Looking for a Job

A number of my portfolio students at CCAD are in the process of getting their work together for their demo reels and preparing for life after school. We're going to be going through this exercise this week and wanted to share it with any other students who might check out this blog. First of all, be honest about your work and its quality. Look for projects where your own work looks like it could be dropped seamlessly into that production. Find a number of these examples then begin doing some detective work. Find out who made each one of those projects. Once you've figured out where they came from, I would recommend either buying the Hollywood Creative Directory (http://www.hcdonline.com/) or registering here on the site (http://www.hcdonline.com/blubook/) so that you can get one week free access to all their directories. At that point, its your job to contact those studios where you feel your work is the best fit. With the directories, you'll have a list of all the people there who you would need to get in touch with and you can begin working your way down that list. In my experience, the people who really want work generally find it (the key word there is 'really'... some people say they want it, but they really don't or they are afraid to try for it for whatever reason). You obviously have to have some level of ability; however, there is a lot of work to be done out there and styles vary widely from production to production. That's why I think its a good idea to do a bunch of research up front and to strategically target places that give you the best chance for success (because your work looks like it 'fits' there) rather than sending portfolios out randomly or to places where your work really isn't go good match with the company. Good luck!