As she heads toward her own room, I toss Sora a half-hearted goodnight. She barely even registers it, stumbling down the hall with a yawn. Once the door swings shut and I’m alone, the ache in my arms that I must have been numb to suddenly hits me. I drop onto the hard, uncomfortable bed and stare blankly at the textured greige wall and the framed stock photo of St. Peter’s Basilica. The atmosphere feels thickand stale, and the silence is deafening, even though there’s no noise in the room except for the soft hum of the mini fridge.
I contemplate for a minute whether or not I’m actually going to fall asleep sitting up, until the chime of my phone startles me and breaks the spell.
It’s a notification:
PLUG IN BATTERIES.
Right…I still have work to do.
I force myself back to my feet with a groan and pad into the bathroom, where I finally peel off my clothes, my skin rejoicing at the cool air. I fiddle with the shower knob to get the temperature just right—a skill you tend to get better at the more hotels you stay in—and then step under the spray, letting the hot water sluice down my tired body.
It’s a good thing I’m not sharing this room with anyone, because the moan that I let loose is all kinds of inappropriate.
As I scrub away the grime of travel, I begin to feel more alive than I have all day. Actually, I feel more alive than I have since my last shoot, a year ago. It’s one of my favorite parts of being a filmmaker—the physical proof that I’ve spent long days hustling to create something with my own two hands. Even if I’m just moving equipment from one place to another.
And Idolove my work, even if I don’t always like the subject matter. I get immense satisfaction from capturing a story just right or composing the perfect shot. But lately, I’ve been feeling like my career is floundering. I’ve worked almost ten years in the industry, doing—for the most part—the exact same job I was hired to do only a year after graduation. While Iama camera operator, which is a decent gig, I’m usually relegated to B-camera. Which means my footage makes it intothirty percent of the finished production. It’s a junior role, for those who can’t yet be trusted with filming the main story but are capable of capturing the footage that knits everything together.
Even with the experience and knowledge I have, and the fact that I feel more than ready to tell those main stories, I still haven’t managed to land a gig as a DOP—a director of photography.
I always over-deliver. My footage is consistently filled with thoughtful, beautifully composed shots and little moments that a producer has failed to notice. I’ve trained more camera assistants than I can count on two hands, and producers I’ve worked with have even outright asked me why I’m not a DOP yet.
And it’s not that I haven’t tried to move up—believe me, I’ve begged—but this industry is about who you know, not how good you are. It’s about who a line producer likes best, or who the director prefers to work with. While I’m well-liked, my male counterparts are typically hired over me, meaning I’ve watched countless male peers get promoted despite having started in the industry later than I did. Meanwhile, I’m fed excuses. Like “Oh, we would have hired you, but we thought you were busy,” or “Sorry, they only had male quarters on the military base, and our insurance wouldn’t cover you as the only woman.”
Those are relativelyfinereasons not to hire me—I can’t exactly say they’re sexist. However, I never hear about my male colleagues losing out on jobs for reasons like that. And, at the end of the day, I don’t feel like I can fight against it. If I complain or bring it up, I could be labeled as “difficult”. Which ultimately results in being blacklisted.
I’ve seen it happen to other women. A producer I loved to work with announced just last month that she was leaving the field for corporate communications. When I messaged her, she explained that she was tired of fighting for scrapsafter reporting problematic hiring practices at a production company.
So, I keep my mouth shut and dream instead about being the DOP for my own documentary, with an all-woman-identifying crew. I had been working out the details of it for six months or so; I even had a nearly complete storyboard for the first documentary project I’d produce and shoot—a series, ironically, about women working in male-dominated industries. But things stalled after Dad died.
At first, it was because I felt I couldn’t bring myself to create art in a world in which he wouldn’t be around to see it. But now…I’m not sure why I haven’t picked it back up. I guess it feels, like everything, as if maybe I’m not meant to reach for that dream.
Which led me to this gig, one I practically begged for when my old colleague, Glen Santos, posted on his LinkedIn that he was looking for a B-camera operator who could take off for a month or two. It worked out well, and I’m grateful for the work, it’s just…not exactly where I thought I’d be on my thirtieth birthday.
As I let the hot water work its magic, my head finally begins to clear. There’s still so much I need to unpack emotionally about Dad’s death, about the documentary, my sister, and what’s going to come next. But I can’t think about that now. I’m here to do a job, get paid, then go home.
I can’t let myself become distracted.
I finish my shower just as the water turns lukewarm and then putter around the room, charging batteries and repacking bags until I’m content with my kit. I finally slip into bed close to midnight and set my alarm for 5 AM—enough time to get some sleep, but early enough that I can make a pot of crappy hotel room coffee before I have to do anything requiring a brain cell.
I’m up before my alarm, blinking bleary-eyed at my phone as a text message pops up.
KYLA: Anything yet?
Rolling my eyes, I flip onto my stomach and wedge a pillow underneath my chin, stretching my arms out in front of me to type a reply.
CHLOE: Not as of last night. I’ll check when I’m no longer a zombie. Need caffeine…
KYLA: OK. How was the flight? Were you seated next to any cute, rich, SINGLE Italian men looking for a Canadian girlfriend?
I laugh. Kyla always talks about how her dream meet-cute is on a plane, with her seatmate returning from some fancy business trip and instantly falling in love with her.
If you ask me, I think she’s read one too many billionaire romances.
CHLOE: Something tells me a man like that doesn’t fly economy. So…no.
KYLA:Bummer.
KYLA: …
