16 Jan Lauren Todd Networking in Film

Lauren Todd, Networking in Film

(5 minutes of value)

Lauren Todd: Producer

Lauren Todd is an Ohio based filmmaker. My favorite part about hosting the Votary Podcast are hearing the journeys of how filmmakers go to where they are. I liked Lauren’s story. Straightforward, but lots of work behind. She went from event coordinator to producer, producing some of the coolest videos I’ve seen. 

Here’s the full video :

Networking

If theirs anyone whom I learned most about pertaining to networking in film it’s from Lauren.

She started off as an event coordinator. By the way that role is very similar to producing. If you’re an event coordinator and want to switch to film, you might be more qualified than you might think.

Lauren made it a point to reach out to people who could further her career every two months. She went as far as writing follow up dates on her calendar.

She’d rarely get responses but she was on the front of her networks mind when they had openings or were looking for talent. Especially today, with AI, networking is going to move more human oriented than ever. Take notes, you’d best bet that I did.

Narrative Medicine

Ok so Lauren went to school for pre-med. Her first pull down that track lay in narrative medicine. Narrative medicine is the study of learning how to craft a narrative to help people heal and establish better connections between doctors and patients. To all my pre-med students who need a creative outlet, this might be a good subject matter to dive into.

The power of story is intangible. With the right story you foster hope, empower, connect, and make people believe that they can conquer their health problems. I’d love to learn more about this. Anyone in narrative medicine, hit me up, let’s film an episode!

Admitting Your Truth

It took Lauren a very long time to admit she was an artist.

She’d always been an event planner.

But her past was rooted in music and writing.

Sometimes we forget who we truly are and let our career define us. It’s a part of us, but not the whole pie. Sometimes our careers are not reflections of who we truly are, welcome to the real world.

Not pointing fingers here. We all have to make ends meet. But DON’T let your livelihood draw you away from YOU.

Producers are Creative

Ha, I’m totally biased here. Two producers talk and we stroke our creative egos.

Here’s why though.

Producers are involved through the entire project. They are the backbone. They know the ins and outs, the who’s and whom’s, and the tolerances. They wear so many hats and solve so many problems. They work with creatives and are asked to provide their creative opinion on set and are valued for it. They deal with so many variables that they need to think creatively to solve and string them together. Tooting my own horn here, but we’re kinda the glue.