and I did makeup on Cindy Williams, Ben Vereen, Talia Shire, and all of these young actors who were being given their first opportunity by Roger. I did well enough on the job that I got noticed, and I got a recommendation and Roger noticed.

When Gas-s-s-s was over, it seemed like it would be easy for me to continue with hair and makeup but that really wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t actively pursue other makeup jobs. I probably could have, but I remember turning down the next job. I had an opportunity to work on a short film and to shoot it, and that was important because now I started networking in the area of my real choice.

It was probably one of my most conscious efforts. I had worked on five or six low-budget films, and I was always struck by the fact that a cinematographer was at a loss because a low-budget film didn’t have money and would not send out a complete package of equipment that would allow you to do the job properly. You had to scramble. I decided that I would create a grip/camera van that had all the things you would need for a basic shoot. It would be this efficient package of equipment that would go anywhere and they could shoot anything. There was the trick. Not just a big van that you would load equipment in. I called it the “Movivan,” knowing that it would become part of the image. It would become more than a device; it would perhaps become a symbol of me.

So I worked with three other guys and we built the van in my driveway. I gutted the van, put extra doors in it, and I completely modified it. It wasn’t just a van that pulled up and you unloaded a bunch of cases. I had a vision of an efficient tool to work with. And this is where some of my background in architecture and drafting came in handy.

We built this truck and each guy who was involved had a skill. One guy was a gaffer, one was the sound recorder, and so on. We built the truck, and then I leased a package of equipment and my father co-signed the lease. I leased cameras and lights, and sound equipment, and grip equipment. It became a great door opener, because I would get a phone call about a project and they would say, “We want to rent your truck for a show we are doing. Do you have to come along with it?” and I would say “Yeah.” Then they would say, ‘Well, we’ve got a guy now but. . . .’ A couple of times they went away, but other times they would call back and say, “We’ve decided to hire you.” So I had a value-added aspect to my talent.

You get a reputation of being competent at your job but you have to also do what the job requires. So you have to be willing to take the risk and take the hit. Maybe you have to be willing to accept half the income for the year to do what your want to do. Will the people around you be willing to support you and say, “Well, we’re willing to tighten up our belts to help you”? It’s a major issue. It’s all toward the building of the résumé or reel or whatever it is you are going to need to validate yourself as the person you want to be. It’s all part of the plan.

I wanted a little more on career changes, so I asked, “You’ve touched on so many things. You did the work with Roger Corman, and then you somehow linked up with John Carpenter on the Halloween movies, The Fog, and Escape from New York. How did that happen?”

Dean went on, “Well, again that was sort of networking. I had done probably twenty films and worked with various people. I instantly realized that John appealed to my creative side. When you get the creative satisfaction it is also an inducement to perform better. You look for the opportunities for personal creative satisfaction.”

I dug a little more: “Obviously you been able to move your career along by working with Roger Corman to John Carpenter, to Robert Zemeckis, to Steven Spielberg, to Ron Howard. Did they look back on your body of work and see something to indicate you had the talent and the attitude to be able to do something that they needed?”

Dean offered, “A lot of that comes from people looking at my work and realizing that I had particular talents and aptitudes. I was doing an ensemble comedy when I got a call from Robert, and he said, ‘I loved Escape from New York; I loved the look of that.’ The studio was taking a risk with Bob, because he had had some movies that did not make money. But I liked him because he was a visual storyteller too, and it became evident that we would be collaborators. A lot of the success of Romancing the Stone was that it had fun in a romantic comedy. And it became a case of how do you deliver 110 percent?”

I had to say, “I get the sense that you are very optimistic. I have the impression that whatever you do, you look at it as an opportunity to advance your career, whereas a lot of other people might be hesitant.”

Dean agreed: “I think optimism is essential. You have to look way down the road. You have to look for creative satisfaction. You have to be very optimistic that you will succeed; optimistic about your entire life.”

Then I had to inquire, “I would be remiss if I did not bring up Apollo 13, Roger Rabbit, and Jurassic Park. How did those films come your way?”

