My first job was being a windsurf instructor.
After several years teaching at the local lakes near my home I spent time working abroad, instructing at several different centres in Greece.
And although I learned countless lessons during that time, there was one that I remember more than any other…
You could be a better instructor by working at lots of different places.
By working at lots of different places you got to see how business operations were carried out by different companies. Fundamentally all were offering the same service, but there was a huge variance in the day to day operation and ethos of each organisation.
Fast forward to the present and I’ve now spent the last 5 years of my life, working for the most part, as a freelance video producer.
In that time I’ve worked with Hollywood Producers right down to people doing their first film job and everyone in between. I’ve learned something valuable from each and every one of them.
If you are an aspiring filmmaker reading this, I urge you to make one of your goals to work with someone new at least once every month. It will be the fastest way to improve and get where you want to go.
In our industry of content creation there’s no right or wrong when it comes to how you arrive at the final product but there is definitely good and bad practices and methods.
We all have a different approach and most of the techniques of my working practices are an amalgam of the ones I’ve seen colleagues employing on productions that regularly achieved positive results.
The video production is an interesting one, especially in the freelance world.
It’s a weird competitive but collaborative playing field.
We are all competing against each other to prove we can offer clients the best service in the hugely saturated video production industry, but at the end of the day when a big job comes in and we need a spare pair of hands, we turn to our contemporaries to save the day.
My intuition says collaborations like this are going to be hugely important for success in the future.
And so this brings me to the main point of this article, doing the right thing.
If you’ve been in this industry long enough you’ll surely have had an opportunity where you were asked for your business card whilst on a freelance job or asked to quote on a project for a client you know belongs to your friend.
There’s no written rule and naturally your first thought is the monetary gain seizing an opportunity like this could have.
But deep down you know the right thing to do. It’s tough but I can guarantee it’s a far better feeling.
It really is a small world and I’ve said it before, but it reigns true that your integrity is all you have. Not only in business but in all aspects of life.
So remember, doing the right thing is always the right thing to do.
I wish you every success.
Jack
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