Friday, December 02, 2005

Get The Job Done!

This is going to be a quick one guys as I am writing a treatment for my German colleagues to pitch to their funding sources and hopefully get me a job in 2006.

(Zoran, if you're reading this I am going back to work. You will have the first draft of the treatment this weekend as promised...)

So, Denis and Alex are talking about Craig's post on mentoring. My contribution to this discussion is that mentors are everywhere and that's part of the reason I answer emails and write this blog - to give you the advice you need to write and produce movies to professional standards. Because, if I can do it, any schmoe can. Trust me.

The best mentors in my experience have been those guys and gals (Hi Christy!) who just expected me to get the job done. They didn't care how I did it (as long as I didn't hurt the rep of the company) as long as I got results.

They threw me to wolves and expected me to get a lot of batting practice saving my ass.

And believe me, I screwed up. I've got the scars to prove it. But I also went back and fixed it and made sure it didn't happen again. More importantly, I learned.

Then, when it came time to pitch projects or make sales or represent the company at functions - I got to do it. When it came time to make sure the picture got produced, I got the credit for my work in making that happen.

I met a lot of people along the way. Now, I have the opportunity to work with one of them from Germany.

So when a mentor gives you something to do - use it. Opportunity is often disguised as hard work. It doesn't make it less of an opportunity.

*** as I was writing this, the phone rang and I just got a referral for a weekend rewrite job from one of my mentors. That's what mentoring can do for you - pay the rent. More details as they occur ***

1 comment:

Alex Epstein said...

"Opportunity usually comes disguised as hard work." That's something every writer should have up on his or her bulletin board!