I've spent four years at a studio in LA, moving through roles as an editor, a camera operator, and an Executive Assistant supporting the President of Development/Production and the Head of Production. At the same time, I've been running my own production company, shooting my own photography, and now building a new studio. For a while I thought I had to pick one of those things and call it my career. Turns out I got to keep both, and I'm better for it.

Nobody Puts "Coordinator" on Their Vision Board

After film school, I pictured myself on set within a year or two. Instead, I landed a desk job. Scheduling, coverage requests, slate meetings, untangling calendar conflicts nobody else wanted to deal with.

It turned out to be a genuine gift. Sitting inside a studio's development process, reading scripts before they become movies, watching a slate get built in real time, that's not something you learn in a classroom. You learn it by taking the notes in the meeting and then making them useful for six other people afterward.

Running Two Things at Once

Here's what I've come to love saying out loud: while I was supporting other people's projects during the day, I was building my own on nights and weekends. Needleman Productions has put out more than 40 short films, with 50-plus festival selections and awards along the way. My landscape photography has run in National Geographic. I built all of that around a full-time job, and honestly, having both made each one sharper.

Reading other people's scripts for a living taught me to spot the weak spots in my own before anyone else has to point them out. Producing my own work taught me what a director actually needs from the person managing their schedule, because I've sat on both sides of that relationship. I don't think I'd be as good at either one without the other.

If you're early in your career and the job in front of you isn't the job you pictured, look for what it's actually teaching you. Chances are it's more than you'd expect.

Building Something New Alongside the Day Job

This past year I have been the Director of Partnerships at Open Industry Studios. The founder and CEO, Jonathan Serota, has been developing a company focused on tracking human and AI authorship in film, something the industry hasn't fully figured out yet. Helping shape that answer is one of the most energizing things I've worked on.

I built it in the margins of my existing job rather than waiting to leave first. Some weeks that meant working through equity terms on a Tuesday night after a full day of studio scheduling. Other weeks it meant organizing an AI filmmaking event at NYU Tisch, where I got my master's, while still ensuring call sheets matched the shooting schedule for a production happening on the other side of the world.

What I'd Want Every Assistant and Coordinator to Hear

If you're in a support role right now and wondering whether it counts as a real film career, it does, and more than you probably realize. The people who eventually trust you with creative decisions are watching how you handle the small ones today. The coverage you write, the notes you take clearly enough that someone can act on them, the problems you quietly solve before anyone upstairs even knows there was one, that's real training, and it compounds.

I've written coverage, built slate materials, and sat in on pitch conversations that shaped what got made. None of it came with a producer credit, because unfortunately that's not how it works in this industry. All of it built the instincts I now use on my own projects and bring to the executive roles I'm excited to pursue next.

A Few Things I'm Glad I Figured Out Early

Don't wait for a title before you start doing the work that title implies. I was thinking about slate strategy for my own production company before anyone at a studio asked me to think about it for theirs, and that groundwork paid off. The habits you build on your own projects show up later when someone hands you a bigger stage.

Keep making things on your own time, even in small amounts. Going back to my short films or my photography, even during the busiest weeks, reminded me that my instincts were always there and always growing.

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