Randy Strobl: Welcome to alumni.

Live the podcast.

These are conversations with grand valley state university film and video

graduates about the industry, the film, video, major and alumni profiles.

Welcome to the Alumni Live Podcast.

Holly, it's good to see you again.

What are you doing out in Colorado?

How are you using your, your film degree?

Holly Tumbarello: I graduated from Grand Valley in April of

2020 and it was honestly always my goal to move off to Los Angeles.

So I was doing a lot of networking in that covid year, to get me to go to LA.

But then I just, Sorta happened to fallen here in Colorado cause I had

a friend down here at the time and I just kind of wanted to experience

something different than Michigan.

I am a producers and a creative directors assistant at Lockheed

Martin Space, and then I'm also an assistant to a documentary producer.

And those jobs are both hybrid, which is nice.

But before that I also did a lot of like production assistant work when

I first got down here before I got these more office space jobs.

Randy Strobl: Give me the elevator pitch for what each of those positions

are and, what skills those have?

Holly Tumbarello: I do a lot of like the booking of the travel for the talent, get

everything all organized, and I help a lot with release forms from all of our

talent and a lot of like post-production work also in terms of finding

footage, getting everything cleared.

We are working on a documentary right now focusing around meditation.

which is kind of cool.

I do go into the office sometimes, which is exciting.

So I get to sometimes help out on shoots and help with all

of that sort of shoot stuff.

And then I also have been working on this video digitization project for

them, or they have a lot of old footage of really cool stuff on 16 millimeter

film and also assisting the producers in like their daily responsibilities

to help promote essentially satellites per page, which is, which is really fun.

Which also includes finding footage, getting release

forms, organizing everything.

So a lot of like organizational skills..

Randy Strobl: So, at Grand Valley, were you pretty organized or is that stuff

you had to learn, on the job out there?

Holly Tumbarello: I was involved in like a lot of extracurriculars at Grand

Valley, so definitely trying to juggle all those extracurriculars and keeping

even just like in classes, you know, you're just keeping everything organized.

I think it was a skill that I've definitely learned at

Grand Valley and have been able to build on post-graduation.

Randy Strobl: That's really something that I learned from Grand Valley

too is color coding helped me a lot.

Their some great professors that helped me through that in my, in my own life.

Especially working through those 16 millimeter films at Lockheed Martin, you

must have uncovered some like cool stuff.

Like what are some discoveries you've made in, in your job?

Holly Tumbarello: It's so cool.

I dunno how much I can say but

Randy Strobl: Oh, we're, we're talking top secret stuff here.

Holly Tumbarello: No, he is not super top secret.

Actually, this is all pretty public knowledge, but Lockheed Martin has helped

built a lot of satellites, to every planet in our solar system, including

the sun, through NASA basically.

So NASA essentially hires Lockheed Martin to help build spacecraft.

So we have footage of satellite launches going back to the fifties,

you know, so like, I think Galileo is the name of a spacecraft, I think

went to Jupiter . So we have launch footage of Galileo and we have sort of

like promotional footage from like the eighties and nineties talking about like

the Hubble Space telescope and talking about the International Space Station

before it was launched cuz Lockheed had a part in helping NASA build all that.

NASA's about to launch Artemis.

Which is a rocket that's gonna go to the moon to help us, you

know, go to the moon eventually.

Mars again, and Lockheed Martin, bill Orion, which is the satellite

on top of Artemis that's gonna be doing all the survey stuff.

So it's been really fascinating for me to go back to this old footage from

the seventies, eighties, nineties, when it was only just a theory.

Randy Strobl: That is so cool.

I love all that.

But of course, B roll is only, you know, part of what you do.

I, I assume there's, collecting a roll, right?

So are you doing interviews things, you know, storytelling in that way?

Holly Tumbarello: So that's not my main job necessarily.

I'm definitely more like behind the scenes, when I have gone to sets,

I've been able to help like set up the camera and do stuff like that.

But that's not my main job.

We have specific cinematographers that do more like the interview and stuff, and

like the main producers normally do that.

Randy Strobl: Are in informational interviews at all part of what you do?

