What do you do for a living?

[Fred LeFevre]

Well I took the long route. Shortly after a years break from college I had just been accepted by Montana State to finish my major in photography when a 22 year career as a submariner intervened. Following that my own computer business and I've been working for a major consulting firm for 10 years. My wife started doing rather upscale video/photo slide shows for people, knew about my photo interests and suggested I get back into it to help her out. So that started the Canon 30D, next thing I know were starting to shoot a few weddings and now someone booked us to video a wedding so there is the XH-A1. Now I'm seeing if I can work a 3 year plan to move into this full time. The last two days we've been researching various stabilizers and looks like I'll be ordering a flowpod in the morning. The forums here have been a huge source of help and inspiration - but this is my first post.

Regards,
Fred

[Steve Hart]

19 yrs old here. I'm the CTO of a small business. I'm 2 months away from my BA, and I plan on going to Grad School for a Ph.D. in Psychology. I've just started testing the video making waters.... and I'm FASCINATED! I'm working on my second project now and I'm loving every second of it. It's a biographical documentary of a very interesting man. With my psychological leanings, I will be focusing in his psychological struggle (he had plenty of demons). Maybe I can combine my talents/interests.. hmm.. Gotta speak with my parents about this, i wonder what they will say..

[Jamal M. Johnson]

Whats going on!

I remember the first day I got my Million Dollar idea. I just got off of my $7.00 an hour job and was anticipating the premier of a music video of my favorite song with a few of my friends.

I’ll never forget how excited I was. I was thinking about it all day. “This is gonna be hot!”

So it finally aired and we watched the whole thing. It turns out I got all excited for no reason. It was horrible. I left that music video premier only to be left saying, “HUH?!” by the end of the video.

I was shocked to see how sloppy the
video was put together!

The director totally missed the mark. I couldn't believe it. There was even a part where the video was off sync with the audio. And this same video even aired on national TV!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the director got paid lots of money to make that video….We’re talking thousands of dollars.

At this point I found myself saying, “I need to get a camera and start shooting videos for money because this guy sucks and I know I can do better!” That’s when I made the decision to do just that. I started my music video business on the spot.

When I made the decision to start filming music videos, I realized I lived in an area where lots of unsigned artists needed a hot video to launch their careers. I already had a starving market; I just had to let them know I could be their ticket to success. I had a strategy.

A week later I had my first paying client! I was so excited, and even though I’d never filmed a music video before, I knew I could do it. Not long after that, I went from local customers to celebrity clients who paid me thousands of dollars per video.

It's been history ever since. My first music video I ever shot for a local artists ended up on B.E.T so I was lovin that.

Now I teach people (along with still doing music videos) how they can make money shooting music videos whether they have experience or not.

I was in a 9 to 5 for a while but keep pressin and youll get it

Much luck and success!

Jamal "Jag" Johnson
Http://www.MusicVideoTrainingCenter.com

[Bill Moede]

I am lucky enough to be making a living with my video cameras. I work for a Wisconsin State agency that produces all forms of educational, teacher staff development and documentary productions. We are a small office, and for the most part I'm a one man shop with some help from college interns and stringer. The most interesting work has been documentaries for local historical groups.I have been shooting on small remote great lakes islands, state parks, maritime museums and currently in the Teton Mountains /Jackson Hole valley in Wyoming.

I fill in that work with wedding and event videos and some shooting for a couple of independent film companies.
www.replayvideo.net

[Matthew Ewing]

I am a web developer and shall be attending university next year for my degree in computer science.

[Nick Flowers]

How long ago it seems, that day I took the first step to joining the film & tv business....OK, sorry folks, this will NOT be a drone-a-thon! But you DID ask. Mid '60s. Had made a couple of 8mm movies at school, but had just left Tech College and had no idea of what to do. Saw an ad in a London paper for a tea boy and post room op in a documentary film company. Got job. Saw editing, camera and sound departments at work and chose sound. Joined union, absolutely essential in those days as you could not work unless in the union; yet could not join union unless in work. I guess that it's easier to get in the business now in that respect, but of course there are few (or no?) training schemes, as the BBC used to have for its entrants. How is a person supposed to learn or train now? Are experienced technicians suppose to leap forth, fully formed? No, yet again it's who you know that is important. If you can persuade a crew chief to take you on as an inexperienced dogs body, then you can absorb experience and eventually make contacts and branch out on your own. You ask how to get into the game? That's it: persistence, luck, contacts. Plus...be NICE to people, it really does work. OK, you'll be ripped off and exploited from time to time, but that's life,isn't it? People will remember that you were helpful and supportive and ask you along again.
I'm now in my 60s but still working in broadcast tv and corporates. If I'm approached by someone who needs help to start up in this game I feel that it is not only my privilege but my obligation to pass on the torch. If they get me regular cups of tea, that is!

