Most of us never stop to consider the ramifications of small talk with strangers. It’s a part of our lives from adolescence onward and as we head into adulthood, small talk becomes essential to our simplest social interactions. I don’t mind the “how old are you?” or “how do you know so and so?” questions, and as a queer woman I can even handle the ever-so-popular question, “When will you meet a man and get married?”

What irks me is another question, one that usually arises when you’re talking to someone new for the first time. Picture this. My friend, Lesley and I are at a friend’s dinner party. We’re sitting next to a couple neither of us has met before. We dutifully explain how we both know the host, we’ve got the names down pat, and we even know what these names mean in their respective languages. But at this point that most dreaded question is asked: “So, what do you do?” This is when I suddenly ask someone to pass the salad or when I decide a bathroom break is in order.

Lesley answers first, and without hesitation. Clearly the question doesn’t bother her. “I’m a business analyst.” I’ve know her for three years, I still don’t understand what she does for eighty hours a week no matter how often she tries to explain it, but she always makes that statement with clarity and confidence. “I’m a business analyst.” Sometimes there’s feedback, an odd question or two for clarification about the companies with which she’s involved or what aspects of the market (which market, I’m not quite sure) she’s been, well, analyzing, but she never seems to be stretching, searching for an answer.

I think that if I were an actor, I’d have a frequent opportunity to use my own uncomfortably lengthy answer in auditions. Essentially it’s a ten-minute monologue, and where do I begin anyway? Let’s start with my educational background.

My main interests in high school were sports and writing. An obvious profession to pursue would have been sports journalism. Okay, so I loved playing sports, but I always loathed watching them, and it occurred to me that what a sports journalist does for a living is to watch sports and then write about them. Besides, I was a swimmer. Sports journalists don’t often write about swimming, do they? The demand is for football, baseball, hockey, and basketball. Even golf gets more play than swimming.

My late years of high school were notable for my increasing political involvement with women’s rights, and gay rights, and animal rights, and I’m sure I could think of someone else’s rights if I tried. Journalism of the non-sports variety started to look interesting as a future pursuit. As university application time drew nearer, I was taking history, English, creative writing, art and gym. I found the essays I wrote for history and English relatively difficult and unrewarding. I wasn’t enjoying the subtle craft of essay writing as much as I did pouring my heart out in creative writing. In fact for that course I wrote more than I needed to. What a keener. I started to think that maybe journalism wasn’t the right field for me. When the university application process was completed, I found I had applied to U of T for English, Carleton for Journalism and York for Phys. Ed.

I was accepted into all three programmes and for financial incentives and the proximity to home – another financial incentive, you might say – I chose York. For first year at York, we had to take a social science and I picked an Intro to Women’s Studies credit. Well, I fell in love with the course. The subject matter moved me; besides which, I had a crush on the professor and I fervently wished that my Phys. Ed. courses were as exciting to attend. In second year I declared Women’s Studies my major and left the jock talk to my workouts. I was going to graduate with an arts degree. Why not enjoy myself? What more would I do with a Phys. Ed. degree anyway?

So, in 1995 I graduated with a degree in Women’s Studies. I was taking my socialist feminist theorizing into an andocentric world and I had the mindset that I was going to make something of it. The day after graduation, I bumped into a former co-worker of my father’s. I told her I had just graduated with a B.A. in Women’s Studies. “That’s wonderful,” she declared. “I’m currently working as a series producer for the Women’s Television Network and I need an assistant.” She was the first – and last – person to offer me a job based on my Women’s Studies degree. Well, I literally jumped with excitement. My father is a videotape editor and I had been exposed to the world of television production for years, but I never thought I’d have the chance to be in it myself.

Kim was not only big-hearted for paying me a honourarium, she also taught me the ins and outs of television production. I took every tip very seriously and to the great surprise of the network I proved to be valuable. I was twenty-one years old and had a production credit to my name. I was feeling really good about my career. Women’s Studies had paid off.

With the series completed, I booked a trip to Africa. It was a long-awaited odyssey. Africa is a continent that had always fascinated me and I was keen on exploration, so for two months I traveled through Kenya and Tanzania. When I’d meet people along the way, the question “what do you do back home?” was one I loved to answer. “I’m a producer.” That was a cool answer, established and alluring. People were impressed – perhaps taken aback – when I proffered it. On an airplane, returning home on New Year’s Eve 1995, I collected my thoughts, and what I had learned from this experience, and I decided that television production was my future.

And I tried. Did I ever. I called WTN and Kim had left at the end of her contract. The series that I was working on had ended and they were “currently not hiring,” not hiring me, at least. I didn’t give up. I called other television networks; in fact, I called every station. I was willing to work for free. But alas, so are most aspiring television producers. No one wanted me. No one cared that an entire series featured “producer” and my name in the same credit. Ominously, the people that I called who gave me more of the usual “we’re not hiring” line sometimes asked, “What film school did you attend?” After a barrage of rejections it dawned on me that my short-lived career as a producer, which had defined me in Africa, had come to an inglorious end.