Holly Tumbarello: At Lockheed Martin, no, but it is how I got the job.

Randy Strobl: Okay.

Okay.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about networking and, you know, even doing

that in the pandemic, how you were able to, create these really strong networks

that brought you into where you are now?

Holly Tumbarello: So the week before the pandemic hit, actually, I went on the

film and video Los Angeles trip where we went to LA and we got to visit with

a lot of alumni and that was phenomenal.

It was like four days later when the pandemic hit and everything shut down.

But when the pandemic hit I started then networking starting off with all of the

alumni that we met in LA So I would email them and I was like, you know, like, Hey,

we met you a couple weeks ago, how has the industry changed in the past three

weeks that the pandemic has happened.

So that was sort of like my first initial informational interviewing.

And then after that I just sort of stayed in contact with them

cuz I still wanna move to LA.

How can I make these steps to move to LA when covid is happening and I'm

not sure what's gonna happen next.

So in April, 2020, I then graduated and then I then spent the next nine months

basically until I moved to Colorado doing so many informational interviews

because I really wanted to go to LA So I started with Grand Valley alumni

and then I sort of broadened my reach.

I was reaching out to people that I found on LinkedIn or I went through the

alumni book that we had at the time.

And I remember going through that.

and finding people that I was really interested in and then

reaching out to them from there.

And I'd ask a professor at Grand Valley be like, Hey, do you know this person?

Can you connect me with them?

Or I would just find their website.

Cuz luckily in our industry, a lot of people have their own

website, so it's super easy to just go online, find a contact form.

Send 'em a quick email and ask if they can talk to you for 20 minutes.

So I was just kind of looking to connect with people everywhere.

And another part of it was I didn't really know what direction I wanted to go in.

Did I wanna be more of an editor, more of a cinematographer, more of a producer?

So a lot of the informational interviews in that year was to

give me a broader idea of what I personally was looking for.

And it became really beneficial because then, By the time

I moved down to Colorado.

I was kind of a pro at informational interviews.

I was a lot more comfortable, reaching out and asking questions and essentially

asking for a job which is how I kind of got to my positions today.

Randy Strobl: So that is a tool to get into the positions you're looking for.

That is, that is really cool.

So, you're finding people and saying, Hey, I almost wanna

interview you about your job.

Is that, is that kind of what I'm hearing?

Holly Tumbarello: I definitely think the point of an informational

interview is sort of to understand what people do in their jobs.

You're interviewing them because they know that like you're looking for a job too.

But people just really like to help people.

So it's really just all about you.

Like, Hey, like what do you do?

You know?

How'd you get to where you.

Randy Strobl: So throughout those interviews, were there things

that you learned that you didn't, know about as you were trying to

figure out what you wanted to do?

Holly Tumbarello: It's so funny cuz after graduation even, I'm still

learning stuff about the industry.

Definitely in college we're not given the full scope.

And it's partially cuz you can't when you're in classes you do have to distill

it down to like fully comprehend it.

I feel like there's a million titles that go under the term that we call in

college, producer, you know, like a line producer, a production manager,

associate producer, a supervising producer, an executive producer.

There's so many titles that go under what we call producer in college.

So I learned a lot about that in my year and that was sort of how I

decided to kind of go down this more producing route that I'm sort of on.

Randy Strobl: So do you feel like you're really clicking with it?

Does it feel like the Holly job?

Holly Tumbarello: Being a producer.

I mean, it's what I'm doing right now and I do enjoy it.

So I would say it is something that I am good pursuing for now.

Randy Strobl: And it, it sounds like too that these interviews, you're not just

like out there going to get the job.

You're also trying to build that relationship, is that right.

Holly Tumbarello: You don't know who will hire you.

You know, and that's why we have to keep on doing it.

So when I do an information interview, I always try to focus

on like three main questions.

I try to always ask them a question, you know, about what their job looks like.

And I, that gives me like a greater understanding of What they do for

my own personal knowledge anyway.

But then I also try to ask like how they got to where they're at, because

everyone in the film industry has such different stories and I've met so many

people also that didn't even like major in film, but now they're a producer.

Now they're an editor.

