What do you do for a living?

[Paul Mailath]

Yea.. I'm the wally in front of the camera who cant get his lines right, who picks up the glass with the wrong hand every bloody time, who wriggles around and makes the lavelier mike go crazy and trips over the only piece of cable within 50 yards.

Actually I also run a small store with 6 staff (acting in Australia is intermittent at the moment) and do voiceover work.

I got into DV because of the variety of short films I've been in and the number of people locally who say "I've got a script" or "I'd like to direct" so I got them off their butts and formed a group called Justshorts.

We started in November, by Jan we had won $10,000 in prizes in an online film comp and I've been on this forum ever since finding out what gear to buy - this site rocks!

We'll make our first real short in April and there will certainly be a big thank you to DVi

BTW - I'm totally addicted to the making of - there's so much more going on behind the camera and no one asking "but what's my motivation" or "was that okay - you don't think it could have been bigger?"

and... I'm 52 and still learning

Former Actor
Paul
Newcastle Australia

[Chris Powell]

Well, I have a farm in mid-Wales, which has become very well known amongst birders as the red kite feeding station. I am the feeder of the red kites and run the rehabilitation centre for these colourful birds.

I also run a popular caravan/camping site, do web design in my spare time.., and of course do my best to get out with the camera as much as possible. Just gone over to an XLH1 and don't regret it for a moment..despite the financial squeeze.
Now managing to capture much more in focus than in the past (practice, practice) and totally hooked on this site with all you helpful folks.

Chris

[Jim Andrada]

Well, I've been lurking here for a month or so trying to get up to speed on all things DV and came across this thread, so I thought I might make it a bit longer.

Once upon a time, when I was a kid (I'm going on 67, so it was a while back!) my father would set up an enlarger on the kitchen table and do his own printing. I think I was about 5 years old, and I was fascinated to see the image slowly come to life in the tray. I got my own Brownie box camera when I was about 6 and started taking pictures of everything that moved in the neighborhood. We'd send the film out for developingl but I would try to print the images myself. Not a complete success but by the time I was around 8 or 9 I think I was getting rather good at it (at least with my father helping).

He became quite ill about that time and died after a long illness when I was 14, so photography was put on hold.

I started college in 1958 just as the post Sputnik wave of emphasis on science was starting. I majored in Chemistry and Physics, and had a summer job for several years with the Air Force Research lab where I was working in the satellite tracking group. We still used mechanical calculators in those days, but we did have a couple of early computers, and I got hooked and started doing scientific programming.

Back at school, I started hanging out in the computer lab and taking classes in automated natural language translation. The holy grail at the time was to automate the translation of Russian to English. Fascinating, but completely impractical with the limited compute capability of the time (and not by any means a piece of cake even today)

After college, I joined IBM and worked on the design of operating systems and compilers and even had an opportunity to again work on some projects in natural language processing.

I also started taking classes in photography and took a workshop with Minor White at MIT which got me thinking in B & W again. A few years later I was fortunate enough to be able to spend several weeks studying with Ansel Adams in Yosemite, and schlepping a 5 X 7 Linhof view camera up and down the "hills". I still have the camera. And then I took a couple of workshops on video, which I loved immediately. I think it was all still in B&W. I got to the point of having several gallery shows in the Boston area, but it soon became obvious that trying to sell "artistic" B & W photographs wasn't going to pay as well as the computer business.

Then I got busy and started traveling extensively for work, and photography got put on the shelf again.

Fast forward about 25 years, and I found myself living in Tokyo for 6 years. I was introduced by Japanese friends to a lovely young(er) concert pianist and we hit it off. We had everything going for us - we lived 200 miles apart and had no language in common! To make a long story short(er) we've been married 17 years now and our home language is still Japanese even though we've been back in the US for 14 years.