I was fortunate enough to have food and shelter, but I was coming down from the university graduate high. I didn’t have a career, and since I lived at home with my parents and was a fresh young grad, people stopped asking the “what do you do?” question. Instead, the big stress in small talk was the question, “What do you do with a degree in Women’s Studies?” It was always asked along with a decidedly disapproving look. “I’m currently exploring my options,” was the answer I gave. It shut people up, at least.

I started to miss telling people that I was a producer. I missed the way their bottom lip curled down, their eyes blinking while they nodded up and down, clearly impressed. I wanted a title. I wanted to be the queen of small talk. “University graduate” wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a skill, and if I wanted to reclaim the title of “producer” I needed filmmaking skills. Ah! Filmmaking. I loved writing and I love films and I had been a producer. I sent in my college application for film school.

It was mid-January and film school wouldn’t start until September. I still didn’t have a job. I had to assume that I might not get accepted. Three thousand applicants, thirty successful candidates; I did the math. The odds weren’t high and I was a Virgo so I needed a backup plan. In the want ads I found a position teaching English in Korea. I knew I had plenty of experience teaching all ages how to swim, and my love of traveling was nudging me to leave Toronto. I didn’t consider whether or not I actually wanted to teach English, but I would have a title: “English teacher.” The application process was quick and suddenly I found myself on a plane to Korea. Nevertheless “English teacher” wasn’t the fanciest title and it didn’t exactly wow people at parties, because every foreigner in Korea, it seemed, was either in the American military or an English teacher.

Midway through my Korean experience, I received word from home that I had been accepted at film school. This was very happy news indeed, and I thought about regaining my status as “producer.” I had to make a decision. I was making a lot of money in Korea; I had a title, my own apartment, and a close-knit community of friends. I thought and I thought, and as the deadline for accepting the film school offer drew nearer I realized that, although I was making good money and lived a comfortable lifestyle, I just didn’t love teaching. “English teacher” wasn’t enough. I broke my teaching contract early and flew back to Toronto, ready to start film school in September.

It was probably the best decision I had ever made. I adored film school, and I found that even though my intentions had been to improve my production skills, I fell in love with the entire artistic process of filmmaking. I loved the evolution of a film, from writing through to post-production. I wanted to direct. I wanted to see what I wrote in celluloid.

When film school came, sadly, to an end, with not even a day’s rest I was assembling my cast and crew for my next film. It wasn’t easy to be an independent filmmaker, I soon learned. Without access to a film school, I had to deal with the cost of equipment and the fact that my classmates were no longer willing to work for free. I needed a job, but now, I thought, I was qualified. But even though I told those same television stations I’d been to film school, I still couldn’t find work. I was a jack-of-all-trades in the world of film, but alas, a master of none. Along with my fellow classmates, all of whom had dreams of Oscar success (the youngest person to ever win the Best Director statuette, and so forth), I went back to work in a field I had worked in since I was sixteen: lifeguarding.

Now I cringed during conversations when the question came up. “I’m lifeguarding to pay rent and pursuing a career in the film industry. I want to be a director.” Not a proud response but its wordiness covered all the bases, and people rarely asked for further explanation.

After many phone calls and endless pleas to production companies I started to find occasional work as a daily on film sets. It was exciting, it was high energy, and it was real. There were famous actors and directors and big lights and cameras. In short, it was a film school graduate’s fantasy. So what if my jobs had the least status and lowest pay on the set, and maybe doing fourteen to eighteen hours a day of slave labour wasn’t glamourous. I didn’t care. I had a positive attitude. I knew that I would sit in the director’s chair one day, and I would have a title: “Director” with a capital D.

However, months later, I felt like a zombie from a lack of sleep. I smiled so much trying to keep up my positive attitude that my jaw ached. When I met anyone who cared to ask what I did “for a living” (if you could call it that), I’d say, with one eye half-open, “I’m working on film sets.” That was sufficient, I thought; besides, it was the only statement I had enough energy to mutter. Did that answer satisfy them? Were they impressed? Not really. I didn’t have a title, and my job was clearly sucking the life out of me. Even people who weren’t in film could clearly tell I was low on the proverbial totem pole.

After I had worked in the industry for some time, I started to see the unglamourous side. The degrading hierarchy of power on the set, the male domination, would have made my women’s studies professors hair fall out. Worst of all, I had not written a script of my own the whole time I was on set. After hearing a gaffer tell me that he’d been working twenty years in the biz, starting out where I was, I came to the inevitable realization that production work was not going to make me a director. One more glorious plan went by the wayside. I had left the glam world of the film industry.

But I wasn’t about to give up on film. I wanted to write and direct, but I was going to do it on my terms. My film sets would shine with equality and opportunity and learning. I would make my own films and submit them to film festivals, get my name out there. Make films, write films, watch films, and oh yeah, make some money on the side working in social services.