So it's always fascinating to , see how they got to where they're at

today and it did help me like me, you know, like be like, okay, Holly, like

it's okay if you're not a producer by next week , like, you know, like

you have time, you can work through it.

So I always ask what they do, how they got to where they're at, and then

what advice they have for me also.

Because if I wanted to get to a job that's like them in their position one

day, what can I start doing now to sort of help, help me get up there basically.

So that's sort of what I focus on.

And it does help cuz even though they're probably.

Going to hire you?

They might, but it always does give you like a greater knowledge

of just sort of like how the world works and it helps you sort of

define the route that you wanna go.

And especially when you ask them what advice do they have for you?

They're not giving you a job, but they're giving you a, a really key piece of

how to get a job, which is so important.

When professionals in the industry are.

Maybe you should create a website.

Maybe you should create a demo reel.

And you'd then do that.

That means that it works that they've found and that would give 'em a

greater chance of being hired one day.

Randy Strobl: And I'd imagine too if you, you know, look out, you know, 15, 20 years

from right now, those same people that you have done these informational interviews

they might, you know, Be contacts, or you might even call 'em friends that could

help you out, you know, later, you know, that network becoming almost a safety net.

Holly Tumbarello: Yes, exactly.

Especially in like career shifts, you know if you're going down this

producing route and you're like, actually I wanna be an editor.

It's always good to maintain those contacts for the people

and all across the industry.

Randy Strobl: And, and so to keep that network going, how

do you follow up with them?

You know, outside of that one interview, do you keep it going?

Holly Tumbarello: Yeah, I keep this spreadsheet basically of all

the informational interviews that I've ever done, which is nice.

And on that spreadsheet, right, I was that spreadsheet I always put, like

their name, their email or phone number, whatever contact info I use for them.

What they do and where they work is really important too.

And then some key things that stood out to me in the interview at afterwards I'll

always have like a couple bullet points, that way I can mention it if I ever

follow up with 'em again and then I also always write down that spreadsheet to keep

track the date that I talked with them.

That way I know when to follow up basically.

So if I talk to somebody in January, I normally like to wait six months.

I think every six months is a good amount of time to follow up with the person.

You don't wanna wait like too long cuz then they might forget about you.

But I would say like every six months-ish follow up with them or

like every other month, I would say at the most normally works for me.

And I like having that spreadsheet so that way I can just go back and I can be like,

okay, I talked to this person five months ago, it's about the time when I should

maybe email them again to follow up.

And that's how I actually got one of my jobs with the documentary producer right

now is I talked to her, just as a cold outreach in june of 2020 I think it was.

And then when I moved to Colorado, I remembered that she lived in

Colorado that conveniently, and I emailed her a year after.

So it was June of 2021.

And I did not follow up with her at all in that year, which I don't recommend, I

recommend following up every six months.

But I didn't follow up with her for a year.

But when I did come down to Colorado, I was like hey, I

talked to you like a year ago.

Can we meet up for coffee I'm now in Denver and she said, sure.

And then she ended up basically offering me a job with her,

company, which was super exciting.

So it's the long game, I guess you could say with informational interviews.

When you talk to somebody for the first time.

They may or may not have a job or an internship for you.

Maintaining those relationships is so important and especially in the

post-graduation world when you're looking for a job, they might not have

a project for you to work on right now, but you wanna stay in contact with them.

You still kind of wanna be in like the right space at

the right time sort of thing.

So you gotta kind of keep at the top of their mind that way when something

comes up you'll be right there.

Randy Strobl: Totally.

So I co-own a media company and when we need to, you know, staff up for a project

or something like that, you know, we don't cold call somebody, you know, we're just

thinking in our heads, oh, that person we had coffee with, you know, two weeks ago.

She should come on and, you know, do something.

It's like we're always, you know, thinking about, you know, who's just

fresh in our minds Cause we just need to staff things up quickly.

So I think that from the production company side, what

you're doing is Brilliant.

That is such a good way to make sure you're on those projects.

Holly Tumbarello: Cause you always wanna be right there

Randy Strobl: Now it sounds like to me, like you're a pretty outgoing person.

