Every cloud

Whenever possible, I like to pick the brains of directors who are having or have had careers I admire. Today I had lunch with a very wise woman who gave me incredibly helpful advice about the challenges of being female in our field, making the difficult transition from assisting to directing, the various personalities I'll encounter at my next gig, and the benefits of working for almost no money. I walked away from lunch feeling excited. Well, excited and scared.

Putting myself forward isn't second nature for me yet. I still have to push myself to ask for opportunities, to tell people that I'm qualified, to toot my own horn. It doesn't come naturally. And even though almost every opportunity I've had thus far has come as a result of me asking for exactly what I want and pushing to get it, I still keep hoping that the next step will just happen for me, just fall in my lap. It hasn't yet, and it won't, and I need to come to terms with that. Because for every story I hear about someone whose career seems to come easy, the reality is that they have worked hard for every "break" they've had.

These meetings always result in a flurry of résumé-sending and name-dropping, and today was no exception. I've got a two-pronged approach going: looking for assisting jobs at the top houses in the country, and looking for directing jobs...well...just about anywhere. It finally feels like the right time to make that transition, and I think the next couple of years are going to be important ones.

My lunch companion tells me that this is a good time to be starting a directing career. Why? Because the economy is in the toilet, companies have less money than usual, and they need directors they can hire on the cheap.

How's that for a silver lining?