The 90-Day Career Launch

Breaking into Film & TV can feel like one long waiting game. Waiting on emails that never get answered, waiting for production to pick back up, waiting for somebody to finally give you a shot. We've all been there.

So here's an idea. Give yourself 90 days.

Not 90 days to build a whole career. Ninety days to start acting like someone who is building one.

Days 1-30: get yourself ready

Before you chase the job, be ready when the job actually shows up.

Update your resume. Tidy up your LinkedIn. Make sure your voicemail isn't full (yes, people still call). And if you're still using the email address you made in middle school, sort that out...

Then work out where you want to start. Production? Art? Camera? Locations? The AD department? You don't need the next 30 years mapped out, but if you know roughly which door you're knocking on, you'll waste a lot less time.

And learn how a production actually runs. What a call sheet is. Basic set terminology. Who reports to who. You'll feel a lot less like an imposter on day one.

Days 31-60: get into the community

Now make yourself visible.

Get to a workshop. Get to a festival or an industry event. Introduce yourself. Message someone whose career you'd happily steal.

Just don't open with "Are you hiring?" Ask about their work instead, then follow up a week later. That's it. That's the whole trick.

You're not trying to collect 100 contacts. You're trying to build a handful of real relationships.

This is a tiny business and people remember whoever turned up prepared and genuinely interested.

Days 61-90: get aggressive about opportunities

Now push.

Check the MFJF job board regularly. Apply fast when something fits. Follow the productions shooting in your market. Tell your new contacts you're available.

And don't hold out for the perfect gig. A two-day PA job counts. So does a short, a commercial, working a festival. One job puts you in a room with five people, and one of those five recommends you for the next thing. That's genuinely how most of us got started.

And on day 91?

Keep going.

The point isn't that you'll have the dream job in three months. It's that you'll have spent three months doing something about your career instead of waiting for it to happen.

You'll know more people, understand the business better, have a stronger resume, more applications out, and maybe a first credit.

Which puts you 90 days ahead of whoever is still waiting for the perfect moment to start. Let's go.

Questions about any of this, or just want to talk career goals? We're always happy to hear from you.

All the Best,

Liv

olivia@myfirstjobinfilm.com

Today's New Jobs

186 roles are live on the US board this morning and 112 of them are brand new, so there's a big pile nobody's touched yet — worth being among the first names in.

Recommended Job of the Day

Development Intern is our pick. It's with a film and TV production company known for genre hits, and the work is proper development: writing coverage on scripts and submissions, research on upcoming projects, admin, plus sitting in on exec meetings, screenings and company events. Paid at $18.50 an hour, 20 hours a week, in person in Los Angeles. If you read widely and can say clearly why a script works or doesn't, this is where you learn to do it for a living. Practise writing one page of coverage before you apply — it'll show. Send it today, because teams like this read applications as they land and start picking favourites early.

Others of note...

Internship Program closes in two days, so this is a today job or not at all. An independent distributor with a serious reputation is taking spring interns in New York, and they're clear that the work is real rather than photocopying.

Feature Development Internship closes this week. A world-leading animation studio wants someone beside its development team — research, coverage, writers lists, tracking the competition. Part-time at 24 hours a week, in person. Rare look at how a studio decides what gets made.

Production Intern sits with a smaller production services outfit, which means you're in the day-to-day of live projects rather than watching from the edge. Unpaid, but the access is the point. Get your name in while the inbox is still short.

Agent Training Program shuts in two days. A major talent agency in LA, training people to do deals and build client relationships. If the business side of the industry is where you want to end up, don't leave this one sitting in a tab.

Internship Program places interns with partner production companies and pays a living stipend while you're there. Applications are read on a rolling basis, which means the earlier ones get looked at while the places are still open.

Creative Assistant is a permanent job supporting a documentary team at a major streamer: diaries, travel, expenses, trackers, events, working with producers and coordinators. Organised people who like being the one who knows where everything is — this is yours, and it won't hang about.

Acquisitions & Digital Content Trainee is a year-long paid placement at one of the biggest studios going, watching films and series being considered for pickup, building programming calendars and rights trackers, keeping metadata straight. Paid traineeships at this scale are thin on the ground, so move on it.

Runner/Office Assistant is a paid entry-level spot in Los Angeles with a major distribution and localisation business. Straightforward way in, and runner roles at this level tend to get snapped up by whoever applied first.

• Paid internship / fixed term: 62 live
• Work experience: 4 live
• Volunteer / expenses-only / unpaid: 57 live
• Paid junior office / production / development role: 15 live
• Paid entry-level crew (runner, trainee, production assistant): 21 live
• Permanent job: 23 live
• Apprenticeship / structured scheme: 1 live

Browse the whole US job board

Post Production: The Other Side of CUT!

Tom Flores Workshop leader

Tom Flores walks through what actually happens once the camera stops rolling — how footage moves from set to edit, who touches it along the way, and where a new person realistically fits in. You'll understand how the post chain is staffed, what the entry-level jobs really involve day to day, and why the hours get long at the back end of a schedule when everyone else has wrapped and post is still delivering.

Useful if you're weighing up post as a career, or if you've been applying to edit and VFX roles without a clear picture of how the department runs.

My First Job In Film

myfirstjobinfilm.com

Launching the careers of new filmmakers around the world

Click here to unsubscribe from this list

Copyright © 2026 My First Job In Film - All rights reserved