Do you have any tips for those of us who might be introverted or have anxiety

about, you know, cold calling somebody or, you know, what if they don't like me,

you know, do you have any advice about.

Holly Tumbarello: I like to try to act extrovert on things like this , but I

am 100% totally an introvert, and it was really hard for me to do my first couple

informational interviews, so I think I did my first ever informational interview

when I was like a sophomore in college.

It was through a class I took or whatever, but then I really started doing it

obviously like senior year of college.

But it was really hard at first cuz I was like, what do I say?

Basically?

How do I talk to this professional?

You know?

It's like how do I do that?

So, what I did at first was, a lot of just simple anxiety, so it takes

just breathing and stuff like that.

But I always did prepare beforehand, which I think is really important to always

prepare before an informational interview.

So, earlier on I would just Google informational interview questions

and there's a ton out there.

So I'd go through and I'd copy the ones that really sort of spoke

to me or that I really wanna learn about those person about to talk to.

And so I would copy and paste those questions and I would put

them on a document and I would like highlight the ones that I

especially really wanted to ask.

and then it was probably about when I first started, it was an hour

before the informational interview.

I'd go and then look at my spreadsheet, sort of remind myself.

I would always write like a little blurb about myself, to help me prepare earlier

on when I was on the spot, I could not think of words or how to form a sentence.

So it always really helped me to put like bullets on a piece of paper

about what I wanted to say about me.

So I would always start off just making a little elevator pitch essentially

on a piece of paper about me.

and then I would have the questions that I really wanted to ask them, and it

was just you kind of just gotta do it.

that's really all there is to it.

Like you can prepare, but the more you do it, the more comfortable you get.

And I think what's really great about informational interviews, is that people

really like to talk about themselves.

You find very quickly and luckily for an informational interview,

it's just you and one other person.

Nobody else is listening in.

So that helped my anxiety a lot with me remembering it's just this one person.

And even though they're like really successful, they are just a person

and they wanna help me and they like to talk about themselves.

So literally, whenever you feel anxious, just ask them a question about them,

and then it just gets them talking and then you just kind of warm up to it.

Randy Strobl: I'm gonna ask you maybe to put you on the spot for a second, but

could you maybe give us that elevator pitch about yourself or you know, just an

example of what you might say to somebody.

Holly Tumbarello: Yeah.

So I'll do one that I used when I was first graduating, cuz obviously your

elevator pitch will change over time.

And so what I'm doing today is different than what I did when I graduated.

But during that year, when I was graduating, I would basically

say like Hi, my name's Holly.

I'm a recent graduate from Grand Valley State University in Michigan,

and I always say in Michigan cuz if they're outside of Michigan, they

might not know where that's at.

I studied Film and Video and I had a minor in advertising.

And I'm talking with you today because, I saw you're a producer

on this film that I really liked.

And that's something that I'm really interested in learning more about.

I hope I can one day be in your position and I'm kinda interested, interested

in learning about your career path and how you got to where you're at today.

And so that's just sort of what I hope to talk through you today and hopefully

you can share any advice with me.

Yeah, that was a rough one.

I haven't done that in a while, but that's basically what I would

say is just introducing myself.

Where I'm from, what I'm interested in, why I'm contacting them and

what I hope to hope to get out of the conversation and just basically, I would

say that in a short little summary.

Randy Strobl: So I also wanna ask if, if you don't mind shifting gears

for a second, a little bit more about your position as a producer's

assistant for your documentary company.

What is that like?

I mean, we talked a little bit about the Lockheed Martin stuff.

What kind of stories are you uncovering there?

What, what do you bring into the screen.

Holly Tumbarello: Yeah.

Ooh.

Again, I don't know how much I'm allow to share, but I can share some things.

Randy Strobl: Top secret again?

Holly Tumbarello: It's just that we're in production of a lot of things right now.

So we've worked on three documentaries this past year, which I guess is a

lot for like a documentary film.

And one of them came out in June, 2022.

And that focused on this it's called the Black Knight Satellite Beyond the Signal.

And it was for this online streaming service basically.

it's about.

The Black Knight satellite, which is this alien conspiracy theory.

Randy Strobl: Oh, tell me about it.

