Film Courage: When you first moved to Los Angeles,
what was your strategy for finding work in the film industry?
Sophia Cacciola, Cinematographer, Actor, Musician, Director: The first job I found was on Facebook (I
think Facebook). I don't know if it's getting less so but I think it's great (the groups) for
getting your foot in the door and responding. I was lucky I had the right gear at the right
moment and they needed somebody that day to show up for two weeks and took a leap of faith and went
to this house. I was driving into a place I've never been I'm going to stay in this cabin with
these people and hopefully I don't get murdered and luckily it all worked out and once you meet a
couple people usually if you do good work and you have good ethic and you're fun to be around and
people can tolerate you for 16 hours a day you'll get hired. Again, a lot of personality. You can't
be too needy or demanding or annoying because you're not going to get the work.
Yeah this is getting the first job out of the way and then responding
a lot of my work actually comes from film festivals so I bring my work to a film
festival and then I meet other screenwriters and other directors and suddenly I'm on their mind
to call because I've seen my work and they've met me, we've gotten to be friendly, we make friends
on Facebook or social media and then they're okay maybe you can come shoot my movie when it's time.
So a lot through general networking and luckily because I think it would have been much harder
for me if I didn't have any body of work when I first arrived in LA but because I had three
features under my belt that I'd made on nothing when nobody in Boston our friends it showed that
I had something to come with and be all right look this is what I can do hire me for whatever
so I think that helped because I had I tried to make those movies not knowing how LA Works
it I think would have been a lot more difficult now I probably could now that I've met enough
people and made enough connections and I kind of understand a little bit more
how the industry works here I've been able to make low budget movies here but I think
diving in it would have been much harder not having that understanding so yeah so
I guess it's a lot of networking and talking to people and getting out there responding to ads
how does the industry work here versus let's say Boston which is a major city yeah well
Boston has the the big movies that come from LA and shoot there and then people doing a very DIY
so there's not a lot in the middle of like the one million dollar Indie type stuff or even
$500,000 there's not a lot of those movies being made there that I know of so for me it was who's
my community. I was friends with dancers, poets, musicians. That's who I casted my
friends and they're great people that were used to putting their whole heart and soul out on the
stage suddenly yeah I want to be in your movie or I want to help with your crafty or whatever
so it was I had that community there and it was very easy to get started pulling in these people
and then here I think it's a little more structured I guess you need this permit
or you need this insurance and you have to have a certain base level I think of professionalism that
I maybe didn't start with even though we did have insurance for our first stuff
there's a base expectation I guess of how it's going to run and I know there are people that
do it without that base expectation but it gets a little sketchy and especially now as
a worker I don't want to be on sets where there's not a base level of professionalism
because you get abused very quickly in whatever way time food money all that stuff
so you want to see a base level okay did they have insurance do they have a payroll whatever
so yeah I don't know I think it's not having the the community yet it was more it and now I have
it a little bit more I know a lot of crew I can call we all work pretty cheap for each other and
our corporate rates are much different than our friend rates and so you build up your friends
it was the same thing it's it's still a little bit more structured I guess
and this Facebook group was this a Mandy type thing or no this was different this was
a Facebook group that was about filmmaking yeah it has a very generic I don't even remember the
exact group it had a very generic name film crew needed Los Angeles or something that
I'm sure I'm still in the group if it still exists but yeah it was definitely a very generic name and
there's a whole bunch you can join I'm in one for I don't do reality television I'm
not opposed to it but I'm in a woman in reality television group where people are very helpful
with each other and with the resources and ideas and things there are a lot of different
different little groups where people are trying to find each other yeah I think it's better I
did try Mandy and some of them were websites but I think for whatever reason Facebook you can click
on the name see kind of what they're about before you respond how about Craigslist because you can
find some decent stuff there right do you still I don't know if you still but I know that you
could either find horrible things or wow this person's actually cool and they're legit it's
not but knowing is the tough part I think yeah being able to vouch for the person back in the
early 2000s my first Craigslist ad for a band was PJ needs the bad seeds and that was my ad
and I one person responded and he was amazing and so that was my one good experience with
Craigslist for a drummer it's this one ad I put out and the Inner Space of whatever the interwebs
but I've never gone to it for crew for since then for film crew I feel I'd be a little scared about
who would show up laughs do you remember your first paid filmmaking job here in LA yeah I think
I was making fifty dollars a day I was out in the woods it was we were all staying in this cabin
but yeah I definitely wasn't paid minimum wage I think I got was 500 bucks for the two weeks and it
was all right I'll go on the adventure definitely if there's an adventure involved for me sometimes
that's more than whatever money is involved and all right this sounds crazy I might die let's go
but yeah and that led into the next feature I did out here was in oh my God what's Roswell,
New Mexico it was another thing okay you're going to get in this car with these people and
they're going to take you to another state and so definitely
there's things that could have turned into bad experiences I guess leaps of Faith but
they were fine I wouldn't say I was treated that great on some of them or that I was
paid when I should have been on any of them but it's all learning experiences
so knowing okay these are the terms and this is also for the experience it's not because
as people are younger they're I need to be paid and that makes sense people should be paid but
kind of earning your stripes yeah but being paid at the same time right yeah I mean I guess they
always say you need to work for free or whatever I don't think you should ever work for free I think
that's bad and so I always try to pay at least minimum wage for even the lowest jobs I think
that's the law in California and it's also the right thing to do it's a very expensive state
to live in and I believe that our minimum wage should be higher but in my own life yeah I'll
work for whatever if I think it's fun that's how I structured my life but to get your foot
in the door at least smaller productions they don't have a lot of money it's very
expensive crew is the bulk of your cost always so yeah if you want to have that experience you
want to take those gigs I think that's okay and you'll learn a lot about what not to do usually