I have a love/hate relationship with the social services community. I love it because, for a worker, it’s everything the film industry isn’t. There’s room for growth, teammates who offer positive and constructive feedback, and respect for one’s colleagues. But I hated contract work. Maybe it’s my being an organized, anal-retentive Virgo, but I needed to know where my money was coming from each month. For two years I worked low-paying contract positions. I applied repeatedly for full-time, better paying positions, but without success. I guess I should have been more economical with the truth, but when I was asked, “Why do you want this job?” my ready answer was, “Well, I’m a struggling filmmaker and working with interesting people gives me ideas I didn’t find working sixteen hours a day on a film set.”

So, in answer to that inevitable, dreaded dinner party question, I would say, “I’m a filmmaker.” It was a good title, but unfortunately it prompted the next question, “Oh, have you shown your films to the Toronto Film Festival?”

“Well, no,” I would reply. “Those big festivals have entry fees and I just don’t have the money.”

“But how do you expect people to see your work?”

“Well, I had a big premiere party that I organized myself. Allen Abel was there.”

“How interesting. Did he give it a good write-up?”

The conversation typically deteriorated at that point as I tried to explain that Allen Abel was a family friend and that these short films, which had no budget and which featured volunteer actors and crew, had been made as a learning experience. A process that would help me to develop my skills as a confident director. That’s a long answer to give, and I was tired of it. I needed a one-line response. I need another title.

The tech industry was booming. The Internet started to interest me, and I was hearing rumours that Internet technology was advancing so fast that films would, eventually, head to the Web. Well, I needed an income that would allow me to make films on the side, so I needed another skill. Enter the twelve-month program in Interactive Multimedia.

It was a difficult learning curve for someone who was fairly computer illiterate, but it was an enjoyable course. I was impressed by how much I learned and how fast I could catch on, although I didn’t discover that I actually loved anything about the field of interactive multimedia. As the year progressed, I was nostalgic for film school. Still, upon graduation I was offered a position as a “Motion Graphics Designer.” This title had a nice ring to it, and it sounded good at parties, but no one knew what it meant. I was ready with the short explanation that “I create the ads on those video billboard screens,” and the people I met seemed to find that interesting enough. Although the title was pretty cool, I was, though, a bit unsure how much I liked my association with it. It had less allure than “director,” I knew. Someone I knew at university invited me to a dinner party, and I worried about telling them that I worked in a medium that made our urban environment so ugly. Advertising is a big enemy in the Women’s Studies world. I didn’t attend the party.

The job posed interesting creative challenges. It required more than just my storytelling abilities, but also experience in colour theory and composition, and artistic skills. The position required me to learn and explore other artistic endeavours such as painting and drawing. I told myself these skills would improve my filmmaking; the problem was I wasn’t making films. I was working long hours as a “Motion Graphics Designer.”

Still, I could rationalize. We all work for money. Many of us don’t like our jobs but we have to support ourselves somehow. I didn’t want this job to define me, because I was a filmmaker. Hey, I was an artist. I liked that title too, and felt for the first time that it was the best description for me. It wasn’t so specific. An artist could work in any number of fields. It was a matter of philosophy, not job title. It was in our souls, not in our paycheques. Finally, I was comfortable and proud that I could describe myself comfortably.

Then the bottom fell out of the tech industry and I lost my job.

I took the lay-off in stride and returned to my job at a homeless shelter with a different attitude. I was now a borderline starving artist. At least, that’s what I liked to call myself. I explained that my mother had raised me to always be financial secure and that my father believed art to be an equally important facet of one’s life. Therefore, I had ended up here.

“Well, what kind of art do you do?”

“I’m a filmmaker.”

People don’t seem to associate film with art. They immediately think of an artist as someone who paints, who sculpts, who acts. Filmmakers are usually associated with money, glamour, and materialism.

“I help people through my films. I create narratives that make people think about the world in which we live, and I encourage them to react positively to it.”

Why do I give this explanation when it only adds confusion and leads to more questions? I suppose this is my definition.  What we do for a living, in the simplest and the most complicated ways, defines us as persons, and it is not necessarily as simple as a job title. Yes, Lesley can answer the "what do you?" question in a mere second and never stress about it.  I know that, for her, “business analyst” defines her; it is her career, providing her with financial stability, stimulating challenges, and a sense of self worth.   As I struggle toward self-definition, I know that one day I will say, “I'm a filmmaker," with as much confidence, even if, for now, my reply sounds like gibberish to the average listener. 

I've had experience living in different countries, learning diverse skills, and meeting a variety of interesting people in my relatively short life to date. I love that film is not only a form of entertainment and escapism, but also a learning tool that can change the way we look at the world.  I create films because I need to.  If that need isn't met, I start to feel edgy and desperate.  I start to feel lost no matter what job title I possess. That is why filmmaking, even if it is not the job that pays my bills, is what I do for a living.