Holly Tumbarello: They think there's a spaceship saying signals to Earth

that has been detected for a while.

I'm not sure how I feel about it personally.

It was definitely fascinating to sort of work on that and interview,

you know, people who have evidence of this alien conspiracy.

So that's pretty cool.

And then we're focusing one about meditation right now, which I

don't think I get to talk a lot about, too much about that one.

But meditation is super interesting and we're taking sort

of a different approach to it.

So I'm super excited for that one to come out.

And then we're also focusing on one right now about essentially codes that

are in the universe, like hidden codes that we've found in patterns and stuff.

So it's all about sort of unlocking the earth and sort of expanding

consciousness is sort of what we say in our documentary studio.

Randy Strobl: So what does a day in the office look like for you or at home?

Or you said you were hybrid.

Holly Tumbarello: So for that job I am mostly virtual.

So I'm only part-time with that, which is how I can balance

that one and Lockheed Martin.

But it's a lot of different stuff.

I mean Recently I've been transcribing the interviews and sort of separating

parts of the interview into different themes that I then put into different

folders so that way our executive producer who's writing the script can then go in

and find the themes that she wants to focus on and write the script basically.

we are a pretty small team.

There's only three of us on this production studio, and then we hire

in other people for shoots obviously.

But I talk with the executive producer in the production manner and we have

a lot of communication going out, you know, to create the call sheets

and a lot of just organizational stuff for the studio, since we are

still trying to grow it a little bit.

Randy Strobl: We're taking a short break to tell you about the Chuck

Peterson Memorial Fellowship.

The fellowship was established by Chuck Peterson's family and friends to assist

the upper level students in the film and video program at gvsu, who are working

on creative projects that support the nonprofit sector in their community.

Kyle Macciome, May the 2020 recipient of that fellowship describes the

benefits of the support he received.

Kyle Macciome: When going through this fellowship, there are three separate

parts of yourself that I think get to experience a lot of development.

The first is as a student, because this is a learning process.

You get to learn how to work with a client on your own independently,

out in the world, away from the classroom, like you would in

something like producing for clients.

And the second one would be as a video maker, as a video producer, as someone

who has respect for the work that they're doing and wants to improve on

themselves and produce a final product that can be used out in the real world.

And then the third one would be as a citizen.

You know, you're not making video for an entertainment value or for some

kind of commercial purpose, it's for a non-profit it's for a direct benefit

in your community and being a citizen of that community, understanding how

you can directly impact and improve it, is a really valuable experience that

I think the fellowship teaches you to be as, as a student, as a filmmaker

and as a citizen, all three of those things are directly a part of this

process that you get to learn and ask yourself, how do I want to be seen?

And how do I want to act as these three roles?

Randy Strobl: For more information and to donate to the scholarship, visit the link

in the description now back to the show.

So, Holly, you're talking about, you know, all these people you've reached out

to people you've made connections with.

How do you even start that process?

Where do you find these professionals?

Holly Tumbarello: I started off a lot with just Grand Valley alumni,

so like I mentioned, like going through the alumni book was a really

great start when I went to LA.

Finding people like that.

But then also asking your professors, and they don't have to be film professors.

When you have sort of like a goal in mind and even if your goal is

just moving to another state, really asking anyone that, you know, in

that other state is beneficial.

So then I thought I was gonna go to go to la I asked my advertising professor,

Hey, do you know anybody in la Even if they're not in the film industry, are

they in like the creative advertising field, you know, that I can talk to?

So just sort of looking at things like that and asking a lot of people around.

But then one thing that I also found really effective when I

first decided I was gonna stay here in Colorado was I was looking at

Facebook groups that people use.

So I'm part of several, you know, like women in film Denver

groups, you know, where like, you know, filmmaking Denver groups.

And I remember just posting on those Facebook groups.

I was like, hi, I just moved here.

I'm interested in documentary filmmaker.

I'm interested in producing.

Would anybody on here be willing to do an informational interview with me?

And then people will then respond to my Facebook post in that group and

be like, sure, I'll talk with you.

You know send me a direct message or whatever.

So then that's another way that I just met people, you know, in the area.

So Facebook groups.