do you think that you were comfortable going on the quote-unquote adventure because you toured
with bands maybe yeah maybe you get a certain sense of self in a certain sense of being able to
work with people and collaborate and get through anything I think one of the greatest things about
film for me is if I don't somebody in two weeks I don't ever have to work with them again and
if I do them I remember them and I try to be friends and and come on each other's projects
so it's you're collecting the good trading cards and you're dropping the ones that are not as good
but yeah I can get through two weeks with anybody pretty much probably because of music for you into
some I mean were there some situations where it was dicey where you'd know if you had a place
to stay or whatever with different band setups or whether you're going to get paid or whether
bar owner or whatever was going to stiff you on the money or oh yeah certainly money disappears
in clubs certainly play gigs were they passed the hat around and then it disappears where did it go
but yeah there's always some sketchiness I think anything where it's considered fun for you then
suddenly it doesn't matter to people if if you get paid or not so yeah you're going to watch
yourself a little bit but I always had other side hustles so it's if one gig falls through I'm not
going to be out on the street that gig but if every gig falls through it's going to be a problem
yeah but yeah certainly I if I trust whoever's bringing me on and they don't have a lot of
information I'll go with the flow but if it's a stranger at this point yeah I need to know where
I'm staying give me the address let me look it up show me a contract and all that stuff but I
have a friend who hires me all the time I get a location and a time I don't get a call she
whatever I'm okay but we're friends so I know at least you're going to look out for me even
if the production's not we've got each other how are you able to find so much work here now
most of my work comes from networking at this point from knowing people
I probably should put myself out there to blind ads a little bit more it's not my personality
so much but yeah through referral at this point and through people I meet I have so
much work out there I shoot a lot of short films and films for other people that then
go off on the festival circuit so my name is always kind of circulating a little bit
but yeah it's so it's mostly through friends at this point do you ever worry is is does it ever
occur to you what if the work's not there next month or you kind of trust that it's going to
show up it feels very seasonal honestly because there's always the beginning of the year I always
have nothing January February like am I ever going to work again and especially when I first
came out to LA when I first hit those I was oh no it's over nobody has any work I gotta figure out
how to put myself out there more but my Summers always get insane from May to September I work
a lot I don't know why that is especially on the Indie level I think on the more Union level where
you're doing Pilots there's always pilot season it has more of a seat its own season I don't know
why on the Indie level summers are always busy for me but that's been the case every year that
I kind of make it up in that middle chunk of the year and then it dies down around November again
but yeah so it's kind of trusting the seasonal aspects of it a little bit even though I don't
understand why they happen other than holidays and stuff but yeah something always comes around
eventually yeah la does seem to kind of close down right around I mean I know Halloween isn't
part of the holidays but it almost seems into the holiday season if you want to call it October 31st
or whatever it seems LA shuts down a little bit yeah I love how spooky it gets in LA in December
when everybody leaves because so much of us are transplants here so everybody goes home
and it's so quiet Hollywood Boulevard you could go shoot whatever you want there's nobody there
I love that time so I almost never go home for the holidays because I how quiet it is here how much
do you have to prioritize getting paid to work on other people's projects versus doing your own
I think it comes down to scheduling for me I'll schedule my own projects if I know ahead of time
I'm going to be working on somebody else's thing let's schedule my own stuff for later so a lot of
freelance is keeping your schedule in its rains and stuff changes constantly it drives me crazy
yeah I don't think it's I need to totally choose ever I try to make time for everything
but in my work for a feature or whatever if I have two weeks to shoot or whatever
over X period of months I can find those days that are always working around whatever other
work I have because I'm the one planning those so I can decide when they are so I
don't think it's a choice so much but yeah there always needs to be some work coming in
was that part of your plan to always have some time for your own projects for the two of you
yeah I mean I know that they say hey if you get a job in reality TV you might make great money but
then it may be harder to get your own stuff made because you're so bound with these schedules yeah
yeah definitely somebody was asking me recently if I wanted to go into reality I'm I don't know
that I want to work every day for six months because I need my down time and physically I'm
not the youngest anymore there's definitely a reason why a lot of backbreaking work happens
in your 20s I'm getting a little bit older and I don't want to be damaging to my back and stuff
carrying camera every day for months and months and months I can do it for two weeks fine you do
it for a month fine but when that there's no end in sight no break in sight I don't know if that's
for me that's why I features where it's you got a month you got two months easy you take a break
so yeah I think it is always important for me to have my own thing going because I need to have
control over something in my life so I need to be the one if something's not right it's my fault and
that's fine and I can accept that but at least I am the person trying the hardest and then you
can go off and work on whatever but I always need something that's mine that's cooking brewing yeah
because some people make that decision early in life or then sometimes maybe after they have a
successful corporate career what I need time to do creative stuff and that's the most important
thing over making money and I get it when you have kids you can't make that decision but yeah
I wasn't sure if maybe being available to have projects or being able to do whatever you want
was more of a decision maker in what jobs you take oh yeah certainly yeah for me it's all about
that's why I being a director for photography because it is creative and I do have a lot of
say in the project as a whole but other jobs and stuff that's filling in my schedule and I do
it because I've learned the skills these are the skills I have now so I might as well let them make
me a little bit money on this side but yeah it's always about my own stuff that's what's the goal
is I guess is to be doing myself on a bigger and bigger level my own projects and everything else
is is feeding into that machine for me career-wise but yeah that's certainly the most important thing
always is the art and what I'm doing but I have a lot of fun I being an AC I said I have a lot of
fun doing it if the set's good and the people are fun and you're doing good work that's good enough
for me for that period of time I can put the other stuff aside for a month or two months or whatever
but yeah there always needs to be something that I'm working on in the back burner.