I’ve been indulging my lazy side today. But I earned it yesterday. Yesterday, I did almost all of the work for my Career Launch class.
Well, the first drafts, anyhow. Technically, none of it is due till the last day of class, BUT if it is handed in early, the prof will give me feedback on what works and what doesn’t, and it might be presented to the class for feedback too.
And that’s awesome, because I want these things to be as good as possible. These are the things I will use to represent myself in the world of entertainment employment, and I want to put my best foot forward.
I did four things :
- A query letter. That’s the sort of thing you send to a company giving them the basic idea of what you are selling and asking them if they want to see more. Mine is a bit too long, but quite charming, I think. If they ask to see more, you send them a…
- One-sheet. Like the name implies, this is a quick one-page document that gives more of the details of who you are, what the project is all about, etc. Mine turned out to be a lot shorter than I thought it would. A little white space at the bottom of the page is not a serious crime, but I get the feeling I was a victim of how good I am getting at expressing myself succinctly. Still not perfect at it, by any stretch, but I am much improved relative to this time last year.
- My resume. Ah, the dreaded resume. Nobody really likes writing theirs, but people like me with no job experience in this millennium really loathe it. I managed to make it fun by injecting my particular brand of wacky humour into it, and I partially covered my lack of job experience by listing all my independent creative works, like my million word year, hundreds of videos, dozens of short musical compositions, four novels, forty short stories,and of course, this blog where I have written a thousand words a day since 2011. But I had the most fun writing…
- My bio. I let my nutty sense of humour run wild on this thing,.Technically, your bio is supposed to be strictly for something to put on the show business equivalent of the inside front cover of a book. But my instructors have said that this is really what you use to sell yourself as a writer, and give potential employers a sense of who you are. Well, my bio gives them a heapin’ helping of that all right!
Here’s the bio. I am both proud and a little ashamed of it.
The Legend of Michael Bertrand
“A+++. Excellent student. Would teach again. “
Mrs. McLeod, six grade teacher
Wonderful and Perceptive Human Being
“He and I had the same business agreement for years. And I can say, without a doubt, that there wasn’t a single day that I didn’t get my newspaper. “
Mr Peter Hogg, newspaper recipient
Fine and Upstanding Pillar of the Community
“You mean the fat kid?”
Mister Anderson, worst gym teacher on the planet
Owner and Operator of a stupid, stupid face
These are some of the things that critics worldwide are saying about future superstar and all around swell kinda guy, Michael Bertrand. But do any of us really know him? What is going on inside that fantastic mind of his? What powerful forces intermingle to create such powerful prose? And does he have a heterosexual brother?
Yes. Yes he does. Text him at (555) 555-FAKE and he’ll hook you up.
Michael was born, at a very early age, in the tiny Maritime fishing town of Summerside amidst the green rolling hills of Prince Edward Island, in the great nation of Canada, He likes to say he wasn’t born in the middle of nowhere, but rather in the place people who did live in the middle of nowhere meant when they said they were going into town.
He says a lot of things like that. You get used to it.
He was the youngest of four children, and that meant nobody cared what he did. That was both the best and the worst thing about it.
At school, he was a gifted student who did his school work with contemptuous ease and passed every test without ever studying.
This might have contributed to the constant bullying.
He went to college at the University of Prince Edward Island, which has the dubious distinction of being consistently voted the second worst college in Canada. (Suck it, Memorial!)
He excelled there as well, and would have graduated with a degree in Psychology from there had his parents not withdrawn funding half way through so they could retire early.
From there, he become a wanderer of the wilds of the World Wide Web, and beheld many a majestic and mysterious site. Long did he roam, having grand adventures and carefully gathering knowledge.
In other words, he surfed the Web and played video games.
But soon he grew bored of the vagabond’s road, and after a brief stint in traditional education, was accepted into the Writing for Film and Television program at the prestigious Vancouver Film School. He worked hard, wrote many things, and now, he is a proud graduate of that program.
And now he stands, ink still wet on his diploma, ready to join your writer’s room and use his talents to make your television show even better,.
Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
It’s too long…. I will have to trim it by a hundred words or so. And it might just be that my prof will tell me I need to tone it way the fuck down. Which would suck, because what is in that bio is me all the way, or at least, my comedy writer side. I showed off my high-flying Douglas Adams level comedy writing abilities as well as showcased my big big personality and enthusiastic style.
And I definitely think it will quite distinctly different from all the other bios the gatekeepers read. They might find it annoying as fuck and want nothing to do with me ever again, but they will also remember it, and that’s what this game is all about.
It all comes down to this : you want to be someone they know, because when choosing between someone they know and someone they don’t, they will go with the known quantity nearly every single time.
The goal, then, is to make a distinct impression in their minds. It should be a positive impression, naturally, but that’s slightly less important. What you really want to do is turn yourself into a known quantity. If that known quantity is a little obnoxious, that is still better than being a pleasant nonentity.
That’s why persistence is so important. They might not remember your name the first time after your query them for the first time, but when you keep querying them every two weeks, you will both show your commitment and eagerness to work there, and push your name a little further each time to crossing the consciousness barrier, and if you make it through, they will be aware of you.
Plus you advance your cause in their minds towards the ultimate goal – to make it easier to simply give you what you want.
All the while, of course, you are pleasant and warm and nice. No going psycho and ranting to the wonderful people who can make your dreams come true about how they will rue the day they dared rejecting you when you become the next Matt Groening or whatever.
No going supervillain on them, basically.
And no treacly sucking up, either. People hate that. It makes them lose all respect for you and that makes you repulsive to them. Which is the opposite of what you want.
Just persistent, pleasant, polite nudges now and then. My father showed me the power of being polite but firm. It can move mountains.
So Phase Two of my career plan will center on getting my name out there. I’m going to come up with a system for tracking what places I have queried when (probably involving a calendar program) and I will stick with it no matter what.
The only thing that will stop the process is success. When I get a job, I will stop.
Other than that, I am in it for the long haul. I know this process will take a long time, and I am ready for it.
I am going to get a job in a writer’s room even if I have to charm the whole world in order to do it, god dammit.
I will talk to you nice people tomorrow, homework permitting.