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I have been obsessed with the film industry (and have wanted a career in it) since I was seven years old. However, I refuse to have a career as on-camera talent. I have dreamed of one day achieving greatness and winning an Academy Award in the field of Cinematography. I have even gone so far as to move 350 miles just to further my education in this field.

I've been taking lots of film-related classes, and working on friends' projects as well. However, many things have been happening that have made me very unhappy with my choice of career:

arrow Everyone thinks I look good. As flattering as it is, it is also frustrating. Because people think I look good, they would rather have me in front of the camera than behind it. They also consider me to be a "pretty girl" who is rather naive, when anybody who truly knows me knows that I am a tomboy who has been around a few times.

arrow People also think that because I'm a girl, I'm frail and weak. Sure, I may shake a little when the twenty-five pound camera is sitting on my shoulder, but I can load camera equipment and such things into the truck as good as the next guy. Hell, if I can walk home with my new vacuum cleaner (did that Thursday, not kidding), then I can surely do such feats of strength as Steadicam operation.

arrow The twelve- to eighteen-hour (or longer) days aren't really conducive to raising a family, which is now something I want to do. When I was little, even as far as a sophmore in high school, I didn't want children. But now that I've actually met Mr. Right, and I know that it's really him, I can't wait to hear the pitter-patter of little feet. And I don't want anything to hinder me from doing that when the time is right.

arrow It takes a really long time to get ANYWHERE in the film industry, and I feel that I'm already at a disadvantage because I don't have a car. Also, I'm broke, and a lot of the entry-level positions don't pay at all.

That, in a (rather large) nutshell, is my dillemma. There are many other things that I could do, and that I would want to do. Personally, I'm thinking of doing computer programming. Other options include being a librarian, or (not kidding) tree farming. I just don't want to get stuck in a field where I'm unhappy, and it really frustrates me that my dreams can't come true because of so many things.

Oh well, just needed to get that out of my system. Still, tell me what you think.

Well, work involving "camera stuff" is pretty hard to come by, even in my area where the film industry is currently experiencing a boom. The easiest thing for me to do involving cameras would be to try and get a camera position at one of the local TV stations - but, unlike the rest of the country, they only pay minimum wage here.

Thanks for taking the tree farming thing seriously, though. I've actually been thinking of doing programming full-time, with the tree farming thing on the side. It takes a while for those trees to grow, y'know.

Hmmm ... never thought of that before. Our school has a class specifically for wedding (still) photography, but if I invested in a pretty little prosumer HDV cam ... hmmm ....

Sounds viable!