My 3 most random film gigs…

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Ok then.

Another week, another zesty edition of Friday Film Notes. Nothing beats the refreshing, unfiltered flavor of these emails, huh?

Anyway, this week I wanted to share a few fun anecdotes of the most random gigs that have come my way over the years.

For better or worse, working in film/video means never knowing what might be right around the corner for your career (and life!).

One day you might be on the verge of finally selling your old Pokemon collection out of desperation, the next day a call or email could change everything.

The 3 little gigs I’m talking about in this email aren’t quite that grandiose – BUT I had a great time, made some decent money, and even thinking back on them makes me grateful for having chosen such an unpredictably quirky career path.

Here we go… (in chronological order)

Make a no-budget zombie short, fast!

I was waiting tables at a low-rent steakhouse when an email rolled in from someone I’d interned with back in college. Turns out he was now doing marketing for a place called Cinema Makeup School, where they taught special effects makeup.

He needed someone to create a short film with some of their summer camp students that showcased their makeup effects.

He remembered that I was busy making a lot of films back in our intern days, and (correctly) figured I’d be a pretty cheap hire.

Even though I only had 3 hrs to shoot this, and only made $500… I was thrilled! I even made another one for them a few weeks later.

Here’s one of those oh-so-campy films:

The lesson? Your reputation as a prolific, go-getter filmmaker can stick in people’s heads for years, and may pay off long after you expect.

I later ended up working at that school myself for a stint, but that’s a whole other story…

Kent, the Voice Actor?

Through many twists and turns, a few years later I had a full-time, cushy editing job at an agency.

Every time I was given an edit that needed a voiceover, I would temp in my own voice to get the timing right before the agency hired an actual voice actor.

But I would never half-ass it. I’d try to do a great voiceover, in the style I imagined the client would actually want.

That little extra effort finally paid off when a Japanese tennis gear company, Yonex, hired us to create an animated ad introducing their new racquet.

I again did my best on the VO, and carried on editing and sound designing the spot.

Later, the agency auditioned a bunch of voice actors to re-record the “real” voiceover… and the client came back saying they actually preferred the temporary voiceover.

I was smiling ear to ear.

Not only was I going to get paid a voiceover rate on top of my salary to re-record my VO professionally – I was going to be the voice of a tennis racquet – in a spot I also edited. How cool is that??

Here’s the final product:

The lesson? When you think you know exactly what the client is looking for, go the extra mile and give it to them. You may win yourself more work.

Fancy re-writing these commercials, mate?

Most recently I had a random email come in from an Australian fella who runs a digital marketing agency.

They’re trying to move into TV commercials, and had 2 spec spots in the works, but weren’t confident about the scripts. So he wanted to know my rates for a quick re-write.

I figured he had found me through my YouTube videos, but it turned out he had no idea I taught filmmaking & storytelling on the channel – he had just seen a couple of my short films and loved them.

I gave him a high rate, he said yes, and I got to work.

For someone who’s never written a commercial before, what a fun challenge!

I spent half a day simply removing the melodrama and cliches while leaning into “show don’t tell” in the scripts – overall delivering a more mature version of the same ideas.

He loved it!

They shot the spots but I’m still waiting to see how they turned out. Maybe I’ll share them here in a future issue…

The lesson: Put your films out into the world! Even if it’s not a viral hit (the films he saw weren’t), it still might find and resonate with the right person.

Here’s wishing you an unexpected opportunity in your inbox this week.

You can’t control your luck, but there’s one way you can increase the odds of eventually stumbling into luck…

Make some movies.

-Kent