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As a broke film student, it pays to know that you can easily find people who will pay for your skills. And finding them via the internet hasn’t been any easier than it is now.

Through Craigslist of course!

Now, if you live in the East Coast like I do, you can post a listing on NewEnglandFilm.com and be accessible to the industry on our side of the country! And it really works!

A success story is one that I had almost magically, I had put up a listing of myself on NEFilm.com. Somehow, a company called CrossFit found me. They emailed me and asked if I could assist their editor for the Regionals competition being held at the Reebok headquarters. Next thing you know, I get an all expense paid trip to the Reebok HQ, paid hotel and living expenses, and about $500 per day for that whole weekend!

Wow, I’ve made a point to be sure I worked with them again and got business cards! (Which is very important if you want to keep working)

Now you may think, “Sure, you got lucky. So what?”

Well, I put myself out there, and I happened to be at the right place at the right time.

I think there are a lot of film students who take the internet for granted and really don’t use it to its full potential. I mean, movies are being made by the power of the internet connecting people. Its easily a good way to find decent work too!

Lets go through some things you should do in order to have a nice online presence

1) A WEBSITE –  you need an online base of operations. I have two, one for business, and the other for pleasure. Its almost necessary now.

2)FINISHED WORK – This kinda speaks for itself, I mean, you have to show your stuff to the people who are going to hand you money. They aren’t just going to hope you do.

3)A COMPANY NAME – this is a bit on the least important side, but nonetheless, if you grow more consistent with clients wanting to work with you, you’ll need it.

4)DECENT EQUIPMENT – usually HD, and has some pro audio outputs, and perhaps Final Cut Express or Premiere. It doesn’t have to be pro, but you can’t take your moms Hi-8 video camera to a music video shoot. Flip cameras are no acception, they may be good for video blogs, but it really takes the pro out of pro video. You want a business presence, so look like one!

These all may be obvious points, but some people looking to work in this business really don’t get that you can’t just have a camera and some talent to score some serious paying gigs.

So what happens when you apply for the job?

Simple. Be yourself, and don’t write your response like a bot or something. Some people who look to hire you aren’t up for hearing some fancy jargon about how cool your camera is. That actually might scare them.

So make the email response more personal, like your talking to a friendly person on the street, just passing by. People feel more comfortable if you just be a human being, and not some higher power of a ‘professional’.

Click on the gigs section where it says ‘creative’ and go all the way to the bottom of the page. See the “RSS” guy? He’s your pal. Click on him, and copy the link as a result. Take that to an RSS reader like Google Reader and enter that link. Check regularly as now you are subscribed to the feed of that page, and as soon as it updates, you’ll be there to see if you should apply to the next big gig.

And lastly, find yourself a daily rate. Or an hourly one, but don’t be dumb about it and ask for a ridiculous price. Ask yourself if you have some expenses that you have to spend to make this video for someone. Do you have to travel? Need to eat? Need to find a hotel? These sort of things could go into your price for someone.

Craigslist can be iffy when it comes to income, but its all about being friendly, reasonable, and professional. Use it to make contacts, and meet new people who might lead you to better days away from the computer screen. You might end up getting 6 figure gigs out of it.