Hustling in Portland

Moving to a new city or trying to break into a new market? It's a pretty tough experience to realize just how much time and effort it actually takes - especially in the creative industry!

Landing only 2 gigs after 43 emails, 16 business meetings, and spending over $150 on food/beverages is a bit underwhelming… and those two gigs that I've landed in the past 41 days? Those are far from ideal projects for me to work on. Yeah, they allowed me to hold a camera and get a little creative - plus I'm thankful for the paycheck - but they aren't improving my skill set or allowing me to work on bigger projects, which are my goals this year. I want to work on more commercials and big brand videos that will force me out of my corporate comfort zone and I’m eager to learn from senior crew members along the way. But that means working on bigger sets with more people, not solo operating a camera for behind the scenes or filming a keynote speech.

Aside from meeting up with local creatives and trying to land gig work, I've also combed through hundreds of job listings; the offerings are simply not what I truly want to be working in. Why's that? Well a large portion of the creative industry, especially film, is contract-based and it's expensive for a company to keep a cinematographer on payroll. So this dream job of being the in-house cinematographer/creative is quite literally a unicorn job and when it does exist, it's almost always offered to people the production company or agency has a pre-existing relationship with.

Think about it. Why should a creative agency in Portland hire me for a full time position when they've been collaborating with a handful of other camera operators over the past couple years? If a full time position opens, they are most likely going to go down their list of regulars and offer the job to people that they actually know before they even consider listing the job publicly.

The reality of the creative industry is that your work opportunities either benefit from or are hindered by your network. I knew that it'd be difficult to find a dream job in a new city that I have few connections in but I also realize that I bring a TON of experience to the table. If it's this demanding for me (an Emmy-Nominated, Telly Award winning, Master's degree holding cinematographer) to get work in a new city, what's it like for someone hustling fresh out of high school or even someone looking to pivot mid-career?

Where'd those meetings actually come from?

I want to peel back another layer of the statistics in the infographic. A majority of the people that've taken the time to meet with me have been people that my Seattle network connected me with. Of the 16 meetings I've had, only 3 meetings were from my cold emails. The other 13 meetings were because people in my Seattle network referred me to their Portland connections.

Admittedly, I had a stellar network in Seattle and I’m incredibly lucky that my network was able and willing to connect me with creatives down in Portland. I completed both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Seattle at the University of Washington and I lived there for 8 years. I had all of my go to mentors, I knew who to hire for what jobs, and my best friends are still in Seattle. Just wanted to paint the picture that I was well established in Seattle, which is why I was able to get so many promising meetings pretty early on in Portland.

Back to the numbers…

Where were we? Right. I sent 43 cold emails which lead to only 3 followup meetings. That means that only 7% of my personally customized emails had any "pay off" and that's a horrendously low number. On the other hand, I just attended a MeetUp group last night for creatives in Portland and I walked away with new friends, a pocket full of business cards, and multiple passion projects to collaborate on. My takeaway is that meeting people face to face, even if your anxiety wants you to stay home and binge a TV show, is really what gets you a community. And that community will in turn get you opportunities.

I will be updating the numbers in new blog posts and transparently sharing my opportunities as they arise. If that’s something that piques your interest, subscribe to my email list below for notifications of new content.