But then also you can also look at shows that you like and reach out to people.

It's sort of 50 50.

I enough, we'll get back to you or not.

, but that's sort of how I found the documentary producer that I'm working

with right now was I was watching a show that she had on a streaming

platform and then I just sort of looked at the credits on the show and

I just saw, she was a woman producer.

So then I reached out to her on LinkedIn and now I work

with her several years later.

Just finding people on LinkedIn and kind of just looking for

opportunities everywhere to connect with people has been really effective.

I guess I'll mention this too, so I also have A general email template

that I use when I send to people.

And basically what I say in the email, if it's a cold reach out, is

I really mention why, particularly I'm reaching out to them.

So with the documentary producer that I cold reached out to, so I'm a recent

graduate from Grand Valley studying film.

I'm interested in documentary and in producing.

I'm reaching out to you today because I really liked this show that you made.

Here are some specific things and that show that stood out to

me or some specific things from your website that stood out to me.

This is why I'm would really love to learn from you can you talk more?

And if it's like a connection where somebody else connected me with

them, I always try to mention within the first sentence or two why I'm

reaching out to them in particular.

I got your contact information from So and so, you know.

That way they sort of know who you are and I feel like it gives you a little

more credibility, when they know why in particular you're reaching out to them.

So in my informational interviews, no.

When reaching out to people, that's something I always try to do.

Randy Strobl: Okay.

When you say it's like, you know, 50 50, whether they get back to you, have

you had any people respond negatively to you reaching out and, and how

did you handle that if they did?

Holly Tumbarello: I honestly don't think anybody will ever

say, They just won't respond.

I did in my covid year, I guess you could say, I did over

30 informational interviews.

And nobody ever told me no . I would say I probably sent out

like 40 emails and probably 30 of them ended up talking with me.

And a lot of them were through connections.

So maybe that's also why nobody ever said no is because.

If somebody else connected with me with them, they would always,

you know, do like the preliminary Hey, can you talk to this person?

But for cold reach outs, I really don't think anyone will ever say no.

Cuz people wanna help.

And again, if they're too busy or they don't want to and they don't

know you, they're just, I think they're just not gonna respond.

So that sort of does help me too with like getting the fear away if it's

like, if they don't wanna talk to me, I feel like they just wouldn't.

Randy Strobl: Yeah.

Yeah.

When you do ask do you ask for a certain amount of time to hang out

you know, do you say let's meet for an hour, or, or how do you

approach their, their busy schedules?

Holly Tumbarello: so it really does depend.

I found that grand Valley alumni are always so willing to talk for a

long time and easily with alumni, our conversations will go to like

40 minutes to an hour, easily.

Which seems like a long time, but it's really not like when you get

into it, it's really not that long.

But when it's a cold reach out I always say like, even just 15 minutes of

your time would be, really beneficial.

So I would say, for a cold reach out.

Yeah, I definitely aim for 15, 20 minutes And something that I do when it is a

cold reach out and they respond and I feel like they're doing me a favor,

is talking to me when they have no connection to me, is I do always try to

start off the informational interview.

I give them my little elevator speech and then I say I really

wanna be respectful of your time.

How much time do you have?

And a lot of times they'll.

Half an hour.

Like that's generally the amount of time that they have.

But if they do say longer, then great.

But it just helps to give you a, an idea too.

I would say definitely aim for half an hour.

And then if it goes longer and they seem willing, great.

And, but if they have something similar to be, definitely try to keep it short.

And I think one thing that I do to help make sure that our conversations.

Stay short is when I make my list of interview questions that I wanna ask

them, I always try to highlight five questions that I definitely wanna ask.

So if it's a cold reach out and I have a list of like 20 questions.

Cause I wanna talk to them all day, you know, but I can't, I

highlight five that I really, really, really wanna ask them about.

And I make my way through those five first and then see where we're at time-wise.

Because if you're at.

20 minutes and it's a cold reach out and you've gone through your five,

it might be time to wrap it up.

And that's when you can be like should we end it?

But that really helps me to make sure that I always get what I want out of it.

Randy Strobl: Right.

Yeah.

That's, that's super important.

