Emily

No future comes with a guarantee. After three years of attending
Five Towns College as a film student, Emily learned in the summer
before her last semester that the college had fired everyone in her
major's department, would lose its accreditation, and was on the
brink of dissolving her entire program. The reality turned out to be
somewhat less apocalyptic and she succeeded in earning her degree
despite the fact that not a single educator graded or even looked at
her final project. But don't worry, the College still charged her for
the full semester as if no debacle had occurred.

Now a year out of college finds Emily working freelance jobs, as
most members of the TV and film industry do. Sometimes these jobs are
paid but most are not, and so Emily works two additional jobs. She is
a waitress at a diner on the Nautical Mile and a prep tech at a
camera rental company in New Jersey.

Yes, New Jersey. Her four and a half hour long commute features
cars, trains and buses and begins at 6am. She returns home by 8pm, if
she is lucky, giving her just enough time to eat dinner, shower and
go to sleep. She'll have to do it all over again tomorrow.

“I get two paychecks a month, and one of them just goes right
back into public transportation and half of the other goes into my
student loans” she reports. When asked if her job would give her
any sort of compensation for her long travel time, she laughed.

Somehow, Emily still finds time to create and contribute to funny,
well written, professional, and original content. She has
credits as both writer and producer of the web series Tiny Office.
Emily is also a member of the
the Thursday Shoots production company which has put out several
quality short films every year for the last three years.

Emily is hoping that her financial woes will end soon. She looks
forward to the day where she can join her local 600 camera union,
giving her a guaranteed wage and benefits. Unfortunately, the test
she must pass comes with a price. This price, combined with the one
time initiation fee, comes to thousands of dollars.

“There's a payment plan,” she says with a shrug.


Emily's work can be found on Thursday Shoots' Youtube channel, but
we have featured here the very first episode of her series, Tiny
Office.