Dean explained, “Well, I’ve always looked for projects that I could learn from and somehow enrich the lives of people. Early on, I worked on The Witch Who Came from the Sea, a far cry from the films you mentioned, but it is all part of the steps to making those other films. The key is that each film was a link that allowed me to move from one film to the next. I was working on a film and I was told, ‘There’s a call for you. Steve Spielberg wants to talk to you.’ And I said, ‘Oh?’ thinking, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So Steven said, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ And I said, ‘Fine, how are you?’ I had never talked to him before. He said, ‘Listen, I’m doing this movie called Hook, and I’d like to see if you are interested in shooting it. It would be perfect for you,’ and so forth and so forth. So I said, ‘Oh sure, I’d be glad to.’ And then he went on to say, ‘Oh, and I’m doing this movie called Jurassic Park.’

“Each job has to be evaluated on its own merits. There are a lot of factors that go into choosing which project to take on.”

Dean touched on it all. Whether you are a beginning artist or a seasoned veteran, you have to be vigilant and never take anything for granted in your career. It takes eagerness to do the best job you can, commitment to the profession, an enormous amount of self-confidence, preparedness, availability—and it helps to be opportunistic. The lessons Dean spelled out were enormous: he parlayed every job into another opportunity, continually advancing himself along the way. His story provides us with a map to career reinvention, because he utilized every element of his experience, background, education, and networking to keep working and to keep creating films that continue to entertain and inspire us.

Inspiration is Everywhere

Ryszard Horowitz is another one of those tremendously inspiring individuals. I simply asked, “Who inspired you to change directions?”:

If you find somebody, whether it’s a friend or a teacher or whoever, to open your eyes, who can put you on the right track and encourage you, that is really priceless. I should also mention that a very important moment for me was when I met a guy by the name of Bob Greenberg. Bob has a very renowned production company in New York, RGA. In the early 1990s he was already heavily involved with digital technology for film, for editing, and for creating special effects. He was designing film titles, and he came across my work. He approached me asking if I would be interested in helping him set up a film photography department at his company that would revolve around digital technology. I had this incredible opportunity of meeting some of the greatest programmers and also having access to some of the best digital-equipment software and hardware. He was doing beta for all these great companies like Silicon Graphics. So I started working with his people and learning about the technological possibilities, and for many years I was directing in the digital environment. This gave me tremendous insight into the technology and also the ability to work on different platforms, not simply becoming a Mac man or a PC man. Again I managed to transcend the whole bullshit and I went for, “what can this thing do for me?”

And eventually, after years, I began to feel frustration, because I had a head full of pictures, of ideas, and I didn’t want to produce them for other people. The moment that I became articulate, so to speak, with computers I just felt like a newborn. This was one of the greatest revelations of my life. To be able to sit down and just do it. That’s where I am right now. I am totally independent. I have tremendous support from Apple, from Adobe, from Epson, from Canon, etc. And I’ve been doing a lot of poster design, a lot of exhibitions in different parts of the world. As soon as I got my Epson printer, I started printing my own shows. I wouldn’t say I am a one-man operation, but I can do a lot of things that in the past would involve a whole staff. And when I travel, I travel with my laptop and a digital camera, and all I have to do is rent a studio and some lights and I can go into business. And that’s the greatest advantage.

I know what you are driving at, and I know what is the core idea of your book and believe to be inspired by everything, by life, whether it is a concert or a movie, or any type of emotional experience, a book. It could be visual; it could be a description; it could be a sentence; it could be words; anything. As far as talking about change, we are living in this moment in history when we are going rapidly from analog to digital—analog is almost dead. To me it was a natural course of events. A friend of mine said that if there were no computers, someone would have to have invented them for me. It has nothing to do with my plans, my smarts, whatever—it just happened naturally because it is just who I am.

When you are inspired by everything, you inspire everyone around you. Ryszard continues to reinforce the point that anything is possible for those who follow their passion and are willing to commit to the work needed to sustain that passion.

Again those intersections of opportunity and action come into play. When you are given a chance, you have to size them up, and, if they address the stuff of your dreams, you have to give them some serious considerations. And it helps to have a pipeline to people you trust, and people who trust you. If there is anything I have had reinforced so far, it is that, generally speaking, people want you to succeed. Maybe it is because they see a little of themselves in you. Those people will introduce you to opportunities, but you have to be willing to accept what that opportunity has to offer. Indeed, it would be a horrible thing to look back at your life and feel as though there was a path of creativity left untaken.