Orlando Callegaro reflects on the benefits of Arts Temps as a freelance filmmaker

Orlando Callegaro is a visual artist, and freelance event photographer, videographer and social media content creator. He completed his MA Photography at CSM in 2017. 

I first moved to London from Italy in 2016 to develop my practice as a visual artist.

At the time I was balancing my time working as a waiter for an agency and developing my practice – I valued the flexibility this job offered but didn’t find the work itself stimulating so I looked at alternative options linked more closely to my practice. In 2019 I learnt about Arts Temps through an ad at CSM. The library was looking for new shelvers. That's when I became a temporary worker for UAL. Ever since I've been working in different roles for Arts Temps. During lockdown a position opened at CSM Loan Store for support technician. Funnily enough, the position was needed thanks to Covid, as extra hands were required to sanitise the equipment and manage the quarantine schedule.

This proved to be a great opportunity to work in my field, handling photo and video equipment that otherwise I would have never had the chance to access. That gave me the chance to expand my knowledge of professional equipment and most of all, it introduced me to audio recording, something I had never really looked into that deeply. This turned out to be absolutely fundamental for my growth as a videographer and social media content creator.

Although I really loved the environment and my colleagues, I realised that working in an office-like setting was not my thing and it confirmed I just wanted to freelance. While working at the Loan Store I had already started collaborating as video-editor for the marketing team of one of the UAL colleges, but it was when the restrictions started to ease that more jobs for filmmakers and photographer roles started to appear again on the Arts Temps job board. Although I already had some experience in filming events, the Arts Temps jobs allowed me to work more creatively in the production of social media content for the different UAL platforms.

What I love about working as a filmmaker and photographer across UAL and with different teams is that I am always immersed in an artistic environment and I get to see works of creatives across different disciplines. This had its peak when the Communication and External Affairs Team took me on board to film Grayson Perry’s Graduation Ceremony speech. I then had the great privilege to film him in his studio.

Although I have other jobs outside UAL, I like to keep working with Arts Temps. As a professional I always learn something new, as an artist I'm always connected to artistic creation and the working environment is friendly and supportive. By working on multiple projects with UAL’s marketing teams the quality of my work improved, and I also felt validated by the fact that some of the marketing teams would call me back to work on other projects. This gave me the confidence and motivation to upgrade and expand my equipment in order to further improve the quality of my output.

Thanks to the variety of jobs as a filmmaker and photographer my portfolio has increased giving me the confidence to apply for better jobs also outside UAL.

www.orlandomyxx.com

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