I'm still working full time as a business development consultant for a Japanese company that is heavily involved in the development of computer tape drives with a US partner. I still travel to Japan frequently, and make the occasional trip to China where we manufacture the tape mechanisms. We moved to Tucson last year as I was coming here every week or so from the SF Bay area for work

A couple of years back I started feeling the urge to get back into image making, and have been playing with 3D computer graphics and animation using Cinema 4D, and am now working on a (personal) project that will involve integrating animation with video. I recently bought a Canon GL-2 with an FS-4 and am now busily trying to learn how to use them well, reading books on matchmoving, and starting to fool around with After Effects and Vegas, as well as Syntheyes for motion tracking.

[Tom Hardwick]

Nice one Jim - best here for a long while in my view. Keep going, and may you easily outlive your father.

[Jim Andrada]

Tom, thanks much for the kind words. I'll work at outliving him:<)

Have to run in a bit as I'm playing a concert this afternoon in a British-style brass band. I noticed you were on the other side of the Atlantic, so thought I'd toss that in. I play the Eb tuba part, but, keeping with my tradition of never doing anything simply that I can overcomplicate, I play it on an F tuba.

[Matt Newcomb]

I've always liked to entertain people, so here I am in LA as a video game programmer. Working on next gen console titles.

My other big interest is in film/video, and I've made a few shorts and a feature with mostly non-professionals. I'm hoping to meet new people out here to work with since I moved away from all my old friends.

I've posted most of my work online at http://www.talenos.com and it's all on youtube too by searching for "talenos".

[Bradley Mauro]

I just spent the last four and half years on Spider-Man 2 and 3, mainly creating 3D animatics which served as guides for live action shooting and the creation of visual effects. Towards the end of both productions, I did a number of fairly simple final FX shots which mostly involved basic tracking, roto work and compositing, with a little 3D modeling thrown in here and there.

In the middle of production on Spidey 3, I was fortunate enough to join the DGA after shooting 2nd Unit. I worked in animation for ten years before all of this, spending about half that time in tv, half at DreamWorks Features Animation, and a year or so doing freelance vfx work.

Now, I'm concentrating on writing and shooting as much of my own material as I can before going back to work. The great thing about digital video and and the average home computer today is the power they give to aspiring filmmakers. Budgetary differences aside, I truly believe the biggest difference between the pros and those of us trying to break in is practice, persistence and attitude, which is great news for us all.

[Phil Kay]

I'm a stills photographer and a sound recordist/mixer(mainly I record sounds for films and computer games)

[Steve Royer]

Grew up with a big family in small town Illinois...

...I taught myself to high jump while mainly practicing at the events themselves, and eventually set several records and won a gold medal at state....

...after growing up on a PC game lan we built in our home, I saw the potential for technology, teamwork, competitiveness and the power of the internet. I taught myself how to use 3d studio max and photoshop landing my first job as a character artist in the video games industry. I've worked on next gen consoles (Xbox 360, Wii) as well as the PSP... as a concept and 3d artist...

I have a beautiful wife and three perfect kids, and I'm 26 years old. I've moved from Illinois, to Virginia and now reside in San Francisco, CA.

I've always set goals for myself, and taught myself to reach them. My next sights are on illustrating a children's book and creating a short/mini feature film I've been preparing for the last 4 years.

I love this forum, it's the greatest resource I've found for hands on information and inspiration when starting out learning the technical side of creative filmmaking. I hope to purchase a Canon HV20 (or similar) within a couple months to start practicing. I'm going to have some fun reading through all these stories, damn there's enough here! Cheers :)

[Ken Wozniak]

For the past 16 years, I've been designing brake systems for passenger cars/light trucks. Heavy use of CATIA and other 3D modeling programs. It's a great job and rarely takes up more than 40 hours of my week.

On the side, I've made a fair amount of money shooting wedding videos and doing VHS to DVD transfers. My first wedding video was a freebie and was given as a gift. The prices have gone up ever since.