[Tom Hardwick]

Good post, Nick

[Michael Connor]

im a taxi driver :-(
I changed my dads rank into an internet coffee shop and had fully intended doin video work in a back room that i spent £500 on soundproofing! Unfortunatley the staff have left and have not been replaced. I have struggled to pay my half of the rent drove taxis every night.. and been in coffee shop all of the time... its only little n was never meant to be stand alone...i even moved the video editing stuff into main shop so could get on.. but i find stopping and starting is just no good with video work... people wanting to have a chat etc can have advantages when you need a second opinion..... but generally i think for video work youneed to be locked away for a few hours... with a good supply of coffee!
So as yet i have not made much of a sucess of anything. I have done a little bit baby work with local youth centres... and few little jobs... but i countinue to dream on....
I have had stupid computer problems too..... using edius 4.6 ... and am finding in general organising and storing clips etc really difficult. I have loads of fantastic ideas... fantastic software... some good shots.. but hey its just bringing it all together... and doent it always seem like.. if i just had another camera... or that tripod... or that latest processor... or another hard drive...! :(

[Jake McGlothlin]

I'm 19 years old. I am involved in three different businesses: a web design firm (chief designer), a real estate market data analysis company (VP) and a media company (writer, gopher, and technology head). I also work at a local grocery store, just to meet some interesting people.

While I am fairly new in the film making world, I can easily see it becoming a central part of my life. In the next several years, I can see myself filming full time. I love it!

[Winston Hearn]

I spend my 9 to 6 hours working as an Assistant to the Manager, or Assistant Manager, depending on the shoes I'm filling, at an Apple Authorized Service Center.

It's not video editing, but it is working on Macs all day, so that's some solace. But the first time I get enough gigs lined up I'm quitting this job and cutting out on my own.

The job does have a perk of a discount on hardware once a year, so I have enough recurring gigs lined up in the next year that I recently justified a purchase of a Mac Pro (early 2008, 8core 2.8ghz) to edit on, which replaced my aging 1.5ghz 17" Powerbook.

So that's nice. But yeah, using the Mac for creation far beats spending time around crashed hard drives in Macbooks and customers who are currently hating Apple for not being perfect.

[Von Richter]

I compose soundtracks and do sound design work to pay the bills. Depending on my schedule, I sometimes do post-production video work, chiefly compositing and editing.

Cheers,
-VR

[M. Paul El-Darwish]

Working backwards...
I'm a partner in a firm that sells Human Factors services to technology companies. We use video a lot as part of our deliverables but also for marketing our services. Prior to this career I spent three years as a management consultant in E-business and before that had a career as a multimedia professional, shooting commercial stills and creating 2d graphic design solutions for commercial clients.
I have an education and background in art but have shifted to using a different part of my brain. I capitalize on my art background to hopefully produce better videos than I otherwise would as an IT technology wonk.

[Stuart Graham]

I work as a research technician at a university in the UK. I do a lot of the routine analysis for an anti-malarial drug research project. But by night and at weekends I'm an amateur film director.

2 years ago me and a friend made three improvised comedy sketches on a Panasonic NVGS-180 handycam thingy. They came out fairly well so last year I actually wrote a script for a black comedy and directed it. It was more ambitious, had more locations and ran for around thirty minutes. It wasn't especially well planned and there was only a crew of two, and the crew also acted in the film! After filming I spent around ten full days locked away in a chamber editing it as best I could, unfortunately we didn't have all the coverage we needed so this was rather difficult. It turned out to be a decent enough film (but by no means good enough for broadcast) and I managed to sell about fifteen copies (at five pounds each!) after having a premiere in our department. People even laughed in some of the right places at the premiere - I felt very proud. All that work seemed worthwhile after all.

I suppose that got me hooked and now me and a friend have written another script for a sci-fi thriller, again it's probably going to be a 30 minute piece. This film is even more ambitious project with lots of locations, a cast of 4 main actors, lot of props, cameraman, sound engineer, lighting technician, special FX and props man, costumer and makeup artist. All involved are unpaid recruits. I'm currently storyboarding and have clocked up 150 shots to film so far, I reckon there will be about 200 shots to film in total to get good coverage. I'm starting to wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew this time!

[Victor Guzman]

After looking around this site, I noticed something...........people actually read my comments. So heres the deal. I'm 28, been in the Army for 9 years, been to Iraq and probably will go back. I love serving! but to be honest, the thought of dying kinda sux! and its more a reality in my proffesion.
Now for the punch line, I have a passion for media and hope to even be the Actor one day. But first things first. What college degree must I look for to have a good paying job at Dicovery Channel, ABC, Fox? thats my dream guys, to work for a well known department! what career field should I persue. I currently do media clips for my Church. I write, direct, shoot and edit all of it, you can check my work out Anger TV on Vimeo
please point me in the right direction and analyze my work and give me pointers, I would appreciate that. hope to get some career pointers also

[David Ells]

I graduated from a liberal arts college in may 2007 and have been working as a video freelancer full-time ever since. Gigs range from corporate video to video podcasts and I shoot, boom, and PA for other local videographers.

I also do work for my company that 2 friends and I started called In The Car Media. (we don't have a website or a business card but still get jobs, don't ask how.) We do a lot of promotional video-for-the-web work and recently produced content for a museum-style exhibit.