And, and beforehand, you know, doing that research, looking at

LinkedIn, you know, things like that.

How, how do deep do you go before the interview?

Holly Tumbarello: You can really go as deep as you want.

Honestly I always definitely look at their LinkedIn and look at their website.

I do try to get as much information as I can beforehand, because if I look at

their, at their IMDB or their LinkedIn and I see the jobs they went through,

then on the informational interview, I'm not focusing on the jobs they've

had more so I'm focusing on what they're saying on how they went from A, B,

C, you know, so it's what you're not gonna find on LinkedIn necessarily,

what you're gonna learn from them.

So it's good to sort of ask those.

And also then this is a good interview tip too, , if you ever have an

interview with an actual person and you can LinkedIn them beforehand,

seeing sort of their path beforehand.

And then you can ask more specific questions too.

Cause you're like, oh, I saw that you worked at Disney for two years

and then I saw you went to Universal.

What was the difference between the two?

How is that transition?

Which do you like better?

You can ask that if you want.

But being able to ask specifics like that I think is really, really great

Randy Strobl: I feel like, you know, one of the, the laws of our industry is

that, you know, people always say it's who you know, and it seems like you are,

are taking that and making that into a strategy almost like you're learning,

you know, it's who you know, you're, you're getting to know more people.

I think that's a great way to break the code.

Holly Tumbarello: It's all who you know, , it's all who you

know, which is good actually.

It's good once you learn how to make it good.

It see, it does seem intimidating at first though, so I definitely understand that.

But I feel like, yeah, once you sort of crack the code, it's

easy to just sort of run with it.

Randy Strobl: So Holly, all of this informational interview

stuff, I'm learning a ton.

I assume that you didn't in invent informational interviews how did

you come to figure out about it and how did you learn about it?

Holly Tumbarello: I would say YouTube is where I learned a lot of my early

informational interview skills.

But then when I started looking into it myself, I would just

Google it and YouTube it.

And there's so many good YouTube channels out there that are focused around career.

I'll go TikTok or YouTube and just watch videos.

And on those videos they basically tell you everything that I just

said but in their sort of career professional way, which has always

beneficial to have another perspective.

And then they'll also normally share good questions.

Just ask too, and that's how I look at a lot of my informational interview

questions I have on my list is just going through the YouTube videos and TikTok

videos and pulling stuff from those.

Randy Strobl: I wrote down as you were talking that balance, you

talked about, you know, balance.

You got, you know, two jobs.

You know, you're doing three documentaries with one job, a a year.

How do you achieve that balance?

How do you make sure you have time to still be Holly.

Holly Tumbarello: That's a great question.

So actually it was really hard at the beginning of this year.

Because I started working at Lockheed in January of this year and I started

working with this producer in October of last year, so October, 2021.

And so in January it was difficult because I was working 40 hours with Lockheed

Martin and I was working easily 15 to 20 hours with this documentary producer and

I got burnt out , like really quickly.

I, it was like February and March was like really rough for me actually, in terms

of trying to balance both those jobs.

So, and I was so grateful for both of them.

Like they're both such cool stuff that I didn't wanna drop either of them and

I needed both them, but it was a lot of actually working with the executive

producer and the documentary and working with Lockheed Martin to be like, Hey is

there a way for me to lessen my hours?

Or how can I find work-life balance.

Not that we don't have any boundaries when you're in college, but you kind

of don't because you kind of have an assignment that has to get done.

And so it is different.

And the work world when.

Do you just work during nine to five, Monday through Friday, or does

your work bleed into after 5:00 PM does it bleed into the weekends?

Like sort of where do you find that balance?

And so for me personally, what I found useful was talking with my managers at

both the jobs to lessen my hours, find a good balance between both of them.

But then also always, you know, self-care is just so important.

I go for a lot of bike rides and obviously we live in

Colorado, so it's gorgeous here.

And I love to go for hikes in the mountains every

weekend that I possibly can.

And just finding the self-care and also the appreciation for what

you are doing, and working with others around you to make it work.

Randy Strobl: Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, just like anything, it, it takes practice, right?

Being able to, you know, clear out that time for you.

