Mike Logan loves movies. Sure, like most people, Mike Logan loves watching movies but in particular Mike Logan loves making movies. While living in small town Saskatchewan, Mike helped out on a few short film sets. First just holding a reflector on a student film but soon helping out as a grip, acting as script supervisor, and working as camera assistant. He was the Ultimate Production Assistant, always ready to jump onto a movie set wherever he was needed.
Having just moved to Ottawa, Mike is now looking to get a start in the local scene. Get on some independent movie sets wherever he can, work some stage productions (maybe trying his hand as a stage manager) to make some contacts, maybe even direct his first movie.
But how does he find crew calls?
Then: Mike would check out the Ottawa ads on Kijiji and Craigslist and hope for the best. He’d hit up Mandy.com for Ontario and scan hundreds of crew listings looking for any that might be tagged Ottawa, or Gatineau. The Google searches would start: “Where do I find crew jobs in Ottawa?”, “Ottawa production companies looking for crew.” “How does a hip, talented, production assistant find work in Ottawa?” He’d join a few Facebook groups dedicated to movie making and independent film in Ottawa and check in with IFCO (the Independent Film Co-op) and SAW Video. Then, he’d look up all the Ottawa production companies he can think of and stalk their websites, Facebook pages and Twitters.
Of course if he wanted to put together his own crew for his movie, he’d have even more work to do. He’d need to post his own ads to those sites and Facebook groups: “Hip, terribly handsome writer/director looking for crew for his first web series.” He’d check in with Algonquin’s Television and Broadcasting program or Carleton University’s Film Studies program and see if any of those students wanted to do some work as a boom operator or assistant director.
As our good buddy Charles Mingus once said, “making the simple complicated is commonplace”.
Now: We’re making it simple. Mike Logan would visit CrewJobsOttawa.com; the one stop for Ottawa Crew Listings. All the job postings and crew calls he could ever want are here. Postings for movies? Here. Postings for television or web series?. Here. Training courses and workshops? Here. Directors of Photography and Make-up Artists? Here. Even theatre productions. All here. All open and accessible to everybody.
Mike Logan can even post his own crew call and gain easy access to all the crew folk in Ottawa.
The idea behind Crew Jobs Ottawa, our manifesto if you will, is simple:
- The more companies and film makers that use Crew Jobs Ottawa to post their job listings and crew calls, the more useful the job board will be to crew folk.
- The more useful the job board is to crew folk, the more they will make it their first stop when looking for crew positions in Ottawa – or looking to fill them.
- The more crew folk are stopping by, the more useful the job board will be to companies putting together crew.
- The more useful the job board is to companies filling positions, the more companies will use Crew Jobs Ottawa to post their notices.
It’s a big, win-win, circle of awesome for everybody. This is your job board Ottawa.