I'm a real gadget freak, so when I decided to start making some real money with videos, I settled on getting an XH-A1. Based on what I've read on these boards, if I take the time to really learn how to use the camera, I'll get great videos. Hey, geeks like me live to learn new stuff like that. Here's how bad I am: I don't even have the camera yet, but I downloaded the instruction manual and have been studying it for days!

[John Wallace]

Doing some ink-over animations (also known as archive vandalism) on some old Super8 reels that were kicking around the school art dept was probably the start of it.

Quite a few years in club, theatre and music venues as a lighting engineer/jock. Latterly, I've been doing some animation and projection stuff. Still dip in and out of lighting work if I'm convinced the band is fun to be with.

Have been working with digital video since 2000. Wrote and produced a couple of interactive video CDROMs that were sold commercially across the UK into secondary schools. Would love to get back to interactive video but it's a complicated workflow and heavy on production - full DV drama production setup PLUS code geeks, designers, uncle Tom Cobley n' all. Hard to find the cash but the results are always worth it.

Now that my writing and editing work (mostly devising content for government health campaigns on the internet) is a bit more stable, I've got myself some kit and am making local documentaries. Self-sufficiency is a must out here in the sticks. That said, I just met a guy in the next county with a crane jib I can play with!

Busy finishing shooting one docu on the community around a nuclear power station in decommissioning, half-way through one on the demise of traditional salmon fisheries and about to start a commission on the installation of a wind farm.

Forward!

[Mark Ganglfinger]

I must say that I am quite intimidated by all of your guys qualifications and experience, so I am hesitant to post anything here. I am going to throw caution to the wind however, here goes.

I have spent the last 10 years working with special needs kids in a variety of settings. I have worked in residential homes, done foster care, adopted 4 of my foster kids and currently I work in special education at a high school.

Istarted my Audio Video business 10 years ago as well. I didn't actually start out to make money, I was just completely obsessed with sound and video and could not control my spending habits. Less than a year after starting, I was working 20-25 hours a week with absolutely no advertising, so I decided to run with it. Next year it looks like I will be taking it full time!

Mark

[Travis Johnson]

I'm an information systems specialist. Basically I troubleshoot/upgrade/build PC's . I'm also a salesman and I troubleshoot networks for homes and businesses. In my spare time of course I am a filmmaker and I also do design work for my friends band. I've done merch and promotional design along with their album artwork. I am thinking of getting into the business of independent music promotion and working with local artists on merch and album design along with music video production of course. I think that musicians should focus on their music mainly and leave the design aspect mostly up to someone else....and thats where my team would come in.

[Nicholas Brodie]

Wow, so many talented people here! I feel so out of my depth! haha

I enrolled at Newcastle Uni with the intent of emerging a hard bitten journalist and took up Film 101 cos it looked cool back in '03 and wouldn't mind learning a few tricks that go on behind the camera. One year later I realised I HATE journalism and my major becomes Film Studies. Whilst theory did get somewhat boring after a while I always found it very interesting.

I graduated from my BA last year and now I'm doing a MA at UTS. I bought a JVC HD Everio camera and I absolutely love it. Made a couple of shorts done very much guerilla style so for my next one I want to actually sit down and work it all out properly. But hey, at the end of the day its all just a big learning experience.

Edit - I unfortunately don't work in film as a job, instead selling suits etc at a menswear store. Its cool, it pays the rent but hell no I don't want to keep on doing that heh.

[Victor Wilcox]

I might as well add my two cents worth.

After 15 years working as a research chemist for various oil companies, I changed careers and now I’ve been working as a software engineer (That’s a fancy name for computer programmer) for about 14 years. Would you believe I started working when I was 10? I’d hate to give away my age.

I’ve been videoing weddings and nature documentaries for about 3 years. I got my first prosumer camera last November (Sony HVR-A1U). It’s been a real joy learning the ins and outs of HDV. I’ve been slowly building my video business, so I can do what I love full time when I retire.