I certainly have had to practice that myself.

Making sure we have, have that.

As we kind of, you know, start to wrap up here, is there advice that you

have for the students out there that you've learned about informational

interviews or getting to where you are?

Holly Tumbarello: Yeah.

I think something that's really great about informational interviews is that

when you ask them for advice, also, this is me giving advice for advice.

But when you ask them for advice on what you should work on, working on

that and then following up with them after the fact, you know, so like if

you're talking with somebody at an informational interview and you're

like, what podcast should I listen to?

What books should I read?

Yeah, YouTube videos, should I watch what you know, what should I work on?

If I wanna be in your position one day basically is the question.

And if they're like, oh, you know, you should listen to this podcast,

or you should read this book, you should really work on your demo reel

right now, then working on your demo reel or listening to that podcast

and then following back up with them.

And I think that's what's really important too, is not just like, Meeting them and

then having the conversation with them.

But how do you follow up?

How do you stay in contact?

So following up with 'em, always sending a thank you email 100%.

Always do that after the informational interviews.

And being like, Hey, you know, I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna read

this book that you recommended.

And then a couple months later when you do your six month follow up, or a four

month follow up or whatever, you can then be like, Hey, you know, back in january,

you told me to work on my demo reel.

Now it's April.

Here's my demo reel.

Can you check it out?

And that's really great because then they'll actually give you advice

on how to improve your demo reel.

And since it's several months later, and since you now have a finished product,

if they're looking to hire somebody, they will now see your demo reel.

So it's a really great way to give them what you can do without them asking for

it, which I always find super effective.

Randy Strobl: You are sly, you're unlocking the codes of

the industry here, aren't you?

Just like a new documentary.

All right, so before we get to how students can contact you and stuff, I

got, I got one more big question for you.

Can you, can you tell me a, a big victory that you had, in the course

of your career or a challenge that you solved or, you know, something

that you're just you're really proud of something that you achieved?

Holly Tumbarello: Wow.

That's a big question.

I feel like that's the mission of my life is to solve those kinds of challenges.

I would say recently, especially with my job at Lockheed Martin is looking

at all of this old interview footage old satellite launch footage, all of

this stuff that's on 16 millimeter films and just stuff that was recorded

basically before the two thousands essentially being able to look at that

and it really makes me feel like that we're living in the future right now.

, like I know we still have a long way to go in terms like video work

and in terms of you know, going to space and things like that.

But it's been fascinating to sort of look back on that footage and be

like wow we sort of are living in the future, like they can imagine,

you know, going to Mars, you know.

And now here we are trying to do that.

And same with technology too just in terms of like recording and stuff.

So a connection that I made recently there was that even though that

was on the past, how does that relate to the future going forward?

And it's just so cool cuz also at Lockheed Martin, we've built satellites

that have gone to every planet in the solar system and a lot of them extend

their lifetime that they were meant to.

So Voyager one and two were meant to go explore Saturn and like the

outer ends of the solar system.

Voyager one and two are still exploring space.

Like they've been out there in space for 44 years and it was only

planned as a four year long mission.

So just thinking of things like that.

And so I don't think I can say too much, but basically that's an idea,

a thought that I had of connecting the past to the future that we're

currently sort of discussing in our job about how can we tie the past

into the future, but also recognize that we are living into the future.

So it's a recent thing.

We're still kind of working on it, so I can't say too much.

But that's sort of a recent.

Observation that I had.

Randy Strobl: That's super cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Science fiction is becoming science reality.

That's, that's super amazing.

as students are listening to this, if they wanna ask you questions is there

a way they can get in touch with you?

Holly Tumbarello: Yeah.

Just email me.

My email is h w Tumbarello, T U M B A R E L L O, at gmail.com.

And I would say that's probably the best way to email me or to contact

me is probably through email.

Randy Strobl: If you get the opportunity through Lockheed Martin

to go up to space, are you going?.

Holly Tumbarello: When I first got hired, no, but after looking

into it, it would be kind of cool.

So, you know, maybe one day.

Randy Strobl: maybe one day.

All right.

Well thank you so much, Holly.

This is great information.

I learned a ton.

Thanks so much.

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