A selection of crew passes from some of my earliest jobs in the industry.

When I look at them now, to embrace a cliché head on, they feel like badges of honour to me…

Though yes I was paid, and never to badly, for each job when I look at those crew passes I think about the amount of sweat equity behind them all and I am left with a sense of pride.

With the exception of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, where I moved up to Assistant Production Coordinator, I was a Production Assistant on each. We came in first, left last and it was not uncommon to spend some twenty straight hours on your feet.

When you are freelancing there is no job security and I suppose what makes me proud of something like a collection of crew passes, which ultimately just hang off a light in my bedroom just gathering dust, is that I gave my all to each of those jobs and one led to the next, and the next…

I reflect on this because I find myself talking to a lot of people who, like myself, went to school for film or television but whose careers have never really snowballed. They find themselves marred in the slush unsure where to go.

I try to give advice because these are people I care about, friends more times than not, but I find it is often ignored. There is a sentiment within our generation of being better than the bottom of the totem pole, of being owed more. I get it, but please, if you are trying to break into this industry don’t snub the idea of paying your dues.

As schools have wound down and graduation ceremonies pop up all across this continent it seems like an appropriate time to try and impart advice, there must be someone out there willing to listen.

I was accepted into a post secondary program that only took about 100 people, by the time of my graduating class our numbers were down to 30, just about the size of a large elementary school class. I can name you about eight of us who are regularly working in the industry.

It’s the cruel irony of the industry. You’re lured by the glitz and glamour of working in Hollywood but school, if done right,  makes you realize it’s actually hard work. Then for those who don’t drop out colleges, universities and specialized trade schools turn out more graduates than work. While you are in those schools you are the top dogs on set, you are the editors, the camera operators, the directors, producers… there was not a single course or class within a course dedicated to discussing the in’s and out’s of being a production assistant. At least not where I went to school.

So you get that degree, you are wearing that robe having conquered the realms of rack focusing and three point lighting, your family are all there snapping a million photos, you and your friends are throwing grad parties. You are a truly a conquering hero, you are on top of the world. Watch out adulthood here you come!

Then someone offers to pay you $125-$200 a day to, say, clean out garbages and pick up coffees from Starbucks or make sure that only the red M & M’s are served to some long out of touch producer and you think, “garbage? Seriously? I’ve got a degree buddy.”

Stop… don’t turn it down!

I promise you the job will not be fun on a whole range of levels but if you really love this industry, if you aren’t just here to get famous, I also promise you the one thing that will get you through the day is being on an actual set, surrounded by people who (one hopes) are the best in the business. So you are doing a job that is beneath you, and it sucks, but most of the people on that set or in that production office with you have done the same and they’ll appreciate  those who give their all to such menial tasks and soon you’ll be turning one job into another and, hopefully, before long you are moving up that totem pole.

My college required me to complete two internships in order to graduate. The second of which was excellent, it was with the once media powerhouse Alliance Atlantis (CSI, Weeds, The Crocodile Hunter to name a few). Though the corporation has sadly been bought out and dissembled they were a dominate force only years ago and they treated their employees, even the interns, well. I was offered work from several Alliance Atlantis programs after completing this internship.

Now my first internship was a different beast all together, it brings to mind the recent (very true) Hollywood Reporter article on unpaid production assistants. I was working, for course credit only, at a music video production house. A fairly successful outfit with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto.

This was the first real world taste I got of the film industry: a music video director from the United Kingdom was flying over to direct a video for a month. Instead of putting him up in a nice hotel the entire month the company found an apartment (in a low rent neighbourhood of Toronto known as Parkdale) where the landlord was willing to rent for a short term. Why? Because the previous tenant had skipped out on their lease overnight.

So they sent their unpaid intern on this hot sticky summer day to clean up the place.

It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen. It was like someone had built an apartment around a garbage dump. I don’t know exactly how to give this justice in writing, I wish that you were there (not so much to prove what I am saying here but… I totally could have used the help). Imagine all the disgusting things a stranger could litter the floor with. Underwear, diapers, moldy food, broken furniture that seemed to ooze foreign diseases from the pores of it’s fabric.

That was my job, me the guy who had been directing my peers back at school a mere month ago, now I had to take some strangers disgusting mess, garbage bag it all, and walk down five flights of stairs to the dumpster all the time trying to avoid being stabbed or dripped on by God knows what in the bags.

Mid-day I took a break and wandered around until I found a sub sandwich place. I called my dad and complained. And complained. And complained. I told him I was going to quit, he supported whatever decision I made, my parents are good like that.

I was definitely going to, I was better than this, I did not go to school to clean apartments!

Something though, in the back of my head, said stick it out. See where this goes. This little voice won out and I suffered through the indignities of the day.

My next big job on the internship was working on the set of a big music video, twenty-four hours straight in the bowels of a meat packaging plant that reeked like death.

I couldn’t tell you what death smelt like until that day, can’t forget it now.

Twenty-four straight hours working for free. Next they assigned me to a commercial, five day shoot, longest day twenty-five hours, shortest twenty. All for free.

It was an abusive internship and honestly not something I should have put up with, no one should. It did teach me one thing though.

See I come from a very comfortable life, I grew up in a comfortable neighbourhood and have been very fortunate at every turn.

I was one of you, the ‘better-than-this’, the ’smarter-than-this’, the ‘more-talented-than-this’ mentality holders that make up most of our generation. A little voice kept me going though, I hate quitting anything and I guess that mentality made me see that internship through till the end.

Through the indignities and the twenty-four straight hours of slave labour (let’s call it what it is) I learnt to find the rewards in even the worst of jobs in the industry. The excitement of being on an actual set, the crew who have been where you are and who are more than happy to teach you things school never will, the opportunity to just be quiet and watch as the professionals do things you never imagined possible.

Oh, and I got to go to a modeling agency party where I met Scarlett Johansson and made her laugh… also a bonus.

I’ve never worked in such horrible conditions as my first job out, but I do value what it taught me. Even if you are doing something beneath you there will be people and events you can learn from that will help you get to where you know you rightfully deserve to be.

I haven’t stopped learning, I don’t think you ever do. I truly don’t think you ever stop paying your dues, no matter where you go or how high you climb in this industry.

I hope that maybe, if you haven’t already learnt what I needed to learn the hard way, you can at least learn it from my story instead of going through something similiar.

Or maybe like the group teenagers I walked past this morning, one guy turning to another and declaring, “some guys are gay just to get girls” you’ll over hear my advice and think like I did his: “what the hell are you talking about? Could you be more off base?”

I don’t know, it’s worked for me. It’s how I got each one of those crew passes early in my career. It’s something I am quite proud of.