We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erik Ljungholm a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Erik thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Yes, I’ve been working as a freelancer full time for five years now. When I graduated from college I started out by getting coffee with every producer, director, DP, or agency person that I could get in touch with. I’d reach out and offer to buy them coffee/breakfast in exchange for 30 minutes of what I can now see were some really dumb questions haha. I didn’t go to film school, so I didn’t know anything about the industry, and these informational interviews became really valuable to me. I was able to learn the basics of how advertising videos were made from an idea into a produced piece of media.

Through that process of meeting with anyone and everyone, I ended up landing my first job. I was PAing and editing for a production company in New Hampshire. And although I was getting full time hours, it was on a contract basis. This was perfect for me at the time because it allowed me to keep setting up coffee meetings, and taking days off to work on different productions from time to time. I gained experience as an AC, Cam Op, and DP on a bunch of different jobs. Was able to build my cinematography portfolio, and now I’m able to work full time in the camera department.

With my portfolio in place it allowed me to continue getting more jobs and more meetings, and has just grown from there.

Erik, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Erik Ljungholm, and I’m a DP based in Southern Maine. I work primarily in the commercial space, but also really enjoy shooting narrative short films. Most recently I worked on Die Pille, which is a short film set during World War 2.

Any advice for managing a team?

I think maintaining high morale on set is crucial, and really makes a huge difference in the final product. What I try to do as a DP is to clearly define for everyone what the look is that we’re going for. And once that look is established I can be open to suggestions from everyone on my team.

Being a DP usually means that I get to hire the people that I want to work with, and if I’ve chosen to work with them, it’s because I really value their input and expertise. So I try to ask people for their opinion as much as possible, especially in preproduction. This way the production is setup for success. My crew is working in a way that’s comfortable for them, and they know how to best prepare. The goal is to build a greater sense of ownership from the crew. And in the end everyone can be proud of what they’ve been able to bring to the table.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Because I travel for work often I have a lot of time to listen to audiobooks and podcasts. Some of my favorites are the Wandering DP, Business Made Simple, and the Founders podcasts. The Wandering DP is hosted by Patrick O’Sullivan, and he does an incredible job of interviewing high level DP’s and getting them to talk about the technical aspects of the job but also management styles. There’s a lot of unique challenges that DP’s face, not only managing crew, but also managing expectations from the producers, directors and clients. So hearing how people deal with these challenges in different ways has been extremely valuable.

Business Made Simple is great for tips on managing a small business in a broader sense. I especially love Donald Miller’s business finance strategy. He’s got a great episode on why small businesses need 5 checking accounts, and goes in depth on what each account is for.

Lastly, the Founders podcast is for identifying what makes successful people great. David Senra goes through biographies on some of the greatest business minds in history and distills these books down to one hour episodes. It’s challenged me in a lot of ways, and it’s also just really entertaining.

Contact Info:

• Website: erikljungholm.com
• Instagram: @eljungholm

Image Credits
Andrew Allen, Brian Chagnon, Pat Dunn, Greg Farnum,